溫故知新 Old wisdom, today’s insight — ONGO
Do Right and Wrong Divide by Where One Stands?
Are right and wrong engraved in things, or do they divide by the standpoint of the one who looks?
There is a right and wrong from over there, and a right and wrong from over here.
Zhuangzi's relativity of right and wrong was the Eastern summit of the old question of whether truth is bound to standpoint. In the same era the Greek Sophist Protagoras held that "man is the measure of all things," asserting truth's relativity; but Plato and Socrates defended a changeless truth, arguing such relativism collapses into self-contradiction. The tension revived across two millennia in the modern age — Nietzsche pressed perspectivism, "there are no facts, only interpretations," while the other side rebutted that it undoes itself. Whether right is bound to standpoint or transcends it still turns on Zhuangzi's pivot.
In an age where each cries their own right from their own place, Zhuangzi's question — where did my right come from? — becomes a rare force that dissolves strife.
Zhuangzi watches two schools quarrel over right and wrong: the Confucians call this right, the Mohists call that right.
📝I, Too, Stand Before It
Zhuangzi watches two schools quarrel over right and wrong: the Confucians call this right, the Mohists call that right. He says each, seen from its own place, is wholly right and wholly wrong, and urges us to look from the pivot of the Way, where opposites interpenetrate as one. I do not read this insight as an anything-goes relativism, but as a humility that never forgets my own right arose from my own standpoint. When conviction hardens, I too glance once at the right and wrong across the way.
✍️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.
🔒 This answer is stored only on your device. It is never sent to a server.
This is not a museum of answers but a lineage of questions. All sources are public-domain texts; the lineage and reflection are 100% original ONGO content.
