What does Confucianism have to offer us as individuals?
Part II of II
...Society is not a living entity of its own.
Society is composed of you and I.
Society is composed of individuals.
You and I are the ones lacking the foundation of our purpose and, as such, the rules and laws we create lack a foundation.
We build rules and laws for society, not the individual.
We set up rules and laws upon a nonexistent understanding of what life’s purpose is.
You may not know what the purpose of life is.
That is what is so exciting about philosophy.
Philosophy is the field that builds the model, any model it wants to build, and then turns the model over and over in its hands as it examines the model.
Philosophy feels the model, applies the model, projects the model into the future, applies the model to the past, and theorizes what the model could do for the present.
Philosophy builds rules and laws based upon these theoretical models and then examines the results of just such laws and rules.
But it is one thing to build a model and another to build a model acceptable to individuals in society.
•
Confucianism implies laws and rules are necessary for an orderly society.
But Confucianism does not state what these rules and laws ought to be.
That is left up to us. By leaving this up to us, Confucianism implies we have the freedom and the free will to build the model of our choice.