Our Duty to Others IS Love

In my class recently, we were asked to get into groups to get a reading down to one key word. The passage was on Confucius, and it was about human-heartedness, taming unruly impulses, filial piety, benevolence, and justice. 

In my little group, I suggested it's all about love. My group disagreed. I pointed out that the word is mentioned several times in the reading because they were quite sure it wasn't mentioned at all. They countered that it's all about duty, order and control. It's trying to control us by making us do things for other people. They said that like it's a bad thing. One kept bring up the idea of that we can only control people by shaming them and making them feel horrible, so it's in essence a horrible theory. I kept rereading the passage to see where they were getting this idea. I thought I must have missed something crucial in the text. Then, when we went around the room to share ideas, I was heartened that many other groups came up with terms like love and virtue and service, so I wasn't losing my mind. The reading was full of love.

It reminded me of two things: First, it's a similar reaction to class discussions on Kant's deontological (duty-based) ethics. Any thought of a duty or obligation to others gets the shackles up on many teenagers who are in survival mode competing with one another for university slots. But, if I come at it from the other end, focusing on what would make for the most benevolent society, or even what would be the best way to solve a conundrum with a group of people you really care about, they tend to come up with the notion of doing for others even if it's not in our best interest. They will start to argue that we can't expect to get our own way all the time, and that we have to look at the bigger picture and do what's right even when it's not what's easy or what most benefits ourselves. If we want to have a good home life or a good society, we have to consider the effects of our actions. And then we can get into the nitty gritty of how to decide that. It sometimes takes a full class of thinking to get them on board with "duty" being useful to keep the peace because first you have to get them outside of their selves, outside of their personal striving against each other. 

Our entire society needs to get to that larger place, to be reminded of big virtues like fortitude, temperance, justice, and to just think a bit before forging ahead on some fun activity that could harm others. We have become part and parcel of the careless people who "smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made." 

Secondly, it reminded me of a chat I had with a friend's niece, who was about 9 at the time. I had just had my first little one, and she asked me what I thought made a good parent because it seems like you have to know so much to do a good job. I told her you just need to love your kids. That's it! She wasn't content with that answer, and said,

 "But, you also have to play with them."

"Yes, but if you really love someone, you'll want to play with them!" 

"But you have to feed them and take care of them too"

"Sure, but if you love someone, you want to take care of them and make sure they're okay."

"But you have to protect them from everything that can hurt them."

"Absolutely, and that's the hardest one because you can only do your best. Sometimes you can't protect them, and they get hurt, and that's horrible. But you just keep trying because you love them."

I love my kids all to bits, and I didn't always want to play the games they chose when they were little, but I wanted to be with them enough that I did play their games (at least for a while). I sometimes got frustrated by the limited foods they would tolerate, but I kept them fed and healthy. And now we struggle with my rules around wearing masks because it infringes on their ability to socialize they way they're used to. We've got lots of work-arounds, but it's been an on-going dialogue because I won't just throw up my hands and say, "You do you" because my love provokes me to want to protect them from danger. 

My obligation to my kids, my duty to them, is my love for them. Somewhere along the way we've lost sight of that important way of living together. Sometimes providing rules and limitations is how we show love. Kids would eat candy for dinner until their teeth fell out if we focused only on their short term happiness. We're pretty good at understanding the long term benefits of imposing rules like "at least five big bites of two different vegetables at dinner." Now we just have to recognize the benefits of limits and rules and having a duty to one another in the greater society. 

This was all inspired by these tweets: