Ever played a game where the only way to win is to screw over your friends? Where the rules basically force everyone to act like animals because one person's gain is another person's loss? Confucius had some thoughts about that. His advice: maybe stop playing that game.

In this tenth episode, host Elliott Bernstein tackles passages 15.36 and 15.37—a pair of six-character phrases about when it's right to break the rules and disobey your superiors. 15.36 says don't follow orders—even your teacher's—if they conflict with human-heartedness. 15.37 says exemplary people stay true to what's right, not just true to their word.

But what makes breaking a promise morally acceptable? When does "I'm just following orders" stop being an excuse? And why did Confucius think rigid honesty was actually a character flaw

Along the way: the horrifying siege of 宋 that happened 40 years before Confucius was born (citizens were so starving they traded family members to be eaten—and the enemy general was so disturbed he convinced his king to call the whole thing off), why 讓 means "yield" but the translation here stretches it to "follow the rules" (when you defer to authority, you're really following their priorities whether you like it or not), the fact that disobeying your teacher in ancient China was serious business (education wasn't compulsory—finding someone to accept you as a student was a big deal), Kant's Axe thought experiment where the "correct" answer is to tell an axe murderer where your friend is hiding (Confucius would absolutely lie to save his friend), passage 13.18 where a son reports his father for stealing a sheep and Confucius basically says "stop snitching," the concept of 小信 or "petty fidelity" (being honest to a fault), the opposite concept 權 or "discretion" (the 公羊傳 defines it as "goodness resulting from transgressing well-established canons"), and the story from the 韓非子 where a blind music master throws his zither at a duke who complained that no one dares oppose him—and the duke leaves the hole in the wall as a reminder to himself.

Plus: why 貞 originally meant divination on oracle bones (the top part represents a crack in the bone, the bottom was a ritual cauldron), how that evolved into "truth" and eventually "chastity" (it's in the name of the white snake spirit 白素貞), the three different words for "teacher" in modern Chinese (師父 for martial arts masters, 師傅 for taxi drivers and chefs, 老師 for everyone else), and why 諒 looks like it should mean "forgive" but actually means the opposite.

Got a friend who's always ready to throw hands? Someone whose first instinct when things go sideways is to start swinging? Confucius had a student like that—a wild child who showed up wearing rooster feathers and boar leather, tried to intimidate the old master, and eventually died in a palace coup with his hat strings tied tight because a true warrior doesn't let his cap fall off in battle. This episode is Confucius trying to teach that guy there's a better way to fight.

In this ninth episode, host Elliott Bernstein tackles passage 15.4—a six-character phrase where Confucius tells his hot-headed disciple 子路 that almost nobody in their world truly understands 德, or moral charisma. But why is Confucius so pessimistic about his own era? What does it mean that violence and virtue are opposing forces? And if moral charisma works like gravity—invisible but affecting everything around it—why can't most people even recognize it when they see it?

Along the way: a crash course in the Spring and Autumn period (imagine 200+ years of your country's central government slowly losing control while local warlords start wars twice a year), why 子路's personal name 由 gives this passage an intimate father-to-son tone that his peers would never have used, the "flywheel effect" that makes both violence and virtue self-reinforcing (one fight spirals into a blood feud, one gift inspires a dozen acts of kindness), Duke Jing of Qi's 4,000 horses versus two princes who starved themselves to death on principle (guess which ones got remembered), the "village worthy" who makes sure everyone thinks he's righteous and whom Confucius calls a "thief of moral charisma," the 19th-century commentator who argued that "knowing" virtue really means "being" virtuous (like saying someone "knows how to drive" means they're a driver), the textual debate about whether this passage got accidentally swapped with 15.3 when someone was shuffling bamboo strips, and why 程樹德 dismissed that theory as scholars "showing a love for the unusual and forcing interpretations."

Plus: why 鮮 here is third tone meaning "rare" (not first tone meaning "fresh"—a trap for modern learners), the classical particle 矣 that makes statements more emphatic (think adding "I tell you" or "alas"), and the difference between 知 (to know) and 智 (wisdom) that traditional commentators have been arguing about for centuries.

Ever been fooled by a frozen dinner box? The photo shows perfectly crispy mac and cheese next to a full turkey dinner with all the fixings. You get home, tear it open, and discover... a sad little tray of orange goop. That's when you notice the tiny disclaimer: "Serving Suggestion." Welcome to passage 13.27—Confucius's take on why your own packaging shouldn't need a disclaimer.

In this eighth episode, host Elliott Bernstein digs into a six-character phrase listing four qualities that can help you "approach human-heartedness"—剛, 毅, 木, and 訥. But what do a durable blade, a bristling wild boar, an uncarved block of wood, and being slow to speak have in common? Why does Confucius care whether your outside matches your inside? And what exactly IS 仁, this "human-heartedness" concept that translators have been fighting over for centuries?

Along the way: why Bob's Red Mill oat bags are basically Confucian philosophy in action (WYSIWYG: what you see is what you get), the ancient Chinese tradition of 比德 or learning virtues from nature, why jade was valued not for its rarity but for its qualities (it would rather break than bend—that's courage), the 詩經's lyrics about "carving and filing, grinding and polishing" yourself into a masterpiece, how this passage connects to the 質 vs 文 debate from Episode 4 (raw material versus polish—you can't polish a turd, but you can definitely put one in a fancy box), why Confucius was deeply suspicious of people who were too clever with words, and what the archaeological discovery of the Guodian Bamboo Texts revealed about how 仁 was originally written (hint: it involves a body and a heart).

Plus: how 剛 has a different meaning in modern Chinese, what happens when you combine 剛 and 毅 into one word, and the character 訥 that's basically impossible to find in contemporary Mandarin.