Confucius
Confucius was a Chinese teacher, editor and philosopher of the Spring and Autumn period of Chinese history. The philosophy of Confucius known as Confucianism, emphasized personal and governmental morality, correctness of social relationships and sincerity, his followers competed with many other schools during the Hundred Schools of Thought era only to be suppressed in favor of the Legalists during the Qin dynasty. Following the victory of Han over Chu after the collapse of Qin, Confucius's thoughts received official sanction and were further developed into a system known in the West as Neo-Confucianism, New Confucianism. Confucius is traditionally credited with having authored or edited many of the Chinese classic texts including all of the Five Classics, but modern scholars are cautious of attributing specific assertions to Confucius himself. Aphorisms concerning his teachings were compiled in the Analects, but only many years after his death. Confucius's principles have commonality with Chinese belief.
He championed strong family loyalty, ancestor veneration, respect of elders by their children and of husbands by their wives, recommending family as a basis for ideal government. He espoused the well-known principle "Do not do unto others what you do not want done to yourself", the Golden Rule, he is a traditional deity in Daoism. Confucius is considered as one of the most important and influential individuals in shaping human history, his teaching and philosophy impacted people around the world and remains influential today. The name "Confucius" is a Latinized form of the Mandarin Chinese "Kǒng Fūzǐ", was coined in the late 16th century by the early Jesuit missionaries to China. Confucius's clan name was "Kǒng", his given name was "Qiū", his "capping name", given upon reaching adulthood and by which he would have been known to all but his older family members, was "Zhòngní", the "Zhòng" indicating that he was the second son in his family. It is thought that Confucius was born on September 28, 551 BC, in the district of Zou near present-day Qufu, China.
The area was notionally controlled by the kings of Zhou but independent under the local lords of Lu. His father Kong He was an elderly commandant of the local Lu garrison, his ancestry traced back through the dukes of Song to the Shang dynasty. Traditional accounts of Confucius's life relate that Kong He's grandfather had migrated the family from Song to Lu. Kong He died when Confucius was three years old, Confucius was raised by his mother Yan Zhengzai in poverty, his mother would die at less than 40 years of age. At age 19 he married Qiguan, a year the couple had their first child, Kong Li. Qiguan and Confucius would have two daughters together, one of whom is thought to have died as a child. Confucius was educated at schools for commoners, where he learned the Six Arts. Confucius was born into the class between the aristocracy and the common people, he is said to have worked in various government jobs during his early 20s, as a bookkeeper and a caretaker of sheep and horses, using the proceeds to give his mother a proper burial.
When his mother died, Confucius is said to have mourned for three years. In Confucius's time, the state of Lu was headed by a ruling ducal house. Under the duke were three aristocratic families, whose heads bore the title of viscount and held hereditary positions in the Lu bureaucracy; the Ji family held the position "Minister over the Masses", the "Prime Minister". In the winter of 505 BC, Yang Hu—a retainer of the Ji family—rose up in rebellion and seized power from the Ji family. However, by the summer of 501 BC, the three hereditary families had succeeded in expelling Yang Hu from Lu. By Confucius had built up a considerable reputation through his teachings, while the families came to see the value of proper conduct and righteousness, so they could achieve loyalty to a legitimate government. Thus, that year, Confucius came to be appointed to the minor position of governor of a town, he rose to the position of Minister of Crime. Confucius desired to return the authority of the state to the duke by dismantling the fortifications of the city—strongholds belonging to the three families.
This way, he could establish a centralized government. However, Confucius relied on diplomacy as he had no military authority himself. In 500 BC, Hou Fan—the governor of Hou—revolted against his lord of the Shu family. Although the Meng and Shu families unsuccessfully besieged Hou, a loyalist official rose up with the people of Hou and forced Hou Fan to flee to the Qi state; the situation may have been in favor for Confucius as this made it possible for Confucius and his disciples to convince the aristocratic families to dismantle the fortifications of their cities. After a year and a half and his disciples succeeded in convincing the Shu family to raze the walls of Hou, the Ji family in razing the walls of Bi, the Meng family in razing the walls of Cheng. First, the Shu family led an army towards their city Hou and tore down its walls in 498 BC. Soon thereafter, Gongshan Furao or Buniu, a retainer of the Ji family and took control of the forces at Bi, he launched an attack and entered the capital Lu.
Earlier, Gongshan had approached Confucius to join him. Though he disapproved
Neo-Confucianism
Neo-Confucianism is a moral and metaphysical Chinese philosophy influenced by Confucianism, originated with Han Yu and Li Ao in the Tang Dynasty, became prominent during the Song and Ming dynasties. Neo-Confucianism could have been an attempt to create a more rationalist and secular form of Confucianism by rejecting superstitious and mystical elements of Taoism and Buddhism that had influenced Confucianism during and after the Han Dynasty. Although the neo-Confucianists were critical of Taoism and Buddhism, the two did have an influence on the philosophy, the neo-Confucianists borrowed terms and concepts. However, unlike the Buddhists and Taoists, who saw metaphysics as a catalyst for spiritual development, religious enlightenment, immortality, the neo-Confucanists used metaphysics as a guide for developing a rationalist ethical philosophy. Neo-Confucianism has its origins in the Tang Dynasty; the Song Dynasty philosopher Zhou Dunyi is seen as the first true "pioneer" of neo-Confucianism, using Daoist metaphysics as a framework for his ethical philosophy.
Neo-Confucianism developed both as a renaissance of traditional Confucian ideas, as a reaction to the ideas of Buddhism and religious Daoism. Although the neo-Confucianists denounced Buddhist metaphysics, neo-Confucianism did borrow Daoist and Buddhist terminology and concepts. One of the most important exponents of neo-Confucianism was Zhu Xi, he was a rather prolific writer and defending his Confucian beliefs of social harmony and proper personal conduct. One of his most remembered was the book Family Rituals, where he provided detailed advice on how to conduct weddings, family ceremonies, the veneration of ancestors. Buddhist thought soon attracted him, he began to argue in Confucian style for the Buddhist observance of high moral standards, he believed that it was important to practical affairs that one should engage in both academic and philosophical pursuits, although his writings are concentrated more on issues of theoretical significance. It is reputed that he wrote many essays attempting to explain how his ideas were not Buddhist or Taoist, included some heated denunciations of Buddhism and Taoism.
After the Xining era, Wang Yangming is regarded as the most important neo-Confucian thinker. Wang's interpretation of Confucianism denied the rationalist dualism of Zhu's orthodox philosophy. There were many competing views within the neo-Confucian community, but overall, a system emerged that resembled both Buddhist and Taoist thought of the time and some of the ideas expressed in the I Ching as well as other yin yang theories associated with the Taiji symbol. A well known neo-Confucian motif is paintings of Confucius and Lao Tzu all drinking out of the same vinegar jar, paintings associated with the slogan "The three teachings are one!" While neo-Confucianism incorporated Buddhist and Taoist ideas, many neo-Confucianists opposed Buddhism and Taoism. Indeed, they rejected the Taoist religions. One of Han Yu's most famous essays decries the worship of Buddhist relics. Nonetheless, neo-Confucian writings adapted Buddhist beliefs to the Confucian interest. In China neo-Confucianism was an recognized creed from its development during the Song dynasty until the early twentieth century, lands in the sphere of Song China were all influenced by neo-Confucianism for more than half a millennium.
Neo-Confucianism is a social and ethical philosophy using metaphysical ideas, some borrowed from Taoism, as its framework. The philosophy can be characterized as humanistic and rationalistic, with the belief that the universe could be understood through human reason, that it was up to humanity to create a harmonious relationship between the universe and the individual; the rationalism of neo-Confucianism is in contrast to the mysticism of the dominant Chan Buddhism. Unlike the Buddhists, the neo-Confucians believed that reality existed, could be understood by humankind if the interpretations of reality were different depending on the school of neo-Confucianism, but the spirit of Neo-Confucian rationalism is diametrically opposed to that of Buddhist mysticism. Whereas Buddhism insisted on the unreality of things, Neo-Confucianism stressed their reality. Buddhism and Taoism asserted that existence came out of, returned to, non-existence. Buddhists, to some degree, Taoists as well, relied on meditation and insight to achieve supreme reason.
The importance of li in Neo-Confucianism gave the movement its Chinese name "The study of Li." Neo-Confucianism was a heterogeneous philosophical tradition, is categorized into two different schools. In medieval China, the mainstream of neo-Confucian thought, dubbed the "Tao school", had long categorized a thinker named Lu Jiuyuan among the unorthodox, non-Confucian writers. However, in the 15th century, the esteemed philosopher Wang Yangming took sides with Lu and critiqued some of the foundations of the Tao school, albeit not rejecting the school entirely. Objections arose to Yangming's philosophy within his lifetime, shortly after his death, Chen Jian grouped Wang together with Lu as unorthodox writers, dividing neo-Confucianism into two schools; as a result, neo-Confucianism today is categorized into two different schools of thought. The schoo
Motoori Norinaga
Motoori Norinaga was a Japanese scholar of Kokugaku active during the Edo period. He is the best known and most prominent of all scholars in this tradition. Norinaga was born in what is now Matsusaka in Ise Province as the second son of an Otsu merchant house. After his elder brother's death, Norinaga succeeded to the Ozu line. At one stage he was adopted out to a paper-making family but the bookish boy was not suited to business, it was at his mother's suggestion. In Kyoto, he studied Chinese and Japanese philology under the neo-Confucianist Hori Keizan, it was at this time that Norinaga became interested in the Japanese classics and decided to enter the field of Kokugaku under the influence of Ogyū Sorai and Keichū. Life in Kyoto instilled in the young Norinaga a love of traditional Japanese court culture. Returning to Matsusaka, Norinaga opened a medical practice for infants while devoting his spare time to lectures on The Tale of Genji and studies of the Nihon Shoki. At the age of 27, he bought several books by Kamo no Mabuchi and embarked on his Kokugaku researches.
As a doctor, he adopted the name of one of Motoori. In 1763, Norinaga met Mabuchi in person when the latter visited Matsusaka, a meeting that has come down in history as ‘the night in Matsusaka’. Norinaga took the occasion to ask Mabuchi to supervise his annotations of the Kojiki. Mabuchi suggested that Norinaga should first tackle the annotations to the Man'yōshū in order to accustom himself to the ancient kana usage known as the man'yōgana; this was the only meeting between the two men, but they continued to correspond and, with Mabuchi's encouragement, Norinaga went on to full-fledged research into the Kojiki. Norinaga's disciples included Ishizuka Tatsumaro, Nagase Masaki, Natsume Mikamaro, Takahashi Mikiakira and Motoori Haruniwa. Although overshadowed by his activities as a Kokugaku scholar, Norinaga spent 40 years as a practicing doctor in Matsusaka and was seeing patients until 10 days before his death in 1801. Norinaga's most important works include the Kojiki-den, made over a period of around 35 years, his annotations on the Tale of Genji.
Using the methods of Kokugaku and Kaozheng, Norinaga claimed that the Kojiki was the oldest surviving Japanese text. He used the supposed antiquity of the Kojiki to develop an idea of indigenous Japanese religion and religion which were used in the development of an idea of State Shinto. Norinaga took the view that the heritage of ancient Japan was one of natural spontaneity in feelings and spirit, that imported Confucianism ran counter to such natural feelings, he criticized Ogyū Sorai for his over-valuing of Chinese civilization and thought, although it has been pointed out that his philological methodology was influenced by Sorai's. His ideas were influenced by the Chinese intellectual Wang Yangming, who had argued for innate knowing, that mankind had a intuitive ability to distinguish good and evil. Hitherto scholars of ancient literature had shown a preference for the grandness and masculinity of Man'yōshū poetry and an aversion to works like the Tale of Genji, which were regarded as unmanly and feminine.
Norinaga resurrected the position of the Tale of Genji, which he regarded as an expression of mono no aware, a particular Japanese sensibility of "sorrow at evanescence" that Norinaga claimed forms the essence of Japanese literature. In undertaking his textual analysis of ancient Japanese, Norinaga made vital contributions to establishing a native Japanese grammatical tradition, in particular the analysis of clitics and auxiliary verbs. 1730 - Born as second son Education: At the age of seven could read and write 11 years old reciting Noh theatre pieces and Confucian classics 13y. Visiting the shrine of Yoshino 16y. Archery 18y. Japanese tea ceremony 19y. Advanced Confucian training 1748 - Norinaga is adopted by the Imaida family, reversed after only 2 years. 1751 - His stepbrother dies. 1752 - Goes to Kyoto to study medical science 1752–57 - Some scholars note his productivity. Motoori produces copies 15 others. 1757 - Reads Kamo no Mabuchi's first book, Kanji kō. Lacking money he returns to his hometown to open a medical practice.
1760 - Enters arranged marriage with Murata Mika, divorced after 3 months. 1762 - Marries Kusubuka Tami and one year their son Haruniwa is born. 1763 - Meets Kamo no Mabuchi who tells him to read the Nihonshoki and the Man'yōshū 1764–71 - Studies the Kojiki, begins to spread his teachings. 1799 - Motoori Ōhira became his adopted son. 1801 - Dies. Within the grounds of Matsusaka Castle in the city of Matsusaka, the house Motoori Norinaga kyu-taku where Motoori Norinaga lived from age 12 to age 72 is preserved as a memorial museum Motoori Norinaga Commemoraive Museum; the building, built as a retirement home for Norinaga's grandfather in 1693, was moved to its present location in 1909. It was proclaimed a Special National Monument by the Japanese government in 1953. An effort has been made to preserve the interior as as possible to the time when it was used by Norinaga, his writing studio on the second floor contains some examples of original manuscripts; the museum houses many artifacts that ar
Order to expel barbarians
The Order to expel barbarians was an edict issued by the Japanese Emperor Kōmei in 1863 against the Westernization of Japan following the opening of the country by Commodore Perry in 1854. The edict was based on widespread anti-foreign and legitimist sentiment, called the "Revere the Emperor, Expel the Barbarians"|sonnō jōi}} movement. Emperor Kōmei agreed with such sentiments, – breaking with centuries of imperial tradition – began to take an active role in matters of state: as opportunities arose, he fulminated against the treaties and attempted to interfere in the shogunal succession, his efforts culminated on March 11, 1863 with his "Order to expel barbarians." A deadline for the expulsion was set two months to May 11. The Shogunate had no intention of enforcing the order, the Edict inspired attacks against the Shogunate itself as well as against foreigners in Japan; the most famous incident was the firing on foreign shipping in the Shimonoseki Strait off Chōshū Province as soon as the deadline was reached.
Masterless samurai rallied to the cause, assassinating Shogunate Westerners. The killing of the English trader Charles Lennox Richardson is sometimes considered as a result of this policy; the Tokugawa government was required to pay an indemnity of a hundred thousand British pounds for Richardson's death. But this turned out to be the zenith of the sonnō jōi movement, since the Western powers responded to Japanese attacks on western shipping with the Bombardment of Shimonoseki. Heavy reparations had earlier been demanded from Satsuma for the murder of Charles Lennox Richardson - the Namamugi Incident; when these were not forthcoming, a squadron of Royal Naval vessels went to the Satsuma port of Kagoshima to coerce the daimyō into paying. Instead, he opened fire on the ships from his shore batteries, the squadron retaliated; this was referred to, inaccurately, as the Bombardment of Kagoshima. These incidents showed that Japan was no match for Western military might, that brutal confrontation could not be the solution.
These events, however served to further weaken the shogunate, which appeared too powerless and compromising in its relations with Western powers. The rebel provinces allied and overthrew the shogunate in the Boshin War and the subsequent Meiji Restoration. Bakumatsu Xenelasia Saigō Takamori and Ōkubo Toshimichi ISBN 4-309-76041-4 Order to expel barbarians
Social movement
A social movement is a type of group action. There is no single consensus definition of a social movement, they are large, sometimes informal, groupings of individuals or organizations which focus on specific political or social issues. In other words, they resist, or undo a social change, they provide a way of social change from the bottom within nations. Social movements can be defined as "organizational structures and strategies that may empower oppressed populations to mount effective challenges and resist the more powerful and advantaged elites". Political science and sociology have developed a variety of theories and empirical research on social movements. For example, some research in political science highlights the relation between popular movements and the formation of new political parties as well as discussing the function of social movements in relation to agenda setting and influence on politics. Sociologists distinguish between several types of social movement examining things such as scope, type of change, method of work, type of change and timeframe.
Modern Western social movements became possible through education and increased mobility of labor due to the industrialization and urbanization of 19th-century societies. It is sometimes argued that the freedom of expression and relative economic independence prevalent in the modern Western culture are responsible for the unprecedented number and scope of various contemporary social movements. Many of the social movements of the last hundred years grew up, like the Mau Mau in Kenya, to oppose Western colonialism. Social movements have been and continue to be connected with democratic political systems. Social movements have been involved in democratizing nations, but more they have flourished after democratization. Over the past 200 years, they have become part of a global expression of dissent. Modern movements utilize technology and the internet to mobilize people globally. Adapting to communication trends is a common theme among successful movements. Research is beginning to explore how advocacy organizations linked to social movements in the U.
S. and Canada use social media to facilitate collective action. The systematic literature review of Buettner & Buettner analyzed the role of Twitter during a wide range of social movements. Mario Diani argues that nearly all definitions share three criteria: "a network of informal interactions between a plurality of individuals, groups and/or organizations, engaged in a political or cultural conflict, on the basis of a shared collective identity" Sociologist Charles Tilly defines social movements as a series of contentious performances and campaigns by which ordinary people make collective claims on others. For Tilly, social movements are a major vehicle for ordinary people's participation in public politics, he argues that there are three major elements to a social movement: Campaigns: a sustained, organized public effort making collective claims of target authorities. Sidney Tarrow defines a social movement as "collective challenges by people with common purposes and solidarity in sustained interactions with elites and authorities."
He distinguishes social movements from political parties and advocacy groups. The sociologists John McCarthy and Mayer Zald define as a social movement as "a set of opinions and beliefs in a population which represents preferences for changing some elements of the social structure and/or reward distribution of a society." According to Paul van Seeters and Paul James defining a social movement entails a few minimal conditions of ‘coming together’: the formation of some kind of collective identity. Thus we define a social movement as a form of political association between persons who have at least a minimal sense of themselves as connected to others in common purpose and who come together across an extended period of time to effect social change in the name of that purpose; the early growth of social movements was connected to broad economic and political changes in England in the mid-18th century, including political representation, market capitalization, proletarianization. The first mass social movement catalyzed around the controversial political figure John Wilkes.
As editor of the paper The North Briton, Wilkes vigorously attacked the new administration of Lord Bute and the peace terms that the new government accepted at the 1763 Treaty of Paris at the end of the Seven Years' War. Charged with seditious libel, Wilkes was arrested after the issue of a general warrant, a move that Wilkes denounced as unlawful - the L
Kyoto
Kyoto Kyoto City, is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture, located in the Kansai region of Japan. It is best known in Japanese history for being the former Imperial capital of Japan for more than one thousand years, as well as a major part of the Kyoto-Osaka-Kobe metropolitan area. In Japanese, Kyoto was called Kyō, Miyako, or Kyō no Miyako. In the 11th century, the city was renamed Kyoto, from the Chinese calligraphic, jingdu. After the city of Edo was renamed Tokyo in 1868, the seat of the Emperor was moved there, Kyoto was for a short time known as Saikyō. Kyoto is sometimes called the thousand-year capital; the National Diet never passed any law designating a capital. Foreign spellings for the city's name have included Kioto and Meaco, utilised by Dutch cartographers. Another term used to refer to the city in the pre-modern period was Keishi, meaning "urba" or "capital". Ample archaeological evidence suggests human settlement in Kyoto began as early as the Paleolithic period, although not much published material is retained about human activity in the area before the 6th century, around which time the Shimogamo Shrine is believed to have been established.
During the 8th century, when powerful Buddhist clergy became involved in the affairs of the Imperial government, Emperor Kanmu chose to relocate the capital in order to distance it from the clerical establishment in Nara. His last choice for the site was the village of Uda, in the Kadono district of Yamashiro Province; the new city, Heian-kyō, a scaled replica of the Tang capital Chang'an, became the seat of Japan's imperial court in 794, beginning the Heian period of Japanese history. Although military rulers established their governments either in Kyoto or in other cities such as Kamakura and Edo, Kyoto remained Japan's capital until the transfer of the imperial court to Tokyo in 1869 at the time of the Imperial Restoration; the city suffered extensive destruction in the Ōnin War of 1467–1477, did not recover until the mid-16th century. During the Ōnin War, the shugo collapsed, power was divided among the military families. Battles between samurai factions spilled into the streets, came to involve the court nobility and religious factions as well.
Nobles' mansions were transformed into fortresses, deep trenches dug throughout the city for defense and as firebreaks, numerous buildings burned. The city has not seen such widespread destruction since. In the late 16th century, Toyotomi Hideyoshi reconstructed the city by building new streets to double the number of north-south streets in central Kyoto, creating rectangle blocks superseding ancient square blocks. Hideyoshi built earthwork walls called odoi encircling the city. Teramachi Street in central Kyoto is a Buddhist temple quarter where Hideyoshi gathered temples in the city. Throughout the Edo period, the economy of the city flourished as one of three major cities in Japan, the others being Osaka and Edo; the Hamaguri rebellion of 1864 burnt down 28,000 houses in the city which showed the rebels' dissatisfaction towards the Tokugawa Shogunate. The subsequent move of the Emperor to Tokyo in 1869 weakened the economy; the modern city of Kyoto was formed on April 1, 1889. The construction of Lake Biwa Canal in 1890 was one measure taken to revive the city.
The population of the city exceeded one million in 1932. There was some consideration by the United States of targeting Kyoto with an atomic bomb at the end of World War II because, as an intellectual center of Japan, it had a population large enough to persuade the emperor to surrender. In the end, at the insistence of Henry L. Stimson, Secretary of War in the Roosevelt and Truman administrations, the city was removed from the list of targets and replaced by Nagasaki; the city was spared from conventional bombing as well, although small-scale air raids did result in casualties. As a result, the Imperial City of Kyoto is one of the few Japanese cities that still have an abundance of prewar buildings, such as the traditional townhouses known as machiya. However, modernization is continually breaking down the traditional Kyoto in favor of newer architecture, such as the Kyōto Station complex. Kyoto became a city designated by government ordinance on September 1, 1956. In 1997, Kyoto hosted the conference.
Kyoto is located in a valley, part of the Yamashiro Basin, in the eastern part of the mountainous region known as the Tamba highlands. The Yamashiro Basin is surrounded on three sides by mountains known as Higashiyama and Nishiyama, with a height just above 1,000 metres above sea level; this interior positioning results in cold winters. There are three rivers in the basin, the Ujigawa to the south, the Katsuragawa to the west, the Kamogawa to the east. Kyoto City takes up 17.9% of the land in the prefecture with an area of 827.9 square kilometres. The original city was arranged in accordance with traditional Chinese feng shui following the model of the ancient Chinese capital of Chang'an; the Imperial Palace faced south. The streets in the modern-day wards of Nakagyō, Shimogyō, Kamigyō-ku still follow a grid pattern. Today, the main business district is located to the south of the old Imperial Palace, with the less-populated northern area retaining a fa
