Ever played a game where the only way to win is to screw over your friends? Where the rules basically force everyone to act like animals because one person's gain is another person's loss? Confucius had some thoughts about that. His advice: maybe stop playing that game.
In this tenth episode, host Elliott Bernstein tackles passages 15.36 and 15.37—a pair of six-character phrases about when it's right to break the rules and disobey your superiors. 15.36 says don't follow orders—even your teacher's—if they conflict with human-heartedness. 15.37 says exemplary people stay true to what's right, not just true to their word.
But what makes breaking a promise morally acceptable? When does "I'm just following orders" stop being an excuse? And why did Confucius think rigid honesty was actually a character flaw
Along the way: the horrifying siege of 宋 that happened 40 years before Confucius was born (citizens were so starving they traded family members to be eaten—and the enemy general was so disturbed he convinced his king to call the whole thing off), why 讓 means "yield" but the translation here stretches it to "follow the rules" (when you defer to authority, you're really following their priorities whether you like it or not), the fact that disobeying your teacher in ancient China was serious business (education wasn't compulsory—finding someone to accept you as a student was a big deal), Kant's Axe thought experiment where the "correct" answer is to tell an axe murderer where your friend is hiding (Confucius would absolutely lie to save his friend), passage 13.18 where a son reports his father for stealing a sheep and Confucius basically says "stop snitching," the concept of 小信 or "petty fidelity" (being honest to a fault), the opposite concept 權 or "discretion" (the 公羊傳 defines it as "goodness resulting from transgressing well-established canons"), and the story from the 韓非子 where a blind music master throws his zither at a duke who complained that no one dares oppose him—and the duke leaves the hole in the wall as a reminder to himself.
Plus: why 貞 originally meant divination on oracle bones (the top part represents a crack in the bone, the bottom was a ritual cauldron), how that evolved into "truth" and eventually "chastity" (it's in the name of the white snake spirit 白素貞), the three different words for "teacher" in modern Chinese (師父 for martial arts masters, 師傅 for taxi drivers and chefs, 老師 for everyone else), and why 諒 looks like it should mean "forgive" but actually means the opposite.
