Confucius: The Philosopher Who Shaped China's Future by Looking to the Past

An opinion piece in the South China Morning Post examines how Confucius, two millennia before Marx and Hegel, developed a philosophical tradition that used history to construct the future. The article contrasts Confucius's approach with the Western philosophical divide between left and right Hegelianism, which emerged from the French Revolution and created the modern distinction between radicalism and conservatism. It quotes Marx's famous 11th thesis on Feuerbach, engraved on his tombstone in Highgate Cemetery, London, and Hegel's 'owl of Minerva' metaphor from the Philosophy of Right, noting that 'dusk' is a better translation than 'darkness.' While Marx and the Left Hegelians were revolutionaries looking to the future, the elderly Hegel and his right-wing followers were often accused of conservatism. Confucius, however, charted a different path: his teachings, though not immediately dominant, eventually became the state ideology from the Han dynasty onward, shaping dynastic China's future. The piece argues that Confucianism's enduring legacy lies in its ability to draw upon history to construct the future, a unique approach that set it apart from rival philosophies.