Here are three different ideas:
- Having the right attitudes in my family relationships tends to give me the right attitudes in my political relationships.
- Where right family attitudes prevail in society, the right political attitudes tend also to prevail.
- Differences in family culture from region to region, or from time to time, tend to be accompanied by analogous differences in political culture.
Idea #2 is very abstract, and can be understood simply in terms of order versus disorder, or natural respect versus the lack of it. Idea #3 contemplates a variety of kinds of stable order, and perhaps a variety of forms of government.
Where might idea #3 appear in the Chinese tradition?
