VOLUME VII, CHAPTER 8, SECTION 3
Who Is Pushing This Story, and What This Generation of Real Humans Should Do
The last section made the two charges against that claim to "abandon Earth and rush to Mars" stand, and at its end left one question: how can such a dangerous claim become so popular? Who is pushing this kind of story? This section first answers that question, then brings this group to a close: the real humans of this generation, facing this one and only paradise being pushed toward hell, facing this dangerous story of abandoning Earth, what should they do? The answer: guard this one and only paradise, and turn the power that could destroy it to tending it instead. This is the responsibility the real humans of this generation cannot escape.
One. Several Forces, Pushing This Story Together
First look at who is pushing this story. It did not become popular out of thin air; underneath there are several forces, pushing it together.
One is the force of chasing profit. Building spaceships, building shell-cabins, running the moving of people, is a business as big as the sky, with huge profit in it to be had; those who chase this profit are glad to trumpet Mars as humankind's final home, so that vast wealth flows on and on into this business. One is the force of dodging responsibility. Drawing the eye toward that far-off dream of Mars happens to let one dodge the responsibility, close at hand, right before the eyes, for spoiling Earth: rather than strain to stop the damage you caused yourself, better to talk grandly of moving to Mars, which looks far-sighted and does not require you to truly draw back that hand that spoils. One is the force of craving the new and hunting the strange. That grand, sweeping, novel story of moving to Mars naturally catches the eye and stirs the heart, and spreads far more easily, gets cried up far more easily, than that plain truth of "honestly guarding Earth well." These several forces, the one chasing profit, the one dodging responsibility, the one hunting the strange, twined together, push this dangerous story along until its noise is vast.
These several forces each have their own private heart, yet in pushing that story they agree without ever conferring. The profit-chasers want the huge profit of that business, the responsibility-dodgers want to shed the responsibility for the spoiling before their eyes, the strange-hunters want that novel, sweeping thing to talk about; what the three are after differs, yet all are glad to hear the tune of "abandon Earth and rush to Mars" sung louder and louder. And so the three private hearts flow into one combined force, and lift an absurd claim that should have been pricked into a fashion, stylish, lofty, one no one dares lightly question. This is exactly where this kind of story is best at taking people in: it is not stood up by reason, it is held up by these several forces; the bigger its noise, the more it seems beyond question, and the absurdity underneath is hidden instead by that noise. So to break it, first see through it: that noise is not reason, it is a conspiracy of private hearts; that fashion is not foresight, it is chasing profit, dodging responsibility and hunting the strange flowing together.
Two. See Through These Forces, and Do Not Be Taken In
Once these several forces are seen through, people are not easily taken in by that story.
What makes that story moving is the trumpeting of the profit-chasers, the grand talk of the responsibility-dodgers, the cheering of the strange-hunters, woven into one great noise; but however great the noise, it cannot hide one plainest fact: Earth is the one and only paradise, Mars is a barren waste planet, and to abandon Earth and rush to Mars is to bet the road of life of the whole race on an empty dream. See through those several forces, and you know that underneath that story with its vast noise is chasing profit, dodging responsibility, hunting the strange, and not true care for the survival of humankind. Once people see through this layer, the story's power to take people in is mostly gone: the final home on Mars it promises is false; the responsibility for guarding Earth it dodges is real; the huge profit it chases and the novelty it hunts care nothing whether the multitudes live or die. To see through it and not be taken in by it is a clear head the real humans of this generation must have. With this clear head, they can avoid being swept away by that story, and can draw their eyes back from that far-off dream of Mars to this real home before their eyes, which so urgently needs guarding.
This clear head must especially guard against one confusion: do not take that story of abandoning Earth, wrapped in chasing profit, dodging responsibility and hunting the strange, for humankind's ambition to strive forward, to open new ground, to gaze up at the starry sky. The two look alike and are in fact different. True ambition is to guard well the home under your feet, and then to explore the starry sky at leisure; the false story is to abandon the home under your feet and chase a dream that cannot save itself. True striving forward is to put power to tending this one and only paradise; false clamor is to use the name of striving forward to do the business of chasing profit and dodging responsibility. See through this layer, and you will not, because you condemn that story, mistakenly think you are opposing exploring, opposing striving forward; just the opposite, true exploring and striving forward must first guard this one and only home, and only so have a root from which to unfold at leisure. A clear head does not put out ambition; it saves ambition out of that false story and returns it to the right road of guarding the home.
Three. The Real Humans of This Generation Should Guard This Paradise
With that story seen through, what should the real humans of this generation do? The answer: guard this one and only paradise.
The real humans of this generation have run into a situation never seen before: for the first time they hold in their hands a power great enough to ruin their own home, before their eyes this one and only paradise is being damaged one thing after another, and in their ears rings the dangerous clamor of "abandon Earth and rush to Mars." This situation is one the several dozen generations before never met; this responsibility is one the several dozen generations before never carried. But since this generation has run into it, it cannot escape: to guard this one and only paradise, and not let it sink from paradise into hell in their own hands and their children's, is the responsibility the real humans of this generation are duty-bound not to refuse. This responsibility cannot be pushed off because it is heavy, cannot be avoided because it is hard; because there is no way to fall back, because the home is the only one, because once it is lost it is lost beyond all recovery. If this generation guards it, the children and grandchildren of ten thousand generations have a paradise to live in; if this generation loses it, the children and grandchildren of ten thousand generations fall into hell with nowhere to flee. Whether it is carried or not hangs on one thought, one deed, of the real humans of this generation.
This responsibility, spoken of, is heavy; brought down to solid ground, it is after all no more than the five, the ordinary. Guarding Earth does not need everyone to do some earth-shaking great deed; it lies in every real human's everyday keep, guard, love, mercy, heart: keeping the self-discipline not to spoil a single blade of grass or a single tree, guarding with the commitment to hand this land and water on to those who come after, loving every living thing with life on this planet, minding whether children and grandchildren will still have a paradise to live in, holding a goodness that cannot bear to ruin and cast off the home. Thousands upon thousands of real humans, each in their own place, in their own days, bringing these five down onto the work of guarding Earth, gathered together, are the mighty force that guards this paradise. So the sky-high responsibility of guarding Earth still has the five underneath it; it is not outside ordinary days, it is right in the middle of ordinary days. This bears witness once again: guarding the five and guarding this paradise were from the start one thing.
Four. To Guard It Is to Set Straight the Hearts That Use the Power
Then how is it guarded? Not by smashing that power, banning that tool, abolishing that exploring, but by setting straight the hearts of the people who use the power.
The last chapter set down: that damage, the crime is not in how great the power is, but in the hearts of the people using the power having gone crooked. So the root of guarding this paradise is not in destroying the power that could destroy it, but in setting straight the hearts of the people who use the power: so that the power that can stir up mountains and rivers is no longer used for grabbing without measure, pouring out waste, spoiling, but turns instead to cleaning up pollution, restoring the soil, tending the waters, protecting living things. This runs wholly in one line with the lawmaking the whole book has held to: saving the human heart, setting the human heart straight, has been the root of the whole book all the way along; come to the matter of guarding Earth, it is still this same set. Once the heart is set straight, that same power turns from a power of destruction into a power of tending; and the one and only paradise can be guarded. And setting the heart straight rests on exactly that living mechanism of the four institutions set down in the volumes before, rests on exactly that work of guarding the five, of guarding that heart which guards people and guards things. Guarding Earth, when all is said, is still guarding the five, setting the heart straight; it is not outside the lawmaking of the whole book, it is right in the middle of the lawmaking of the whole book.
Once this layer is understood, guarding Earth is no longer a new matter hanging alone outside the whole book, starting from a fresh stove, but the natural next step of that one line of lawmaking in the whole book, stretched out onto the matter of the home. All the way along, the whole book has saved the bottom layer, nourished the human heart, set up livelihoods, set straight the affairs of government, made the law clear, guarded the five, returned to the human world; and underneath every step is the same one line: guard the five, set the heart straight. Come to guarding Earth, it is still this line. So what guarding Earth leans on is not another set of methods, but exactly the set the whole book has set up: that living mechanism of the four institutions, that work of guarding the five, that lawmaking of setting the heart straight. Once the heart is set straight, the hand that uses power no longer spoils the home; once that heart which guards people and guards things is fully nourished, guarding Earth becomes a natural thing that needs no forcing. The guarding of Earth, the setting straight of the heart, the nourishing of the five, are from the start fruits on one vine, of one breath and joined branches, and cannot be split into two things.
Five. The Layer This Section and This Group Have Made Plain
This section has answered "who is pushing this story," and has also brought the Earth group to a close.
What pushes that story of "abandon Earth and rush to Mars" is the several forces of chasing profit, dodging responsibility and hunting the strange, twined together; see through these forces, and people are not taken in. The real humans of this generation have run into a situation of holding the power of destruction in their hands, with paradise being damaged and a dangerous story clamoring; to guard this one and only paradise is the responsibility this generation cannot escape. And the root of guarding it is not in destroying that power, but in setting straight the hearts of the people who use the power, so that the power of destruction turns into a power of tending; this is still the one root of the whole book, saving people and setting the heart straight, in the shape it takes on guarding Earth. The Earth group is now fully set up: the human world people return to is Earth, Earth is the one and only paradise, paradise is being pushed toward hell, Mars is no way out but a murder, and the real humans of this generation should guard this paradise. Only with this one and only paradise guarded is there a human world to return to, and are the five there to be nourished. From here, the whole volume turns to its last close: all the way along, the lawmaking, the guarding of the five, the return to the human world, the guarding of paradise, underneath all of this, what kind of heart is it? Originally, not a single thing; great love remains in the human world.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.
Chapter Nine. Originally, Not a Single Thing, a Great Love Remains in the Human World.