Peak Humanity: Part 2 — Who Will Create the Noble Village?
In my last essay, I acknowledged that the odds are stacked against humanity ever reaching its “best” or “highest” form. Now let’s ponder just who might allow us to beat those odds. Why, of course, the Noble Person. Meet the Junzi.
I have written before about how liberals are actually the best conservatives. Actual social and political and economic “conservatives” are always “conserving” the worst things. Might makes Right. Loyalty to the king (or pharaoh or pope or other strongman). Slavery. Patriarchy. Women’s subjugation. Domination of indigenous peoples. Inequality. Strict hierarchy. Stark conformity. Religious baloney. Racial superiority. Segregation. Exclusion. Their “freedom” (not yours). Corporate hegemony. Right to plunder nature. Suspicion, distrust, often hatred, of all “others.” Their “way of life,” which usually means someone else’s oppression. Pick up a history book. Turn to any page. There you will find conservatives on the wrong side of history, vehemently, often viciously, holding back progress. Conservatism is not called the “Ideology of Selfishness” for nothing.
Liberals, on the other hand, are the true “conservers” of virtue: truth, fairness, justice, liberty (for all), unity, some semblance of equality of personhood, love for one another, nature itself. The ancient dynamic through human history features the clash of conservatives conserving and liberals liberating. What do conservative conserve? Their own advantage, privilege and power. What do liberals liberate: anyone and anything being dominated, repressed or oppressed by conservatives conserving. How do conservatives react to these liberations? Badly.
Perhaps the best example in history of a liberal being the best conservative is Kongzi (Confucius). He sought to conserve the best of the past while liberating his society from the worst of “conservative” ignorance, selfishness, oppression and power-mongering.
Kongzi was a font of wisdom, but one of his best ideas was that of the exemplary gentleman, the “noble person,” which he called junzi. Yes, in his milieu, that meant a man… a man of prestige… perhaps even a prince. In a culture of strict hierarchy there was no shortage of men of lofty standing and power, but what set this man, the junzi, apart was not his status but his character, his honor, his integrity, his honesty, his care, his compassion, his humility, his benevolence, his discernment, his goodness. All age-old virtues that should be conserved.
Fast forward 25 centuries. In our modern societies might we not throw eligibility wide open for anyone to become a junzi? After all, the junzi was always self-created. A pathway could be offered, but only the individual could accept and walk it. In doing so, a great transformation occurs: the master realizes their highest calling is to be a servant: in service of the people and the planet. The pathway that Kongzi described is still there… still offered… awaiting… anyone who wishes to walk it.
The pathway itself seeks to create, activate, defend Ren, which is virtue, benevolence, goodness, the higher principle or ideal, humaneness. Strange that we would use the word “humaneness” to describe humanity at its best… when our default, self-absorbed “human-ness” is clearly nothing of the sort. But it’s the perfect term for what we should aspire to: our best self, our best selves, our best cultures, our best meaning and purpose: seekers of, defenders of… Ren!
It’s the precise opposite of selfishness, of separation, of superiority, the hallmarks of conservatism. It’s an orientation of being in the world where you take responsibility for making it better, for being of service, for helping, for sacrificing if need be to achieve a higher state of being for yourself and everything around you.
In Buddhism, a kindred concept is the Eightfold Path: right view, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. It all begins with right view. Your worldview. Your perspective. Your thinking. Again, this path is open to anyone. It’s my favorite tenet of Buddhism. But it leaves some wiggle room in terms of what is “right.” It doesn’t rise to the heroic, laser-focused on the virtues, actively serving and giving stance of the junzi and Ren.
It’s one thing to be “right,” and quite another to be “noble.” And who is going to build the Noble Village other than noble people?
This, then, a critical mass of junzis seeking, defending Ren, is what is required for humanity to reach toward its “apex” of being in this world, in this Universe.
Growing up in America I never knew this was an option. Instead, we are herded toward obeyance, rote conformity, cheesy patriotism, faux individualism, belief in wacky religions, materialism, consumerism, dutiful worker bee production and keen appreciation of a wide spectrum of questionable but unquestioned entertainment options. To become “successful” you rise to some higher rung on the hierarchy so as to be able to see over the heads of many, perhaps even most, of the crowd you associate with. Your status is revealed by the quantity and ostensible quality of the toys you accrue. And then you die. Whether your stay actually improved the world a whit is not something you ever thought to seriously contemplate. The average American goes out having exuded over 100,000 pounds of trash and eaten around seven thousand animals, all which would be unanimous in insisting that your life was a net negative for the world as a system.
If the junzi would have been a positive contributor to a feudal, warring Chinese state, a worldwide wave of them may now be humanity’s only hope of avoiding the worst of our own manifestations: our seeming inability to break completely out of our ancient selfishness that keeps eternally at cold or hot war, and incapable of fully coming together to solve gnarly problems. And the gnarliest problem ever encountered by humanity is one we, ourselves, created: Global Warming, an existential threat to not just our flimsy “civilizations” but to the viability of higher life forms on the planet. We have foolishly opened the Pandora’s Box of the Sixth Great Extinction Event. As a toxic cloud spews forth, heat waves sear, super-hurricanes thrash, tornadoes swarm, epic wildfires rage, ruinous floods rampage, decades-long droughts drag on, freaky winter events ravage, ice caps and glaciers and tundra melt, the seas rise and a cascade of ancillary systems-breakdowns commences, species disappear by the thousands, there is the distinct possibility we will be among the victims. A species so selfish it offed itself. Brilliant!
Like almost every human, I was conditioned to be a clannish clone. But no longer. I am turning junzi. I am embracing the path of Ren. First and foremost, I am an Earthling. My allegiance is to Mother Earth, and to the virtues we humans have identified as true and just and good. Many others around the world have embraced this way of being, even if they call it something else. Millions more are needed. It doesn’t have to be everyone. That’s not going to happen. But the clones will follow the leaders. A critical mass of “noble persons” could just turn the tide of not just climate change, but humanity. We only have to conquer one thing: our own selfishness.
For me, it’s cool that this idea came from an old Chinese man, long ago, a far away culture, a modern “enemy,” an authoritative regime seemingly intent on beating us at our own materialistic, consumerist game, belching forth cheap crap faster than any gang of hucksters in history. But the West embracing Eastern (or indigenous) ideas shows wisdom and virtue is widespread throughout the human family. We are not so different as we think. Nor are we as separated from the entire rest of nature as we act.
The second-most famous sage of Confucianism was Mengzi (Mencius). He believed, as do I, that most people are naturally gifted with goodness and compassion. They are capable of overriding their self-interest to do the right thing. As proof, he posited what would happen if in a village square a random toddler, belonging to no one present, were to walk into danger of falling into a well. Who would not hasten to save the child? No one.
Well, as a “Whole Liberal,” I can assure you that we aren’t so naive as to believe there aren’t psychopaths and sociopaths and assorted villains who would watch with glee as the child plunged out of sight, but I think all liberals can concur with the basic idea. Conservatives don’t share this magnanimity and optimism. They peg the mass of humanity as sinful, dirty and dangerous, not to be trusted. But, as ever, they are wrong. They refuse to acknowledge we are all related. We are really just one family. Humans have a sense of shame, a sense of guilt, a conscience which helps guide how they think and behave. And it’s not just a species-centric thing. Any movie director can tell you, “Kill as many humans as you want in your film. Just don’t kill the kid… or the dog.”
We cry when we see the innocent harmed. Our heart is warmed when we witness a child or animal being saved. What does this tell us? That we are all junzis in waiting. Once the word gets out that this is an option, who knows how many will heed the call to build their best self. And in the process a better society. In time, the Noble Village?
It’s not a dream. It’s a vision, and a goal, and a blueprint, and now we know who can make it happen. We just have to find them. We just have to become them.
The junzis… defending Ren!
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No Hate.
No Violence.
All Life is Sacred.
The Universe is Magnificent & Beautiful.
Love is the Way.
Copyright 2024, Rusty Reid
