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Question: Why did Confucianism place so much emphasis on manners and ceremony!? !?
Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:
Because Confucius wanted the state or nation to work as a big family where everyone respects every other individual!. This would mean that people could be less alien to each other and be more confident and patriotic and treat the king as the highest father!. Ceremony is just the nature of chinese people!. Its probably nothing that special!. Think about the typical china and its culture rich on so many levels!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

In brief: Because Confucious himself and his family suffered during the end of a period of dynastic upheaval--a contentious and violent change in Chinese government!.

So basically, what you're seeing in that philosophy is something oriented towards *very practical* measures of a political sort designed to maintain calm and social order, if not social control!. This isn't unusual: when times are violent, philosophy becomes about problem-solving and creating peace and harmony, if it doesn't become about social control altogether!.

Compare the works of Plato to Socrates sometime, and how they both lived and died!. Plato had his reasons for being more politically conservative and pro-social order!.

Likewise, one could argue that much of the conservatism of *Modern* Islam, at least until Wahabbi and Qutub showed up, was *about* maintaining political coherence and social control in a society that had lost it, repeatedly, going all the way back to the sack of Baghdad by the Mongol hordes under Ogadai Khan (son of Genghis Khan or Tetmujin)!.

Likewise, one can attribute the philosophy of "omotokyo" that Ueshiba Morihei proposed in his Aikido, and its emphasis on *harmony* at all costs, to the times the man lived in: being Japanese and being *on the front lines* in China during early World War II in spite of himself!.

So Confucious was doing, essentially, what intelligent men do once they've seen too much anarchy and violence: They seek calm, order and control in society!.

Hope this was helpful!. ^__^Www@QuestionHome@Com