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Masters of Chiasmus: Confucius (Part 1)

Confucius (c. 551-479 B.C.)

The facts about the early life of Confucius are sketchy. It is believed that he was born in 551 B.C. Historians have debated his exact birth date, but many Asian countries celebrate his birth on September 28 (in Taiwan it's an official holiday called "Teachers' Day," since Confucius is often described as the greatest teacher in history).

Confucius tried his entire life to find a Chinese prince who would heed his advice about how to rule (the historian Will Durant called him "the sage in search of a state"). Unsuccessful in his quest, he began teaching students, who immortalized him by recording his responses to their questions. Many of his students eventually became high government officials and advisors to later Chinese rulers, thus helping the great sage posthumously achieve his lifelong dream. Confucian influence in Chinese government went on to last more than 2,000 years.

Confucius is known to the world primarily through the Analects, a collection of "sayings" put together by his disciples. The Analects were written after his death, in the same way that the Gospels were written after the death of Jesus. Like the Gospels, they were written down by many different people, and there are varying versions, some even contradicting each other. There are also widely—sometimes wildly—differing translations (more on this in a moment).

A reading of the Analects reveals that Confucius was fond of chiasmus. I'll present a number of his chiastic sayings below (with some of the varying translations), along with some occasional commentary from me.

I do about fifty seminars every year on the topic of "Effective Leadership for CEOs" and am always looking for ancient wisdom to share with modern-day leaders. This is a perfect example, serving as a reminder that a deep and genuine concern for the needs of followers is the best way to govern. While ineffective CEOs often wonder why followers don't understand or buy into their vision, effective ones seem to almost intuitively grasp the significance of this example of Confucian wisdom. The same underlying sentiment is embedded in a currently popular chiastic saying: "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." A saying from the Talmud is in the same vein: "Happy is the time when the great listen to the small, for in such a generation the small will listen to the great."

As mentioned earlier, the sayings of Confucius have been translated in such widely divergent ways it's sometimes hard to believe the different renderings all come from the same original source. This quote has been presented in a number of different ways, but all of them reflect the chiastic nature of the original thought:

Many of the sayings of Confucius came in response to questions from his followers. When his disciple Tzu-Kung asked, "What is a true gentleman?" the Master offered a thought that bears a striking resemblance to our modern notion of "walking the talk":

"He acts before he speaks, and afterwards speaks according to his actions." Analects—2.13.

Many Confucian sayings refer to a "true gentleman" or "superior man." The original Chinese word is chun-tzu, and generally corresponds to the English concept of a gentleman: one who is not merely a member of the upper classes, but who also exhibits great moral character and proper demeanor. I've also seen the saying translated this way:

A number of Confucian observations contrast the superior person with the inferior person (or the true gentleman with the small man). And some are a little difficult to grasp without some serious thought:

When I first came across this saying, I thought, "It's a nice example of chiasmus, but what the heck does it mean?" I searched around and found a couple other translations, but they didn't help much:

I think what Master Kung is saying here is that exceptional people primarily see themselves as members of a larger human race, and only secondarily as members of a particular nation or group. As a result, they're more tolerant and accepting of divergent opinions or differing life styles. Inferior people, by contrast, are so wedded to their group's beliefs and customs that they see everybody else as either wrong or inferior to them.

Confucius was one of the founders of formal education. The philosopher Karl Jaspers said of him, "He laid the groundwork of school education, first of all with his own private school in which he strove to shape young men into future statesmen." His pedagogical method required students to exhaustively study the knowledge and traditions of the past, and also to engage in rigorous, independent thinking about what they were learning. His approach is captured in one of his most famous sayings:

This is an example of something that I have been calling "chiastic piggybacking" for the first clause is a very ancient saying (sometimes translated as "To learn without thinking is fatal"), and the second is the Master's chiastic reversal of it.

When taken as a whole, the entire construction follows a classic chiastic formula: "A without B is bad; as is B without A. Both A and B are necessary." In the Confucian view, both study and thought were essential, and neither one alone was sufficient. Here are some other translations of the passage:

At one point, the Duke of Lu (the province where Confucius was born) asked, "What should be done to make people loyal and win their allegiance?" Confucius answered:

I often mention this saying in my seminars, for CEOs and business owners often make the mistake of promoting people who, while very talented, are extremely selfish, incredibly immature, or of very questionable character. When people at lower ranks see this kind of thing happen, it almost always leads to a "disconnect" with the leader. Here are a few other translations:

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