Indeed Confucian thought is not inherently "authoritarian" in the sense that you allude to here, although "authoritarian" is a vague word to begin with, and som

Indeed Confucian thought is not inherently "authoritarian" in the sense that you allude to here, although "authoritarian" is a vague word to begin with, and some of its meanings mesh quite well with Confucian thought. However, Xunzi is uncommonly anti-individualistic even by Confucian standards, and influenced the tyrannic "legalist" tradition of Chinese state theory. Besides, Xun Zi is not at all convinced that a good society can be built through Confucian "ritual" alone - which, by the way, you unwittingly caricature by painting it as some superficial thing (wear robes, face south).