溫故知新 Old wisdom, today’s insight — ONGO
Should Even an Avoidable Misfortune Be Called "Fate"?
Even if all is Heaven's mandate, must one accept as "one's own fate" even the misfortune brought on by courting danger oneself?
Nothing is not the mandate — yet one must receive it by following its upright form.
This question tuned the temperature of fatalism within Confucianism. If Confucius's knowing of the mandate was a humble compliance with Heaven, Mencius set a condition on compliance — dividing the upright mandate from the errant, he kept a place for human effort and moral responsibility. Not to stand beneath the wall: that is the human portion. From the other side Zhuangzi passed even this distinction into a resting-in-destiny that receives all as mandate, while Xunzi split the offices of Heaven and man to press human agency, and Mozi refuted fatalism whole as "anti-fate." How much is Heaven's portion and how much mine — Mencius's upright mandate first carved the marks on that scale.
In an age quick to seal everything as "unavoidable," Mencius's question — which of it was truly unavoidable — sets comfort and responsibility back on the scale.
Mencius warned against swallowing fate whole.
📝I, Too, Stand Before It
Mencius warned against swallowing fate whole. Nothing is not the mandate, he said, yet to die standing beneath a collapsing wall is not one's upright mandate. He split the mandate in two — the upright, which comes unavoidably after one has done all, and that which folly brings upon itself. I sense this question is a sharp blade against using fatalism as an alibi for regret. "It was all fate" can console, but it can also excuse. I stand before it too, honestly counting how much of what I call fate my own carelessness in fact called down.
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