"When the multitude hates a person, you must examine them and judge for yourself. The same holds true for the man the multitude love." (15.28). I like this once because it tells you to judge for yourself over anyone else's opinion. Many times, the crowd isn't right about something and you cannot let their erroneous opinion influence yours. From this passage, I also noticed a very important thing: Confucius wants us to be individuals. I hadn't noticed before, but Confucius wants us, as single individuals, to become great gentlemen for the benefit of the society. Each person should strive to reach "Goodness" so the world can be a better place. What's best is that he doesn't want us to be part of the crowd. He wants us to have our own opinion over something, not letting the general opinion change our own judgement. This is the great difference between the Essential Analects and the Baghavad Gita. There, Krishna condemned individualism, which is something I didn't like about it.
This last reading let me realize something. Women are never mentioned! All Confucius says is man has to be good and the gentleman will be righteous, etc. Women are never part of his visions of a good human. The only part he thought of speaking of women, he insulted them:
" Women and servants are particularly hard to manage: if you are to familiar to them, they grow insolent, but if you are too distant, they grow resentful."(17.25). Since when are women unworthy of any comment but criticism? Doesn't Confucius see the real value of women? I do notice many cultures consider women as simple housewives that only belong at home, but at least some of them see them as a respected partner. I wonder if Confucius would ever try to give his teachings to a woman. It's so typical men have to be sexist pigs!
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