Confucian Reflections: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Times

Ridiculously stupid title, philosophically excellent and provocatively interesting book.

As a teacher of Chinese philosophy, history, and literature, I've always been frustrated by the difficulty of getting students to really get the value of the Confucian path. I've assigned primary and secondary source readings, led seminars, shown films and documentaries, on and on, and always with the same disappointing results: Confucianism, so very relevant and resonant to the teacher (who has applied it daily for years now with life-enhancing results), leaves the students lukewarm to cold. Just another dead philosophy.I bought and read Prof. Ivanhoe's book in February 2014. My Asian Lit class had already read the Analects, journaled about it, discussed it in seminars--with the same result as usual. Able to sound knowledgeable about the ideas but clueless about the relevance and value of the way. Prof. Ivanhoe's book sparked this theory:The best way to teach Confucianism is not through *reading* it; it's through *practicing* it.I assigned only the last chapter (Ch. 6) to my students. We read it slowly, as a group, pausing after each paragraph to discuss, debate, deepen, clarify. It took us one week. After that, we began a "Self-Cultivation Project" in which students *and I* sketched out a self-criticism of ourselves from a Confucian Role Ethics angle: students reflected on their weaknesses in their roles as student, son/daughter, sibling, friend; I reflected on my weaknesses as teacher, husband, son, sibling. We envisioned specific behaviors, attitudes, and emotions we could cultivate to improve ourselves and our relations in each of these roles, and committed to spend three weeks trying to remain "Aware of, Attentive to, and Caring about" our self-cultivation as we "steered" toward our more optimal selves in the Everyday. We wrote daily reflections, we discussed each new class period. As weeks went by, many started seeing differences in themselves and their relationships that surprised them. The inevitable slacker aside, most students developed an appreciation of the *relevance* of Confucianism to their lives for the first time in my teaching career. And my own appreciation was enhanced through the conscious commitment to praxis for three weeks.In short, Prof. Ivanhoe's book succeeded in revealing the value of Confucianism for today more than Kongzi himself has been able to do, in my experience. And that's as it should be. Confucius himself said, "He who by reanimating the Old can gain knowledge of the New is indeed fit to be a teacher." Prof. Ivanhoe has done just that.**Note: Even devout Christians in my class found Confucian self-cultivation a valuable *supplement* to their faith, so there is no necessary conflict with Abrahamic faiths in this project; on the contrary, these students found their faith *strengthened* with the Confucian approach.**Miscellaneous remark from my Facebook post on the book: "Very affordable, and very refreshing and much-needed approach: talks surprisingly little about Confucius or ancient China at all, and more about how modern life can be enhanced by adapting and applying the *spirit* of Confucian Self-Cultivation to the modern context. Ironically, it brought Confucianism's value home to my students more than 5 years of trying to accomplish that by reading the Analects itself."

Good book. Thank you