Human Nature: Mengzi (Mencius) Vs Us

According to Mencius, humans are good natured. His example if a boy by a well and how a man responds to it is ‘supposed’ to be every persons natural impulse. I have a friend who will see such a scene and probably want to see what it is like for a child to fall in a well, if the child will drown or not and so on. Mencius believes that if a person is caught in a situation that causes him to do bad, it is a violation of human nature.

I’d like to view things from the climax. I’m travelling back to Jos and the tricycle driver stops his vehicle, takes out a knife and asks for my phone. He presses this knife so hard on my chest so that if I move, I’d get cut. I struggle careful enough not to get cut but I get cut. I delve my hand into my bag to submit the phone. Supposedly, I’m rummaging my bag for my phone and I find a knife, will I stab him or not? Yes I will. Killing a person is bad, but in the heat of the moment, I’d stab him, and stab his corpse. I feel like it all depends on what situation a person is caught in, so I do not agree with Mencius.

The natural inkling to be good or bad comes from, not the human, but the four beginnings every human was created with. The sense of compassion is the beginning of humanity; the sense of shame is the beginning of righteousness; the sense of courtesy is the beginning of decorum; the sense  of right and wrong is the beginning of wisdom. How he chooses to respond however is his own will. For example, in a situation where someone says “I have no shame”, this means he is open to twist the sense of shame and be opposite. In a bar, there are always persons who do not take caution, in a bus, there’s always a cranky conductor who do not respond positively to the sense of shame. The human inking to be good or bad is governed by the four beginnings, each person is just independent enough to choose how to respond to them, and until a person develops and expands these four beginnings, he is destroying himself.

I am naturally to tilt towards good things, usually because I am not exposed to things that tilt me the opposite way. However once in a while, in my thoughts and imaginations, I’m totally not a good person. I do not always respond to the situation unless it is extremely intense and personal.

LARDO