Comment by jdw64
5 days ago
This is generally rooted in the Confucian thought that is broadly spread across Northeast Asia.
To think about your logic a bit more precisely, Orwell's metaphor is about why the power to trample others ultimately arises. In Confucianism, it's usually said:
孟子曰: 君子以仁存心，以禮存心。仁者愛人，有禮者敬人。 (Mencius said: The noble person keeps benevolence in their heart and keeps propriety in their heart. The benevolent person loves others, and the person who has propriety respects others.)
論語: 不憤不啟，不悱不發。 (The Analects: If the learner is not eager to know, do not enlighten them; if they are not struggling to express themselves, do not inspire them.)
孟子曰: 教亦多術矣，予不屑之教誨也者，是亦教誨之而已矣。 (Mencius said: There are many ways to teach. My refusing to teach someone because I deem them unworthy is also a form of teaching.)
This can be summarized as: 'When that desire passes through benevolence and propriety, it becomes good teaching. When it loses benevolence and propriety, it becomes scolding, interference, and self-display.'
From this, teaching can be understood as having different stages. Teaching is meaningful only when the other person is ready to receive it. Teaching is not about pouring out explanations; sometimes not teaching, stepping back, and letting the other person reflect on themselves is also a form of education.
The extreme of power that Orwell speaks of is, in other words, a kind of 'forcing' upon someone who does not want it. This means that the same desire can lead to completely different outcomes depending on which ethical filter it passes through.
However, this is also a very fragmented explanation when viewed in the full context. In modern society, we rarely live out classical thought as a complete system; instead, we cut out fragments of it and use them to explain current problems. I am not trying to explain Confucianism as a whole either. I am simply using the Confucian sensibility that is relatively commonly spread in Korea to try to understand this issue. So I cannot claim that the passages I cited are arranged in a completely rigorous way.
Perhaps the reason I feel this way is because I was born and raised in Korea, and I am currently active there. I am just active on HN because it is the metropolis of the programming world.
I feel that Western individualism treats the individual as a more autonomous unit. In contrast, in the Confucian sensibility I am familiar with, an individual is less like an independent point and more like an intersection of multiple relationships.
I think both Western and Eastern thought have their strengths and weaknesses, and they arrive at similar insights through different paths.
Orwell starts from a macroscopic, top-down perspective and examines how power tries to subjugate humans. This is a response to the macroscopic question, as seen in Machiavelli, of 'power as a matter of order and domination.'
As seen in Orwell's 'Notes on Nationalism,' his thinking is about the problem of proxy power: the attitude where an individual dissolves their identity into a group and pursues that group's power and prestige.
In other words, I think Confucianism asks questions about how to solve this problem at the microscopic level, while Orwell's work is closer to an explanation of how unresolved problems at the microscopic level can cause trouble.
Of course, what I have read is only at a university-level introduction to philosophy, so I hope you will take my answer as being just as superficial. For more detailed explanations, I suspect wild philosophers hungry for questions will appear and take over.
p.s. The irony is that this very comment is basically me pouring out content you probably didn't ask for. The biggest contradiction is that I'm talking about controlling the urge to act like a teacher, while I'm not practicing it myself. In fact, I think Confucianism also has macroscopic discourses, and Orwell also has microscopic explanations, so they don't fit together perfectly. There are also points where they conflict
It's not that I didn't ask for content - it's more like I would rather appreciate your genuine thoughts instead of AI output.
But if I had to write briefly without actually searching anywhere, this is what I think. Normally, before writing a comment, I search for other people's thoughts and filter my own through them. But if I had to be sincere, without searching anywhere, or if I had to write briefly, I would say this:
'We are all trapped in a desire for recognition, and it's hard to control that desire. And when that desire loses its way, we try to teach others, try to control them, and ultimately try to take their place. True learning only begins when we put that position down, but we are too afraid of letting go.'
I hope this is the answer you were looking for.
I often see variations on this exact comment on HN lately, even in response to things that are clearly genuine. Sometimes it's just ESL. In my opinion, whenever there is plausible deniability, just pointing it out is almost always the wrong move anyway.
Proliferation of AI "content" and people regurgitating the AI slop makes it extremely likely to be AI slop. You know, if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it's probably a duck.
If you look at HN comments in pre-"AI" era, you will see posts were way shorter and way more concise. While I am certainly could be in wrong, it does look like AI output.
I'm sorry, but I didn't use AI. The thing that's really hard about this is that the language I write in is Korean, and in the process of translating my words, the sentences and context I can use are limited.
Most of the time, I use officially translated versions of Confucian classics, but I'm actually using Google Translate and Papago (a Korean translator) to translate them. The words I use are fixed, and since the rich vocabulary I use in my native language is restricted, I guess it's inevitable that it looks like AI.
(The people here who reach for accusations of AI are saying they are not ready to learn, imho. Though your immediate preceding replies about Orwell flow less well than your usual writing?)
How would you judge the urge to teach people who have power or influence?
Your previous comments about Narcissism in Western economies come to mind.
It seems to me that Mencius was often talking down to his interlocutors. Maybe that would have worked out for him, but it didn't work out for many officials who got decapitated for speaking out. But am I an inferior person for thinking they weren't wrong not to control their urge to teach "tyrants"?
It seems that Stoics, Cynics etc escaped such punishment even though there were no equivalent advice in their worldview? Besides Socrates obviously. It could be that Westerners are simply better with manipulating emotions. And Socrates was complicated, but he'd never worm away from teaching.
I also think "hubris", a not very Asian concept, is something easier to address than narcissism (which has Asian versions).. maybe we can start there. (I am thinking of hubris in Greek stories or law, not the modern translation as "arrogance")
Consider Wu Kong. That's narcissism, not hubris, because he essentially had the powers of (most of) the gods. Whereas what Mencius had, and what the mods here have, could be called hubris. Hubris can be invisible to mortals, but not to gods. Hubris can be very abstract injuries to human dignity.
It feels like Orwell was being intimate with hubris. Big Brother. The Inner Party. And so on. Even "The Boot". Were carefully short of being "egoistic".
One caveat. It's very common in Chinese popculture to call someone competent a god, a goddess, almost always humourously. Interesting way to nip hubris in the bud?
Hubris is easier to correct than narcissism because sometimes all you have to do is point it out. Or wait for the AI bubble to pop.
Mencius would already have enjoyed his passive act of teaching before a bubble actually popped? Did he feel a need to buy puts?
2 replies →