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Every Confucian Virtue Explained: What Each One Really Demands — Transcript

by The East Made Simple · 2,487 words · 383 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00If you ask a westerner what they know
0:02about Confucious, you will usually get a
0:04joke. We associate him with cheap
0:06fortune cookies and vague polite
0:09proverbs. [music] We have reduced one of
0:11the greatest psychological architects in
0:13human history to a simple boring piece
0:16of advice. Just be a nice person. But
0:20Confucious did not live in a polite
0:22world. And he was not trying to [music]
0:25write a self-help book. He lived in
0:28ancient China over 2,500 years ago
0:32during an era of unimaginable political
0:34corruption, societal collapse, and
0:37endless bloody warfare. While other
0:40philosophers like the Tauists believed
0:42the answer was to walk away from society
0:45and find peace in nature, Confucious
0:48refused to leave. He walked directly
0:50into the burning city and he diagnosed
0:53exactly why human beings tear each other
0:55apart. He realized that a functioning
0:58human mind and a functioning society
1:01cannot survive on vague ideas of being
1:05nice. It requires a strict demanding
1:08mechanical framework.
1:11So he built a system, a system made of
1:14five absolute pillars. These are known
1:17as the five constants. Ren, Lee, Yei,
1:21Xi, [music] and Shin. Today we are going
1:24to look at the original Chinese
1:25translation of every single one of these
1:28virtues. [music]
1:29And when you understand what each of
1:31these five pillars actually demands of
1:33you, you will realize why our modern
1:36society feels so incredibly toxic. And
1:39more importantly, [music] you will learn
1:41the exact blueprint for how to fix it.
1:45The first pillar of the confusion system
1:47is the absolute foundation of everything
1:50else. It is the hardest to master and
1:53the easiest to misunderstand. The word
1:56is ren. In the west, ren is usually
2:00translated as benevolence, goodness, or
2:03humanness. And because of those soft
2:06translations, we think it just means
2:08being a nice person. But if you look at
2:11the anatomy of the original Chinese
2:13character, [music] it reveals a brutal
2:15psychological truth. The character for
2:17Ren is made of two distinct parts. On
2:20the left is the symbol for a person. On
2:23the right is the number two. Ren
2:26literally translates to two people.
2:29[music] Think about the paradigm shift
2:31here. In the west, our entire philosophy
2:34is built on the isolated individual.
2:37Decart famously said, "I think,
2:40therefore I am." We believe that we
2:42exist inside our own heads, entirely
2:45independent of the world. Confucious
2:48said that is an illusion. According to
2:51Confucious, you do not exist in a
2:53vacuum. Your humanity only actually
2:56exists in the space between you and
2:58another person. You are a son, a
3:01daughter, a boss, a friend. Your
3:04identity is defined entirely by your
3:06relationships. [music] Ren is not a
3:09feeling of warm fuzzy kindness. Ren is
3:12the heavy absolute responsibility of
3:14shared humanity. It is the active daily
3:18practice of recognizing that the person
3:20standing in [music] front of you has the
3:22exact same inherent value that you do.
3:25If you lack Ren, you are not just being
3:27mean. You are literally failing to be
3:30human. But Confucious was a supreme
3:34realist. He knew that Ren on its own was
3:37incredibly dangerous. If you just tell
3:40people to love each other, it creates
3:42chaos. Pure emotion. Even good emotion
3:46is messy. If a father loves his son too
3:49much, he might spoil him and ruin his
3:52character. If you are too generous, you
3:54might exhaust yourself and burn out.
3:57Love is like water. It is vital for
4:00life, but without a container, it just
4:02spills into the dirt. So, [music]
4:06Confucious built a container. He created
4:09the second pillar of the system. The
4:12word is lee.
4:15Lee translates to ritual, propriety or
4:19good [music] manners. And this is where
4:21the modern western mind violently
4:23rejects confucious. Today [music] we
4:26hate the idea of rituals and manners. We
4:30worship a concept called authenticity.
4:32We believe that if you feel angry, you
4:35should express it. [music] If you are
4:37bored, you should show it. We think that
4:40forcing yourself to be polite when you
4:42don't feel like it is fake and
4:44hypocritical. We view etiquette as a
4:47prison. Confucious viewed etiquette as a
4:50mechanism for survival. [music]
4:52Confucious lived in a world where people
4:54acted on their authentic impulses and
4:57they were slaughtering each other in the
4:59streets. He realized that Lee, the
5:02rituals, the please and thank you, the
5:05holding the door, the formal handshakes,
5:08these are not fake. They are the
5:11psychological shock absorbers of human
5:13society. [music] When two people
5:15interact, there is always the potential
5:17for friction, misunderstanding, or
5:20violence. Lee is the predetermined
5:22[music]
5:22script that allows those two people to
5:24interact safely. It is a social
5:27contract. It says, "I am going to
5:30voluntarily restrain my ego and act with
5:33formal respect so that you feel safe in
5:35my presence." This is the genius of the
5:39confusion system. You cannot have one
5:42without the other. Ren is the heart. Lee
5:46is the skeleton. If you have Lee without
5:49Ren, if you have strict manners but no
5:51actual love in your heart, you become a
5:53cold, dead bureaucratic robot. You are
5:55just going through the motions. But if
5:57you have Ren without Lee, if you have
5:59love, but no structure, no boundaries,
6:01and no manners, you become an
6:03exhausting, chaotic mess. Confucious had
6:07successfully mapped the heart and the
6:09skeleton of a good society. But a
6:12society still has to make difficult
6:14decisions. It still has to deal with
6:17corruption, danger, and injustice.
6:20So he [music] introduced the next two
6:22pillars, the sword and the map.
6:27Love and etiquette are the foundation of
6:29a society. But Confucious knew that the
6:32real world is complicated, corrupt, and
6:36often incredibly dangerous. Sometimes
6:39being polite is not enough. Sometimes
6:43you have to make a choice that will cost
6:45you your money, your reputation, or even
6:47your life. To survive these moments,
6:50Confucious built the third [music]
6:52pillar, the sword. The word is ye. It is
6:56usually translated as righteousness or
6:58justice. But in the modern west, we have
7:01completely corrupted the concept of
7:03doing the right thing. Think about why
7:05we usually do good deeds. [music]
7:07We do them because we want to go to
7:09heaven. We do them because we want good
7:12karma. We do them because it will look
7:14good on our resume or because we want
7:17people on the internet to praise us. Our
7:19morality is highly transactional.
7:22[music] we expect a payout. Ye is the
7:24absolute rejection of the transaction.
7:28Ye is the psychological discipline of
7:30doing the right thing simply because the
7:32situation demands it. Period. You do not
7:36do it for a reward. You do it even if it
7:39guarantees you will be punished. If your
7:41boss is committing fraud, ye demands
7:44that you speak up, even if it means you
7:46get fired. If your friend is acting
7:48maliciously, ye demands that you
7:50confront them, even if it [music]
7:52destroys the friendship. Ye is the heavy
7:56sharp sword of moral duty. It is the
7:58courage to stand completely alone. But
8:01Confucious immediately recognized a
8:03terrifying danger. If you give a human
8:06being the sword of righteousness, but
8:08you do not give them any instructions on
8:11how to swing it, they will slaughter
8:13everyone in the room. We see this every
8:16single day in the modern era. People get
8:18addicted to the feeling of being right.
8:21They become [music] toxic, arrogant, and
8:23cruel. They destroy reputations, cancel
8:26people, and act with absolute
8:29ruthlessness. All while hiding behind
8:32the shield of justice. Confucious knew
8:35that self-righteousness is a disease. Ye
8:39without guidance is [music] just
8:40fanaticism. So he introduced the fourth
8:43pillar, the map. The word is Xi. It
8:48translates to wisdom, prudence or moral
8:51intelligence. Xi is not books smarts. It
8:54is not having a high IQ or memorizing
8:57facts. Xi is the psychological
9:00flexibility to know how and when to
9:02apply the other virtues. [music] It is
9:04the map that tells you when to swing the
9:07sword and when to keep it in the
9:09scabbard. Imagine you have a friend who
9:12asks [music] you for a massive loan. If
9:14you only use Ren love, you give them the
9:17money immediately because you care about
9:19them. But if they have a gambling
9:21addiction, giving them the money will
9:23actually [music] destroy them. If you
9:26only use ye righteousness, you might
9:28harshly lecture them about their life
9:29choices, completely humiliating them and
9:32breaking the friendship. Z is the wisdom
9:35to see the whole board. Z tells you that
9:37the truly loving and righteous thing to
9:39do is to refuse the loan, but offer to
9:42help them find a completely different
9:44solution while using Lee manners to
9:47deliver the hard truth with absolute
9:50respect. [music] Xi is the navigation
9:53system. It tells you that you cannot
9:55apply a rigid oneizefits-all rule to
9:58every situation. Reality is messy. Every
10:02interaction requires an active, awake,
10:05highly calibrated mind. [music] We now
10:08have the heart, the skeleton, the sword,
10:10and the map. It looks like a complete
10:12system. You are loving, you are polite,
10:15you are brave, and you are wise. What
10:18else could you possibly need? But
10:20Confucious knew that human beings are
10:23fundamentally flawed. He knew that
10:25without a locking mechanism, the entire
10:27archway would eventually collapse into
10:30dust.
10:32You can possess love.
10:35You can possess perfect manners. You can
10:38be brave. [music] And you can be wise.
10:42But Confucious knew that if a human
10:44being lacks the fifth and final virtue,
10:47the other four become completely
10:49worthless. They mutate into something
10:51[music] dark and manipulative. He
10:53introduced the locking mechanism, the
10:56anchor. The word is shin. Shin is
11:00usually translated as trust, integrity
11:03or fidelity. But if we use the
11:06linguistic scalpel and look at the
11:08anatomy of the character, the original
11:10meaning is breathtaking.
11:13The left side of the character is the
11:15symbol for a person. The right side of
11:18the character is the symbol for speech
11:21or word. Shin literally means a person
11:24standing by their word. We think of
11:27lying as just a bad habit. Confucious
11:30viewed it as the destruction of reality
11:32itself.
11:34Think about what happens to the other
11:36four virtues if you remove shin.
11:40If you have ren love without shin, it is
11:44not love. It is manipulation. You are
11:47telling someone you care about them just
11:49to get what you want. [music] If you
11:52have Lee manners without shin, you are
11:55not polite. You are a sociopath. You are
11:59using etiquette as a disguise to hide
12:02your true malicious intentions. If you
12:05have ye righteousness without sin, you
12:09are a hypocrite. You [music] preach
12:10justice on the internet, but you act
12:12like a tyrant in your own home. And if
12:15you have Xi wisdom without shin, you are
12:18not a sage. You are a con artist.
12:21[music] You are using your intelligence
12:23to exploit people who trust you. Shin is
12:26the alignment of your internal reality
12:29with your external reality. If your
12:31mouth says one thing but your hands do
12:33another, you are actively fracturing the
12:36psychological foundation of society.
12:38[music] Confucious famously said, "I do
12:41not know how a person without sin can
12:43get along. If a large carriage has no
12:46yoke pin to attach the horses to it, how
12:49can you expect it to move? Trust is the
12:51invisible bridge that holds human
12:54civilization together. Without it,
12:57currency collapses, relationships
12:59collapse, governments collapse. When you
13:02cannot trust the words of the people
13:04around you, you are forced to live in a
13:07state of constant exhausting paranoia.
13:10These are the five constants. [music]
13:12The wuang, love, etiquette,
13:16righteousness, wisdom, [music]
13:18integrity. Confucious didn't build this
13:21system so you could read it in a book
13:23and feel spiritual.
13:25He built it as a blueprint for human
13:28survival. But looking at the modern
13:30world today, it is clear that we have
13:33thrown the blueprint away.
13:36If you want to know why the modern world
13:38feels so incredibly exhausting, so
13:41angry, and so chaotic, you only have to
13:43look at the Confucian blueprint. We have
13:46systematically destroyed every single
13:48pillar. We abandoned Ren, the shared
13:50heart of humanity. We traded real
13:53physical communities for isolated
13:55digital profiles. We worship radical
13:58individualism. And as a result, we are
14:00living in the greatest epidemic of
14:02loneliness in human history. We
14:04abandoned Lee, the skeleton of respect.
14:06[music] We decided that manners were
14:08fake and etiquette was a waste of time.
14:11We prioritized our own selfish
14:13convenience over the comfort of others.
14:16And without those psychological shock
14:17absorbers, every daily interaction is
14:20full of friction, anxiety, and rudeness.
14:23We took ye the heavy sword of
14:25righteousness, and we gave it to people
14:27who have absolutely no Xi, no wisdom. So
14:31[music] now we have an internet full of
14:33performative outrage. Millions of people
14:36swinging the sword of justice blindly,
14:38destroying reputations and tearing each
14:40other apart just to feed [music] their
14:42own egos. We have completely shattered
14:45shin. We live in a world of clickbait,
14:48fake news, ghosting, [music]
14:50and broken promises. We say things we do
14:54not mean. We make commitments we do not
14:56keep. And because our words no longer
14:59match our actions, the invisible bridge
15:01of trust has collapsed. We live in
15:04constant exhausting paranoia. [music] So
15:07what is the cure? How do we survive in a
15:10burning city? Confucious did not believe
15:13that you could wait for the politicians
15:15to fix the world. The only way to stop
15:17the collapse is for the individual to
15:19rebuild the archway inside their own
15:21mind. He called a person who does this a
15:23junzi. A junzi is often translated as a
15:26superior person, but it has nothing to
15:29do with being wealthy or famous or
15:32having a highranking job. A junzi is
15:35simply a person who takes absolute
15:37responsibility for their own character.
15:39It is the person who chooses to practice
15:41[music] ren even when the world is
15:44selfish. It is the person who maintains
15:46lee and treats others with profound
15:49respect [music] even when the world is
15:51rude. It is the person who swings the
15:54sword of ye only when necessary guided
15:56by the map of Xi. And it is the person
15:59who guards their shin with their life,
16:01speaking only the truth and standing by
16:03their word. The world does not need more
16:06people posting quotes about being nice
16:08on the internet. The world needs
16:10structure. It needs pillars. It needs
16:14people who are willing to do the heavy,
16:16unglamorous, demanding work of keeping
16:18human society from falling apart. Over
16:21two millennia ago, Confucious handed us
16:23the blueprint. He showed us that true
16:26freedom is not doing whatever you want.
16:28True freedom is the mastery of your own
16:30character.
16:32If this master class helped you see the
16:35ancient east with fresh eyes, consider
16:37subscribing to the channel. We rebuild
16:39these ancient texts every single week.
16:42Until next time, guard your pillars.

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