Question

World history. What does this quote means? "Among those who are filial toward their parents and fraternal toward their brothers, those who are inclined to offend against their superiors are few indeed. Among those who are disinclined to offend against their superiors, there have never been any who are yet inclined to create disorder. The noble person concerns himself with he root; when the root is established, the Way is born. Being filial and fraternal- is this not the root of humaneness?"

Answer 1

We are talking about Confucianism by the way.

Answer 2

don't rock the boat

Answer 3

Can you explain it in a way that I can understand?

Answer 4

This one is rough (since it is confucianism it is translated so...anyway). Start at the end. filial and fraternal is the root of humaneness (ignoring the yoda like negative structure). What is humaneness? Once you know what this word means you know what the goals are.

working backwards: the noble person (not class based in this instance just noble as a good person) concerns himself with the root (the base causes) and this will show the Way. Way is capitalized so it has a specific meaning. Will need to look that up to be sure what the Way is exactly - but from context we can guess that the Way is the path towards perfection or enlightenment or whatever you want to call it.

next step - disorder is desired (this is implied) and the people who don't create disorder (again with the weird negative construction) are those people who don't offend their superiors (those who don't go against authority).

who doesn't offend authority? those who are filial toward family and fraternal toward brothers (will need to look those words up in the ole dictionary but the tautology of both will be easy to grasp and I'm guessing that brothers is not literal in this case). And now you know....to obtain humaneness do what you are told and don't rock the boat.

Answer 5

Thank you very much.