Another important advocacy of Confucius is good manners (礼) and feeling ashamed (恥) for improper behaviors. Confucius said: “Educating the people to follow the government instructions, and using laws and punishments to restrain the people’s behaviors, the result is the people will try to avoid punishments but not feeling ashamed to break the laws. Educating the people to appreciate the benevolence of the government, using codes of good manners to regulate the peoples’ behaviors, the result is the people will feel ashamed for having bad manners and therefore self-regulate to have good conducts.” (道之以政，齐之以刑，民免而无耻；道之以德，齐之以礼，有耻且格。) The intention is good, as far as the collective interest is concerned. People who agree with Collectivism principle will accept the practice of giving a group priority over each individual in it. However, to people who prefer Individualism, it is unacceptable to brainwash the people with artificial/man made codes of good manners (like programming the peoples’ minds with computer codes) and make individuals feel ashamed of themselves for something that they shouldn’t have. The codes of good manners tend to unify the peoples’ behaviors. It conditions the people to idolize good manners and hate the so-called bad manners that are not really bad. It is similar to having a common standard for beautiful, and people are then conditioned to idolize beautiful looks and hate ugly looks. People become intolerant of differences and diversity. In other words, the people are infected with allergy; anything that doesn’t look beautiful in their opinion is considered ugly and it can cause people to feel unable to accept or tolerate it. People start to find joy in bullying anyone who dresses differently, eats differently, interacts differently, behaves differently, having different opinions, or anyone who doesn’t want to follow “rules” in general. They start to find ways to be mean to innocent individuals. The bullying may be in the form of criticizing, making unsolicited suggestions, name calling, insults, teasing, intimidation, homophobic or racist remarks, verbal abuse, isolation, badmouthing, to physical aggression. In other words, bullies are usually created by other bullies. The intolerance of differences shown by the schools and parents make the children intolerant of differences; this is a result of leadership by examples. They normalize bullying, so they don’t actually know they are bullying. There are so many religious fighters who cannot tolerate the existence of people with different religions; hence, the discrimination and killing of innocent people, locally and abroad. “Men never commit evil so fully and joyfully as when they do it for religious convictions.” The fighters are missionary men and women from the “moral high ground” (at least they think they are), therefore intolerant of people from the “moral low land” or “second-class humans”. They are not uneducated hooligans. They do bad things for “good” reasons with “good” intentions; and they are so “selfless” to sacrifice themselves for the “good” cause. The ends always find “good” reasons to justify the means.
Tolerance is the power to forgive (恕). If the schools and parents are powerless to forgive, how can they expect the children to have tolerance? One day, Confucius told his disciple, Zeng Shen: “Shen, my philosophies can all be related by one fundamental principle.” Zeng Shen replied: “Understood.” After Confucius left, the other disciples asked Zeng Shen: “What is the meaning?” Zeng Shen said: “The philosophies of our teacher can all be related to Honesty and Forgiveness.” (子曰： “参乎，吾道一以贯之。” 曾子曰： “唯。” 子出，门人问曰： “何谓也？” 曾子曰： “夫子之道，忠恕而已矣。”) Honesty (忠) means truly coming from the heart (忠于事，忠于言，忠于人，忠于己). Loyalty is an act of dishonesty if it doesn’t come from the heart; although some people like it that way regardless. When you are honest, to yourself and to others, everything you said comes from your heart. Nothing is artificial or pretentious, although you may not be right all the time. You will be honest to the king as much as being honest to the people. You will be honest in doing your job, and never make any promise that you don’t intend to keep. You will be honest to yourself, be who you are and not pretend to be someone you are not. If your heart is full of the capacity to forgive, you will be able to tolerate differences and not insist on conformance, although you like people to show good manners.
Another day, Confucius told another disciple, Zi Gong: “Ci, do you think I am someone who learns a lot and becomes knowledgeable by memorizing everything that I’ve learnt?” Zi Gong replied: “I think so. Isn’t it true?” Confucius said: “Not really. I have one fundamental principle to relate and bind together all my knowledge.” (子曰： “赐也，女以予为多学而识之者与？” 对曰： “然，非与？” 曰： “非也！予一以贯之。”) Anything that has nothing to do with Honesty and Forgiveness isn’t Confucianism even if Confucians say it is. You don’t have to become knowledgeable by memorizing a lot of thing that you’ve learnt. You just need to let Honesty and Forgiveness guide you in your words and actions, and in making decisions to move or to stop (言行举止). Confucius said: “Compassion includes being respectful, forgiving, truthful, hardworking, and benevolent. Being respectful to everybody will avoid being humiliated. Being forgiving will be loved by everybody. Being truthful will be trusted by everybody. Being hardworking will bring success. Being benevolent (i.e. showing the people how they can benefit themselves by following certain techniques or methods) will be able to influence others to work for common good.” (恭、宽、信、敏、惠。恭则不侮，宽则得众，信则人任焉，敏则有功，惠则足以使人。)
Some children who are bullied by the schools, parents, and peers may become another kind of bullies. Because they are different (don’t like to follow “rules” but they are not violent), and they refuse to change their behaviors in the so-call “socialization” or complying with the norms, they become very defensive. They feel threatened by people who are “normal” or comply with the norms. They become intolerant of “normal” people. As time goes, the allergic condition becomes acute and they may attack first upon encountering “normal” people, like snakes biting humans who inadvertently walk by. They may think that they have to choose between being the bullies or the victims, and there is no third choice. They think “good people are bullied by people, non-violent horses are ridden by people” (人善被人欺，马善被人骑).
Do you feel sad to ask: “Where is the love?” Can you feel the love? There is a shortage of unconditional love (慈), but people mistaken it as a shortage of compassion (仁) and righteousness (义); hence they call for everybody to show compassion and righteousness, instead of love. A person with a lot of love will not be an angry person. It is good for him and everybody around him.
When Confucius was the Justice Minister of Lu state, a father lodged a complaint that his son had no filial piety (孝). Confucius arrested the son, but did not make any judgment or hand out any sentence for three months. In the end, the father decided to retract the complaint, and Confucius freed the son. A minister was unhappy with the way Confucius handled the case. He said: “Confucius lied to me. He told me that filial piety is the most important fundamental principle in governing a country. Now, there is a case where he can kill one person in order to set an example which will deter other people from being rebellious to their parents. Instead of showing justice is served, he frees the offender.” When Confucius heard that, he said: “When the forefathers made a law, they would clearly explain the objectives of the law, and they abided by the law themselves. If some people break the law, the leaders would praise the rest of the people who follow the law, so that all the people would slowly be influenced to follow the law. If some people still break the law, the leaders would remove the unimportant parts of the law so that it became simplified for easy implementation. After using this practice for a few years, the people would accept and abide by the law. If a few individuals still break the law, then the punishment can be handed out. Everybody would then know why the offenders were punished.” Not educating the people but punish them when they break the law; this is an act of punishing innocent people (不教其民，而听其狱，杀不辜也。). The people are innocent if they don’t know anything about the law. The law has deterrence power but you can choose not to use them to scare the people; you can choose not to execute the punishment (i.e. catch the offenders, educate them, and then release them) (威厉而不试，刑错而不用). Honesty (忠) and Forgiveness (恕) are more fundamental than filial piety (孝); without which filial piety is faked. Law and benevolence (in term of forgiveness) are like the two wings of a bird; both must work together to bring effective results. Some people refer to these as carrot and cane. The cane is mainly used to scare the children; you don’t have to actually whip them. It would be even better if you don’t even scare them with the cane; so that they do goods not due to fear of punishment. It is best to teach them to love each other than to punish them when they break a rule innocently. Children are usually innocent, not tainted by adult’s false definitions of right and wrong. They act naturally without thinking too much; they don’t always know how to relate what they do and the rules set by adults. Even adults have difficulty relating what they do and the puzzling laws of the government. The real Confucianism emphasizes teaching the people to have honesty and forgiveness, and teaching the people to have good manners, using leadership by example, is far better than making laws and punishing the offenders (德礼优于政刑，德礼为主、政刑为辅).
What happens today is much deviated from the forefathers’ way. The education system confuses the people (i.e. teaching the children to be intolerant of differences, to have a strong selfish desire for money aka success, to the negation of everything else), and the government makes so many complex laws, making the people so bewilder and unable to follow. The government then punishes the people. That is why the law enforcements are intensified but the offences are still overwhelming. (今之世则不然，乱其教，繁其刑，其民迷惑而堕焉。则从而制之，是以刑弥繁而邪不胜。)
A system which emphasizes rule-of-law (法家) and justice (义) basically focuses on hate rather than love. It advocates hatred toward people who break the law, instead of forgiving or giving the offenders a chance to repent. The use of force by the government or the schools is a form of violence. The system advocates the use of violence against “violence”. An eye for an eye only ends up making the world blind. A three-foot ridge is not tall but steep; therefore, even an empty cart cannot cross over. A fully loaded cart can easily climb up a hundred-foot hill because the slope is gradual. (三尺之岸而虚车不能登也，百仞之山任负车登焉，何则？陵迟故也。) It is a steep order for expecting the children to comply with all kinds of silly rules within a short period of time without proper education. Confucius taught his disciples to handle hostility with a diplomatic manner (以直报怨) to get their message across, using reasons and compassion to convince people to change without damaging the relationship. Lao Zi taught us to handle hostility with love and kindness (以德报怨). Treat kindness with kindness too. There is no need to show different faces to kind friends and hostile people, because being kind is not about trying to get people to reciprocate; it is about self-conservation, of being who you are, a giant human with giant capacity (大人大量) to forgive. It is probably more effective than diplomatic manner in influencing hostile people to become more polite and friendly.
If someone is too sensitive and easily offended and, without second thought, he would use personal force or the government law to hammer obedience into anyone who offended him, it would reflect badly on the level of civilization. Truly civilized people (华夏) despise the use of violence, either at the personal level or the government level. Only barbarians (夷狄) like to use violence. Someone from a civilized nation but exhibit barbaric behaviors should be treated as a barbarian (夷狄而华夏者 则华夏之 华夏而夷狄者 则夷狄之).
RESILIENT KID 