溫故知新 Old wisdom, today’s insight — ONGO
Are the Laws That Raised Me, Like a Parent, Something I Cannot Defy?
Does the duty owed to the parents who bore me carry the same weight as the duty owed to the state and laws that raised me?
One's homeland must be honored, revered, and served even more than one's parents.
This analogy of the state to a parent sparked a long debate in Western political philosophy over the grounds of obedience. Aristotle, in the Politics, inherited the analogy by seeing household and state as a continuum. Modern thinkers like Locke pushed back with social contract theory: obedience to the state arises from consent, not blood. Is duty to the state given without choice, as duty to a parent is — or can the state be remade by consent? This question is also the distant root of today's debates over civil disobedience.
Whenever duty to the state collides with individual conscience, this ancient analogy is summoned again — asking how to repay a debt owed to what made us, as we would to a parent.
To his friend Crito, who urges him to escape prison, Socrates personifies the Laws and lets them question him: they raised and educated him, so will he now turn on them simply because their verdict feels unjust?
📝I, Too, Stand Before It
To his friend Crito, who urges him to escape prison, Socrates personifies the Laws and lets them question him: they raised and educated him, so will he now turn on them simply because their verdict feels unjust? The Laws even claim they are to be honored more than one's own parents. I recognize how startling this analogy is. But what Socrates meant, I think, was not obedience for its own sake, but refusing to dodge responsibility toward what made you. I ask how honestly I acknowledge the debt I owe to what formed me — family or community alike.
✍️Your Answer
The lineage of the ancients ends here. Now it is your turn before the question. There is no right answer — only how you, today, would answer.
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