ConfUcius
Confucius (551 bce-479 bce) was a teacher and never held any military position. Given the historical context of his life, however, it is unsurprising that violence is prominent in the best-known collection of his sayings, the Analects.
The Analects contains many references to violence at the level of the state, particularly in the form of war.[855] Indeed, it portrays Confucius himself as becoming caught up in military action and as sometimes demonstrating a willingness to align himself with those violently resisting their overlords. The Analects depicts a society in which military preparations are standard and the martial skill of archery represents one's personal attainments. More than once Confucius employs imagery from the violence of war in reflecting upon positive personal qualities. Barend ter Haar has noted: ‘Confucius... was not at all against violence, albeit within the context of proper behaviour'.[856] Yet, for Confucius, only the truly moral ruler could properly initiate the violence that would serve to suppress disorder.Confucius once imagined himself as a general, describing the troops he would select as a way to describe the qualities he valued. Yet he also disclaimed any actual knowledge of command. And while he listed arms among the conditions for quality governance, he also named them as the one that could most easily be done without. Perhaps most tellingly, violence would have no place in Confucius' ideal political order: ‘How true is the saying that after a state has been ruled for a hundred years by good men it is possible to get the better of cruelty and to do away with killing'.17 The sum impression is that he was a man with a pragmatic understanding of violence as a part of society, especially his society, but also as something humanity would be better off without.
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