Analyzing the Homogeneous Relationship Between Goodness and Happiness Through the Confucian Teachings of both Mengzi and Kongzi
It is through the teachings Mengzi and Kongzi that we may surmise that the initial purity of a human being upon birth is both natural and consistent. However, in order for such purity to be preserved over the span of a life, a person must consciously maintain their conviction to the path on which they walk. It is tempting to combine the overarching trait of goodness with the concept of happiness and the feeling of fulfillment through self-realization even though they are not quite the same thing. Goodness as a human trait is maintained, according to Kongzi, through accordance to Ren, the altruistic pillar of the Confucian philosophy.
One must, in order to be good, live consciously in ritual in all aspects of life. “Do not look unless it is in accordance with ritual; do not listen unless it is in accordance with ritual; do not speak unless it is in accordance with ritual; do not move unless it is in accordance with ritual.” The word “ritual” in the sense that Kongzi uses it refers to the Chinese word li, and while the closest translation for the word li is the English word “ritual,” it means most directly “good human conduct.”
In other words, a good person should not look, listen, speak, or move unless the action being taken falls in accordance to the idea of basic human decency, or “good human conduct.” This is a philosophy from which much has been derived, the most popular of which being the Three Wise Monkeys, Mizaru, Kikazaru, and Iwazaru who: “See no evil, hear no evil, [and] speak no evil.” Additionally, the essence of goodness in Confucian teaching is the idea of jen. Jen is synonymous with reciprocity, and is the general foundation upon which is set the entire Confucian philosophy.
Happiness, and fulfillment, on the other hand are related to goodness, but are not synonymous to goodness. Mengzi describes the feeling of fulfillment through the concept of Qi, “[Qi] is extremely big and extremely powerful. Nourish it with righteousness and protect it from harm, and it will fill Heaven and earth. It grows through the accumulation of righteousness and cannot be obtained by contrived actions. If one’s actions are not satisfying to one’s mind then it shrivels up.” The feelings of happiness and fulfillment, in essense, are achieved from the doing of good, righteous deeds — and while performing good deeds for others lays in accordance with the Confucian ethic of reciprocity, there is an important distinction between goodness, and doing good things. The distinction here is essentially that goodness will make a human happy, but happiness alone does not make a person good. An un-good person can be happy, and a good person can be unhappy from time to time; one concept is not mutually exclusive with the other.
Furthermore, both happiness and fulfillment naturally require a person to be conscious of both the humanity of others and the humanity of themselves if the feelings are to be sustained, as happiness is not only derived from doing good deeds for others, but also from the internal self. Mengzi states, ”The myriad things are complete in us. There is no greater joy than to reflect on ourselves and become sincere. There is nothing closer to humanity than to vigorously practice shu.” While humans innately hold the ability to be wholly good, the practice of shu, the consideration of others, distinguishes humanity from any other form of life.
We humans are, generally speaking, social beings by nature who are both ready and able to give and receive love, however this course of human nature can be altered by outside forces acting upon a person in development. Take for example a child who otherwise would have grown up to be a good person, living in an atmosphere where harm could be done to them. It is certainly plausible that the child, surrounded by danger and unhappiness could learn to hold distrust in the goodness of humanity. This distrust makes them less likely to engage in the practices of Qi and Shu, which would make them less happy and push them further away from the ultimate goal of goodness.
Furthermore, the child who distrusts humanity and who sees not the need to practice Qi and Shu will in-turn become unhappy and restart the cycle once more. Through no fault of their own, the child will be perceived by humans who are afraid of other humans to be bad. If a child is taught through their interactions with their environment and the people with which they share that environment that has the ability to be both good and happy, and can perpetuate the goodness and happiness of others, they would likely treat people with kindness and fairness. If a child has been harmed or taught that the world is unloving, they are likely to treat other humans as if they have not any good intention.
This fact of sociology is made digestible and evident in several works of modern literature, the most relevant of the lot being Ta-Nehisi Coates’ own account of his childhood in his abridged autobiographical letter to his ston entitled, “Between the World and Me.” He maintains in this work that his youth growing up in Baltimore was spent with his guards up, out of fear for his own life from the police, and from his fellow members of society. The seemingly insurmountable misfortunes that Coates details throughout the piece derive mainly from the general geographic location which he was born in, and idea he calls “The Dream.” — “The Dream,” in this context refers to the inverse of his childhood experience. The people that get to experience “The Dream” are lucky enough to be born into families with some money, who live in communities with a low crime rate, usually in the suburbs, who go to good schools, and who get good jobs. In Coates’ depiction of “The Dream,” the people that usually live in it are usually, but not always, white, middle to upper-middle class Americans.
Similarly, it is evident from the events of Mengzi’s early life that the atmosphere in which a person is raised can drastically alter the course of that person’s life. Mengzi’s mother moved her family three times before settling on a location before settling near a school because she didn’t like how their surroundings influenced her son. This relocation, while clearly not the defining moment in Mengzi’s life that determined his ultimate goodness, created an environment that nurtured academic pursuits and human decency in accordance to Confucian teachings that set him down the path towards goodness. He, unlike Coates’, was lucky enough to find his way into a version of “The Dream.”
Qi, Shu and Li cannot manifest out of nothing. It is easy to stagnate and skirt by in life under the radar; not causing any disruption; doing the bare minimum; resigning to be neither good nor bad. It is more difficult to be good. In a conversation with one of his students, Mengzi says, “Those who follow their greater self become great people whereas those who follow their lesser self become lesser people… The senses of hearing and sight are unable to think and are thus obscured by (material) things. When one thing acts on another thing, they can be led astray. It is the function of the mind to think. If it thinks it will find the answer, but if it doesn’t think, it won’t…”
—
Works Cited
“Analects of Confucius” [“Analects of Confucius”]. Indiana.edu, Indiana State College, www.indiana.edu/~p374/Analects_of_Confucius_(Eno-2015).pdf. Accessed 22 Oct. 2018.
“Mencius” [“Mencius”]. Pursuit of Happiness, Inc, Wordpress, www.pursuit-of-happiness.org/history-of-happiness/mencius/.
“Mengzi” [“Mengzi”]. Indiana.edu, Indiana State college, www.indiana.edu/~p374/Mengzi.pdf. Accessed 22 Oct. 2018.
Taylor, Rodney L. “Confucius and the Teaching of Goodness” [“Confucius and the Teaching of Goodness”]. Huffington Post, 17 June 2011, www.huffingtonpost.com/rodney-l-taylor-phd/confucius-and-the-teachin_b_877131.html. Accessed 22 Oct. 2018.