溫故知新 Old wisdom, today’s insight — ONGO
Must I Love Everyone Equally?
Is loving those near me more a bias, or the natural order in which love flows?
Love one another without distinction, and benefit one another (Mozi).
Mozi saw the world's chaos as springing from people loving only themselves and their own. So he asked for "universal love" (jian ai) — love others' countries as your own, others' parents as your own, without distinction. Mencius countered head-on: to regard another's father exactly as your own is finally not to hold your own father special — a doctrine that "denies the father" and violates natural human affection. Confucians saw an order in love, flowing from near to far (loving one's kin first). The question split in the West too — Stoic cosmopolitanism and Christian universal love lean toward Mozi, while the commonsense "love begins nearby" leans toward Mencius. Must love be equal to all, or does it flow in order like water?
In an age quick to split "us" from "them," the old debate over how far to widen love burns anew.
In this debate my heart goes both ways.
📝I, Too, Stand Before It
In this debate my heart goes both ways. Loving my family more than others' is natural, and the universal love that denies this feels somehow unreal. Yet Mozi's warning bites too — loving only one's own finally builds walls and splits the world. Perhaps the answer lies between — love begins nearby but must not stop there, widening ever outward. With the heart that loves my parents, to consider the old age of others' parents too. I quietly look at where my love has come to a stop, and at that boundary.
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