(no subject)
Okay, so two old cases about equality in love have raised their heads, so I may as well post about them.
Parent-child, and ruler-subject.
The parent-child one is easy. Love involves acceptance, which is a directive towards equality, right? Via understanding? Okay, what does a child do? They try to understand the world (ding) and they try to mimic their parents (ding). How about the other way around? Parents aren't really mimicking their children; no, they're bringing the child up to their level, by watching what they do.
See? Not complicated.
The ruler-subject one is more complicated, since it is a necessarily inequal relationship, so any loving force has to be counterbalanced by things like authority, hierarchy, etc. OTOH, this is where you have democracy and anarchy working in favor of actual love (in other words, the more absolutely representative--rep demo, direct demo, ana--the less inequality). Thus, the only way for these forms of governance to work is through a shitload of understanding (ding) by the people of the people.
In cases where the hierarchy is preserved, then you have a couple interesting things going on. First is the notion of castes, classes, and "proper place". Equality is not a matter of absolute similarity, but rather when both parties do not feel obligated to each other. In other words, when there is no debt, there is friendship. Thus, you can exercise love between master and slave, king and peasant, etc. That's dicey, though, because the roles must remain in the conscience for it to work; as soon as you put people up as human beings first, then the discrepancy becomes problematic. As long as the understanding is a matter of understanding roles, then hierarchies work in concert with love.
Second... hrm. I had a second. I had a third, too. Got distracted. #2 was something about substitution, which is what a representative democracy is about. I think #3 was about protection.
There's stuff. Anyways, you get the point. I haven't done political theory riffing off my philosophy in a while. Am out of practice. The other Confucian relationships are fall into line without any effort from me, IIRC.
Parent-child, and ruler-subject.
The parent-child one is easy. Love involves acceptance, which is a directive towards equality, right? Via understanding? Okay, what does a child do? They try to understand the world (ding) and they try to mimic their parents (ding). How about the other way around? Parents aren't really mimicking their children; no, they're bringing the child up to their level, by watching what they do.
See? Not complicated.
The ruler-subject one is more complicated, since it is a necessarily inequal relationship, so any loving force has to be counterbalanced by things like authority, hierarchy, etc. OTOH, this is where you have democracy and anarchy working in favor of actual love (in other words, the more absolutely representative--rep demo, direct demo, ana--the less inequality). Thus, the only way for these forms of governance to work is through a shitload of understanding (ding) by the people of the people.
In cases where the hierarchy is preserved, then you have a couple interesting things going on. First is the notion of castes, classes, and "proper place". Equality is not a matter of absolute similarity, but rather when both parties do not feel obligated to each other. In other words, when there is no debt, there is friendship. Thus, you can exercise love between master and slave, king and peasant, etc. That's dicey, though, because the roles must remain in the conscience for it to work; as soon as you put people up as human beings first, then the discrepancy becomes problematic. As long as the understanding is a matter of understanding roles, then hierarchies work in concert with love.
Second... hrm. I had a second. I had a third, too. Got distracted. #2 was something about substitution, which is what a representative democracy is about. I think #3 was about protection.
There's stuff. Anyways, you get the point. I haven't done political theory riffing off my philosophy in a while. Am out of practice. The other Confucian relationships are fall into line without any effort from me, IIRC.