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The Tragic Real Life Story Of Confucius
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By S. Flannagan/Jan. 19, 2021 1:49 pm EDT/Updated: March 29, 2021 9:35 am EDT
It is a well-known fact that many great figures are not properly appreciated in their own lifetime. Though in the centuries after they have gone, their reputation might grow inexorably, to the point at which the life of a single person may come to influence entire countries or continents, permeating the societal beliefs and behavior of the billions who come after.
For no one is this more true than the ancient Chinese philosopher and teacher Confucius, who it is believed lived between 551-479 B.C.E., according to the Stanford Dictionary of Philosophy, but whose ideas would eventually go on to shape Chinese society right up until the present day. Confucius, whose name, according to the same source, is a Latinized form of his family name, K'ung, and the Chinese word for Master, began life in comparatively humble circumstances and struggled to make his ideas, which reinvoked idealistic, classical Chinese concepts of mutual respect, ritual, and discipline, an impact on Chinese society in his own time. But according to

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