A society based on loving and kindness definitely has the possibility of being stable… on an extremely small scale. Kindness and love can be the foundation of a small-scale operation like a Buddhist monastery. Love and kindness can get you far in life and can enrich relationships. However I don’t think that a larger society or most of today’s societies could be based merely on kindness, compassion, and love. In the US, we place a large value on the common good. For the common good to exist, there have to be some that don’t agree with choices made by the government. Because everyone has a different view on what is “unkind”, not everyone can be pleased. Our society is cutthroat and in regards to applying for jobs and attempting to excel in the corporate world, the people most skilled for their job will succeed even if they aren’t the most loving and compassionate person. Plus, not everyone believes that love is the way to solve our problems. This would cause conflict because of people's conflicting views and values. Don’t get me wrong I love kindness and love and all of that but I just don’t think it is realistic to live your life according to the “all you need is love” mindset. We need more than that to be the foundation of our society.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Question B
Civil and social stability cannot be based only on being kind and loving to everyone. People take advantage of such a benevolent society so there must be boundaries, limits, and customs enforced. Yes, being kind and loving should play a role in social stability because it would make things go smoother and easier. But in order to find such a good stability in society, there has to be a balance between being harmonious and kind to one another, as well as customs and respect. Being kind and loving to everyone does have benefits in making a society work, though. There would be a lot less judgement and hate,and more forgiveness and care toward one another. Those qualities are great and important for making a society work and stay stable. But stability requires balance and more of one element than another would obviously create an imbalance, therefore resulting in an unstable society. A society couldn't function with simply just rituals, customs, and respect. People would rebel, harshly judge one another, create hate within themselves, and be unhappy. On the contrary, a society where everyone just loved each other would be easy for people who did not agree with that moral code to take advantage of others and in the end, they would be triumphant because what are the people who do agree with the moral code going to do? Forgive them, love them anyway, and move on? Well, it would be their loss and the other's gain. So yes, a balance of both make a society function stably because both extremes have positive outcomes than can balance each other out. Respect and customs play a role in the stability of society because they set the bar of where people of a society should be, act, and follow. It's just that it can't be expected of everyone to love EVERYONE. People's personalities clash, some people just don't like each other and even though a society filled with benevolence sounds amazing, it's more of a fantasy because it's not possible. It's human nature to like and dislike others. That being said, I don't mean that loving, caring, and considering others isn't important, as I've said before, it's key to the balance of a stable society. As long as there is an enough amount of respect, customs, and benevolence in society, it creates an orderly system and balance.
Is love enough?
Question B: The Beatles sang that “All we need is love.” However, Confucious held that, even if it were possible, treating everyone lovingly would not create a harmonious social order. He posited that li, respect for ritual and custom, was an important and necessary counterforce to pure jen, or good will and benevolence. Do you agree that a civil and social stability cannot be based merely on being kind and loving to everyone? If not, what else is needed? Explain your answer.
Basing society off the thought that everyone must be kind to everyone seems like an awesome idea, and it seems like world peace would finally exist. People would not have to worry about being shot on the street, and such, if they could count on everyone being loving. The world would be such a happy place. If being loving and kind to each other was our standard, with nothing else required, there would be less fighting and less frustration. But would everyone follow the rule? Or even a majority? If one family out of the world decided to raise their children differently and create new notions for how to run society, other than merely with love, these new ideas could spread and the love love love idea would be destroyed. But, does creating a set government and rules create groups who are against each other and who hate each other? Also, it is against human nature to ask everyone to get along. People naturally get annoyed with each other and disagree and, eventually, do something about it, which is what creates trouble and fighting and wars. Even by asking everyone to agree to disagree, we are asking for everyone to treat each other lovingly and kindly. Society tends to fall into disarray without a set of rules and a ruler, and this requires asking something of everyone, to follow along. If there was no ruler or rules, people would not feel motivated to do anything, except love everyone. Which is lovely until someone doesn't want to love everyone, which is where society's rules come in. So, in conclusion, I agree that love is not enough. We need more structure (rules), but I think we also need to retain the underlying theme of love in life.
Confucious: Kindness and Love?
Confucious teachings taught how an individual should live ones life, how one should interact with others, and the forms of society and government in which one should participate. His treachings influenced the minds of many of his followers and even the nation of Chinatoday. Though peace and love is always great and the world needs more of it, it will not create civil and social stable society. In reality humans are naturally selfish and greedy. As things seem to go in our way, we tend to what more of it. It is not possible to create a serene society when not all of the population is able to commit to being kind and loving to all.
Tough Question, Tough Love
Does being kind and loving to everyone else bring social order? Does it?
If all people are kind and loving to everyone else, it seems as if life would be pleasant. However, if even one other person didn't live by that same philosophy, that one person could take advantage of everybody else. Having to obey their own moral code, they would have to obey him. That is the kind thing to do.
Or would they? Does love require full obedience to another person's will? They could be kind to that ruler and not listen to him. Just because they don't do what he says, it doesn't mean that they didn't try to understand, they weren't polite, and that they don't love him. Uh Oh! I see a problem arising. If they don't listen to the self-appointed ruler, then they aren't being obedient to him. If they aren't obeying the ruler, who has power? How can things get done? That's an unreliable system for creating social stability.
Or is it? If the world doesn't listen to that one ruler, or if there isn't even a self-appointed ruler, could the people help each other out and create social stability? People would be benevolent and considerate. Hence, they'd be looking out for each other. So, out of kindness, they would try to help out their neighbours. But, sometimes, doing the kind thing for one person, is doing an inconsiderate thing for another. Just like letting the other team score on you in a soccer game. It's really kind to the other team. But, it's inconsiderate to your teammates. It's near impossible to do the kind thing for everybody. Similarly, doing the kind thing isn't necessarily doing the right thing. It isn't the moral thing. And people not doing the right thing is damaging to the social order in any society because someone has to pay the price somewhere down the line.
It's decided. Love isn't enough. We need something that explains every single moral action one should take, something with a clear guide to what is right. Then, if everybody loves one another, everybody is kind to one another, and if everybody can tell right from wrong, people can be kind to some without harming others.
If all people are kind and loving to everyone else, it seems as if life would be pleasant. However, if even one other person didn't live by that same philosophy, that one person could take advantage of everybody else. Having to obey their own moral code, they would have to obey him. That is the kind thing to do.
Or would they? Does love require full obedience to another person's will? They could be kind to that ruler and not listen to him. Just because they don't do what he says, it doesn't mean that they didn't try to understand, they weren't polite, and that they don't love him. Uh Oh! I see a problem arising. If they don't listen to the self-appointed ruler, then they aren't being obedient to him. If they aren't obeying the ruler, who has power? How can things get done? That's an unreliable system for creating social stability.
Or is it? If the world doesn't listen to that one ruler, or if there isn't even a self-appointed ruler, could the people help each other out and create social stability? People would be benevolent and considerate. Hence, they'd be looking out for each other. So, out of kindness, they would try to help out their neighbours. But, sometimes, doing the kind thing for one person, is doing an inconsiderate thing for another. Just like letting the other team score on you in a soccer game. It's really kind to the other team. But, it's inconsiderate to your teammates. It's near impossible to do the kind thing for everybody. Similarly, doing the kind thing isn't necessarily doing the right thing. It isn't the moral thing. And people not doing the right thing is damaging to the social order in any society because someone has to pay the price somewhere down the line.
It's decided. Love isn't enough. We need something that explains every single moral action one should take, something with a clear guide to what is right. Then, if everybody loves one another, everybody is kind to one another, and if everybody can tell right from wrong, people can be kind to some without harming others.
Question B
Confucious said that there needed to be a balance between li, respect for ritual and custom and jen, good will and benevolence. He said that we can't just love each other and therefore all the problems disappear. The social stability can't be purely based on love. There needs to be some discipline and someone to lead us. If there is a leader then some people are bound to hate him/her because of the choices that leader must make for the good of the public. It is not possible to make everyone happy, someone is bound to disagree. Although the world would be a better place if everyone just loved each other. I suppose there would be no wars or fights and everyone would be happy because everyone was loved. Although this sounds nice, it can only be imagined because people are bound to hate. Not because they are bad people but because their strong opinions can result in hating those with different opinions. So civil and social stability cannot only be based on love. You need a leader as well and you need acceptance. People should accept other cultures and traditions. But overall I think that there cannot be a society based on love. Someone is bound to hate because of different opinions. There are so many people in the world with so many different opinions and cultures that it is impossible to agree with everyone on everything.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Blog Post 3: Eastern Wisdom
For this post, you may choose to respond to Question A or Question B below; make it clear in the title of your post what question you're responding to.
Question A: Is the kind of self-sacrifice is promoted by the Eastern religions and philosophies we’ve studied healthy? Is it wise to willingly give up our consciousness in search of a “higher” one?
OR
Question B: The Beatles sang that “All we need is love.” However, Confucious held that, even if it were possible, treating everyone lovingly would not create a harmonious social order. He posited that li, respect for ritual and custom, was an important and necessary counterforce to pure jen, or good will and benevolence. Do you agree that a civil and social stability cannot be based merely on being kind and loving to everyone? If not, what else is needed? Explain your answer.
POST DUE: Thursday, November 12 by start of class.
2 RESPONSES TO POSTS DUE: Monday, November 16 by the start of class.
NOTE: Remember to create your own post for your main response (your teacher modeled this in class). That way, people will be able to click on the word “comment” below your post to respond to what you said.
Question A: Is the kind of self-sacrifice is promoted by the Eastern religions and philosophies we’ve studied healthy? Is it wise to willingly give up our consciousness in search of a “higher” one?
OR
Question B: The Beatles sang that “All we need is love.” However, Confucious held that, even if it were possible, treating everyone lovingly would not create a harmonious social order. He posited that li, respect for ritual and custom, was an important and necessary counterforce to pure jen, or good will and benevolence. Do you agree that a civil and social stability cannot be based merely on being kind and loving to everyone? If not, what else is needed? Explain your answer.
POST DUE: Thursday, November 12 by start of class.
2 RESPONSES TO POSTS DUE: Monday, November 16 by the start of class.
NOTE: Remember to create your own post for your main response (your teacher modeled this in class). That way, people will be able to click on the word “comment” below your post to respond to what you said.
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