Confucius was all about order. Doing things according to strict rules of propriety was, he believed, the best way to make society function smoothly. As Huston Smith put it, Confucius “sought to order an entire way of life, so that no one who was properly raised would ever be in doubt as to how to behave.”
In Confucian teachings, the word for this idea of perfect social order is li, meaning “rites” or “propriety.” It’s not just about formal rituals—the kind of rituals that members of many religions might perform in church or a temple. It’s also about everyday rules, the simple etiquette that governs the way we interact with other people. Without etiquette, Confucians believe, there’s no way to create moral order in society.
Maybe I’m a freak, but I love this aspect of Confucianism because, as much as I hate to admit it, I really like the rules of etiquette. Although I do my best to keep my observations to myself, I’m the kind of person you really don’t want to invite to your wedding because I know all the nitpicky details about how the program should be worded and when the aisle runner should be rolled out and what kind of tuxedo the groom should be wearing based on what time of day the wedding takes place.
Don’t ask why I know—or care—about all this stuff. I just do, and when something goes against the rules, I notice. And it annoys me. A lot. And because virtually no one these days bothers to pay attention to all the rules of etiquette that I love so much, I’m pretty much irritated all the time.
I know that most people think etiquette is stupid—that all those rules are unnecessary, just silly restrictions somebody made up back in the “olden days” to make life more difficult for everybody. But Confucians say all those etiquette ignorers are wrong.
As Professor Rodney L. Taylor explains, “A person performs ritual not for its own sake, but in order to enter into a special relationship with the object of the ritual. For the ruler, or Son of Heaven, the object is Heaven; for the individual, it may be the family, ancestors, or a variety of other possibilities. The point, of course, is that ritual is a symbol of the moral relations that tie all people and the entire world together.”
See? I’m not just a judgmental bitch. My annoying obsession with wedding details and table manners is actually holding the whole world together.
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