Greater Hyo Jeong and Peace

Presentation for the Chinese People's Federation for World Peace

Saturday, September 7, 2019, New York, NY
Frank Kaufmann

Despite our wonderful, constant progress as a race, it also can be said fairly that our history is
one of war and conflict.

Why can’t this be solved? If we are so remarkable in so many ways, why are we so bad at
addressing the constant persistence of conflict and violence?

Part of the problems comes from two habitual errors in our approach to this perennial problem.
We must address this if we want to do better than we have.

Preventing, and removing war and conflict requires sound analysis. Without this, we are left
with good intentions, but no lasting success. This is tiring and disappointing even to people of
good will.

The first problem that negatively impacts our analysis, and prevents us from coming up with
sound prescriptions is that aspect of human nature that leads us to assume that fault
necessarily lies with the other. If there is war or conflict, it is human nature always to be sure
that the cause or problem cannot possibly be me, or my family, or my people, or nation. I and
my “side” must be correct. But why on earth should that be the case? There is NO reason
whatsoever to make that assumption! Of course my race or my people or my country or my
family could be the problem.

The second debilitating problem when assessing conflict and war is the unexamined assumption
that war and conflict always and only have to do with possession, conquest, greed, and control
over territory and resources. The fact is, though, that this defines only one kind of war. There is
a second cause of war and conflict which is far more permanent, enduring, constant, and
ubiquitous. This is the war to control which ideas are accepted and implemented in the creation
of culture. These are wars both domestic and international to control which idea informs and
controls human life and experience. These are not wars to have more, but rather wars to be
right.

More death, destruction, rape, and pillage happens over the obsession to be right, than over
the lust to have more.

At base on these matters is this question: Which idea has the greater likelihood of creating free,
happy, and prosperous human beings. What answer one comes up with in response guides
what one then concludes to be the truth about the human condition, and the existential
environment in which human life unfolds.

Basic options are these:

1. Human beings come from a beneficent origin that seeks for people, freedom, peace,
happiness, and love.
2. Human beings are unwilling victims that exist in a milieu of meaningless, rootless,
whimsical clash of forces.

These two foundational assumptions define what systems will be promoted and “fought” for.
One system naturally encourages people to discover secrets of harmony inherent in our inner
life, and in life all around us, and the second system drives its believers to choose behavior to
match the idea that people are victims of injustice and oppression.

The first is a grateful and surrendered energy. The second is an angry, destructive, “breaking”
energy, a “rejecting” energy

Thus wars over land and wealth start and stop, come and go, begin and end. But wars over who
is right and knows the truth of the human experience, and then what behavior naturally should
follow, never ends. This war is with us everywhere and always. Should we live in gratitude
seeking harmony? Or should we live in insatiable anger over our victimhood, seeking “justice.”

This community, the Chinese People’s Federation, has settled upon Hyo Jeong as the essence of
its advocacy. Hyo Jeong, or Filial Heart, in essence is a specific embodiment of gratitude. It is
the way of life in which we know deeply that we never can return sufficient gratitude for those
who have come before me, those who have made my life possible, most especially my parents
and grandparents. This essentially is Hyo Jeong, an unending effort to express gratitude in real
and substantial ways.

My small caution or critique of this initiative, as well as its sister organizations (Women’s Fed,
Family Fed etc.), is that gathering merely to reiterate some favorite ancient virtue, is just not
enough. We already know that Hyo Jeong is a high virtue. Hyo Jeong has characterized Chinese
aspirations four 1000s of years. Why would repeating ancient wisdom have any better effect
now, than it has in the past?

My position is that unless we are here to declare something new to advance on the goodness
and wisdom that has already been affirmed for 1000s of years, then we are not advancing. We
are at best holding the fort. We might save a young person or two, which itself is good. But it is
not compelling. It is just alright.

I do not have time in this short presentation to develop these ideas in depth. These all can be
taught extensively. Instead, I will pick a single point I feel is relevant to these matters I
introduce above.
Natural creation manages and expands an organic harmonly based in part on the principle that
the smaller serves the larger. It is easy to recognize what attitudes and behaviors create
goodness and harmony. For example, the virtue of Hyo Jeong, or filial heart, is embedded in the
reality that parents, when compared with any other family members, are most naturally prone
to have the welfare of the whole family at heart. This is why filial behavior is deeply reasonable.
A filial child, by sacrificing herself or himself in devotion to the parents, in essence puts the
welfare of the entire family above her or his own welfare, desires, and preferences. The smaller
entity (a single family member) serves the larger (the family). The exercise of this virtue results
in a peaceful, harmonious family. A mini-society of goodness.

The reason why this obvious and effective principle for harmony and goodness has not yet
impacted our heinous history of war wand aggression, is that no one in history has identified
until now, the way to expand the Hyo Jeong principle beyond the family or the clan. Thus the
rule of goodness stops there, and war and conflict begin, right at that juncture, defining
relationships at ever higher levels.

What needs our attention now, is to find out how to apply the same principle that create
families of goodness and harmony beyond the small and limited range of social application.
Good families, with good members need to function as the next entity that shows virtue. A
family should adopt a posture, and behave as model of Hyo Jeong. By doing so, this brings out
to broader levels of integration, the age old virtues of Hyo Jeong. This could be characterized as
a Hyo Jeong family. A family of goodness. A clan could strive to become known as a Hyo Jeong
clan. Serving the greater. Concerning itself with the welfare of the greater community.

The mere reiteration, and reaffirmation of virtues already known to us, and already esteemed
for 1000s of years does not move the ball downfield to a significant degree. The courage to
apply these virtues to others beyond biological, ethnic, and nations bonds is the breakthrough
that will make this particular group and effort significant.