The Second Principle: Live for the greater whole

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LESSON 9: The Vertical Ethic Begins with Honoring Parents

A. The vertical ethic is to live for the greater whole.

1. In the family, day to day, one's parents represent the greater whole. Therefore, children serving their parents is the beginning of living for the greater whole. This is the foundation vertical ethic: filial piety.

2. Filial piety, the vertical ethic, can be practiced on the level of the family, nation, world and cosmos. [See Diagram 4]

• Filial piety.
• Love of country (true patriotism).
• Love of all humanity (sainthood).
• Love of God (to be a son or daughter of God).

B. The way of filial piety.

1. Filial sons and daughters feel gratitude for their parent's sacrificial love given in bearing and rearing them.

• We received infinitely from our parents.
• Therefore, we have a debt to our parents.
• We should pay back this debt by serving our parents with gratitude and love.
• Paying back the debt creates a deeper bond of love with our parents. This makes the base for an ever-developing relationship, energy, prosperity and happiness.
• As a result, we gain much more, including good fortune in the future.
• This logic applies on ever-expanding levels of our existence.

2. All religions exalt filial piety.

• The Chinese character depicts a child laboring in the field to help the family farm.
• Ex. 20:12: "Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which the Lord your God gives you."
• Matt 19:17-19: "If you would enter life, keep the commandments . . . Honor your father and mother, . . ."

3. Children respond to parental love with genuine gratitude and willing obedience. They inherit their parents' teachings and world views as their own. As children grow to adulthood, they understand their parents' deepest ideals and longings.

4. Children want to make their parents proud of them.

• Children of filial piety fulfill their parents' unfinished dreams.
  • Children of poor immigrants who go to college and achieve success.
  • Children of parents who love music, who practice and become accomplished musicians.
  • All parents dream their children will find joy in marriage and family.
  • Therefore, sexual purity is the primary act of filial piety.
• Children of filial piety uphold their parents' standards.
• Children of filial piety harmonize with one another and keep the family peaceful.
• Children of filial piety achieve their own happiness and success; parents want their children to be happy and successful.

5. Children of filial piety provide for their parents in old age, in their own homes, not government or commercial institutions.

6. Filial piety requires postponing one's own happiness. This is why it is a virtue comparable with patriotism and sainthood.

7. Parents need to use firmness and provide standards for their children, who are looking for rules to live by.

• The children will internalize these standards as their own.
• Children sense the heart behind necessary reprimand or punishment.
• Only when it is given with a heart of love is punishment effective and nurturing.
• Punishment out of anger, frustration or egoism leads to alienation, distrust and resentment on the part of the child.
• Children will inherit what their parents do and actually value, not what they say they should do and should value.

8. Even when parents are bad, the child should be filial. He tries to urge his parents to refrain from evil for the sake of the family's reputation, but he does not leave his position as their child. In the Confucian tradition, the legendary example of a filial son enduring hostile parents was the ancient Chinese King Shun. He was filial even as his parents were trying to kill him. Once his parents made him dig a well, intending to bury him alive as he worked at the bottom of the pit. He learned of their plot, dug a side chamber and survived and never criticized his parents. His filial piety became so renowned that King Yao selected him as his heir and gave him the throne.

9. In the Bible, we can compare Ham and Isaac in terms of filial piety. Ham disrespected his father Noah, even after Noah's work saved the family from the flood (Gen. 9:2-25). Isaac obeyed his father Abraham, even when Abraham placed him on the altar to be sacrificed (Gen. 15:9-16). Ham's descendants were cursed, and Isaac's were blessed. Ham was controlled by distrust of his father, but Isaac was trusting.

C. Rejection of filial piety by the modern world.

1. Disillusionment with parents leads to individualism.

• In the late 1960s there occurred a large-scale rejection of parents by children.
• The children viewed the parents speaking high ideals but living for themselves or their own families.
• This was the problem of those who became parents after 1945, whose children matured in the 1960s and 70s. The children rejected the parental position of their own parents.
• This led to the "me generation" of the 1970s and 80s.

2. Materialism leads to individualism.

• Material abundance, which stimulates our physical senses, seduces us to think that we can find happiness through material goods alone.
• Consumerist culture leads to an ethic of "instant gratification." This reduces our ability to sustain long-term relationships through the difficult periods of sacrifice.
• Consumerist culture creates the expectation that we can "trade-in" whatever is not satisfactory, and that we must constantly "up-grade" our possessions. This also has an effect upon our human relationships.
• Thus materialism also leads to individualism.

3. Critique of individualism.

• We tend to over-emphasize our individuality and think we are independent, devaluing and cutting ourselves off from our parents.
• We think of ethics in terms of honoring personal commitments, voluntarily entered into like contracts. But our essential relationships are not voluntary or contractual. We don't choose our parents and family. Treating all of life as a series of options, and not of givens, destroys the essence of true love, which is unconditional love of the other in front of God.
• Hence individualistic love grows cold. Ultimately, those who live alone, caring only for themselves, become isolated and depressed. For them, the value and meaning of life disappears. They escape the pain by living for temporary, physical pleasure and security, while unhappy and confused.

4. Without strong family bonds, the temptations to individualistic life are hard to overcome. Individualism reduces our concern about the larger society, including our nation. Thus family values affect the larger society in very substantial ways. Love for one's nation is the topic of the next lesson.

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