A religion-inspired reflection on societal systems, humanity and purpose.
Legalism — an early form of Daoism focused on the evil of humanity — managed to unify China after the Warring States in the third century, using punishment and strict laws to keep people in check out of fear. Having reflected on the selfishness of men during the Warring States period, the legalism philosophers had observed that people’s nature is originally evil — each looking out for their own skins and perpetuating a battle for the limited resources on Earth (Kohn 10). To secure harmony, the only way to keep the peace was by force and formidable punishments.
I was reminded of the often-cited ‘truth’ of humanity’s evil core. That inherently, our flesh is evil and can only produce evil without the connection and focus of the washed spirit or the elevated mind. This idea comes not only from Daoist extremists but also Christian doctrine, Buddhist thought, Islam, Judaism… it is a consistent theme in faith systems around the world. Even today, we can say our society still functions off of this paradigm. Every crime has an equivalent punishment, and as we fear crime more, our governments worsen the response.
“Mark 7:21–23 — For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”
Genesis 6:5 — The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
2 Timothy 1:7 — For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.
If we look past the incrimination of humanity, passed our own need and wish to be inherently good we see the tendency to fight growth. In “The Road Less Travelled” by Scott Peck, the psychologist refers to the root of all mental illness as a denial of reality and a seeking of comfort from within. The human is continuously looking for rationality in their surroundings, and when their beliefs (or what they want to believe) don’t match up, the mind spits out comfortable answers or lies to provide some solution to the hunger in their spirit. Humanity often finds the path of least friction to take and will bend over backwards to protect that darkness that has settled in their hearts. The cultivation of discipline and restraint is far less frequent and far less sought after.
Another example can be found in the book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey, where the author points to a shift from character ethics: the understanding of the fundamental values of life, and their importance; to personality ethics: seeking band-aid fixes and short-term skills to cover up festering incapability. Character ethics besieges us to work with our paradigms, mismatched understandings of the world and other flaws at their core as they compare to the “universal principles”, things like honesty, fairness, or integrity (Covey 37). Meanwhile, personality ethics teach us “people skills” that can seemingly cover up our gross underdevelopment of character when needed for some immediate effect. Personality ethics, in essence, captures the natural laziness in human nature that seeks to avoid growth in character.
I beg to say that this duality in humanity, one that calls for answers and progress but yet is drawn to quick fixes, facades and delusions — describes, to some degree, the very essence of the human struggle, back and forth between what’s easy and what is growth. More and more studies are published showing that the escalation of punishments does not affect crime rates and that the countries producing real results are those who focus on the rehabilitation of criminals. That the guidance of society and the mental elevation of people, the satiation of the need for logic and sense in their world — is what ultimately decreases numbers in prisons and calms the human spirit. That in essence, our nature may be crude and dim, but with the brightness of guidance and the illumination of enlightenment, the character is saved.
Religion and spirituality aim to mirror the universal truths of life, the written guide to Heaven and Earth itself. Often if we look passed the strength of the terminology and our own self-righteousness, we can see the mirror of the scripture and the elegance of the design. From us comes both the need for answers, a thirst for progress and a figurative map for the disorderly and incomprehensible world we navigate, and the tendency to avoid every true path necessary to get closer to those great truths. From us comes both the intense searching for more and the intense avoiding of growing pains.
Perhaps growth, and by extension, goodness, isn’t easy and isn’t necessarily inherent to the human character or nature. Perhaps, if left alone without any prompt of guidance from omens, the universe, God, spiritual leaders, teachers and professors (those that bring illumination to the mind) — people would chase their tails for all eternity. However, coming to this realisation places us in the chariot. I believe that our nature’s natural yearn for more is the essence of the spirit, born within the flesh of every being. It may be our first reaction to feed the spirit empty comforts, and to solve our questions with irrational acts of evil, but for every person who is guided to enlightenment (spiritual, academic or from whatever source), holds humanity to new heights and to new opportunities to do the same. The natural thirst for knowledge is the beginnings of free will. The pulling force of time and Heaven leads us to stumble upon that which we resist, but that which we must choose.
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