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Nov. 9th, 2004 09:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tylikRecently, in classical, we got in a big discussion of the distinctions between
Ren is how one should feel and behave towards one's fellow humans, all of them. (He talked a lot about the relationship in English between the words human and humane.) I believe I have seen ren translated as both compassion and mercy. (Of course, there are a lot of translations out there that suck pretty badly, too. Especially when it comes to over translating philosophical terms.)
Yi, on the other hand is appropriate behavior towards members of your own set. (What ever that set may be. In most of the pre unification texts we're looking at now, that ends up meaning educated members of ruling families, more or less.) So it is both narrower, and yet also a higher bar -- one is held to a different standard, and one expects others of their set also to conform to these rules. It is often translated as "righteousness"... which is a bit of a stretch, I think.
My first reaction to this was that it sounded awfully snobbish. But the way Boltz described it, it was less inherently a matter of higher vs. lower status, and more a matter of different spheres. And some of the texts we're reading really back this up. There's a lot of "inside the family, this kind of behavior is warranted, out in the world that kind of behavior is appropriate" which seem to be less about contrasting the two than establishing a kind of equivalence -- an a is to b as x is to y sort of thing. (Though I might be overinterpreting.) Boltz emphasizes that the two are distinct, and that indeed they at times come into conflict ("for instance, if your set is mostly millionaires and billionaires, and you decide yi should mean that you will give them all tax cuts..." he isn't taking the election particularly well...)
But the more I thought about it, it seemed awfully pragmatic to recognize upfront that people hold different people to different standards of behavior. And it got me thinking about what I think of as ren, and what I think of as yi. (That I'm really a member of several sets confuses the question ;-) ) Especially the latter, because I've certainly found myself becoming awfully annoyed at people for things that wouldn't surprise or bother me if they weren't to some degree a member of my community. Though it's not just about higher standards -- there are a lot of social pleasantries that I feel rather exempted from dealing with inside the community. (For instance, the one that says that if someone asks you how you are doing, the only acceptable answer is "fine".)
What sets do you include yourself in? How does this change your actions towards and expectations of various people?
仁
ren and义
yi. (Phooey. I only have the jiantizi loaded for output, and I hate doing anything with classical in jiantizi.) It is our professor's assertion (which he backed up well with etymological data) that these words, while they both deal with appropriate ethical behavior towards other people, differ sharply in scope.Ren is how one should feel and behave towards one's fellow humans, all of them. (He talked a lot about the relationship in English between the words human and humane.) I believe I have seen ren translated as both compassion and mercy. (Of course, there are a lot of translations out there that suck pretty badly, too. Especially when it comes to over translating philosophical terms.)
Yi, on the other hand is appropriate behavior towards members of your own set. (What ever that set may be. In most of the pre unification texts we're looking at now, that ends up meaning educated members of ruling families, more or less.) So it is both narrower, and yet also a higher bar -- one is held to a different standard, and one expects others of their set also to conform to these rules. It is often translated as "righteousness"... which is a bit of a stretch, I think.
My first reaction to this was that it sounded awfully snobbish. But the way Boltz described it, it was less inherently a matter of higher vs. lower status, and more a matter of different spheres. And some of the texts we're reading really back this up. There's a lot of "inside the family, this kind of behavior is warranted, out in the world that kind of behavior is appropriate" which seem to be less about contrasting the two than establishing a kind of equivalence -- an a is to b as x is to y sort of thing. (Though I might be overinterpreting.) Boltz emphasizes that the two are distinct, and that indeed they at times come into conflict ("for instance, if your set is mostly millionaires and billionaires, and you decide yi should mean that you will give them all tax cuts..." he isn't taking the election particularly well...)
But the more I thought about it, it seemed awfully pragmatic to recognize upfront that people hold different people to different standards of behavior. And it got me thinking about what I think of as ren, and what I think of as yi. (That I'm really a member of several sets confuses the question ;-) ) Especially the latter, because I've certainly found myself becoming awfully annoyed at people for things that wouldn't surprise or bother me if they weren't to some degree a member of my community. Though it's not just about higher standards -- there are a lot of social pleasantries that I feel rather exempted from dealing with inside the community. (For instance, the one that says that if someone asks you how you are doing, the only acceptable answer is "fine".)
What sets do you include yourself in? How does this change your actions towards and expectations of various people?
