Others were growing weary of this version of Confucius. The insistence on harmony seemed to leave little room for a politics of negotiation, for an honest clash of ideas. Li Ling, a Peking University professor, took aim at what he called the “manufactured Confucius,” and wrote, “The real Confucius, the one who actually lived, was neither a sage nor a king … He had no power or status—only morality and learning—and dared to criticize the power elite of his day. He traveled around lobbying for his policies, racking his brains to help the rulers of his day with their problems, always trying to
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