Analects 13.30: 子路 (Zi Lu)
Confucius and his disciples · Classical Chinese original · new English translation and commentary by Text Atlas
Overview
Book 13 asks what makes government effective and what qualifies someone to serve. Leading by example, appointing capable people, setting names right, creating prosperity, and teaching all place demands on the ruler. Short claims about conduct stand beside long exchanges about speech, judgment, and the time needed for change. The book also tests uprightness, reputation, reliability, and harmony through particular relationships, sometimes leaving a difficult tension visible, as when family concealment is praised. Its closing sayings make preparation for war a responsibility toward the people who must fight.
Analects 13.30
子曰、以不教民戰、是謂棄之。
The Master said, “To send people into battle without teaching them is to abandon them.”
Commentary
politics Unprepared people are abandoned The people are sent into battle by someone responsible for them. Calling this 棄, abandonment, turns a lack of teaching into a failure of that responsibility. The book ends by judging government through what happens to the people it commands, returning to the opening demand that the leader undertake the work.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: high