No More Untamed Horses

The Essentials Analects is a very old book, and was written when customs were different. For example, philosophy is studied more than technology, and now it is the other way around. Also, I have the impression that being obedient and respectful to the elder was much more important then, and in the XXI century speaking up your believe has a greater priority.

In the Book Seventeenth, I found a difference that rather disturbed me. Before, women were in a lower status than men, and they had to make them obedient and had the right to treat them as they pleased. Unfortunately, in the Analects this was mentioned. “The Master said, “Women and servants are particularly hard to manage: if you are too familiar with them, they grow insolent, but if you are too distant, they grow resentful:” (17.25). As I read it, I felt as we were untamed horses and that the Master was giving some advice to the owners, so they could have a nice and obedient animal.

I can imagine what people in other time periods would say about our culture, and how they will arrange rules to benefit us. Nevertheless, the pain caused in the present will always have a prolonged effect, for example many Jews and African Americans are still bleeding from their past suffering, and a young Colombian girl is still mad for the way woman were treated.