The Religions of Man, by Houston Smith, is a remarkable book. I recommend it to everyone. It is filled with the wisdom of ancient Hinduism, the Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, Confucius, Lao Tzu, Jesus, the Jews... China, Japan, the Middle East, and India. All of it has a purpose and a point. None of it is vain, idle thought. There are lessons in here we could all listen to more often.
In the section on Confucianism in this remarkable book, there is a little history about dark-age China. It started earlier than 500 BC, a time of mutual and long term warfare It ravaged the people, tore up the country, made a general nuisance of itself. The usual states of war. They probably manufactured toy weapons and games for children to get practice at a good, young age.
What created such a state of destruction and violence? Vile human nature? A breakdown of traditional wisdom? A flux in social order? Perhaps a ballooning of the population like today's world? Smith describes a time of rising individualism. Permeating the old social cohesion, filling in cracks and wedging it apart. Old traditions are analyzed by thousands of individual point of view who either accept or reject it. Their immediate ancestors didn't even think about asking questions. They simply accepted their fate.
Of course, this is a little simplified. Smith believes that the pull of tradition in some cultures is so pervasive that the alternative is unthinkable. It drives daily life. There is no theft (as an example) because from birth no one is given an example of theft. No one steals. It doesn't exist and so it continues to not exist. It is beyond the mindset of the people to comprehend, let alone commit. Yet... in reality, people are different. Surprisingly stupid for being so unbelievable intelligent. There are people in our culture, our 'traditionless culture', who listen to their parents; there are people who listen to no one. There are sociopaths born everywhere. There are people who obey laws; there are those who flaunt laws. Even in cultures heavily led by culture, there are going to be those individuals who think of other ways. Most of them will not follow other ways. Even sociopaths will follow the will of a society when they know the alternative is rather enjoyable. Small bands of people deal with sociopaths easily. There are no laws or anything, but everyone knows everyone else. If there is an asshole, they'll deal with you.
But when there are too many people to keep track of one's neighbors.... those who think, suddenly have avenues to act. The old system (know everyone so you know the assholes and can banish them from the land) ceases to work and something else must be discovered. What are the answers? What are the ways to keep people enjoying each others company?
We could just all love each other. That's a simple enough answer, preached by really every true religion. Then we will treat each other right. But... how do we get everyone to love each other? Pervasive tradition where the alternative never comes to mind? How about an extensive Draconian legal system? But... there are places even the most extensive legal system cannot reach. There are extenuating circumstance which will not be imagined by the writers of the code, no matter how creative they may be. And then, the code gets unmanageably huge and, eventually, the highly educated figure out ways to manipulate it to whatever design they want it to be. Like in America, where the legal code is for all purposes written in its own language and includes so many strange and hard to identify loopholes that it's hard for a sane person to decipher the intent. Or we could educate people to be rational.... but expecting a human being to be rational is just about the least rational expectation one could have.
I have this expectation. It's frustrating.
Confucius was a little like a blend of all these points of view. He proposed education and deliberate tradition infused into that educational system. He realized that loving thy neighbor was a little unrealistic to expect from a million individualized souls. But it would go a long way to covering the gaps left in a legal code.
In the section on Confucianism in this remarkable book, there is a little history about dark-age China. It started earlier than 500 BC, a time of mutual and long term warfare It ravaged the people, tore up the country, made a general nuisance of itself. The usual states of war. They probably manufactured toy weapons and games for children to get practice at a good, young age.
What created such a state of destruction and violence? Vile human nature? A breakdown of traditional wisdom? A flux in social order? Perhaps a ballooning of the population like today's world? Smith describes a time of rising individualism. Permeating the old social cohesion, filling in cracks and wedging it apart. Old traditions are analyzed by thousands of individual point of view who either accept or reject it. Their immediate ancestors didn't even think about asking questions. They simply accepted their fate.
Of course, this is a little simplified. Smith believes that the pull of tradition in some cultures is so pervasive that the alternative is unthinkable. It drives daily life. There is no theft (as an example) because from birth no one is given an example of theft. No one steals. It doesn't exist and so it continues to not exist. It is beyond the mindset of the people to comprehend, let alone commit. Yet... in reality, people are different. Surprisingly stupid for being so unbelievable intelligent. There are people in our culture, our 'traditionless culture', who listen to their parents; there are people who listen to no one. There are sociopaths born everywhere. There are people who obey laws; there are those who flaunt laws. Even in cultures heavily led by culture, there are going to be those individuals who think of other ways. Most of them will not follow other ways. Even sociopaths will follow the will of a society when they know the alternative is rather enjoyable. Small bands of people deal with sociopaths easily. There are no laws or anything, but everyone knows everyone else. If there is an asshole, they'll deal with you.
But when there are too many people to keep track of one's neighbors.... those who think, suddenly have avenues to act. The old system (know everyone so you know the assholes and can banish them from the land) ceases to work and something else must be discovered. What are the answers? What are the ways to keep people enjoying each others company?
We could just all love each other. That's a simple enough answer, preached by really every true religion. Then we will treat each other right. But... how do we get everyone to love each other? Pervasive tradition where the alternative never comes to mind? How about an extensive Draconian legal system? But... there are places even the most extensive legal system cannot reach. There are extenuating circumstance which will not be imagined by the writers of the code, no matter how creative they may be. And then, the code gets unmanageably huge and, eventually, the highly educated figure out ways to manipulate it to whatever design they want it to be. Like in America, where the legal code is for all purposes written in its own language and includes so many strange and hard to identify loopholes that it's hard for a sane person to decipher the intent. Or we could educate people to be rational.... but expecting a human being to be rational is just about the least rational expectation one could have.
I have this expectation. It's frustrating.
Confucius was a little like a blend of all these points of view. He proposed education and deliberate tradition infused into that educational system. He realized that loving thy neighbor was a little unrealistic to expect from a million individualized souls. But it would go a long way to covering the gaps left in a legal code.
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