The Harmonious Myth

by Anonymous

These days we hear a lot about “creating a harmonious society.”  Harmonious Society…we all want it, we are all working for it, what is it?  I believe in very broad terms we could define a harmonious society as one in which all people are able to live together peacefully.  A harmonious society should be like a symphony orchestra—each person contributes only a small sound, but when combined with many other small sounds it becomes beautiful music.  

Of course this sounds all well and good, but how do we achieve this harmony?

It appears that our desirable (though perhaps unachievable) end is a society in which we have no conflict.  Everyone should love and tolerate each other.  Does this mean that we should try to avoid and eliminate conflict?  NO.  

Unfortunately, too many people have adopted “avoid conflict” as their means of working for harmony.  Spend a day walking around your city.  You will undoubtedly see people throwing their garbage on the ground and spitting balls of phlegm on restaurant floors.  Go to any one of China’s beautiful tourist sites and you can see people tossing empty bottles into rivers and forests, and scraping their names into precious relics.  Does anyone speak up to stop these infractions?  Of course not, we avoid conflict.  

Perhaps these problems seem minor.  Let’s take a deeper look.  Imagine you are in a busy shopping mall and you see a thief stealing someone’s mobile phone.  What do you do?  Imagine you are walking down the street and you see a man hitting his wife/girlfriend and crowds of people are watching and saying nothing… what do you do? Your co-workers make important decisions based on bribes and “guanxi” rather than merit and truth…what do you do? You find out that your company/school/local government officials are corrupt…what do you do?  Unfortunately, I believe the overwhelming majority of us would answer “NOTHING” to all these questions.

Avoiding conflict does not move us closer to a harmonious society.  In fact, it prevents us from getting there.  Ignoring problems doesn’t make them go away.  Repeating lines about ‘love’ and ‘respect’ doesn’t stop people from cheating and stealing.  Waiting for the police and the government to fix all these problems means we’ll be waiting a long time.  

Many people reading this by now will be thinking: “I’m only one person, I can’t change anything.”  This is not true, and it’s a poor excuse to prevent you from doing something that might cause you to lose face.  If the man behind you in a restaurant is spitting on the floor, calmly tell him that it’s disgusting and it’s a hazard to public health.  He’ll lose face; maybe he’ll stop doing it.  If you see a thief stealing people’s belongings, stop him!  You could save a lot of trouble for others, and hopefully make the thief think twice about stealing again.  If you say nothing, you’ll have rewarded the thief’s courage and ensured that he will steal again and again.  Perhaps next time it will be your mobile phone that is missing.  If you see a man hitting his girlfriend, tell him that he’s wrong.  Speaking up can make him feel shamed; silence makes him empowered.  

We human beings learn our behavior by following examples.  I believe that one person can indeed make a difference because he/she can influence the thoughts and behavior of many others.  If people see you standing up for what’s right, they will be more likely to do so themselves.  All it takes are a courageous few who are willing to be leaders rather than followers, shepherds rather than sheep.  If our children stand and watch as men beat their wives in public, they are likely to do the same.  If they see courageous people standing up for what’s right, they might have a chance of working towards harmony in the future.  

In a symphony orchestra, if someone is playing out of tune do we continue playing and hope for the best?  No, we stop him and fix the problem.  In society we must encourage constructive conflict, because for those playing out of tune our silence only serves as approval.  Those of us who believe in avoiding conflict are only serving as obstacles on the path to harmony, and are giving the thieves, corrupt officials, and wife-beaters what they want—love and acceptance

发表于 @ 2006年04月27日 13:06:00|评论(loading...)|编辑