r/Confucianism

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I have a strange hypothesis about Chinese history.

What if some ancient religious traditions were not simply “religion”?

What if they also preserved technologies of social control, information control, and authority?

The Shang dynasty already left archaeological evidence of blood sacrifice, divination, and political power being deeply connected.

Then history changed.

Some schools demanded clearer standards for truth. Others became better at saying things that could mean almost anything.

Over thousands of years, knowledge can be stolen, absorbed, renamed, ritualized, and eventually presented as sacred tradition.

A machine becomes an alchemical furnace.

A political technique becomes a religious ritual.

Control becomes morality.

Obedience becomes virtue.

And eventually nobody remembers that it was ever a technology.

I don't claim that supernatural beings, soul-harvesting machines, insect civilizations, or literal mind-control networks have been proven. I don't have that evidence.

But I do think there is a much more uncomfortable possibility:

Human beings may have been developing technologies of social control for far longer than we realize.

And the most effective control system may not need chains.

It only needs people to believe that questioning the system itself is forbidden.

So I want to ask:

How much of what we call “tradition” is actually accumulated technology for controlling human behavior?

Ldentity and Negation in Eastern Values

In Eastern societies, most people resemble Kujaku. What philosophical‑moral form does this represent?

In Eastern social contexts, Ash‑like personalities are often regarded as disreputable. Deep down, many people yearn for Ash’s unconstrained freedom. Even so, Kujaku‑like personas remain the symbol of social respectability.

Many background parents want their children to become college graduates, doctors or teachers. When talking about these professions, parents value them chiefly for outward social prestige.

This poses a question: when someone becomes a doctor, are they thankful for gaining a respectable social standing, or genuinely driven by the wish to heal the sick and save lives?

In any case, doctors know how deeply patients place their trust in them. Society trusts an unethical doctor wearing a virtuous public mask more readily than it trusts a conscience‑driven rogue. The doctor represents an angel‑like outer shell concealing inner demons.

Please note: With the draft I have written below, I depict conditions within Eastern‑society.

The atmosphere in Kujaku’s living room was so thick you could cut it with a knife. His mother sat bolt upright on the leather sofa, white-knuckling the wallet that had finally been recovered—though not before someone had clearly gone through it and left it a mess. She fixed her gaze on Kujaku, who stood across from her maintaining his usual flawless poise, and her face was a storm of emotions that said “How could you?” and “Are you out of your mind?” all at once.

“You—” She drew a sharp breath, jabbing a trembling finger at him, her voice shaking with rage. “You, the golden boy who's always ten steps ahead, who never misses a beat—you let some gutter punk named Ash snatch your wallet right in front of witnesses?! Where's that mastermind composure you're so proud of?!”

Kujaku dropped his gaze. A flicker of something—barely a flinch—passed through his violet eyes. But in a fraction of a second, his face had reassembled into an expression of profound, almost saintly sorrow, as if he'd peered into the heart of the cosmos and come back bearing the weight of all human suffering.

He stepped slowly toward his mother, clasped his hands before his chest, and spoke in a tone so soft and measured it might have been meant for a prayer.

“Mother, you misunderstand. Do you truly believe I was the one robbed?”

His mother blinked. “Weren't you?!”

Kujaku gave a small shake of his head, the ghost of a smile playing at his lips. He sighed, long and melancholy. “I can't help but carry the sorrows of others on my shoulders. It's my nature… When I see Ash, so lost to the world, devoured by greed and desire, I simply can't stand by. I have to reach out—to help him find his way back to himself.”

If Kujaku sat in the front row, he'd be every teacher's pet—the kind of kid principals brought up in staff meetings just to sing his praises.

So when the homeroom teacher stood at the blackboard, exasperated, and demanded, “Why is the answer C?! Were any of you even paying attention?!”

Kujaku would rise without hesitation, back straight, eyes modestly lowered, and reply in that same impossibly tender, pitying tone: “Teacher, I can't help but worry about my classmates. It's just who I am. Seeing everyone so distressed over this question, I feel I ought to step in… The answer is C, I believe, because it carries the examiner's own quiet frustration. And if my classmates are struggling to see that, I'm happy to bear that confusion in their place.”

The teacher would probably be so moved he'd tear up.

Meanwhile, Kujaku would be smirking on the inside. Ha. Fools. This little act is nothing but a mask I wear to make everyone bend over backward for me.

And Ash? If Ash sat in that classroom, the teacher's blood pressure would hit the ceiling.

When the teacher barked, “Ash! Why C?! Were you even listening?!”

Ash would slouch back in his chair, twirling a pen lazily between his fingers, and answer with the most infuriating, smug grin: “Eh, Teach, it's C 'cause whoever wrote that question clearly wasn't using their head. Also—your toupee slipped during the lecture. Just saying.”

Kujaku's mother: the very picture of icy ambition and unyielding pragmatism. The kind of mother who raises a son whose kindness is nothing but performance.

Ash's mother: the very picture of unconditional love and weary tolerance. She sees right through his act, but she's always there to bail him out. The kind of mother who raises a bastard with a conscience—a guy who can raise hell on the streets, but deep down knows that no matter how far he goes, there's always a woman at home, worn thin by years of his nonsense, waiting with a plate of food and a sigh.

What happen to Cheng-zhu school of neo-confucianism after it lost its status as state ideology and its supporter Tokugawa shogunate after Meiji restoration? We see lot of japanese followers of Lu-wang school during meiji era but somehow cheng-zhu school dissappeared completely from history.