The Five Virtues of Ancient China

I was watching a travel special not long ago on China. The featured places included of course The Great Wall, Tian'anmen Square, and the Forbidden City. It said within the Forbidden City are five marble bridges that represent the five virtues of ancient China: Benevolence, Righteousness, Intelligence, Rights, and Fidelity.

My first thought was how on earth could a country who regarded rights as one of their revered ancient virtues ever fall prey to Communism?

But then I began to think it extraordinary that as a nation they had actually defined virtues which acted as a guiding force and actually represented their character as a nation. And I wondered over their choices.

1. Benevolence: the disposition to do good.
2. Righteousness: acting in accord with divine moral law.
3. Intelligence: the skilled use of reason.
4. Rights: something to which one has just claim.
5. Fidelity: the quality of being faithful.

In reality, these are not altogether that different than what our founding fathers used as a framework when writing the Constitution. It is certainly clear from even The Declaration of Independence that we believe "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights." But what is more interesting to me is that the writers of the Constitution, all men of God, presupposed that we would act accordingly as children of God, with benevolence and fidelity - and moreover that these qualities were indeed necessary for the success of the colonies.

Intelligence is a fundamental cornerstone of our society as well. We were established as an independent nation by learned men, some of the greatest minds in our history. We have always fought for education, and have guaranteed free public education.

But I disagree with fidelity. While I believe fidelity is a morally necessary component of any and all relationships, I would argue that freedom ought to take more priority on that list. We above all value freedom - we fought the English for it, and we have a Bill of Rights in our Constitution which guarantees many personal freedoms so many of us take for granted that are denied in so many other places in the world - freedom of speech, of the press, to own a gun, from tyranny, freedom of innocence unless proven guilty. But here is the question. Have we guaranteed these freedoms because we believe them to be rights?

It is amazing though that the Chinese highlighted these five virtues in the early 1400's and yet they are still so relevant to the world today.

My list would be:
1. Righteousness - which I equate with faith.
2. Compassion - not just benevolence - to do good - but to act with a sympathetic consciousness.
3. Rights.
4. Freedom.
5. Intelligence which goes hand in hand with Knowledge.