#zai wo

[dailyanalect]

6:26

宰我問曰：「仁者，雖告之曰：『井有仁焉。』其從之也？」子曰：「何為其然也？君子可逝也，不可陷也；可欺也，不可罔也。」

Zai Wo asked, “If you told a humane person that there was someone trapped in a well, wouldn’t he jump after to save them?”

Confucius replied: “Why would he do that? A gentleman would go to the well to look, but would not jump in; he can be taken advantage of, but cannot be deceived.”

--

You may remember Zai Wo from Confucius’s commentary on his sleeping habits.

Here, Zai Wo is using an incredibly common form of argumentation, arguing that someone who subscribed to Confucius’ doctrines would necessarily be extremely gullible, and act stupidly therefrom. This type of argumentation is still common today “but by your logic, you’d have to do [stupid thing].” Its ancient pedigree, though, does not improve the argument, which is fundamentally premised on “anyone who follows this doctrine is fundamentally incapable of observation and judgement.”

Confucius deals with it appropriately -- a liar can take advantage of a humane person, but cannot actually cause them to take stupid or harmful action, because a humane person is still capable of observation and judgement. If a liar tells them that someone is trapped in a well, then they will go to the well to see if there’s someone in need of help, but they won’t simply leap into the well without first verifying what’s going on. A disingenuous liar can cost them their time, but not their life.

This is an important and compelling message in the modern context of the internet, where we swim in a sea of propaganda, malicious deception, half-truths, and innuendo. What’s worse, we are often confronted with friends and relatives who have become deeply emotionally attached to the truth value of these things, who will react with anger when corrected or contradicted. How can we deal with this, without becoming either callous (which presents its own difficulties) or being taken in by deception?

Confucius, characteristically, has a simple answer. A humane person will investigate a serious allegation -- enough to see whether or not it is true -- but will not be taken in by it until they’ve determined the truth value. They may be briefly taken advantage of -- it costs them their time and effort to determine the truth of a particular claim -- but they cannot be taken in, committing themselves to a falsehood, because they will verify the claim before believing it.

It’s good advice.

[wwyhd-blog]

On "rotten wood"

"Zai Wo was sleeping during the daytime. The Master said, 'Rotten wood cannot be carved, and a wall of dung cannot be plastered. As for Zai Wo, what would be the use of reprimanding him?'"

- Kongzi's Analects, 5.10

Most of this blog is about how great I think Confucian philosophy is, so I thought I'd include a post about a point of Kongzi's that I don't agree with - and it's this one.

In short, the gist of this saying is there's no point in trying to help some people. In 6.10, he talks about the need for a balance between what he calls "native substance" and "cultural refinement" in order for someone to be a true gentleman. Parsing the terms a little bit makes it clear that the first necessary element - native substance - is something that the person either has or does not. It is "native" to the person...or it isn't. It cannot be taught. The second necessary element - cultural refinement - can only be taught, but the word in Slingerland's translation serves to emphasize the first. "Refining" is the process of taking what is already present and purifying or improving it. (You can't have refined sugar without having sugar to begin with.)

Clearly, Kongzi's stance is that without enough native substance, a person can never become a true gentleman; the best he could hope for is to become, as he puts it, "a foppish pedant" (again, 6.10).

I have a tough time buying, though, that there are any people born unable to become truly good people. There are quite a lot of things that someone either can be great at or not (e.g., I will never be a world-class bodybuilder; that was never going to happen based on my genetics; someone born with a below-average IQ will never be a great playwright). But with all of those things, one can learn to be reasonably good at them. Yes, I'll never be a bodybuilder, but I could bench my body weight with training. Someone who isn't that smart could never write a great play, but they could write a play.

But even there, being morally good strikes me as even more democratic. Everyone has the ability to be good - since being good at being good is good enough. So when we start excluding people because they lack some "native substance," then we're moving in quite the wrong direction.

Now, to be fair to Kongzi, it's possible that he would draw the line between a good person and a gentleman (a truly great person) - but I'm not entirely sure that there would be anything that would necessarily prevent anyone from not being a great person - except in the most extreme cases. Most psychological conditions can be treated with medication, therapy, or a combination of the two. Low intellect doesn't preclude someone from being morally excellent - just as high intellect doesn't necessarily cause some to be morally excellent. As Kongzi points out elsewhere (7.28), if we simply desire goodness, we will find that it is already there.

So yes, rotten wood cannot be carved, but I'm hesitant to label too many people as inherently rotten. Now, the question of when it's appropriate to try to "carve" someone is another one entirely - one that I might well write on next. That's been on my mind lately, too.