Importance Of Proper Order

To discuss the how, what, and why of proper order, one must first look to proper order’s components. Proper order has two components, or rather exists on two levels: the government (what is essentially the state) and institutions on the local level (one’s city, family, among other things) (Magagna, Oct. 18). While proper order has multiple dimensions, this paper will work to explain three of its dimensions: the what, the why, and the how. In order to discuss the why and how of proper order, I must first establish the what, or rather, the definition of proper order. Professor Victor Magagna establishes a concrete definition, stating that proper order has three criteria of identification (Oct. 18). The first criteria to determine whether one

Proper order is fragile, but the reasoning may not be immediately evident to all. This portion of the paper will examine the why of proper order, or rather the question: why is proper order particularly fragile? Professor Magagna offers several actions that undermine proper order, or rather explanations of why proper order is especially fragile. The first explanation is essentially: that is just the way things are. The world has a tendency to fall into almost a decay, and by that reasoning, everything must come to an end at some point. Professor Magagna states that the probability of something eventually undermining the stability of proper order is incredibly high, and he asserts that it is actually “fate” and bound to happen (Oct.

20). To understand the paradoxes of rationality, one must once again remember the Confucian idea that humans are believed to be, at baseline, rational (Magagna, Oct. 20). When rationality becomes a problem, however, is when humans are too narrow with their self interests (Magagna, Oct. 20). This is not to say that self interest is necessarily bad, but when one narrows their self interest, one consequently loses sight of the bigger picture. Professor Magagna gives a detailed example of a rice farmer to demonstrate too narrow self interests: a farmer works hard to grow rice. Under rational thought, it makes sense that the farmer works so hard to care for his crop. However, he eventually becomes so self interested in simply making profit, that he starts pulling on the crops to promote their growth, which cause them to die. It was only when the farmer got too narrow minded in his self interests that things began to go wrong; if the farmer maintained a healthy amount of self interest, things would not have ended so badly (Magagna, Oct. 20). Essentially, in the example of the rice farmer, if he had seen the larger picture, he ultimately would have gained more. While the farmer remained rational throughout his farming process, he, in the end, had nothing. This is the paradoxes of