Opportunism
The reason people don't act opportunistically though they have the chance is that those people believe there are more important things than self-interest. I will tell a story of a famous Chinese minister Yu Qian as an example.
In 1449, Ming dynasty experienced a fatal failure at the Battle of Tumu. A lot of important officials of Ming dynasty, including Yu qian's immediate supervisor - the Minister of War, and the ruler of Ming dynasty - Zhengtong emperor, are captured by Oirat Mongols. To make things worse, Ming dynasty lost nearly all of its elite army (~300,000 soilders died or wounded), and most of its famous generals were died at that battle. Considering they had an important hostage Zhengtong emperor and Ming was very weak at that time, the Oriat Mongols seized the opportunity to attack Ming capital, Beijing.
Under this circumstance, the court of Ming dynasty had a huge debate about whether they should run away from the attack, move the capital to southern China Nanjing, and use the Yangtze river as a natural defence. Most of the court officials agreed with that idea, and Yu qian could also act opportunistically to support the idea of moving the capital. In that case, because of the vacancy of the Minister of War and Yu qian was the only qualified candidate, he would easily get promotion and don't have to deal with the threat from Mongols. However, instead of acting opportunistically and taking advantage of the situation, he was the first to stand up against those influential officials and pursuaded the empress dowager to trust him that he could lead the army, government to save Ming dynasty and its people. Nobody wanted to lead the country at that time, because the pressure was insanely huge that if you lost the war, the whole country was doomed and the people would suffer. The possibility to defeat Mongols army is also very low considering Ming had just lost a war to Mongols. Yu qian was not a famous general, instead, he was just a regular official of war department. He did not have to take that much responsiblity and carry the whole country, but he did it and even willing to sacrifice his life for it. Those officials who rooted for moving the capital thought Yu qian was crazy. They thought it was suicide to fight against Mongols outside of the city, but Yu qian bravely fought back the army of Mongols, set trap and defeated them.
After successfully leading the defence of Beijing, Yu qian became a hero and stayed as Miniser of War. Ming Dynasty has very low salary for government officials, so using their power to get a certain amount of money to make ends meet was common in Ming dynasty. Even though Yu qian was at the top of Ming dynasty and he could easily get lots of money by using his power, he still chose to not act opportunistically, sticked to his moral rules and never used his power to benefit himself. When he died, people found out that Yu qian did not have much property and was really poor.
In the long history of China, there are many people like Yu qian who put their self-interest under the country's interest. Some of them even sacrifice themselves in order to save the people and the dynasty. They have the spirit and belief that will prevent them from acting opportunistically. It's hard to explain what the spirit is. It's complicated, but I guess it is somewhat like with great power comes great responsibility.
That is a bit of history that I didn't previously know about. Thank you for that. Is it a story that every student growing up in China learns now? In American history, grade school children are taught a story about George Washing chopping down a cheery tree. It turns out, that story is a myth. As a young adult, while America was still in the throes of the Vietnam War, I started to become aware that much of the history we were taught in grade school had mythical aspects.
ReplyDeleteThere is a thought that such myths help ordinary people behave more nobly (and therefore don't act as opportunistically as they otherwise might). I don't know if that is true or not.
Getting back to your story, where I can't say it is 100% true or if it has some similarities to the George Washington story, I wonder if you might comment some on how it impacts your own behavior, if at all, and how you believe it impacts other students who are taught that story. Eventually, we want to move on from these stories where the person didn't act opportunistically but could have, to a way to manage others so they don't act opportunistically. So I'm asking you whether teaching such stories is one way to do that.
I can confirm that this is 99.99% true history. I'm a huge fan of Chinese history, and I read a lot of books about Chinese historiography, for example, Zizhi Tongjian, published in 1084 and written in ancient Chinese languange. History about defence of Beijing and life of Yu qian can be found in History of Ming, which was one of the official Chinese historical works known as the Twenty-Four Histories. History of Ming was written by Zhang Tingyu from Qing Dynasty and published in 1739. Maybe I shouldn't call it story at first, history or legend will be better?
ReplyDeleteNot much people in China love reading history, and it is not a thing that every chinese student should learn, it's just my personal interest. Though I think every students in China do learn a poetry written by Yu qian, called Limestone Chant.
I believe the spirit that Yu qian represents is a spirit that pass down to generations and generations in ancient China. There are lots of people in Chinese history before and after Yu qian who don't act opportunistically because they have belief, and they are inspired by those history event like the defence of Beijing. As to my own behavior, I'm still a college student so I don't have such experience about putting country's, nation's interest over mine.
I'm not good at explaining those Chinese history events, spirit and the inner core of them in English. Sorry for any confusion.
DeleteI thought your explanation was fine. I want to observe, however, that sometimes we can be noble in very small things. You help one person. Nobody else knows about it - ever. Saving a country is a situation most of us will never experience. Being good to somebody else, we all can do, but many times we don't.
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