China During The Autumn And Spring Periods Of China

According to numerous scholars, China serves as an early, if not the earliest, example of a meritocratic administration. A meritocratic administration can be described as an administration system that elects officials (or vessels) based off of their merit or talent, and not their family status. Until the later part of the Autumn and Spring Periods of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, Chinese officials were chosen due to their heritage. According to Buckley Walthall, Palais , “the early Zhou rulers sent out relatives and trusted subordinates to establish walled garrisons in the conquered territories, creating a decentralized, quasi-feudal system,” Often these positions located in outside territories were hereditary and passed down to a son. Pines states this began to change during the Spring and Autumn Periods of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty. The emergence of meritocracy during the later parts of the Spring and Autumn Periods coincided with the emergence of various philosophies, specifically Confucianism and Legalism.

Because he lived in period characterized by chaos, he desired to find a solution to the chaos. Although Confucius never wrote any of his thoughts down, his followers collected those thoughts into a collection known as the Analects. It is through these thoughts collected in the Analects that the foundation of Confucianism was laid. According to Oxman, “Confucian teaching rests on three essential values: filial piety, humaneness, and ritual.” Not only did Confucianism emphasize filial piety, humaneness and ritual, it also encouraged men to become morally proper or junzi. Oxman describes these morally proper men as Confucius’s answer to the turmoil of the current period. To Confucius the junzi, could lead others through their example. However, according to Pines, the meaning of junzi had morphed through the passage of time. Pines