artifice

You and I might not be consciously aware, but I think subconsciously we pride ourselves on living in a liberated world where traditions, rituals, institutions are no longer binding. Each of us is free to choose the career we want, the person to marry (or not), what church (or none) to attend, and ultimately, find our "true self" and "be authentic".

But what constitutes my true self, what is the real me? It is said that our body cells are replaced every seven years on average, therefore physically I am no longer myself every seven years later. Emotionally each of our persona is constructed through day to day interactions and long-term relationships with others. The language we use very likely dictates how we think. How "cool" we think ourselves are is really based on what most other people think coolness means. Take away all these third-party constraints and attachments, apparatus and allusions, we'll most likely lose our identity like a spaceship loses its bearing in a dark, empty space without any reference points.

Another modern day bias thinking we may have is about nature. It's easy to romanticize a bucolic landscape of serene fields and beautiful lake and sunset and think Mother Nature is all wonderful while forgetting hurricanes and earthquakes, diseases and plagues are her doing as well. It is through human intervention – cross-pollinating harvest plants, domesticating animals, developing vaccines, etc. – that we maintain our tenuous coexistence with nature.

Xunzi (荀子 316 – 237 BC) was a leading Confucian scholar in the Warring States period of China whose philosophy bases on the belief that humanity is crooked in nature: "Human nature is bad. Its goodness comes from artifice. It is in the nature of humans to be born with a fondness for profit ... They are born with hates and dislikes ... That is why people will inevitably fall into conflict and struggle if they simply follow along with their nature and their dispositions." ("人之性惡, 其善者偽也. 今人之性, 生而有好利焉 ... 生而有疾惡焉 ... 順是, 故爭奪生而辭讓亡焉.")

Just as they work to tame nature, humans need to work to straighten up their crookedness by practicing certain man-made behavioral patterns, i.e., rituals (禮教) that aim to define relational roles, build harmony, maintain order, etc., that have been strongly promoted by Confucianism in its teaching philosophy for over two thousand years.

In conclusion, our ability to create an artificial, constructed world is a good thing. Our potential to transform ourselves and transcend our natural state is a unique gift. Granted, it's hard to figure out the right "artifice" to practice to improve ourselves ethically, an eternal task many Confucian scholars and followers spent their lifetime doing. It's elusive but I think also obvious: It is the seeking of an astray mind 心, propriety 禮, moderation 中庸, justice 義, reason 理, the chi 氣, the way (Tao) 道. You know it when you see it.