溫故知新 Old wisdom, today’s insight — ONGO
Can Only the Good Truly Love and Hate?
Is it only one who has moved past self-interest who can truly love — and truly hate — another?
Only the person of ren can truly love others, and truly hate others.
Confucius's saying that "only the good can love" lifted love from feeling to an achievement of character, and bred later divergence. Mencius carried it on, seeing the root of love — the heart that cannot bear another's suffering — as an inborn seed in everyone, leaving love open as something reached by cultivation. Xunzi, by contrast, held human nature to be selfish, so that true love becomes possible only after long learning and ritual polish it. Is love an inborn seed or a cultivated achievement? The question Confucius opened still divides those who see love as an instinct all share from those who see it as a height few attain.
Everyone speaks of love, but few ask whether that love has moved past self-interest. Confucius's question of whether true love has a qualification stays sharp for exactly that reason.
Confucius says something unexpected: only the person of ren can truly love and truly hate.
📝I, Too, Stand Before It
Confucius says something unexpected: only the person of ren can truly love and truly hate. We treat love as a feeling anyone can have, but Confucius holds that even love has a qualification. The likes and dislikes of one swayed by self-interest are mere prejudice, not true love. I find this coldly right — to like whoever favors my interest and hate whoever thwarts it is not love but calculation. Before this question I measure again how far my own loving and hating reach beyond myself.
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