The Virtue Project - Day One: Filial Piety & My Mom
Master You said, "A young person who is filial and respectful of his elders rarely becomes the kind of person who is inclined to defy his superiors, and there has never been a case of one who is disinclined to defy his superiors stirring up rebellion. The gentleman applies himself to the roots. 'Once the roots are firmly established, the Way will grow.' Might we not say that filial piety and respect for elders constitute the root of Goodness?"
Filial piety, in short, consists of adhering to the older ways as transmitted by the parents, typically in classical Chinese culture, the father. So, given the Thanksgivinginess of yesterday, I thought that might be a good one to focus on, especially since that was the day when I'm most likely to spend the most time around a parent, specifically today my mom.
So, among the other six virtues that I'm looking at, I was attempting to treat my mom as a model for behavior. This was, in general, not difficult; she's a pretty good person (in that she does things that a good person would do; as I've discussed before, I can't know that she's good because I can't know with certainty the reasons for her actions). But I helped quite a bit with the preparation for Thanksgiving, as my wife and I hosted and she wasn't feeling well. This was especially true in the clean-up, when, for about half of it, it was my mother and I working while my wife put her feet up and watched the game with her family. (This is not to say that she did little work by any stretch of the imagination. Earlier in the day, she was certainly working harder than I was.)
Hosting Thanksgiving is the sort of thing my mother would do - and the sort of thing that she oftendiddo when I was younger. Being a vegetarian, Thanksgiving can be a rough holiday. But, thanks in large part to her good cooking, it's probably my favorite holiday. And hers, too. Bam. Filial piety achieved!
In all seriousness, though (and wait for the discussion of my troubles with sincerity), I spent some time thinking yesterday how much I'm like my mother. Beyond the above, the similarities are probably too numerous to list here. We both don't eat meat, in part for ethical reasons - though her reasons stem more from the ethics than mine, which have a lot to do with just sort of finding it gross in concept and practice. We're both sarcastic. We both have little tolerance for ignorance. The list goes on.
And that's not to say that I'm unlike my father, even though my parents are twoverydifferent people. But, for the first part of my life, they were my two most significant models of behavior, so it's probably no surprise that I wound up being a lot like both of them. Maybe the issue with filial piety is that it might as well be a virtue since we're bound to follow our parents' rules anyway. Likely, this would have been even more true in classical China, where children would have come into less contact with people outside of the family on a regular basis.
But anyway, back to the filial piety. I made a concerted effort to be openly thankful to my mom today in a more sincere way than I usually am. I have no doubt that she knows that I appreciate her, but I don't usually say it directly - or without sarcasm. So, I gave her a few extra hugs today and told her a few more times than I would have otherwise that I appreciate her efforts.
However, I'm not sure that I can say I really prioritized this virtue yesterday. Most of the way I behave was based on what I thought was right, and I didn't spend much time stopping to think, "What would my mom or dad do in this situation?" Then again, I didn't face any moral complications that really made me scratch my head.
So, on to the other six and how those worked out...
Benevolence - Not exactly a gold star day for me. Without going into too many specifics here so as to have any of this get back to anyone, I was a bit snarky about a few people. I made some comments, though not to any of those people, that would likely have been hurtful had they heard them. Also, there were some moments of frustration with people (again, keeping it vague) where I thought some unpleasant things - though I certainly didn't vocalize them. Beyond that, though, I think all of the things I did were meant to be kind. There was accidentally making my wife's cousin's six-year-old daughter sob uncontrollably when I picked her up and carried her outside and then came back in and locked the door, but I was goofing around and thought she was, too. According to her mom, who was surprisingly cool with what had happened, her daughter was upset both because she was scared of being outside alone and because she was sort of playing it up for effect. After the daughter calmed down a bit, I did apologize, and I doubt she'll be scarred for life. She was hitting me in the face with a magazine in no time.
Courage -Does having the guts to apologize to a six-year-old count? I don't think my courage was particularly challenged, either positively or negatively.
Dutifulness -Since it was the first day of a four day weekend, there wasn't much going on in terms of my professional duties as a teacher - but I did check my email. I didn't grade, though there was a lot of other work going on that needed to be attended to. Could I have instead of playing Chime for about an hour after Thanksgiving was over? Yep. On the other hand, my duties as a husband (another role that I self-selected and that comes with certain requirements for my behavior) were, I think, well fulfilled. You'd have to ask my wife about her perception of that. I know I took longer to get up and rolling in the morning than she wanted me to...
Purity -I'll have a lot to say when I make this my focus virtue for the day, but in short, I did think about whether or not there's anything I do regularly that might seem inappropriate. For the things that might be considered that way - not always washing my hands after using the bathroom, for example - I made sure that I corrected that yesterday. The other side of purity (and the one that I sort of take issue with), telling people when they have transgressed, didn't happen today. As happens in any gathering, there were some instances where I thought someone was behaving inappropriately. However, I bit my tongue, as I generally think that the correction of others' behavior is often not appropriate. While at a diner with friends (a nice annual tradition), though, I joined in with another friend in telling someone that they were behaving inappropriately (again, being vague).
Sincerity - If sarcasm and sincerity are incompatible - and I think they probably are - well... Being a deeply sarcastic person (it's a defense mechanism), I found this impossible to do. While my sarcasm was not to keep people at a distance or prevent them from knowing my true feelings on an issue, I still was sarcastic. My wife is sarcastic. My brother-in-law is sarcastic. My mom is sarcastic. My friends are sarcastic. And I saw all of them on Thanksgiving. Despite some efforts to not have that come out, it still did. It's how I know to interact with them. I think invariably today, this took the form of comments with a literal meaning so clearly untrue in order to convey the exact opposite. Also, I don't think I was misinterpreted yesterday. However, I was certainly not sincere in my words in the most literal sense. If sincerity means no sarcasm, I am likely to collapse along the way many times with respect to this virtue.
Trustworthiness -I remember telling one lie in order to spare someone's feelings (which, as I have said in earlier posts, I think is usually consistent with virtue ethics, as benevolence usually outweighs trustworthiness), but I immediately backpedaled a bit in order to make a slightly different statement in order to be both kind and honest. Overall, I think I did well on this one. The most honest point of the day was, likely, telling my mom that the mashed potatoes (the crown jewel of her cooking) tasted a bit off, likely because the crock pot she had them in managed to burn some of them. She had asked me directly, so I answered honestly; also, since she takes so much pride in her cooking, we have a deal that I'll be completely honest with her about it and she won't get offended (so far, so good). She immediately agreed about the potatoes and told me she was asking to see if she was the only one who noticed they were off.
So there you go. That's day one of this little project. If you give this a shot, feel free to share some thoughts in the comments. It's an interesting experiment thus far.
