Self-Help! The Good Kind! (re: Mencius & our Capricious World)

At 21, quarantine has led me to a place I never thought I would be, the self-help aisle. Well, as close as you can get on Amazon.

In search of a panacea to spring me from my sweat pant and burnt banana bread rut, and give me my next great quarantine startup idea, I read The Path: What Chinese Philosophers Can Tell Us About the Good Life by Michael Puett. Professor Puett brings his popular undergraduate lectures on Chinese Philosophy at Harvard to book form.

I found myself fixated on his chapter on Confucian thinker Mencius and our capricious world. I have never thought of myself as particularly religious, but apparently, I am as Protestant as they come. You see, as Puett explains, much of what we believe about fulfillment and success in America is the legacy of our Calvinist beginnings. Calvinist ideas like predestination and following God’s plan for individuals have translated in a less religious form through to the 21st Century. Look within to find your true self. Find the right career and soulmate and make rational decisions to realize your goals. Do these things and you will prosper and be fulfilled. All quotes easily pulled from your inspirational Instagram account of choice.  

Yet, this version of success takes for granted that we are stable and rational agents living and acting in a stable and rational world. I think the past couple of months have been proof enough that this is not the case. Pandemics kill indiscriminately. Injustices like the murder of Ahmaud Arbery banish any illusions that we live in a world with a just system of punishment and reward.

So, how can we make sense of this seemingly unpredictable world?

As with much of human angst, we are hardly revolutionary in asking this question.

Puett takes us back to the 4th Century BCE, to Confucian thinkers Mozi and Mencius. Mozi’s ideas resemble much of early Protestantism. Tian, or Heaven, is a moral deity who lays out clear guidelines of right and wrong in a stable and rational world. Society should encourage individuals to follow these guidelines via a system of rewards and punishments. Within his society, there are two systems of decision-making: rational choice, where we weigh costs and benefits to achieve the best outcomes, or gut-instinct, where we decide based on intuition.

Mencius on the other hand, had seen some shit. During the Warring States period, Mencius sought to begin a new dynasty founded on Confucian teachings. He was appointed as a minister under the Qi state. He finally had the platform to realize his vision! Yet, he ended up as little more than a means to justify his king’s aggression. Mencius returned home defeated. From this incredible disappointment, Mencius formed his understanding of a capricious and unstable world. Hard work did not necessarily mean prosperity. Bad deeds were not necessarily punished. For Mencius, we can only lead meaningful lives when we recognize that the world is governed by Ming, or the very contingency of life (Machiavelli’s Fortuna certainly rings a bell here). In a world of Ming, Mencius advocates for decision-making guided by synchronizing our emotional and rational senses in order to take into account the sensitivities of each unique situation. Instead of being at the mercy of Ming, or uncertainty, we can build response mechanisms that enable us to change as our realities change. This type of response mechanism enables us to be open to a changing future, instead of shutting it down.

Yet how can we cultivate this response? By growing our inherent goodness. We physically feel this goodness each time we perform an act of kindness, even something as small as smiling at a stranger. By repeating the actions that inspire this physical feeling we grow our goodness. Growing this feeling makes us better connected to our communities and the broader world and better able to respond to each situation we might contend with.

On a first read, this all seems impossibly abstract. But look again, and I think Mencius teaches us a lot for today’s world. He encourages us to hone our ability to respond to unpredictability. Build that five-year plan, but with a consciousness that you can accept both windfalls and bad luck. Instead of falling back on an imagined perfect system of punishment and reward, work to become a person who can distinguish between right and wrong and help build a system that better reflects this. He inspires us to recognize our capricious world and build the character to live within it.

For me, I have donned jeans and quit mourning the end of traditional college life. I am relishing new time with family, focusing on contributing to my communities, and learning to live in a realm of uncertainty - so that the next time the world inevitably throws us a punch, it’ll hurt a little less.