Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Comparison between Legalism and Mohism

In Ancient China there were several schools of though. Two of the schools were Mohism and Legalism. Mohism and Legalism had many differences, they were created at different times, and by different people. But they both proposed ways for a country to be ruled.
Mohism was founded by Mo Zi around 470 BC. Mohism believed that all people were born partially good and partially bad. He said the only reason there is war is because people don't love each other. That the only way for there to be peace on Earth was if there was universal love. Because if you loved your neighbor like you loved yourself then you wouldn't do anything bad to him, thus all human caused sorrow would be eliminated. They believed that how you act matters as much as how you think and that you should study practical scienceses like math. Music and art were strgonly discouraged, as was gossip or talking about people from your own perspective. Everyone should be loved equally.
Legalism was founded by Gongsung Yang at around 338 BC. Legalism stated that all people were born bad. It stated the only way for a governemnt to avoid chaos was for it to keep the common people in agriculture. It states in the document that the common people should "take to agriculture." It also states that the rich should stay rich, kind of meaning that the social classes should be kept from generation to generation. Legalism had a strong stand against morality, people should do what the laws say, they shouldn't question if it was right or wrong. The laws were right, everytihng against the laws was wrong. Legalism also believed that war was a way to demostrate power, and if people followed rules they should be rewarded, and if they didn't they should be ounished with an iron fist.
I think the most effective way for a country to be ruled was by the Legalistst. Not that it was effective as in life was good for all, but in a way that the country would be strong. Personally I think in a Legalist country life for common people would be terrible. If a country has enough raw power (police, military) to keep all of it's people in line in acceptance with Legalist views then I think it will be a very powerfull country. For example if you have a draft, you have a constant military force, you also have the peasants (if there not in the army) working to harvest food. Then you have the officialls and rulers and smart people to spend all there time to work on ruling or developing new technologies. This taking into account that the ruler isn't a lazy tyrant who appoints officials who abuse there power.
I think Mohism wouldn't be a very long lasting way to keep power. Simply because there is no way that you can commit all people to universal love. There will always be one person who won't love and who will hate and ruin everything. Because hate comes from hate, so if that one hater will do something bad then other people will be prone to retaliate.

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