The War of Truth and Advantage

In his book, One Hundred Philosophers (Barron's, 2004, p 12), Peter J. King outlines a key difference between Eastern and Western thought and philosophy.

The defining feature of Western philosophy was set during this period: the search for truth through questioning and argument. The defining feature of Eastern thought was also set: the search for the best way to live (individually and socially).

You can see a stark contrast between the two major worldviews, one is after truth, and the other is after advantage. But the rift goes even deeper than that because being for truth over advantage means being for individuals over institutions, and it even means being for love over adversarial strife.

Truth

To see the difference, we can set up a caricature of model opposites. For example, compare the politics of Thomas Aquinas to that of early Chinese statesman, Li Si (the world's first Machiavelli). Here is Aquinas on natural law--a "higher" law that even the legislators (lawmakers) themselves are subordinated to (Summa Theologica):

Rational creatures are under divine providence in a more excellent way than the others since by providing for themselves and others they share in the action of providence themselves. They participate in eternal reason in that they have a natural inclination to their proper actions and ends. Such participation in the eternal law by rational creatures is called natural law.

In other words, Aquinas has just set up an objective standard by which even the laws of men (positive law) can be judged as right or wrong. He continues,

... there is a single standard of truth and right for everyone which is known by everyone. However when it comes to the specific conclusions of speculative reason, the truth is the same for everyone but is not equally known by everyone. It is universally true, for instance, that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles, but not everyone knows this.

So the crux of the issue is layed out: there is universal truth (the truth is manifest), but it can be hard for individual people to identify. This means that human opinions will often differ from each other, even though only one of two opposing opinions is the one which corresponds to reality. Then Aquinas gives a borderline case,

It is right and true for everyone to act in accordance with reason. A particular conclusion that follows from this principle is that loans should be repaid. This is true in most cases, but it can happen in a particular case that it would be harmful and therefore irrational to repay a loan, for instance if someone wanted to use it to make war on his country.

Here Aquinas is allowing for casuistry (circumstantial modification of an otherwise-hard rule). After noting that Saint Augustine had said that "A law that is unjust is considered to be no law at all", Aquinas shows how civil disobedience (against written law) is sometimes right:

Therefore if a case emerges in which the observation of the law would be harmful to the general good, it should not be observed. For example, in a city under siege a law might be passed that the gates of the city should be kept closed and this would be generally useful for the common welfare. However if there were a case in which the enemy was pursuing citizens on whom the city depended for its safety it would be very harmful for the city not to open its gates. In this case the gates should be opened in violation of the letter of the law in order to protect the common interest as the legislator intended.

... if there is imminent danger and there is no time to refer the question to a superior, necessity carries with it its own dispensation, because necessity is not subject to law.

Here we can see how violating "the letter of the law" can be good, if it is what actually serves the spirit of the law. Human law is a power or an authority, but not the top power or top authority. The top authority for humans is natural law. If human law were perfectly aligned with natural law, it'd be the top authority--but human law isn't.

This means that individuals will have to keep thinking (to keep judging, to keep asking questions, etc.)--it means that individuals are more important than institutions, and that institutions only gain their importance from serving the sum of all individual interests. Only individual interests fully matter, and they matter fully (no one's interests should be institutionally trampled on).

Advantage

In contrast to Aquinas, we have a caricature of Li Si, a Chinese statesman who served as chief minister to Emperor Shi Huangdi (Qin Dynasty). Li Si was an advocate of Legalism, a philosophy where human law is the top authority. In King's words (p 32), "Li Si ... taught a complete disregard by the ruler for anything but personal power and security."

Note how Machiavellian that is. The entry for "Li Si" in Encyclopedia Brittanica online confirms the suspicion that Li Si was all about power and advantage, and all against individualism and truth:

Chinese statesman who utilized the ruthless but efficient ideas of the political philosophy of Legalism to weld the warring Chinese states of his time into the first centralized Chinese empire, ruled by the Qin dynasty (221–207 bce). ...

Finally, in an effort to prevent the growth of subversive thought, Li in 213 bce forbade the teaching of history and ordered the “burning of the books,” for which he earned the opprobrium of all future generations of Confucian scholars. When the emperor died in 210 bce, Li became involved in the plot of the eunuch Zhao Gao to void the proper succession.

It goes without saying that anyone who is into "book burning" is against truth. So there is a stark contrast depicted here--between the East and the West--but does it matter?

Why it matters

It's not only true that reverence of truth, even sometimes for the truth's sake alone, is unique to the West--and that truth is found individually so that individuals are the fundamental unit and proper standard of value in society--but it also affects how loving you are. Here is an abbreviated timeline of quotes which show how advantage-seeking can get in the way of love:

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. --1 John 4:18

A disinterested love ... is free from hope and from fear, and from regard to personal advantage. --Gottfried Leibniz, 1693

Where love reigns, there is no will to power; and where the will to power is paramount, love is lacking. --Carl Jung, 1917

There is only one thing that has power, and that is love. Because when a man loves, he seeks no power, and therefore he has power. --Alan Paton, 1948

The rise of postmodern existentialism which followed the writings of Immanuel Kant (who set the stage for the rise) has had dire consequences for humanity--not to mention two World Wars. Idolizing power or advantage and thereby denigrating truth and love can get humans into trouble.

Before the onset of World War II, a philosopher made note of the change in humanity which was happening due to the broad acceptance of the wrong philosophy of existentialism, characterized by the Dada movement in Europe:

Under the species of syndicalism and fascism there appears for the first time in Europe a type of man who does not want to give reasons or to be right, but simply shows himself resolved to impose his opinions. --Jose Ortega y Gasset, 1930

The modern exemplification of such a wrong philosophy--one which wants whatever it wants, not caring about the truth or even about the collateral harm--would be the social media giants, such as Google. But, instead of being engaged in book-burning, Google is acting behind the scenes to "shadow ban" views which it deems objectionable.

Firms like Google are attempting to "socially engineer" all of human society. It is an attempt to stifle or smother or to snuff out the light of truth and the way of individualism--in order to exalt their personal opinions and impose their personal wills, as if they were actual law.

It is a new "digi-tyranny."

Image Attribution

Page URL: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Broadway_tower_Edit3.jpg

Attribution: Newton2 Edit by: Arad [CC BY 2.5 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5)]