If it is true in us that our own perspectives evolve along with our ceaseless transformations and yet we remain able to unify them all and affirm them as our own single self-expression, surely it is also true of others. And if it is true in others then in this we are all the same and can therefore unite self and other to form a oneness. In recognizing and affirming our own perpetual stumble forward, we can allow others to do the same. This is little more than the previously mentioned folk wisdom that we should walk a mile in another’s shoes before condemning them.
*
Thus, we can understand how the Confucians and the Mohists, for all their significant differences of opinion, are the same in that they are each one merely speaking from the perspective of their unique experiences. We can unite them to form a oneness. Such a movement does not negate their differences, and we can still judge between them as to which best facilitates human flourishing, only now we are informed of a higher view that enables us to affirm them all as “This”, as right. All that “is” is right by virtue of its existing at all. All is well in the Great Mess of contraries in evolving and historical staggerings. This is the broadest of affirmations derived from the empirical, the “obvious”. We shall later consider a more immediate and intuitive point of entry.