The Confucian thought is said to be ideal and important to have a strong state. However, we cannot say that the West is weak because they follow the rule of law while countries influenced by Confucius follow the rule of man. Is the Confucian thought really enough as the moral basis of bureaucracy? Is the moral basis of bureaucracy enough to have a strong state? Or is it better to merge the Western thought and Confucian thought to have a public official that will build a stronger state? After reading the article of H G. Frederickson, I realized that there are certain points in the Confucian and Western thinking that one must have to eradicate a weak government.
What Frederickson is trying to say is that Confucianism left a big impact to
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He/she should be of good character and has the characteristics of an ideal Confucian official. If he is a good official, he can use the law without destroying the moral basis. Combining the Western and Confucian thought about the characteristics of a good official is what I think a good solution to help our country change for the better. We do not remove law but we let the morals and values be in government officials. People would say that law destroys the society for it prevents us to be free. The law may sometimes be “inconsiderate” but it keeps us in order. We may sometimes say it is harsh but it is because we are used to be “free” in a way that we do not follow rules and order. These things happen to us because we are not led by a good public official. Even the officials do not follow the law because they think they are an exemption which is not. We cannot remove the law. What we need is a good official who institutes a reasonable law.
Confucius’ idea of a good official should also be attained. Education is not enough for them to say that they are worthy to be a good official. They might have attained the knowledge but they were not able to meet the morals and values that they should also have. They should have both knowledge and