Our dominant worldview tells us that...
Happiness is attained through accumulating wealth, status, and power
The individual pursuit of well-being should be a foundation of values
Non-human nature should be exploited for the benefit of humans
Spiritual traditions, corroborated by modern psychology and cognitive research, tell us something very different:
An individual can only fully flourish in the context of a society which is itself healthy
As humans, we act morally and care for others because it feels right to do so
By recognizing nature's intrinsic value, we can nurture the mutual flourishing of humans and Earth
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Chapter 8. flourishing as an integrated organism
A long time ago, in the district of Song, lived a farmer. His wife and sons worried about him because he was not, as they say, the sharpest tool in the shed. The farmer was concerned that his shoots of grain weren’t growing fast enough, so one day he decided to help them by pulling them up. Without realizing what he had done, he returned home to his family that evening, and announced: “I am worn out today, because I’ve been helping my grain to grow.” His sons rushed frantically out to the fields, and sure enough, there was the grain, dead and shriveled on the ground.
This rather droll story was told by Mencius, one of the greatest early Chinese sages. He used it to make a point about how a person should cultivate their own inner shoots: someone might want to develop themselves in a particular area, but it can only happen at a certain pace. “You must put some work into it,” Mencius explained, “but not force it.”
This rather droll story was told by Mencius, one of the greatest early Chinese sages. He used it to make a point about how a person should cultivate their own inner shoots: someone might want to develop themselves in a particular area, but it can only happen at a certain pace. “You must put some work into it,” Mencius explained, “but not force it.”
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Mencius loved to use the plant analogy for a person to teach his philosophy of life. In the agrarian civilization of ancient China, this was a powerful way to get people to understand how to cultivate qualities within themselves. “If people want to grow a tong or zi tree one or two spans thick, everyone knows how to go about nourishing it,” he declared. “When it comes to the self, though, no one knows how to nourish it. Is it because people love a tong or zi tree more than themselves? No, it is because they don't give the slightest thought to it."
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This analogy has powerful implications. It leads us to realize that the way we develop is profoundly affected by the conditions in which we grow. Mencius described how some eras produce predominantly virtuous people, while others engender more wicked behavior, pointing out that the contrast is not due to differences in people’s true nature, but how their qualities are cultivated. If you sow a field with barley, he said, the variation in the resulting produce will be affected by factors like the soil’s nutrients, how it was irrigated, and how diligently it was weeded. Why, he asked, should humans be any exception to this rule of nature?
Given the striking similarities between principles that govern human nature and those that direct the growth and flourishing of the natural world, what can we learn about human flourishing by applying Mencius’s metaphor of cultivation? How can we get the shoots within ourselves to grow healthily into bountiful produce?
As we investigate this question, we’ll also come face-to-face with forces in the modern world that not only impair our flourishing but actively work against it—and consider what we can do, both individually and as a society, to mitigate them and nourish a life of well-being for both ourselves and all those around us.
Excerpt from The Web of Meaning, Chapter 8. Purchase: USA/Canada | UK/Commonwealth
Given the striking similarities between principles that govern human nature and those that direct the growth and flourishing of the natural world, what can we learn about human flourishing by applying Mencius’s metaphor of cultivation? How can we get the shoots within ourselves to grow healthily into bountiful produce?
As we investigate this question, we’ll also come face-to-face with forces in the modern world that not only impair our flourishing but actively work against it—and consider what we can do, both individually and as a society, to mitigate them and nourish a life of well-being for both ourselves and all those around us.
Excerpt from The Web of Meaning, Chapter 8. Purchase: USA/Canada | UK/Commonwealth
Chapter 9. cultivating integrated values
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Imagine you’re sitting alone in a quiet courtyard. Suddenly, you hear a noise. You look up and see a toddler innocently playing at the edge of a deep well. You realize in a flash that she’s in danger of falling in and being killed. What do you do? Do you tell yourself “It’s not my problem,” and leave the courtyard? No, of course not. You swiftly make a beeline to the toddler, and lift her out of harm’s way.
This thought experiment was used by Mencius to demonstrate that humans possess an intrinsic goodness. You’re not saving the little girl for compensation. You may never even be acknowledged by anyone for saving an innocent life. You simply move, intuitively and spontaneously, to save her life because it’s the right thing to do. |
Now, fast forward a couple of millennia to the modern age, and consider a similar scenario. Alone again, you’re strolling in a park, wearing an expensive new pair of shoes. You’re at the edge of a shallow pond when, once more, you hear an unexpected noise. You turn and notice a toddler drowning in the middle of the pond. You look around—no sign of a babysitter, parents, or any other adult. Now, what do you do? You realize that, if you step into the pond to save her life, you’ll ruin your fancy new shoes. Do you decide it’s not worth it and walk on? Once again, of course not. You stride into the water to save an innocent life.
The creator of this thought experiment is Peter Singer, a renowned moral philosopher who uses it to kick off his book The Life You Can Save. Singer, though, makes a very different argument than Mencius. If you don’t hesitate at the loss of a new pair of shoes to save a child’s life, he asks, why don’t you immediately donate a hundred dollars to a charity saving the lives of children around the world dying from malnutrition and preventable diseases? Why stop at a hundred dollars? Where is the valid limit, Singer urges us to ask, to our moral obligation to help those in dire need?
These two scenarios, spanning thousands of years and vastly different cultures, both prompt careful consideration about human values. Mencius’s case became a cornerstone of the traditional Chinese view of human nature. Whether we’re regular citizens or sages, he argued, we have an inborn moral sense. He used the same plant metaphor from the previous chapter to describe our moral cultivation: we’re all born with the sprouts of virtue, but they must be carefully tended to grow into a healthy system of values. We shouldn’t go against our natural tendencies, any more than we would try to reshape an oak tree to look like a willow. The way we foster our innate goodness, Mencius explained, is by staying in touch with our instincts and learning to express them skillfully in the world.[
A very different conception of human nature developed in the European tradition to become the foundation of mainstream modern thought. The story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden laid the framework for Christian theology with the notion of Original Sin. Adam’s disobedience in eating from the Tree of Knowledge had condemned the entire human race to damnation. Our only hope for salvation was to rise above our sinful bodily instincts. Through our reasoning faculty, we could learn to differentiate good from evil, and then use willpower to overcome our instinctual drives toward bad behavior. “The human heart,” wrote 16th century theologian John Calvin, “is so steeped in the poison of sin, that it can breathe out nothing but a loathsome stench.”
While the pioneers of the Scientific Revolution challenged many aspects of Christian thought, one thing they never questioned was the belief in humanity’s intrinsic malevolence. In Leviathan, written during the bloody English Civil War, Thomas Hobbes laid out a new myth that in the “state of nature,” humans were unremittingly selfish and brutal to each other—“the war of all against all”—and therefore we need a powerful authority to keep our vicious instincts in check.
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Amazingly, much of what passes as mainstream scientific thinking in the modern world has maintained the traditional conception of humankind’s Manichean struggle between good (the domain of reason) and evil (our natural instincts). Prominent twentieth-century biologists scoffed at any Mencian-type notion of intrinsic human goodness. “What passes for co-operation,” wrote one, “turns out to be a mixture of opportunism and exploitation.” “Scratch an ‘altruist’,” exclaimed another, “and watch a ‘hypocrite’ bleed.” Humans, we are told, are naturally violent, aggressive killers—“the dazed survivors,” according to two influential anthropologists, “of a continuous, 5-million-year habit of lethal aggression.” |
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Predictably, Richard Dawkins’s “selfish gene” myth only served to perpetuate this split conception of morality. “Be warned,” he writes, “that if you wish, as I do, to build a society towards a common good, you can expect little help from biological nature.” Like the Christian theologians he denigrates, Dawkins asserts that humans are in a state of constant battle with their own instincts. Our only hope is to overcome our evil nature through reason. “Our brains,” he declares, “have evolved to the point where we are capable of rebelling against our selfish genes. . . . Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish.”
How do we make sense of these bewilderingly different perspectives on humanity’s moral nature? Is morality intrinsic to human nature? If so, how do we account for the huge variation in what different cultures interpret as moral behavior? Most importantly, how can we conduct our lives according to a value system that fosters eudaimonia for ourselves and for others—and is there a way for society at large to prize these values? There is almost no topic more important. As I described in The Patterning Instinct, culture shapes values—and those values have shaped history. Likewise, the values we as a society choose to live by today will shape our future. The stakes for getting it right could hardly be higher.
Excerpt from The Web of Meaning, Chapter 9. Purchase: USA/Canada | UK/Commonwealth
How do we make sense of these bewilderingly different perspectives on humanity’s moral nature? Is morality intrinsic to human nature? If so, how do we account for the huge variation in what different cultures interpret as moral behavior? Most importantly, how can we conduct our lives according to a value system that fosters eudaimonia for ourselves and for others—and is there a way for society at large to prize these values? There is almost no topic more important. As I described in The Patterning Instinct, culture shapes values—and those values have shaped history. Likewise, the values we as a society choose to live by today will shape our future. The stakes for getting it right could hardly be higher.
Excerpt from The Web of Meaning, Chapter 9. Purchase: USA/Canada | UK/Commonwealth
chapter 10. human/nature
Once, in ancient China, a certain Lord Thien held a banquet, inviting a thousand guests who brought gifts of fish and game. Eyeing them approvingly, he exclaimed: ““How generous is Heaven to man! Heaven makes the grains grow, and brings forth the fish and fowl, just for our benefit!” Everyone applauded, except for a twelve-year-old son of one of the guests, who came forward and said: “It is not as my Lord says. We belong to the same category of living beings as all the creatures of the world. It is only through size, strength or cunning, that one species gains mastery or feeds upon another. Man catches and eats what is fitting for his food, but how can you say that Heaven produced them just for him? Mosquitoes and gnats suck his blood; tigers and wolves devour his flesh—but we don’t assert that Heaven produced man for the benefit of mosquitoes and gnats, or for tigers and wolves.”
This delightful story, from an ancient Taoist text, points out the absurdity of anthropocentrism—the view that humans are more important than any other species, and that the rest of nature exists (or should exist) for human benefit. While Lord Thien may have been upstaged by a twelve-year-old in China, he would have felt right at home in Christian Europe, where anthropocentrism was a central tenet of faith. “The world is made for the sake of man, that it may serve him,” stated theologian Peter Lombard, whose work became the standard medieval textbook of theology. Francis Bacon, the prophet of the Scientific Revolution, wholeheartedly agreed, declaring that “the whole world works together in the service of man . . . insomuch that all things seem to be going about man’s business and not their own.”
Bacon’s vision was to kickstart nature’s service of man through scientific investigation, putting her “in constraint” to discover “the secrets still locked in [her] bosom.” He saw it as a war of conquest, calling on his fellow scientists “to unite forces against the nature of things, to storm and occupy her castles and strongholds and extend the bounds of human empire.” Descartes concurred, writing how through science, we could “render ourselves the masters and possessors of nature.”
Intoxicated by the promise of power and conquest, Europeans didn’t limit themselves to scientific investigation, but took their thirst for domination overseas, embarking on a centuries-long campaign to render themselves the “masters and possessors” of the rest of the world, storming and occupying territories where others had lived for time immemorial. They brought with them their anthropocentric view that nature existed only to serve humanity—especially those who were white, Christian males. Arriving in what they called the “New World,” they perceived a wilderness that had been put to “no good or profitable use”—what they termed vacuum domicilium. This concept became their legal and moral justification to wrest the land from those who already lived there, and use it for their own purposes.
This delightful story, from an ancient Taoist text, points out the absurdity of anthropocentrism—the view that humans are more important than any other species, and that the rest of nature exists (or should exist) for human benefit. While Lord Thien may have been upstaged by a twelve-year-old in China, he would have felt right at home in Christian Europe, where anthropocentrism was a central tenet of faith. “The world is made for the sake of man, that it may serve him,” stated theologian Peter Lombard, whose work became the standard medieval textbook of theology. Francis Bacon, the prophet of the Scientific Revolution, wholeheartedly agreed, declaring that “the whole world works together in the service of man . . . insomuch that all things seem to be going about man’s business and not their own.”
Bacon’s vision was to kickstart nature’s service of man through scientific investigation, putting her “in constraint” to discover “the secrets still locked in [her] bosom.” He saw it as a war of conquest, calling on his fellow scientists “to unite forces against the nature of things, to storm and occupy her castles and strongholds and extend the bounds of human empire.” Descartes concurred, writing how through science, we could “render ourselves the masters and possessors of nature.”
Intoxicated by the promise of power and conquest, Europeans didn’t limit themselves to scientific investigation, but took their thirst for domination overseas, embarking on a centuries-long campaign to render themselves the “masters and possessors” of the rest of the world, storming and occupying territories where others had lived for time immemorial. They brought with them their anthropocentric view that nature existed only to serve humanity—especially those who were white, Christian males. Arriving in what they called the “New World,” they perceived a wilderness that had been put to “no good or profitable use”—what they termed vacuum domicilium. This concept became their legal and moral justification to wrest the land from those who already lived there, and use it for their own purposes.
The Native Americans, who had tended the land for countless generations, were horrified by the agricultural and mining practices the Europeans brought with them. Like other Indigenous people around the world, they viewed other sentient beings as their relatives. They understood the Earth as their mother—not as a vacuum domicilium requiring improvement. Smohalla, a medicine man of the Wanapum tribe who led a resistance movement against white encroachment in the nineteenth century, expressed the abhorrence of many with these haunting words:
"You ask me to plow the ground! Shall I take a knife and tear my mother's breast? Then when I die she will not take me to her bosom to rest. You ask me to dig for stone! Shall I dig under her skin for her bones? Then when I die I cannot enter her body to be born again. You ask me to cut grass and make hay and sell it, and be rich like white men! But how dare I cut off my mother's hair?"
The unremitting onslaught of European power represented not just a one-sided battle over territory—it was also a conflict over humankind’s proper relationship with the Earth. In stark contrast to Smohalla’s utterance, this declaration was published around the same time by the Big Horn Association of Cheyenne, Wyoming:
"The rich and beautiful valleys of Wyoming are destined for the occupancy and sustenance of the Anglo-Saxon race. The wealth that for untold ages has lain hidden beneath the snow-capped summits of our mountains has been placed there by Providence to reward the brave spirits whose lot it is to compose the advance-guard of civilization. The Indians must stand aside or be overwhelmed by the ever advancing and ever increasing tide of emigration."
They certainly got one thing right: the Western conception of conquering nature has indeed overwhelmed all else in an “ever advancing and ever increasing tide.”
The Tao Te Ching long ago sagely proclaimed:
One who desires to take the world and act upon it,
I see that it cannot be done.
The world is a spirit vessel,
Which cannot be acted upon.
One who acts on it fails,
One who holds on to it loses.
Bacon, Descartes, and the Big Horn Association clearly held a different view about the results of acting upon the world. And yet, what does “winning” or “losing” really entail in the relationship between humans and nature? As we thunder through the twenty-first century, facing existential threats of climate breakdown and ecological collapse, the quandary of humanity’s tangled relationship with nature has never been more critical to unravel. As our global civilization tries desperately to steer a path away from devastating environmental disruption, do the insights from Taoist, Native American, and other indigenous traditions have anything to offer?
Excerpt from The Web of Meaning, Chapter 10. Purchase: USA/Canada | UK/Commonwealth
"You ask me to plow the ground! Shall I take a knife and tear my mother's breast? Then when I die she will not take me to her bosom to rest. You ask me to dig for stone! Shall I dig under her skin for her bones? Then when I die I cannot enter her body to be born again. You ask me to cut grass and make hay and sell it, and be rich like white men! But how dare I cut off my mother's hair?"
The unremitting onslaught of European power represented not just a one-sided battle over territory—it was also a conflict over humankind’s proper relationship with the Earth. In stark contrast to Smohalla’s utterance, this declaration was published around the same time by the Big Horn Association of Cheyenne, Wyoming:
"The rich and beautiful valleys of Wyoming are destined for the occupancy and sustenance of the Anglo-Saxon race. The wealth that for untold ages has lain hidden beneath the snow-capped summits of our mountains has been placed there by Providence to reward the brave spirits whose lot it is to compose the advance-guard of civilization. The Indians must stand aside or be overwhelmed by the ever advancing and ever increasing tide of emigration."
They certainly got one thing right: the Western conception of conquering nature has indeed overwhelmed all else in an “ever advancing and ever increasing tide.”
The Tao Te Ching long ago sagely proclaimed:
One who desires to take the world and act upon it,
I see that it cannot be done.
The world is a spirit vessel,
Which cannot be acted upon.
One who acts on it fails,
One who holds on to it loses.
Bacon, Descartes, and the Big Horn Association clearly held a different view about the results of acting upon the world. And yet, what does “winning” or “losing” really entail in the relationship between humans and nature? As we thunder through the twenty-first century, facing existential threats of climate breakdown and ecological collapse, the quandary of humanity’s tangled relationship with nature has never been more critical to unravel. As our global civilization tries desperately to steer a path away from devastating environmental disruption, do the insights from Taoist, Native American, and other indigenous traditions have anything to offer?
Excerpt from The Web of Meaning, Chapter 10. Purchase: USA/Canada | UK/Commonwealth