The 33rd chapter in ‘The Doctrine of the Mean (a Chinese philosophy book)’ is regarded as a reproduction in little of itself, addressing the esthetics of poetry and politics. The 8 poems in that chapter and all the poems written from the 1st to the 32nd chapter were quoted from ‘The Book of Odes (a Chinese anthology).’ With such a systematic structure, the Chapter 33 attempts the typification of objective rules and the ensuing disciplining of esthetic senses in a large way. These characteristics show its esthetics in terms of probability and necessity related to the characteristic factors of Aristotelian poetics. Aristoteles mentioned that poetry is probabilistic imitation and describes inevitable facts. In other words, poetry is to imitate the possibility of matters that have not been decided and not happened yet but are likely to happen soon, and is to describe the universality of human characters, attitudes and circumstances. The relational characteristics are shown not only in ‘poetics’ but in ‘The Book of Odes’. Concretely, the necessity based on the probability is described with lyricism in human life, living attitude and the political sense of society, i.e., human ideology and the view of nature.
‘The Doctrine of the Mean’ quotes the contents of ‘The Book of Odes’ and attempts the disciplining of esthetic senses, and thus expresses possible universal truths in a philosophical sense, not fictional description, in order that it can be too persuasive to recover humanity and meet the practical goals of Confucian ideas. In short, people’s lives and happiness suggests the possibility of matters that have not been decided and not happened yet but are likely to be universal soon, which suggests the law of possibility with the requirements for people born to be superior men, a stress of ‘The Doctrine of the Mean.’ In such a case, ‘The Doctrine of the Mean’ addresses the difference between superior men and the rabble and their realistic meanings with respect to the Four Fortes that display wisdom, benevolence and valor. First, it means that the superior man is in harmony with other people but does not lose his own principle and stance. The second is that the superior man adopts the golden mean and thus does not be partial. Third, the superior man should not feel frustrated for his unfulfilled goals when the state practices clean politics or should not change his own will. Fourth, the superior man should not desert his colors when the political situation is in turmoil and causes social unrest and even when facing death. Therefore, the superior man’s steadiness is real strength. Accordingly, the superior man is not different the rabble in terms of personality, good, or evil, but harmony with realistic adequacy, adaptation to its transformation and goal attainment based on the golden mean can be the requirements for the superior man. It is because fixed concepts such as personality, good and evil cannot be defined uniformly, which also makes it possible to consider the expansive and developmental aspect in the relation between literary and virtue that can show another esthetical contents of ‘The Doctrine of the Mean.’ In brief, literary and virtue are not phenomena, forms and tendencies that do not lean to one side in the close relations among all things in the universe. In other words, it means a relation that derive revolutions and creative results that are naturally in harmony with the monstrous whirlpool named social reform and cultural innovation. In addition, the changing action and reason suggests the world view that can raise natural phenomena and cultural grounding. Ultimately, with the internalization of underlying essence and its externalization, brilliant vitality and warmth are given out, which makes it possible to master the relation between ins and outs grounded in ego and the world and to reach the stage of perfection. Moreover, it makes the esthetical meanings of poetry and politics variables that can be applied to realistic problems in politics, society, economy and education, through which those problems are expected to be much better. In particular, the key point of political esthetics aiming at the Nine Rules (necessary to govern a country) and the global pacification is to contribute humans, to make the undefined future certainty with universal rules, and to define world peace and human welfare with planning and practice, and by extension to develop the esthetic values regarding ill-balanced society with the essence of juste-milieu and disciplining rules.