FOR more than 2,000 years his beliefs shaped Chinese society, until Communist rulers decided his teachings were unsound. But now Confucius‘ wisdom is being brought back to help cure the ills of modern life.
Born this week in 551BC, in what is now the coastal province of Shandong, Confucius’ teachings of good governance and moral society dominated Chinese intellectual thinking until the mid-20th century.
Rejected by the country’s then leaders as a symbol of feudal backwardness, many Chinese are now using the philosopher to fill an ideological and spiritual vacuum created since the death of Mao, and to make sense of a rapidly changing society.
See also “Communist China may revive Confucian classics” from Hindustan Times.
