Mencius famously wrote<\/a>, \u201cI love life, but I also love righteousness, and if I cannot have both at the same time, I will sacrifice life to have righteousness. I love life, but there is something that I love more than life, and thereforeI would not have life at any price.\u201d Mencius makes a comparison with having two menu choices that one likes (fish and bear paw). Since bear paw is not as popular nowadays in most English-speaking countries, let me suggest substituting a hamburger and lobster. I like both, but if I have to choose, I definitely prefer one to the other. Mencius is not concerned with the afterlife, since Confucianism does not place its focus on such uncertain matters. He simply loves doing the right thing more than living a long life, if he has to choose between them. It is not that he will not take both if he can, and in the same way the saying of Jesus in John 12:25 presumably is not a call to willful self-destruction. Since something else is ultimately valuable, life is viewed as a means to righteousnss, rather than an end in itself.<\/p>\nThe key to not getting pulled along with things we will regret with hindsight is to have our minds made up in advance that we love something not only more than life, but more than reputation, more than popularity, more than anything. After all, eternal life in the Gospel of John is not simply about afterlife, but about a particular way of living in the present. Even in relation to ideas like rewards in the afterlife, sometimes all that we see is a shift of selfishness from a short-term focus on the present to a willingness to go for \u201cwhat\u2019s behind door number 2\u201d. But when we understand \u201ceternal life\u201d as a different set of values, then it challenges us to make a much more fundamental change, and to regard going along with something that we never thought we could as a \u201cpunishment\u201d in and of itself.<\/p>\n
Last night\u2019s episode of \u201cChuck<\/a>\u201d also explored these themes in an entertaining way. The episode began with a painting which was described by a series of individuals as \u201ccrap\u201d and \u201clooks like it was painted by a 5-year old\u201d, but people were still killing each other for it. As it turned out, they were after plutonium hidden in the frame. The picture was just a means to an end. But plutonium isn\u2019t an end in itself. It is a means \u2013 to wealth, to world domination, to destructive power, to something else. But are those really ends? What, we need to ask ourselves, is ultimately<\/em> valuable to us?<\/p>\nThe character of Chuck poses this question at the episode\u2019s end when he asks \u201cWhat\u2019s the good of being a hero if nobody knows it?\u201d Sara answers, \u201cYou know it\u2026and so do I.\u201d The concepts of honor and shame (how others view us) were important ones in the development of human moral sensibilities. But perhaps best of all is when it is sufficient that we know it, and are satisfied with having done the right thing even if no one else ever finds out. Even reputation can be less than ultimate.<\/p>\n
So what do you ultimately value, and why? What do you love more than life?<\/p>\n
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