Essay on Confucius

Confucius supported life, truth, rituals, traditions, wisdom and sincerity. The ideal of Confucianism is to create a harmonious society in the ancient pattern, in which every person has its function. Harmonious society is built on the idea of loyalty – loyalty to the relationship between bosses and subordinates, aimed at preserving the harmony and most of this society. Confucius formulated the golden rule of ethics: “Do not make the man what you do not wish for yourself.” That is why, in my opinion, Confucius would approve if Socrates admitted some “mistakes” and changes his mind and continued to bring harmony in the community, as he was a very wise person. The city needed him and many people needed him too, but they were afraid to admit it. Moral obligation, as they materialize in the ritual, becomes a matter of upbringing, education and culture. These concepts Confucius has not divided. All of them are included in the content category “wen” (originally the word meant a person with painted body, tattoos). “Wen” can be interpreted as the cultural meaning of human existence, like education. This is not a secondary artificial creation of a man and not his primary natural layer, not book-learning and not natural, but their organic blend. Confucius also supported any activity that was useful for the community, its development, its traditions and prosperity. Kind intentions and justice are one of the constancies of a righteous man, supported by Confucius. Many people judge the decision of Socrates, saying he had a choice, he did it wrong and he had to live if he could choose it. Others think that if he has chosen this decision, then it meant a lot to him, he did not suffer because of it and he was very interested in what would happen after death. If Socrates acted this way, then he knew what he exactly wanted, it was his own decision and he did not blame anyone in that. Although Socrates had power to change the Law of Athens, he decided to obey this unjust law, may be to show people how ridiculous it is, to show them the real injustice and to show how miserably these people lived obeying everything, and not choosing their way of life.
The most important thing is that Socrates had a choice, he was a very wise man and he perfectly understood the options he had. He has been thinking a lot and he has chosen his way himself, choosing to take the poison and to find out what the death was like. Probably Socrates acted in this situation by obeying the state laws, and also choosing this way himself, with a choice to die this way or later. May be it was important to Socrates to have choice and to choose himself his death, not blaming anyone and at the same time, not committing a suicide, just “obeying the state’s law.” In this case it was an unjust law of Athens. The thing that is obvious is that Socrates did not want to preserve his life, he had intentions to find out more and more, and maybe he already knew too much about life, about the limits we have in life and about the rules we invent and obey, that he was interested in other things. He may have considered new experience interesting, outrageous and useful for him, which will not have the boundaries and limits and could open new ways of existence or even the better life after death.
All in all, I think that Socrates was not right to obey the orders of the state of Athens to take poison. He should he have acted to preserve his own life by choosing exile or escaping, as it was more important to save his own life, than to obey the orders. But, it was his decision and he did not blame anyone and the important fact is that Socrates had a choice and he considered to take poison as a right decision for himself.