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PILLAR 3: SOCIETAL HARMONY

In our public lives, we should be compassionate and put emphasis on creating social harmony through our social roles.

Ethics: Ancient Wisdom in the East and West

Deontology
Utilitarianism
Virtue Ethics

The Importance of "li" and the "Performative"
Why Being "Divided" Is Not a Bad Thing
Societal Harmony and Nationalism
The "Putting Your House in Order" Problem
How to Promote Societal Harmony

1. Ethics: Ancient Wisdom in the East and West

I love Japan more than any other country. And most others realize that it is a supremely ethical society. No country is perfect, but somehow people there care a lot about each other and have high obligations to be "good people." No one over there breaks into buildings and steals things from each other during natural disasters. Their crime rates are incredibly low. Outburts of violence obvioulsy happen to some degree as they do in any country, but are rare. I've been very curious about why this is and thought a lot about what the ethical foundations of what Japan and other East Asian societies like Korea and China are, how they have come to be realized, and how they can inform the present. I hope that it can give us all something to learn from.

First of all, I've never been a fan of the broad labels of "the west" and "the east." They refer to so many different countries that are so different from each other that they seem like almost useless labels. The countries we call "the west" have spent much of their history at each others' throats! Therefore, I rarely use that terminology, but in this case I will because here I have a very specific definition: "Western" societies are those that have, to some degree, inherited the legacy of the ancient Greco-Roman world and Abrahamic religions. "Eastern" societies are those that have, to some degree, inherited the legacy of the ancient Chinese classics and Buddhism. This means that I, unlike many others, view most Islamic societies as part of "the west," because their thinkers also were influenced to some degree by the Greco-Roman classics and their religion also has moral foundations that are broadly similar.

The many countries of Europe are all very different from each other, but the learned men and great thinkers of all of them had to traditionally learn and study the Greco-Roman classics. This has created some amount of continuity between them in terms of their inherited "mythology." Of course, the Greco-Roman classics themselves are by no means all the same. They are a broad, heterogeneous, diverse legacy to inherit and can be "skewed" in many different ways. And countries have often been selective as to what they chose to honor out of them. Similarly, countries like Japan, Korea, and China are all very different in character and have their own native traditions which are often even more important than what they share with others. But their learned thinkers all looked back to some of the same Chinese thinkers of the ancient world in some way or other.

Dongping Tomb Fresco

Fresco decpiting Confucius and Laozi from a Western Han tomb in Dongping County, Shandong Province, China
Source

In very broad terms, western morality is derived from Plato and Aristotle while eastern morality is derived from Confucius and Mencius. In spite of all their differences, there are actually a great number of similarities between the ethical thought of these two sets of thinkers. In philosophy terms, all of these figures are "virtue ethicists." What does this mean? Well, in ethics, there are three broad approaches that we can sketch out: deontology, consequentialism, and virtue ethics. I think that virtue ethics is the most acceptable of the three and would like to make a case for why. I'll describe each approach in turn and what I think of them.

a. Deontology

Famous exemplars:
Immanuel Kant, John Rawls, Robert Nozick, Thomas Nagel, Roger Scruton

In this approach, ethics operates according to "rules." There are certain objectively "good" actions which are always correct, regardless of the outcome. We have a duty towards certain eternal laws of goodness that are higher than us. Of course, Abrahamic religions often follow some form of deonotological ethics. For example, Jews and Muslims don't look at the "consequences" of not eating pork when they choose to abstain. They choose to abstain because they see it as a command from god. Figures like the Amish and Mennonites, who I consider the truest followest of Jesus of Nazareth, are similar. They refuse to be violent even when their own life is put in danger by pacifism, because they see nonviolence as a divine command and thus something INHERENTLY good, regardless of outcome. But deontological ethics don't have to be religious in nature. Immanuel Kant was the archetypal deontologist and his ethical view is completely secular. He believed that moral laws are "universal" not because they are ordained by god but because they are established entirely through reason and reason alone. The idea is that there are "laws" of ethics "out there" in the same way there are "laws" of physics, etc.

Sounds good in theory. I will admit first and foremost that a lot of parts of society simply HAVE to function according to some kind of deontology. The best example is our courts. A judge's duty is to uphold the law no matter what the outcome of it is. But if all parts of society had such an ironclad understanding of moral action, the result would be something very perverse. The most famous example: Let's assume that lying is objectively wrong. If a murderer came to your front door and demanded to know where a family member of yours was located, would you tell them? It's an extreme example, but for almost any action, be it lying, stealing, killing, etc., there are always some situations that seem to justify it. This also doesn't even get into the difficulty in arriving at what these "objective" moral rules are in the first place and where they come from, which is as hard of as a problem as any other metaphysical claim. For these reasons, I think that deontology is unsatisfactory.

b. Utiliarianism

Famous exemplars:
Mozi, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, Bertrand Russell, Peter Singer

Many recognized that ironclad rule-following can lead us into some pretty absurd moral statements. So instead of clinging to certain rules as gospel, the next approach says that we should think a little more "strategically" about our ethics and judge actions based on the consequences or outcomes. The most common form of this is utilitarianism, which claims that the consequence we should judge actions by is the amount of maximum pleasure and minimum amount of harm they cause. Every action creates a balance of good and negative effects, and we have to choose whichever action available produces the greatest good for the greatest number of people and the least harm for the fewest number of people. Of course, we include ourselves as one of these people, but don't view our own happiness as more or less important than that of any other.

Seems straightforward. Again, I have to admit that there are many places in society that have to operate with a utilitarian form of ethics. It's probably most important when you are involved in passing public policy. Making important decisions in legislation requires being able to weigh the potential good and bad outcomes. But again, I think that if all people engaged in this kind of strategic moral calculus in all circumstances, the outcomes would often become perverse. For example, if you were the mayor of a small town in the American south during the 1940s with a very small black population, it might cause more net happiness among more people to lynch an innocent black man than to pardon him. Now, some people might argue that the pain of one man being lynched to death is greater than the happiness of even a million other peoples' enjoyment of watching the lynching. But this is the very problem: we're just appealing to our intuition and opinions at that point. There is no objective way to measure different kinds of moral good or compare them against each other.

One of the oldest challenges comes from Confucian thinkers against the Mohists (followers of the philosopher Mozi). Mozi is not nearly as famous as Confucius these days, but he was a considerable rival to Confucius in ancient China. He was also one of the earliest utilitarians. He viewed all human happiness as equally valuable. Therefore his radical view was that we should view all humans on earth like our brothers and sisters and not view their happiness as less important than our own. This sounds nice, but for the Confucians this is not a very good way to spread love. Because as love spreads out, it diminishes. What makes the love we have for our brothers and sisters so special is precisely that it is UNEQUAL and DISCRIMINATORY. Our love for them is special because there are other people we love LESS than them. If your mother gave all her loving attention equally to everyone she ever met, you would feel neglected as a child. Therefore, paradoxically, by enough people being more individually focused on spreading love to those immediately next to them, the net effect is more love than if they all spread it out without discrimination.

This is a small example of the biggest problem with utilitarianism: a moral calculus doesn't do justice to the full range of possible good ethical behavior and the varied ways that people will respond to it. It doesn't mean that we should just be narrow-minded and only care about the people who immediately surround us. Far from it. But it does mean that we can't easily put moral actions in different domains into a moral calculus. It does a disservice to the multifaceted nature of morals in a complex and ever-unpredictable world to do so. To be fully moral, we have to be embedded in a culture, its norms, and the particular context of any decision. A decision that doesn't do this is not moral or prudent.

c. Virtue Ethics

Famous exemplars:
Confucius, Aristotle, Philippa Foot, Alasdair MacIntyre, Bernard Williams

So there are some times when it's good to follow "rules" for morals, and some times when it's good to be strategic and do a kind of moral calculus. But neither of those seem to capture the full range of ethics to me. It's not so much that I think deontology and utilitarianism are wrong so much as I think that they are incomplete. Instead, I think the most satisfactory ethical theory is also the oldest: an ethics that focuses on the virtues and vices of individual actors and actions, but doesn't adhere to any particular universal rules or methodology. Instead of following a rule or doing a calculation, the way to be ethical is to learn from and emulate people of high moral character.

At first glance, this might appear to merely be begging the question. We're supposed to be finding the underlying universals of what makes people and actions ethical. In order to decide which people are ethical, we would need to know this. So virtue ethics asks us to look to "ethical" people without having a definition of "ethics"! Well, that's exactly the point. There IS no underlying universal definition to what makes each ethical action ethical that we can put into words. We can only point in the direction of what is moral by sketching out particular actions in particular cases that we sense and agree are ethical and the people that we find these exemplary actions in most consistently. In contrast to deontology, which assesses whether a moral actor has followed a certain rule, and utilitarianism, which assesses the consequence of the action, virtue ethics assesses the presence of virtue or "excellence" ("aretē" in the Greek) in the action.

How do we know what "excellence" looks like if we can't point out some particular universal quality to it? At the end of the day we have to intuit it. It's a pretty "touchy-feely" thing. But that doesn't mean we can't communicate it to others. We can still identify broad "types" of "goodness" and "badness" that individual actions fall into. But these are more like "genres" than objective categories. Indeed, ethics is much closer to an art than a science. The "goodness" of an action is something we have to develop a "sense" for. But we can still speak meaningfully of these "genres" of the broad category of "excellence." And the "genres" of goodness are called "virtues" while the "genres" of badness are thus called "vices."

The Effects of Intemperance (1662) by Jan Steen
The National Gallery, London, oil on wood
Source
Intemperance is a vice often mocked in 17th century Dutch painting

What distinguishes a moral virtue from a moral vice is whether the basic feeling towards others behind it is one of envy or one of pity: for every man bears these two diametrically opposed qualities within him, inasmuch as they arise from the comparison between his own condition and that of others which he cannot help making; one or other of these qualities will become his basic disposition and determine the nature of his actions according to the effect this comparison has on his individual character. Envy reinforces the wall between Thou and I: pity makes it thin and transparent; indeed, it sometimes tears the wall down altogether, whereupon the distinction between I and Not-I disappears.
Arthur Schopenhauer, Parerga und Paralipomena [1]

The Master said, One may level all the states of the world, decline high rank and salary, tread upon naked blades, and yet be unable to cleave to the mean in ordinary practice.
Doctrine of the Mean, 1.9 [2]

One point of both the Aristotelian and Confucian systems of ethics that is strikingly similar is the idea of a "golden mean." That is to say that every "virtue" is the positive middle between two negative extremes. Part of becoming virtuous is intuiting just the right balance in any given situation. Here are some good examples (many taken from this source):

Virtues and Vices

Now, there's an important point to be made here. Some people might call this the ultimate "le enlightened centrist" ethical philosophy, and therefore to be kind of a copout. But that is a misunderstanding of what the "golden mean" really means. Despite the visualization, both Aristotle and the Confucians were clear that the "mean" doesn't mean it is always directly in the middle. The "virtue" is always "between" the two vices, but could be much closer to one than to the other. For example, it might actually look more like this:

Virtues and Vices [Alternate]

Of course, this kind of thing should never be thought about in purely mathematical terms. There's no objective point at which ambition becomes hubris, etc. That kind of thing is always dependent on the context around us. In other words, it is a "social construct," absolutely. But social constructs are important. Some of the most precious things we have are social constructs. Hygiene, for example, is a social construct. But it's pretty damn important! Social constructs are what ethics is all about. One of the biggest advantages of Confucian ethics is that it is so concretely focused on social roles and relations, which are things that are historically almost completely passed over in western ethics. I don't know why either. It's a very weird phenomenon since it's not like western societies have historically lacked social roles and relations.

But this segways into what is conceived of as the biggest weakness of virtue ethics, which is that it lapses into cultural relativism. Critics say that if virtues are ultimately socially constructed, then they are dependent on time and place, since societies change over time and vary across the world. But there historically were, and presently still are, societies that practiced or practice all kinds of things we would consider barbaric and wrong. For example, the critics say, we could never critique the human rights abuses of a country like North Korea because they're a different culture with different standards. It seems like a big weakness of virtue ethics. It seems like maybe virtue ethics is so ancient because it only functions in a non-globalized world where we don't encounter people with vastly different cultures and social customs.

It is clear that ethics cannot be put into words.
Ethics is transcendental.
(Ethics and aesthetics are one and the same.)
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus 6.421 [3]

The dao of the gentleman is broad yet hidden. Any husband or wife may partake in knowledge of it, yet reaching to its ultimate nature, there is that which even the sage does not know of it. Even an unworthy husband or wife may practice of it, yet reaching to its ultimate nature, there is that of it which even the sage cannot practice. Heaven and earth are great indeed, yet there are still those things which lead men to despair in them.
Doctrine of the Mean, 2.12 [4]

The critique fails precisely because it tries to make virtue ethics play by the same "scientific" rules of deontology or utilitarianism. If virtue ethics had to point to a particular custom and say "this is wrong because of X, which is an objective and demonstrable fact" it would never be able to make a meaningful critique of another person's action. But is this the only way to make a meaningful critique? Of course not!

As I said, ethics is more of an art than a science. And how do we critique art? Primarily by SHOWING. For example, if there is a painting with a very ugly clash of colors, how do you critique that? By evoking how it might look better with a different color. By comparing it to a more successful painting. By describing the feelings you have of the clash between the disparate elements of the picture. Evoking, comparing, describing. All of these are actions that POINT at something that can only be shown: the aesthetic sense. The sense of beauty. Sure, maybe some elements of aesthetics could have biological foundations (certain colors having certain effects on the neurons etc.), but art criticism doesn't need to get into these particulars to make its point, now does it? No, it rather uses words to point at something broad and abstract (beauty), but that people will still be able to intuit.

Śākyamuni, Laozi, and Confucius (1368-1644)
Freer Gallery of Art, ink and color on paper
Source

Making the intentions perfectly genuine means being without self-deceit. It is the same as when we hate a bad odor or like a beautiful color. It describes a process of perfect inner correspondence.
Great Learning, II.B.3 [5]

Ethical teaching has to do the same thing: SHOW the ethical sense by appealing to what is intuitive in us. You might argue that this ultimately means that ethics is in the eye of the beholder, since there is clearly no objective ground for what is more appealing in one piece of art versus another. And I agree. But that doesn't mean that every action is on an equal playing field. When it comes to "flavors" of ethical action, certain ones will naturally come to dominate over others in a society, just like the dominant artistic taste does. Of course, not everyone will be won over. But it's not like deontology or utilitarianism have a track record of creating completely harmonious societies. And the ineffable and almost mystical nature of the ethical seems to me to be a better way to account for the variety and diversity of "moral" and "ethical" behavior across the world and in many cultures. It has to be left vague and broad, so that the ethical can reveal itself to us in the grand variety of ways that it does.

For Aristotle, the ultimate good that a virtuous society builds towards is not something as simple as "happiness" or "peace" or "progress." The term that he uses is "eudaimonia." Etymologically this word literally means "good spirit." It is often translated as "human flourishing." Essentially, all the kinds of excellence that signify humanity at its best are examples of this abstract but highly meaningful goal: humanity thriving and showing itself at its best. When humans act in virtuous, excellent, desirable ways that motivate and inspire others, they are displaying eudaimonia.

As someone who finds a great deal of Aristotle's metaphysics completely unconvincing, I have to pay respect to how careful, multifaceted, and humane of a thinker he was. You would expect Aristotle, the guy who appropriated the form of the mathematical proof as the standard for philosophy and thus removed it from the realm of poets and dramatists, to have a very rigid and ruthlessly analytical view of ethics. But no, he was so deeply insightful into the breadth and ineffability of human goodness that he was able to introduce this useful term that does justice to the full manifold of what we hold dear. But we will leave Aristotle behind for now and look at the other great virtue ethics tradition: the eastern one.

2. The Importance of "li" and the "Performative"

The Classic of Filial Piety [detail] (ca. 1085) by Li Gonglin
Metropolitan Museum of Art, ink and color on silk handscroll
Source

In Confucianism, there are five constant virtues that are extolled above all others, in the following rough order of importance:

＊Ren ("Benevolence"):
This is the most difficult one to translate. It is the most fundamental "humaneness" that causes us to care enough to have any other virtues or do any other good actions. To put it crudely, it is basically the "not being a sociopath" virtue. But we shouldn't understand it as something "easy" because the Confucian classics imply quite the opposite. It is spoken of paradoxically as both universal to all but also highly difficult to attain in full. Its roots are what make everyone human but attaining "ren" fully is the work of a lifetime.

＊Yi ("Righteousness"):
Not the sense of "a strong will and moral clarity" that the word has in modern English. This virtue is more about what actions we take and proper decision-making: Doing the right thing, not doing something that would be shameful or improper in the context we are in, resisting things that are wrong even if they are the easier path, etc.

＊Li ("Ritual"):
The focus of this section, and the one that I think is most distinctive from western conceptions of virtue. I will sketch it out more fully shortly.

＊Zhi ("Wisdom"):
This includes the kind of sitting-under-a-waterfall "higher" wisdom as well as intellectual development, erudition, being informed, etc. But it also covers practical knowledge: being able to realize what others think and feel, being able to realize virtue in others and yourself, judging the status of things and persons correctly, etc. Both are important.

＊Xin ("Faithfulness"):
There is a sort of dual meaning in this one. On the one hand, it relates to other people: being faithful to others, not going back on your word, not being dishonest and untrustworthy, etc. But it also refers to our attitude to the world: being "faithful" to what is real, trusting what we learned from our experience, and not deluding ourselves.

Benevolence, righteousness, wisdom, and faithfulness should seem agreeable to anyone, eastern or western. But "li" or "ritual" is not something that gets talked about in western ethical systems very much. And I think that is a terrible problem. In this section, I want to explain exactly what "li" is and why it is so important.

The translation of "ritual" gets at the meaning of "li" in its broadest sense. In the most crude terms, "li" can be thought of as something like "manners." The etymological root of "li" refers to things like rites of ancestral worship and all kinds of other highly specialized "rituals." But in Confucianism, the idea of "li" extends to doing things "properly" in areas that are more mundane but no less important for a functional society. For some modern examples, this might include things as simple as not putting your elbows on the table, not chewing with your mouth open, not slouching in your chair while eating, etc. It also includes issues of being "proper" like wearing a uniform at a high school, a suit in a business setting, mourning clothes at a funeral, etc.

This attention to the externality and "appearance" of our ethical actions is something very alien to most western ethical systems. But at the same time, it's a mistake to think of "li" as purely external. For example, much of it involves holding the correct mindset and conveying the correct emotion at the given time. The truth is, however, that there isn't much of a distinction between these two in Confucianism. A useful term is "comportment." This is a term that Heidegger uses commonly (though in a phenomenological rather than ethical context) because it is ambiguous with regard to being mental or physical. "Li" is about having the right comportment with regard to things. If you are a solider leading a procession for the victims of war, you should have both the right posture of body, physical appearance, tone of voice, gait, etc. but also the right mindset. And in Confucianism, these two things are linked. They are both part of having the correct "comportment" towards your action and duty.

The End of Summer (1961) by Ozu Yasujirou
The interactions in Ozu Yasujirou's films are full of "li."

Hence the gentleman honors his virtuous nature and takes learning as his dao. He extends to broadest expanse and exhausts the essence of the minute. He reaches to the pole of the high and bright and takes the mean in action as his dao. He breathes warmth into the old and understands the new, and is deeply sincere in his exaltation of "li." Thus when he occupies the superior role he is not arrogant, and in the inferior role he is not insubordinate. When the state possesses the dao, his counsel can raise it up high. When the state does not possess the dao, his silence can accommodate it.
Doctrine of the Mean, 7.27 [6]

Now, just to remind ourselves, there may not be an internal/external distinction to our "comportment." But there IS a distinction in Confucianism between "what" is done (righteousness) and "how" it's done ("li"). And both of them are important. For example, the righteous thing to do may be to send flowers to the bereaved after a funeral. But the act won't mean much if you choose the flowers haphazardly, rushed in arranging them, wrote the bare minimum on the note, etc. I'm sure we've all had someone physically "do" something nice for us but felt it to be hollow. On the other hand, a merely correct comportment doesn't mean much if it isn't accompanied by action. While the "important" part of comforting the bereaved is our attitude of sympathy rather than the flowers, it does ground our sympathy in something more physical and thus makes our sympathy more "real" to the other person.

The word "performative" is often used with a negative connotation in the modern west, in the sense of being hollow and "merely" a performance. It is not so in eastern ethical systems. To them, the "substance" of an ethical act can't be disconnected from its "appearance" or "performance." Some people might think that "li" sounds superfluous, but it isn't at all. It is very important as a sort of glue that holds societies together and keeps them peaceful, harmonious, and attractive to maintain. The comportment with which something is performed in can completely change its moral worth.

I remember a certain controversy-of-the-week gossip story from 2022 when American singer Lizzo was given the opportunity to perform with James Madison's 1813 crystal flute owned by the Library of Congress. She shook her ass around in revealing clothing and said some kind of vulgar things in her performance while playing it: “Make some noise for James Madison’s crystal flute y’all. We got the Capitol police and the secret service and everybody in this bitch.” (Source) A lot of people, including me, found that there was something deeply distasteful and just "wrong" about this, and no, it had nothing to do with racism or misogyny. Obviously, there are much greater problems in the world than a flutist being a bit crass during a performance. But I think the way people in America responded was informative.

As lot of left-leaning people jumped back at this negative reaction and defended her, saying "she's a trained flutist," "she had a proper understanding of how important the flute was and didn't harm it in any way," "she was invited by the Library of Congress to play it," etc. Those things are all true. But the problem is that what people found to be an ethical breach wasn't related to any of those things. It was a problem of "li," of her not having the proper attitude of solemnity toward the object and occasion. In my fourth pillar, I talk about the lack of respect for "objects" that the western world has in general, which compounded the lack of "li" in this case. But the instinctive reaction that something was wrong that many Americans had shows me that many of us still have some idea of what "li" is, even if our ethicists rarely talk about it.

You might say that "li" is a conservative value. But the truth is that "li" doesn't merely mean conserving things as the way they always are. "Li" can evolve as societies do along with it. And remember that since Confucianism is virtue ethics, "li" is something which has no boundaries. It can manifest in all kinds of ways. After all, there is a "proper way to act" in an infinite number of different situations, some of which will be very different from others. Not all of them are solemn and tempered either. The "li" of drinking with our friends will be very different from the "li" in front of our boss. But in any case, I think that westerners are forgetting our "li," and the greatness of Confucianism is that it can help give us a framework to spell out its value.

3. Why Being "Divided" Is Not a Bad Thing

The negative stereotype of East Asian societies is that they are a bunch of bugmen who can never step out of the line of tradition and self-denial for a moment or else they will have to seppuku to save their honor. I don't see it like that, but it might look like that if you only see the "public" side of these societies. I want to explain what an ideal society that balances Confucian morals with a modern appreciation of liberality should look like:

An ideal society should have citizens who know how to be divided. I think a lot of people instinctively feel that somehow "dividing" the way you act, what you say, etc. around different people is dishonest, makes you untrustworthy, and will not promote societal harmony. But if you really look at how you act, you will see that everyone "divides" themselves to a degree, and that there is nothing wrong with this. Think of how you act, the kind of words you use, the kinds of jokes you make, etc. around your grandmother versus around your best friends, versus around your five-year-old niece, etc. They're all different, and good reason. For another example, if you saw your good friend on campus, you might walk up from behind and give him a friendly clap on the back. But it would be improper to do this to your professor. Society is full of various discrete contexts like this based on the roles that we play to each other, and being virtuous means knowing what is appropriate in each case.

I think the primary difference in conception between eastern ethics and western ones is that in the east, social roles are foundational. There is no ethical action without an understanding of what social role you are in. That might sound suffocating, but it's actually very freeing. Remember, Confucianism is virtue ethics and virtue ethics is adaptable to any situation. And no one ever has only one social role. We all wear a number of "masks" in our lives. One man is a superior to those under him at work and a junior to those above him, he is a son to his parents and a father to his children, he is a husband to his wife and a friends to his friends, among others. And then there is a part of him that perhaps is never expressed to anyone, or, ideally, through creative and cultural pursuits that allow these inner areas to find expression.

Now, the important point is not that there is a "real" self at the core that we deny and cover up in various ways with these "fake" masks. The point is that ALL of these together are what makes us a whole, fulfilled person. A man who is nothing but his "unmasked" self would be as incomplete as one who is nothing but his "masked" self. Are these masks "performative?" Of course. But that it what society is supposed to be. A beautiful performance that we all make function together by playing our multiple "roles." How we "perform" in ALL the "roles" we both choose and have allotted to us is what makes us who we are.

What you do not want to happen to you, do not do it yourself either.
Sextus the Pythagorean [7]

"As I am, so are these. As are these, so am I." Drawing the parallel to yourself, neither kill nor get others to kill.
Sutta Nipāta 3:11, Nālaka Sutta Verse 705 [8]

The sage has no mind of his own.
He takes as his own the mind of the people.
Those who are good I treat as good.
Those who are not good I also treat as good.
In so doing I gain in goodness.
Those who are of good faith I have faith in.
Those who are lacking in good faith I also have faith in.
In so doing I gain in good faith.
The sage in his attempt to distract the mind of the empire seeks urgently to muddle it.
The people all have something to occupy their eyes and ears, and the sage treats them all like children.
Laozi, Dao De Jing, Verse 49 [9]

It is said that the "golden" rule (treat others how you want to be treated) is the closest thing to a universal ethic across all of humanity. We see a form of it in Confucian texts as well. But it's noteworthy how the text chooses to convey it:

Devotion and reciprocity are not far from the dao. If you would be unwilling to have something done to you, do not do it to others. There are four aspects to the dao of the gentleman: not one am I able to fulfill. To serve my father with that which I seek from my son--I cannot do it! To serve my ruler with that which I seek from my subordinates--I cannot do it! To serve my elders with that which I seek from my juniors--I cannot do it! To first practice towards my friends what I seek from them--I cannot do it!
Doctrine of the Mean, 2.13 [10]

It might seem to read almost the same as the above, but there's something important about the shift to social roles. For Confucians, any time we treat others how we want to be treated, we have to do it in the confines of some social relation. For how we want to treated by our parents, our friends, our superiors, our juniors, our brothers and sisters, etc. are all different. And as I said, there is something greatly freeing about this. Because it opens us up to enjoy such a wide variety of reciprocal "appropriate" and "pleasant" treatment in society. Confucianism gives us the language to explain why it feels good in some situations to be treated formally and rigidly and in others to be treated casually and in a friendly way. Most other statements of the golden rule "flatten" out all of this and do a disservice to how many different kinds of goodness can manifest in a complex society.

The Master said, the gentleman acts in harmony with others but does not seek to be like them; the small man seeks to be like others and does not act in harmony.
Confucius, The Analects 13:23 [11]

Sometimes there is a worry that the individuality of people gets suppressed and goes unappreciated in eastern ethical systems. I don't think that's true at all. I think that eastern societies hold individuality to be just as important as western societies do, but the assumptions they have are fundamentally different.

The western conception is something like:
What makes me an individual is so precious and great that I must share it with others. By not doing that, I am being dishonest and also selfish by not taking advantage of all the potential good I could do by putting what makes me special to good use. If I keep my individuality constantly hidden and repressed, it can never grow and be nurtured by bouncing off of and having sincere interactions with other individuals.

The eastern conception is something like:
What makes me an individual is so precious and great that I must keep it hidden from others. By doing that, I am keeping it from being corrupted and degraded by a world that it might often be at odds with, but that I still have a duty to be a part of. If I extend my individuality out into the world recklessly, I might just lose something very special by giving up control of it, sacrificing it to the public, and allowing it to potentially be ground up and spit out.

The Japanese have the words "tatemae" and "honne" to refer to a public persona of nicety and one's "true" thoughts. Some people act like this is some special thing that only Japanese people do, but the truth is just that the Japanese are honest about and give explicit language to something we all do. When your coworker has a new haircut and it looks bad, you lie a bit and say you like it to keep from hurting his feeling. When your boss really wants to go to a new steakhouse for the company dinner, you say it sounds good even if you don't like steak that much. When your girlfriend asks if her dress makes her look fat, you say that she looks beautiful. Anyone can relate to this. The only difference is that a lot of western people somehow feel like this is the "lesser of two evils" while Japanese people see it as foundational for social harmony.

I myself always thought it seemed to obviously be a good thing that we do. I always thought that people who pride themselves on being "brutally honest" usually just secretly enjoy being "brutal," and thus never had much respect for them. I think that western people, under the influence of the ninth commandment from the bible, have absorbed a deontological taboo against lying to a degree that has lead to some distorted outcomes. Indeed, even in the bible we see examples of cases where distorting the truth is justified (for example, see Rahab lying to spare peoples' lives in Joshua 2:1-7, which is then affirmed as just in the New Testament in Hebrews 11:31 and James 2:25).

That isn't to say that Japanese people think there is nothing wrong with lying. There's an expression in Japanese: "every thief begins as a liar." The difference is that there are many shades of dishonesty. While a crude deontological ethics will flatten all of these out into "lies" that are "always bad," a sophisticated virtue ethics can take any particular situation and see if it would be a more virtuous and admirable thing to do to be completely honest or to bend the truth a little. Like all virtues in a society, this is something that has to be decided on communally and intuitively, but I think that many non-Japanese societies could use a lot more diplomatic truth-bending for the sake of social harmony.

A fool uttereth all his mind: but a wise man keepeth it in till afterwards.
Proverbs 29:11 [12]

Of course, the important other side of the coin is being completely honest and sincere, but this is something that should only be done with people who we become close to or share delimited cultural spaces with. And the other important way it gets channeled is through creative pursuits like the creation of great pieces of art and spaces for subcultures. I talk about this in more depth in my fourth pillar, because I do not support the authoritarian "Confucianism" of modern China. I think that a state restricting its peoples' freedom is proof that it has failed them, abandoned them, and is too lazy to do the hard work of rebuilding trust and public morals.

4. Societal Harmony and Nationalism

Twenty-Four Eyes (1954) by Kinoshita Keinosuke

I believe that living harmoniously requires some degree of cultural homogeneity, but do not consider myself a "nationalist." I think that the growth of right-wing nationalism in the world today occurs because of the legitimate problems in modern multicultural societies. But the solution is not ethnostates.

Social harmony necessitates some degree of ideological conformity. We have to agree on what is appropriate and desirable in any society in order for us to interact with each other harmoniously. But the cultures on our world are greatly varied in terms of values and beliefs. And that is a great, beautiful thing. We should love how diverse and different the peoples on earth are and want to preserve their traditions. And it is possible to do this. See, for example, the Two Row Wampum Treaty, as recorded in the oral history of the Haudenosaunee (known in English as the Iroquois). When Dutch colonists arrived at "Turtle Island" (North America) in 1613, the two groups reached the following agreement:

As the Haudenosaunee and Dutch discovered much about each other, an agreement was made as to how they were to treat each other and live together. Each of their ways would be shown in the purple rows running the length of a wampum belt. "In one row is a ship with our White Brothers’ ways; in the other a canoe with our ways. Each will travel down the river of life side by side. Neither will attempt to steer the other’s vessel."
Onondaga Nation, "Two Row Wampum – Gaswéñdah" [13]

This is essentially just an application of the Golden Rule: I don't want to have other people impose their way of life on me, so I won't impose mine on them. I use this example, because it shows that even unimaginaly different groups of people can peacefully coexist if their attitude is correct. However, this idea is difficult to maintain in a modern, globalized world. Because nowadays communities and traditional ways of life go extinct in a way that is much more complex and not merely a result of evil outsiders exercising explicit and obvious tyranny on a group with no agency. The way it happens is much murkier.

Let's say you go to the periphery, like some small village in Mongolia where people live in yurts. And then in the middle of it you see a McDonald's or a Starbucks. I don't know about you, but that feels obscene to me. But this isn't merely an anti-capitalist, anti-big-business feeling. It might not quite be as bad to see a mom-and-pop burger stand there instead, but it would stick out as being very American in the midst of traditional Mongolia. I don't like that kind of thing and want to stop it. Cities and countries should be able to retain their own local character. I don't want to live in a world where I see the same stores, the same architecture, the same food, etc. everywhere. I want to have the opportunity to experience legitimate "culture shocks," because they are valuable.

But what makes this so difficult is that McDonald's or Starbucks wouldn't exist in the furthest reaches of the world if people there didn't want them. These days, everyone has the chance to experience everything and have it all shipped across the world to them. Of course, this is a great thing. But the effect is that people can "specialize" more and more until they have less and less in common with the people around them. That's because they all come to have every "culture" before their eyes to the same degree and can pick and choose them at will. There's no real "distance" between cultures anymore. And when every place on earth has an equal proportion of the same global mono-culture, how can you come to love one city or community more than any other? How do people come together and create or maintain important cultural practices in a society where everyone is so "individualist" that they lose the ability to do so?

Well, honestly, I don't have an answer. It's a very hard thing and I think about it a lot. I hold freedom to be very important, so the answer is definitely not some authoritarian rule, either by the state or within families, to make us more "locally connected." As someone whose greatest passion (Japanese things) is very removed from his birthplace, I could never support that. And even from a purely tactical perspective, it's mistaken. People love to rebel whenever something is forced on them.

For me, the answer is to develop a strong attachment to the place that you live, and if you don't have it, to find somewhere that you do have a strong attachment to and move there. I'm not opposed to immigration. I don't think that culture is inherently tied to race by any means. But I believe that immigration should be conducted to a degree where areas can still have their own character and cultural uniqueness. That even applies for post-colonial states like mine. I think that the native tribes have the ultimate authority to the land in America and I try to learn from them and live in a way that accords with their values, or at least doesn't disturb them. But of course there are a wide variety of tribes and the people in them all have their own opinions, so that doesn't mean blindly following whatever a native person says in lockstep.

There is, however, a reason I talk about "areas" and not "nations." "Nations" are, broadly speaking, meaningless when it comes to the preservation of culture and heritage. The borders of CULTURES are very loose. There are always a great variety of "cultures" in any one "nation." This is even the case in small nations like Japan. That diversity is a beautiful thing. And it needs to be maintained and made distinct against the broad gravitational pull of the globohomo death spiral that seeks to abolish all distance and blend everything together.

But I'm also not a fan of cultural chauvinism. No piece of cultural heritage is something to be PROUD of. People who are "proud of" things they had nothing to do with, like their race, their country of origin, or their sex, are losers. The great Arthur Schopenhauer put it best:

The cheapest sort of pride is national pride; for if a man is proud of his own nation, it argues that he has no qualities of his own of which he can be proud; otherwise he would not have recourse to those which he shares with so many millions of his fellowmen. The man who is endowed with important personal qualities will be only too ready to see clearly in what respects his own nation falls short, since their failings will be constantly before his eyes. But every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud adopts, as a last resource, pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and glad to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority.
Arthur Schopenhauer, The Wisdom of Life [14]

Now, I think it's important to point out that I only agree with this insofar as it is worded just the way it is. For me, he is completely correct with regard to PRIDE. But there is nothing wrong with liking one country or culture more than another. You just have to be honest that it is not perfect and that every place has its flaws. For example, I love Japan more than anywhere else on earth. Not that it's perfect, but when I weigh its pros and cons, in the aggregate I prefer it to anywhere else. I'm not Japanese of course, so I can't claim to be "proud" to be Japanese. But even if I was, I don't think I'd be "proud" of Japan, because I had no choice in the matter. I'd instead just be happy to be Japanese, that I get to partake in that culture in such a direct way, and hope to maintain what is so nice about it.

So yes, societal harmony requires some degree of cultural homogeneity. But culture is, for the most part, not bound by borders or genetics. We need to do everything we can to keep our traditions alive, because they are a living part of our history. But that doesn't mean we have to create ethnostates. I know from my studies of Japan that, paradoxically, some figures who had some of the greatest influence in preserving traditional Japanese culture in the Meiji Period were not Japanese. I am talking about the figures I aspire to emulate and learn from: Ernest Fenollosa, Lafcadio Hearn, Basil Hall Chamberlain, etc. The same can apply for anywhere on earth. Indeed, oftentimes it takes an outsider to make people realize what is so great about their own culture. But I do think that people should love where they live and come to have a deep awareness of its history. Not that everyone can just up and move to their dream city (if that was possible I would still be in Japan), but it is an ideal to strive for and will improve the world.

5. The "Putting Your House in Order" Problem

Thus the gentleman seeks for things in others only once he possesses them within himself, and forbids things in others only once he has no trace of them in himself. Never has there been a person who has not stored up within himself the disposition to treat others with reciprocity, but who is able to persuade others to follow him. Therefore, ordering the state lies in aligning one's household.
Great Learning, II.B.6 [15]

There's an idea in Confucianism which is typical of a lot of conservative worldviews: to fix the world, you have to first fix yourself. Confucianism is very strongly based on the symbolism of the state as a household. To make the world harmonious, one must first make their state harmonious. To make their state harmonious, one must first make their household harmonious. To make their household harmonious, one must first make oneself virtuous. This whole idea of beginning by improving yourself, then your family, then your community, then your world, etc. may sound a little familiar... it may sound like a certain Kermit-sounding Canadian dumbfuck who said you should "clean your room" before you can improve anything else.

Let's engage with some of the criticisms. There have been a lot of people who have done unquestionably good things even if their "house" was not entirely in order. A good example is Martin Luther King Jr., who had many problems with infidelity in his personal life. The idea of the criticism is that it's very hard to make your personal life free of all difficulties and troubles. These will always be present in a person's interpersonal affairs. If we waited until we were entirely perfect, until we were free of all personal problems and guilts, etc. before acting to improve our broader community and world, we would never get started. Slavoj Žižek most famously critiqured Jordan Memerson about this when he asked about someone in North Korea. What if the reason their household is in disarray is BECAUSE OF forces larger than their household? How can we solve problems like climate change or the threat of nuclear war that require immediate, aggressive action if we have to keep waiting for everyone to become perfect first?

The Trial of Joan of Arc (1962) by Robert Bresson
Is there no place for martyrs like Joan of Arc and her great virtue of "selflessness," which definitionally puts the world before ourselves, in Confucian ethics?

Well, I think that the answer is that making your household, community, etc. "harmonious" does not mean making it perfect. It simply means coming to some degree of peace with them. We should come to regard the troubles we face in our interpersonal lives with greater virtue, not necessarily fix them all at once. And really, the proper way we should take the "putting your house in order" idea is not that we need to choose to do one or the other. Putting your house in order IS making the world a better place, because your house is a part of the world. What we have to possess before persuading others is not complete perfection, but rather an honest knowledge of our own shortcomings and a sincere desire to improve ourselves along with the world around us. I don't know if this is "orthodox" Confucianism, but I certainly think it is the best version of it.

7. How to Promote Societal Harmony

Study broadly, inquire probingly, contemplate carefully, distinguish clearly, practice sincerely. If there remain things unstudied, do not act upon what you have not mastered. If there remain things unprobed, do not act upon what you do not understand. If there remain things uncontemplated, do not act upon what you have not grasped. If there remain aspects indistinct, do not act upon what is not clear to you. If there remain aspects unpracticed, do not act upon what you cannot sincerely do.
Doctrine of the Mean, 5.20e [16]

The Master said, Be devoted to faithfulness and love learning; defend the good dao until death. Do not enter a state poised in danger; do not remain in a state plunged in chaos. When the dao prevails in the world, appear; when it does not, hide. When the dao prevails in a state, to be poor and of low rank is shameful; when the dao does not prevail in a state, to be wealthy and of high rank is shameful.
Confucius, The Analects 8:13 [17]

The greatest thing about Confucianism and why it is such a helpful ethical framework is that it is open for everyone and in any society. Confucius may have said that he was a transmitter and not an originator [18], but he began teaching and spreading influence in a civilization in the midst of disarray and moral decay. Anyone can be virtuous if they practice enough self-cultivation. And if there is no appropriate teacher around, they can turn to the wisdom of the ancients instead.

That said, I can't sum up ethics in a set of rules or commandments. Ethics is something that has to be felt and intuited. But these are some general "hints" that I can use to point towards virtue:

＊The "li" of what you do matters. It keeps society harmonious, happy, and beautiful. Of course, your action matters just as much, if not more, but there is a lot of value to being formal and proper. It's a way of being compassionate.

＊At the same time, there are delimited areas of public life, subcultures, smaller communities, etc. that have different standards than the public in general. This is a good thing. We should act differently in different groups.

＊Ethics and political practice often intertwine, but they are not the same thing. A lot of good people can do nothing effective as politicians. A lot of bad people can get good policy passed. Don't mistake one for the other if they start to split. And don't wait for the people passing good policy to become perfect before you get behind it.

＊Using accurate terminology is very important. Calling everyone a fascist or a Nazi or a communist or genocide or groomer or whatever else is destroying our ability to talk about anything meaningfully. However, you shouldn't be too literal either. Always look for the substance of what someone means, not merely the words they use.

＊It is important to know what's going on in the world, but don't be warped by media that sells you fear and hate as a product. At the same time, don't be afraid to reject norms that are perverse. But do it with "li."

＊There are ways to be revolutionary and nonconformist without being disruptive and divisive. Confucius's great legacy was learning from the ancients and applying their virtues even when those around him did not.

＊There are some times when virtue is just not going to be respected or reciprocated. During that time, sometimes the best thing to do is simply to retreat from public life and nurture virtue in private until an opportunity to return makes itself manifest to you.