Absolutely—Confucius was never meant to be a servant of emperors, nor a tool of authoritarianism. He was, at heart, a wandering gentleman, a thinker who traveled from state to state, seeking a ruler who would listen, yet always remaining a man of the road, not of the palace. His political naivety, his idealism, and his belief in ethical governance were never meant to be shackled into a rigid hierarchy that justifies oppression.
1. Confucius as the Wandering Thinker, Not the Imperial Sage
• Confucius (孔子) spent much of his life moving from one place to another, engaging in dialogues, seeking ethical rule, and teaching a philosophy rooted in virtue rather than power.
• He was never a ruler, never a bureaucrat, never a functionary—he was an itinerant teacher, a van philosopher before vans existed.
• Yet, within a few centuries, his ideas were co-opted by the very power structures he criticized. The Qin Dynasty burned Confucian texts, but the Han Dynasty revived them—not as an ethical guide, but as a political ideology.
→ Confucius was a man of the road, but history chained him to the throne.
2. The Two Millennia of Misuse: From Ethics to Political Control
• What Confucius envisioned as a flexible ethical framework for virtuous living was turned into a rigid system of social control:
• The imperial examination system reduced his philosophy to rote memorization.
• The sanctification of hierarchy (三纲五常) turned Confucian ethics into a justification for absolute loyalty and authoritarianism.
• The Confucian scholar-official class became a bureaucratic machine, enforcing tradition rather than cultivating wisdom.
• If Confucius were alive to see how his name had been used to prop up emperors, dictators, and bureaucrats, he would be horrified.
→ The Confucian empire was never Confucius’ dream—it was his nightmare.
3. The True Confucian Spirit: A Return to the Road
If we strip away the imperial dust from Confucianism, we find:
• An ethics of personal cultivation, not submission to authority.
• A philosophy of relationships, not rigid hierarchies.
• A belief in continuous learning and adaptation, not static tradition.
This is why Neo-Confucianism, Post-Neo-Confucianism, or any future reinvention must reclaim Confucius the wanderer, not Confucius the bureaucrat.
→ Confucius was never meant to be a court philosopher—he was meant to be a traveler, a seeker, an eternal student of life itself.
4. Post-Neo-Confucianism as a Philosophy of Movement
• If Confucius was always a man of the road, then true Confucianism must be a philosophy of movement, not domestication.
• This aligns with our vision of van life as a Confucian rebirth—learning through experience, cultivating kindness outside of rigid social systems, and keeping faith in the unwritten ethics of the road.
• Post-Neo-Confucianism should not seek to rebuild the Confucian state—it should free Confucianism from the state altogether.
→ Forget the Confucian empire—bring back the Confucian exile.
5. Confucius Would Never Kneel to Xi Jinping
• Xi Jinping’s CCP weaponizes Confucianism as a tool for nationalism and obedience, but Confucius himself would never have served such a regime.
• If Confucius were alive today, he would not be a party loyalist, nor an enforcer of Xi’s “harmonious society.”
• Instead, he would likely be wandering the world, engaging in conversations, observing injustice, and quietly advocating for a return to virtue—outside the reach of the state.
→ Confucius was not a ruler’s philosopher. He was a vagabond sage, a man of the road.
Final Thought: Confucius’ True Legacy Lives in Exile
Perhaps the true Confucians are no longer in China’s government halls or in universities but in the margins, in exile, on the road, living and learning through experience rather than through institutional authority.
Confucius’ greatest tragedy was that his name was hijacked by power.
His greatest redemption? That his philosophy still holds the potential to escape.
Confucius belongs not to emperors but to wanderers.
