The Superior Man

In today's blog post, we are introduced to analects from one of the greatest Philosophers in history, Confucious. Confucious was a Chinese Philosopher, teacher, and political figure. His teachings were focused on creating ethical models of family, public interaction and setting educational standards. Many of Confucious' saying can be implied to leaders we have today. As we delve deeper into his sayings, I have found two which I  believe are timely and can be considered pieces of advice to our presidential hopefuls. As the 2020 Presidential elections are fast approaching, we hope the Presidential hopefuls may not forget moral etiquette and use actions rather than words.



XIV.29: The Master said, "The superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions" 

In this saying, the Superior man Confucious refers to is the concept of an ideal person or perfect person to him. Confucious states that the ideal man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions, meaning, the ideal man is humble in his words and focuses more on his actions. A modern saying we have that can correlate to this would be "actions speak louder than words". As we go through the numerous Presidential campaign debates, we have Presidential hopefuls whom tirelessly talk about their proposals and visions for America's future. These candidates should take into account actions and know that the way the State would progress is not through profound words, but rather, executing and putting into action the proposals they mentioned.


XV.21: The Master said, "The superior man is dignified, but does not wrangle. He is sociable, but not partisan." 


In this saying, Confucious describes the ideal man as orderly and responsible, not someone who engages in an argument. He adds that the ideal man is sociable, but not partisan, meaning that he socializes with the people and does not take a particular side. As we know in the Presidential campaign there are two specific political parties namely, the Republican and Democratic parties. Our current generation is known to be much more liberal which makes people's beliefs and opinions on a certain matter much more strong. This causes not only parties, but voters to be partisan. What our candidates can get from this saying is that, rather than engaging in argument and taking sides which can cause us to be divided, we should all be respectful and accepting of others' ideas and not take specific sides and instead, be understanding to the opposing party's ideas.