Tag: EKSChina

This is going to be among my final posts on this site, so I want to talk more about The Great Learning, one of my most favorite readings/China topics of the entire semester. I revisited it this evening while listening to a podcast about the current state of affairs of American society as it relates to COVID19.

So obviously, this virus sucks. It has completely killed our economy and our people, totally disrupting our way of life well into the foreseeable future. I also believe leadership at our highest federal levels are lackluster and not really doing enough in my mind to minimize the impacts of this virus. The Great Learning has a number of important points and or values that I think are somewhat relatable or identifiable in some capacity in today’s modern political landscape. The fifth bullet point discussing virtues in the kingdom is something I wish was actually happening for the federal government. I feel like their bold, standoffish behavior with states that don’t necessarily agree with political beliefs were adversely affected in the recovery process. New York is the prime example of one of the ‘States’. Success with this virus should have started with consulting states, but that obviously did not happen. To a lesser extent, California and New Jersey parallel New York’s dire situation.

The 12th bullet point talking about states being rightly governed is also a concerning area for me. In April, it was explained by our leaders that the recovery journey will mostly be left up to the states, opting to take a more hands-off approach to handle this situation. It wasn’t (and still isn’t) a very widely accepted idea; there are protests happening in states like California and Michigan with protestors wanting change to what they see as ineffective emergency policy at the state levels. Thankfully i don’t think that will become any bigger than it already is, but it screams of civil unrest because of a general lack of direction from our P.O.T.U.S. This would not be happening if the Executive branch had a more firm presence (if I were a betting man, i would bet my car on this, but that will never happen). As mentioned in the 14th bullet point, ‘it cannot be, when the root is neglected, that what should spring from it will be well ordered’. I really don’t think we have any true unity anymore, which really sucks. Unity I feel is now more of a ‘pay to play’ or you have to give something to get someone’s loyalty or you only unite when not doing so would lead to something bad happening. If anybody sees unity, its probably from the protestors, who I don’t honestly think really fully understand the situation.

The ‘root’s of our country are divided with left and right, blue and red; its fairly obvious and it won’t be going anywhere anytime soon. If only Confucius was here; his wisdom and sage advice would be a godsend to many of our leaders not only nationally, but internationally as well to countries like China and Russia. He may not have been able to prevent the virus or prevent deaths, but without question he certainly would have done more good than bad if we’re comparing him to the White House.

‘Man’s nature is evil; goodness is the result of conscious activity.’ This is the first line from Hsun Tzu’s Man’s Nature is Evil. I strongly agree with this philosopher such that people without a modicum of knowledge of ‘Good vs Evil’ when left unchecked will always act in their own self interest/s.  He masterfully uses the analogy of ‘warped wood’ on the first page of the PDF to liken that to how people act. I thought about his argument along the following lines as well; to do good, you must know good.

I think my beliefs link up with his especially well starting on the next page, where he criticizes the belief of Mencius such that people are able to learn because they are inherently good natured. Tsu makes what i believe to be a strong distinction between nature and the idea of ‘conscious activity’ (the idea of using effort to think about something). People are not born knowing what is good or evil, they are taught these ideas by ‘sages’ or other people in their lives.

In recent times, we’ve seen evil nature from people in our own community. A week ago I had seen a middle age women pull up her truck in front of a store to load up several boxes of toilet paper and disinfectant wipes. People were jeering at her because she and her husband in the truck didn’t give a rip about others; regardless of the store’s ‘1 per person policy’. Crisis seems to bring the most out of people i find; i was really too young to see it with 9/11, but I can see it with this pandemic. It allows us to see who’s a man/women of the people, who are trying to just get by, and those trying to profit/gain from this terrible situation. Extremes bring out extremes, but the worst part of all this is that we haven’t even started to flatten the infection curve!

If Confucius was alive today, i am 100% positive that he would have a field day talking upon numerous aspects of our society (for me, i think he would be talking about COVID-19, and how [still] many young people aren’t taking it seriously). Re-reading Analects of Confucius (posted by Dr. McGrath) this morning helped me understand new things that I would otherwise not have picked up on in our first discussions over it.

[7:21] The master never discussed strange phenomena, physical exploits, disorder or ghost stories. I can’t think of any better applications better suited for this than the current executive office, who has spread a great deal of misinformation and helped create more disorder. We have often seen conspiracy theories pushed out to push a political agenda that also try to change the public’s opinion on the state of affairs nationally. Doing so has already led to huge repercussions not only in society, but (in my opinion) more so for our economy. I could write an entire post on this opinion, but it wouldn’t change the borderline recession we’re in.

This also falls in line with the following: [8:9] The Master said: “You might force people act according a certain principle, but you won’t be able to force them to understand it.” The current administration also seems dead set on returning to our recently abandoned way of life just because the economy attention. This idea of forcing us back into our old way of life so suddenly is incredibly dangerous and shows a clear lack of awareness for the current state of things in regards to the pandemic we face.

For better or for worse, COVID19 has inspired me to revisit things we’ve covered in the past, and in doing so has helped me find clarity in some of the topics we’ve talked about. Hopefully sooner rather than later however, i hope this pandemic becomes an afterthought, but I imagine that it would take years (unfortunately) to reach that point…