(First, the new name! A few of us have agreed that this is a great name for us. Does everyone agree or do we need to continue discussing names for our group?)
Today we discussed universal love more than anything else. I'll go ahead and post the questions first, as the discussion is more important to post underneath them.
First, the factual question:
Who focused on the ethical and social conduct that would be conductive to a harmonious community?
Answer: Confucius
And our open ended question(s):
Is it possible to love everyone unconditionally as universal love suggests?
We had a mixed response to this. I'll let my group mates go into detail in the comments, and give my two cents on the matter.
I believe that it is possible to have empathic, unconditional love for every other human being simply because they are my brothers/sisters of mankind. However, it is much different to consider loving everyone unconditionally as individuals. While I love every other person just for being a person and going through life with me, despite their differences in views or opinions, I cannot say that I would love them specifically as an individual. This also depends greatly on what we mean by the word "love". Love can be a broad topic, and it is never easily defined. Romantic love? No, I can't love everyone. Empathic love? Yes, I can love everyone. Different loves, different answers.
Another part of this that Luther brought up today, is that people tend to dislike others because of their attachments to things. These attachments referring to being attached to an opinion or a hobby or anything that you link specifically with who you are as an individual. This is an excellent point to make. Taoism and Confucius both speak of virtue and inner-peace. Is this alluding to the idea of letting go of all attachment to things and ideas? Furthermore, does this also mean that we must accept that others have different attachments and that they are all valid?
I think that, yes, we need to let go of all attachments to material as well as metaphysical things, but not of our convictions. We can still believe strongly about something without getting angry at another, and in the same breath, can still love them regardless of differences.
Another question that I had that was not chosen as the *super special group question* was:
What is personal virtue? How would one achieve it?
This one is simply answered for me. I think personal virtue is being comfortable with both yourself and your surroundings. The difficult part is the "how". I think this is specifically what we all call "finding ourselves", and that is something that differs greatly from person to person. My experience with finding myself is certainly not going to be the same as the person sitting next to me.
I'm sure some of you had other questions pertaining to the readings. Discussion time - BEGIN :)
I agree with your view of personal virtue. I think, once you know who you are and what you want from life, everything else will fall into place. As far as universal love goes, we live in a flawed society which pits person against person in competition to see who is more superior. I don't think universal love is possible in a society that encourages the idea of superiority.
ReplyDeleteThe act of unconditionally loving everyone obviously comes with some difficulty, as we tend to judge whether we'd like to think so or not. But I think that this just might be the only way to go through life with a settling outlook, which in turn leads to personal virtue. I don't necessarily think that things will fall into place if one knows who they are and what they want in life, but I do realize that by loving one another in a universal way we will better achieve the understanding of the full meaning of it. In that sense, a personal virtue could mean the way in which you perceive and treat everything in the world in reflection of yourself.
ReplyDeleteI believe that regarding personal virtue it can be acheived through understanding yourself and your surroundings and being true to yourself and not strayinh off that path.... just trying to be a good person religious or not all the way to your core. i dont believe it is possible however to love EVERYONE unconditionally.... i believe it is possible to love unconditionally but not every single person there are going to be some qualities that someone has that you will simply not be able to overcome.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it is possible to love everyone unconditionally. With one exception, it seems impossible to suggest that a person could. I think that sometimes we mistake loving the idea of loving everyone with actually loving them.
ReplyDeletematthew williams