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Made You Think


Jan 17, 2023

Welcome back to another episode of Made You Think! In this episode we discuss The Analects of Confucius and virtuous living.

We cover a wide range of topics including:

  • Confucian virtues
  • The differences between Confucianism and Taoism
  • The value of friendships between the young and their elders
  • How to govern through example in a Confucian way
  • Transmitting the values of ancients to contemporary times
  • Ancient Chinese religions

And much more. Please enjoy, and make sure to follow NatNeil, and Adil on Twitter and share your thoughts on the episode.

Mentioned in the show:

Books mentioned:

People mentioned:

  • Rumi (24:35)
  • Richard Rohr (48:26)
  • Johnathan Bi and David Perell (54:00)
  • Graham Hancock (1:14:51)


Show Topics:

(0:00) Feedback about the Made You Think title – time for a possible rebrand?

(1:44) Tangent Fuel Coffee and Desnudo Coffee in Austin

(8:18) TikTok SEO's early days and Nat's experience on BookTok

(12:40) About Confucius

(15:45) Socrates, Confucius, and Buddha lived in the same 100 years

(18:12) Confucianism vs. Taoism

(20:28) The meaning of Books 10 and 18 in Analects

(23:20) Confucianism vs. Stoicism

(24:35) Confucius or Rumi? Adil reads quotes from each and Nat and Neil guess the author

(31:34) The Golden Rule appearing in Analects - twice!

(33:54): How to retain an author's original meaning while translating their work, especially when translating poetry or religious texts

(36:35) How The Clouds by Aristophanes contirbuted to Socrates’ death

(38:00) The meaning of filial piety and how Confucius prescribes mourning for one’s parents

(42:03) How our society is stratified by age and the difficulties in making friends with people much older

(48:26) Falling Upward by Richard Rohr

(52:20) The narcissism of small differences and Girard

(54:55) Governing through virtue and example

(59:15) Genghis Khan breaking up groups with homogenous sets of beliefs – TK LINK Genghis Khan series

(1:00:03) Parallels between the decline of the Roman Republic and the US – TK LINK Rome series

(1:05:10) Unexpected appearance of the word “God” in the text, ancient Chinese folk religions, matrilineal cultures

(1:10:48) Confucius's views on friendship and how to choose your friends

(1:11:47) Confucius transmitting values from earlier periods which were abandoned by his contemporaries

(1:14:51) Graham Hancock interviews and conspiracies

(1:20:15) “The pine and the cypress are the last to lose their leaves”

(1:24:00) Final notes and wrap-up

If you enjoyed this episode, let us know by leaving a review on iTunes and tell a friend. As always, let us know if you have any book recommendations! You can say hi to us on Twitter @TheRealNeilS, @adilmajid, @nateliason and share your thoughts on this episode.

You can now support Made You Think using the Value-for-Value feature of Podcasting 2.0. This means you can directly tip the co-hosts in BTC with minimal transaction fees. To get started, simply download a podcast app (like Fountain or Breez) that supports Value-for-Value and send some BTC to your in-app wallet. You can then use that to support shows who have opted-in, including Made You Think! We’ll be going with this direct support model moving forward, rather than ads.

Thanks for listening. See you next time!