Confucius said: “Only the highly intelligent and the extremely stupid people cannot change their behaviors.” (唯上智与下愚不移。) If one is spiritually intelligent, nobody can change his mind about his way of life, like the Buddha. On the other hand, if one’s intelligence is at the other extreme of the spectrum, nobody can make him change his behaviors too. He is not necessarily stupid cognitively; he is probably bound by certain doctrines and become inflexible and not free. His ego and instinct will make him defensive and rejects any idea which runs counter to what he has been mis-educated to believe. He is not necessarily wrong, although he is not right. A child will also become defensive when he is criticized; don’t punish him, be tolerant, and let him have a space to cool down. Intolerance breeds intolerance. You need to have Intelligence to be able to be firm with your belief so that you are not easily swayed by anybody’s words. If you believe abandonment of desire, and abandonment of emotional attachment, will lead to having no F.O.G. and be truly happy, you must have the intelligence to sustain the belief. Otherwise, you will be lured by the Dark Side and start having more and more desires, until you are crushed by your excessive desires. “The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.” Stupidity will make a person thinks he is capable of doing unlimited things; whether it is about conquering the world or to save the world. Stupidity will make him accumulate unlimited desires.
Lao Zi said: “Governing a big country should be like cooking a small fish. Applying Dao in governing the world, evil tricks will not become accepted belief or practices. Not only the devil will not become god, the existence of the fallacy will not harm other people. Not only the fallacy will not harm other people, the Sage will also not harm anybody or disapprove the belief. Because both the Sage and the fallacy do not harm anybody, therefore both can interplay and bring benevolence to everybody.” (治大国若烹小鲜；以道莅天下，其鬼不神；非其鬼不神也，其神不伤人也；非其神不伤人也，圣人亦弗伤也。夫两不相伤，故德交归焉。) We can’t change everybody. A wise leader will be careful not to do too much or too little, not too haste or too slow. Different people with different beliefs are natural and not a problem, so long as the people can all live in peace. There are benefits to keep both devils and gods around; none should be eliminated. “Life would not long remain possible in the absence of microbes.” – Louis Pasteur. The world naturally contains a diverse of things; embrace all of them rather than dividing them into just two categories of good versus bad. Don’t try to make everybody the same; otherwise the unnecessary intervention will harm one group over another. The thriving group will do harm, and the losing group will do other kind of harm. War breeds wars, peace breeds prosperity. People with strong desires and people with no desire can live in harmony and complement each other. Capitalism and Socialism can exist together although there are major disagreements between them. You must have tolerance. But should you tolerate bullies who are intolerant and want to harm you? Some schools, parents, bosses, and politicians are bullies too. We must tolerate their intolerance to a certain extent. However, unlimited tolerance will lead to no tolerance. Too much tolerance for the bullies will cause destruction of harmony, and everybody will either be dead or loses the capacity to be tolerant. Tolerance for Hitler, and some people even admired him for his “success” and “patriotism”, led to World War II. “Peace is not an absence of war; it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, and justice.” – Baruch Spinoza. Peace is possible in the presence of war. Happiness is possible in the absence of total freedom.
Meng Zi said: “Yang Zi advocated for Capitalism; he said that everybody should be selfish, so much so that no one would lose one hair to benefit the world. Mo Zi advocated for Socialism; he said that everybody should love everyone else equally with no preference. The bruises from head to toe resulting from his labor of love would not stop him from saving the world. Zi Mo advocated for holding the middle ground. Being pragmatic by holding the middle ground may be closer to the desired solution. However, strictly holding the middle ground without the flexibility to make variation is equal to holding strongly on one principle. The bad thing about holding strongly on one principle is that it would harm the real Dao, i.e. detrimental to the real benevolence for the people. Some people would insist on strictly following only one principle and pay no heed to hundreds of problems waiting to be resolved.” (孟子曰： “杨子取为我，拔一毛而利天下，不为也。墨子兼爱，摩顶放踵利天下，为之。子莫执中，执中为近之，执中无权，犹执一也。所恶执一者，为其贼道也，举一而废百也。”) The term “pragmatism” has been frequently misused to justify the so-called “necessary evils”. Adam Smith said: “Every individual necessarily labors to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it … He intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for society that it was no part of his intention. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.” Adam Smith, like Yang Zi, is not wrong, but he is not right too. Karl Marx, like Mo Zi, is not wrong, but he is not right too. Capitalism and Socialism can complement each other. Inequality in Capitalist countries is lessening due to the threat of Socialism. Authoritarianism in Socialist countries is lessening due to the threat of Capitalism. Unfortunately, Capitalism still manages to heighten inequality in the world and harming the livelihood of poorer people, although it also brings many good developments. The financial bullies must be stopped from stealing the wealth of the people (via printing of money and stuff their own pockets). If the rich people don’t care about the poor, and continue to use the government machinery to enrich themselves at the expense of the poor, why would the poor people care about the rich? Obviously, they will use whatever weapons they can grab to defend themselves, including voting for self-serving Socialist politicians (who enrich themselves) even though the poor people can only get the crumb.
Destroying Capitalism and embracing Socialism is not the solution. In Capitalism, people race to become clever so that they can cheat other people for the sake of making profit; but in Socialism, people race to become stupid because they can enjoy the same benefit without having to work hard. In the end, the Socialist leader command the absolute power, in the name of “distributing equal prosperity to all”, and the system go full circle to Crony Capitalism where the elites fight it out in the government for power and personal prosperity. Can you imagine what will happen if the workers in a factory are allowed to elect the CEO and management team of the factory? Socialist countries did have elections (sometime with guns and fists), but the leader become permanent in his position after the elections. Democratic countries have periodic elections, but the leaders can only win if they use Socialist propaganda and promise to distribute a lot of welfare to the people (although they argue that Welfare State is different from Socialism). If the majority of electorates need government welfare to survive, it means the people are not prosperous, and the leaders are just capitalizing on the people’s misfortune. The leaders mine or derive POWER from the “unconscious” electorates. It would be better to progress in a direction where the people become self-reliant, and aiming to reach a state where there is no more need for the government to do anything (为无为). All the major religions tell the believers to love their neighbors, but unfortunately everybody just wait for somebody’s love. “It is not the world that’s so bad but what we’re doing to it. It would be a wonderful world only we’d give it a chance. If lots more of us loved each other, we’d solve lots more problems; and then the world would be a gasser.”
You may think that life is unfair. Some people think the Nature is unfair; therefore unfairness is not really a problem and you need to live with that. The positive side is, upon accepting the reality, you are motivated to improve yourself out of the disadvantage group; alternatively, you can choose to stay happy and do nothing because you don’t see being in the “disadvantage” group is a problem. The negative side is some people will use this as an excuse to extenuate their crimes of worsening inequality and turn a blind eye on hunger and poverty which are indirectly caused by their greed. They blame the poor for not putting in enough efforts to improve themselves. Some people think unfairness is a problem and they have to fight and make the world a fairer place. The negative side is you will be unhappy all the time because you refuse to accept the Ways things are but want to change them into what you wish to see, and they are not happening. Refusing to accept the norm is choosing to make unhappiness as the norm. The positive side is the unhappiness may drive you to do something about the norm; as if you know best what is right and what is wrong (like what happened in the Communist era). Some people think the enforced fairness is unfair; some people think unfairness is fair, even though the unfairness is sanctioned by the government through various forms of cronyism and protectionism for the rich or the too-big-to-fail. The duck has short legs and the crane has long neck. Are these fair or unfair? The human distinctions are false; that is the problem. It is better to look at them as neither fair nor unfair. Mourning over the distinctions is unwise. Stay happy, have no desire, and do what is not wrong to help the people save themselves. Don’t aim to accomplish something great; move one step at a time instead of trying to jump from one milestone to the next.
Xu Wu Gui was invited to meet King Wu of the Wei State. The King was glad and said: “I have wanted to meet you for a long time. I want to love my people, and put an end to war for the sake of justice. Am I doing right?” Xu Wu Gui replied: “You mustn’t do that. Your “love” for your people puts them in great danger. The war in the name of justice is the cause of war after war; it won’t put an end to war. If you do it, it will end in disaster. The desire for the fame of accomplishing something great will lead to the use of evil means to achieve the target. Although you have grand intention of love and justice, it is fraudulent because it becomes mere pretext for self-assertion and aggression. The desire for a form will lead to creation of fakes. Success will lead to arrogant. War breeds wars. You must not send your army like a flock of cranes flying over a tower. Don’t show your military strength in front of the palace of your neighboring countries. Don’t be greedy for unnecessary things. Don’t use your cleverness to fool the people. Don’t invent clever war plan to defeat the enemies that you make in the first place. Don’t use war to win over other countries. There is no justice in killing the soldiers and civilians of other countries and occupying their lands. It only serves to satisfy one’s greed and have nothing to do with justice. There is no victor but losers. It is best that you abandon your plan to be a “loving and equitable ruler”; don’t intend to start a war to end all wars. Learn to be truly sincere. Harmonize with the sincerity of the Nature and don’t disturb it. The people will then be free of the threat of death. And war will end by itself!”
RESILIENT KID 