Mencius in Minneapolis

This episode considers the ongoing Black Lives Matter demonstrations, which I support and in which I am participating, from a Confucian perspective, particularly with reference to Mencius (Mengzi). Mencius would be deeply critical of a regime that, on the one hand, has established such an inequitable system as the one in which many minorities find themselves, while on the other hand has effectively criminalized their response to such inequity. His argument is based on the essential goodness of human nature (to be addressed in future episodes), and the responsibility of the regime to cultivate that nature in everyone living under its authority, or at least to foster conditions in which individuals have sufficient time and  circumstances in which to cultivate it in themselves.