On Donald Trump’s 100th day in office, the President stated that to do his job he needed “heart.” This brought to mind the words and wisdom of my favorite Chinese philosopher, Mencius (MEN – shuhs). Though virtually unknown today in the West, this disciple of Confucius, who lived during the 4th century BCE, is considered by many to be the wisest sage who ever lived.
In the humanist spirit that was central to Confucianism, Mencius believed in the essential goodness of humanity. This goodness resides in every person in what he called hsin, or heart. (More literally heart/mind.) Heart, he tells us, is what defines us as human. In the center of this heart is compassion and empathy.
Mencius believed that immorality is not intrinsic to us, but is rather a corruption of what we are meant to be. It is proof that we have “lost” our heart, or, to put it another way, that we have become distanced from our original nature.
Mencius developed his theory through his observations of agriculture. By understanding and following nature’s laws you could increase your yield. With the proper sunlight, soil, and water, the seed would grow into a mighty tree, becoming what it is meant to be, fulfilling, what Aristotle called, its entelechy. In the same way, if, as children, we receive the proper emotional sunlight, soil, and water, we become what we are meant to be, realizing our entelechy, which is to be compassionate and good.
On the other hand, if the farmer doesn’t follow nature’s dictates, their crops wither and die. Unfortunately, none of us gets exactly what we need in our childhood. These childhood wounds, and the scars they leave behind, is what leads us to lose our hearts. That is, we don’t realize our entelechy, we become distanced from our original nature, and we don’t fully develop our capacity for empathy and compassion.
Since all of us are somewhat wounded, our life task, then, becomes to recover, and make manifest, our inherent potential for goodness. As Mencius put it, “the principal of self-cultivation consists in nothing but trying to find the lost heart.”
Mencius lived in a time of incompetent, corrupt, vain, and cruel rulers. Seeing the terrible consequences of this kind of governing, he took it upon himself to right this situation. He would do this by helping the leaders of his day find their lost hearts. He believed that if he could set them on a path of self-cultivation, they would become good, and this would be the cure for society’s ills. No matter how badly they acted, he never criticized them or wavered in his belief in their essential capacity for jen, or an ideal humanity.
One way that Mencius tried to convince the leaders of his day to follow his precepts was by enlightening them to the idea of the Heavenly Mandate. The Heavenly Mandate was fulfilled when the people adored their ruler, signaling harmony between the ruler’s heart, his acts, and universal law. If all would be right within the individual – if the Emperor found his heart – then all would be right in the realm. If all was right in the realm, the people would all love him, and the Heavenly Mandate would be realized.
If Mencius were around today, he would want to bring this wisdom of the Heavenly Mandate to Trump, who provided an opening to this philosophy by stating that he is beginning to realize that he needs heart to be an effective President. As our leader loves nothing more than to be adored by the masses, the promise of universal love might be just the trick to convince him to do the work of self-cultivation that would result in him finding his lost heart. A case could be made here: since his base won’t abandon him no matter what, if he was to find his heart and do some good in the world, he would appeal to the other 60%, and he could be the most popular President in history.
In the spirit of Mencius, there’s something appealing about taking on the job of helping Trump with this, as the Chinese Sage attempted to do with the Emperor all those years ago. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, this would require holding on to the belief that Trump is not amoral. Somewhere within him is goodness, which just needs to be cultivated and found.
I love Mencius’s philosophy with all of my heart. There’s just one thing. Though he had a tremendous impact on his culture and was studied by every Chinese student for 1000 years, when it came to his goal with the leaders of his day – he failed.
Glenn Berger, PhD is a psychotherapist, Certified Brain Health Coach, and author of NEVER SAY NO TO A ROCK STAR: IN THE STUDIO WITH DYLAN, SINATRA, JAGGER AND MORE. (Schaffner Press, 2016).