"It advocates a love that makes no distinction between kin and stranger, noble and humble — an equal love for all."
I used to read that line and think it was brain-dead — even a little repulsed. It sounded like a swindler coaxing some naive child: go on, sacrifice yourself, hollow yourself out, love everyone without distinction — me, the swindler, included. Yet the swindler will never love the child back; he'll only smile and treat that goodwill as a soft spot to be exploited. Anyone who mindlessly obeys that is either a saint or a fool.
But later, by chance, I read Mozi in the original — and realized he may be one of the most misread and slandered thinkers in Chinese history.
Mencius cursed jian'ai (universal love) as "fatherless," as bestial, and for two thousand years people have repeated that verdict without reopening the text. But Mozi's universal love is not "selfless sacrifice," still less "harm yourself to benefit others" — he put it coldly, hard, and so practically you can't argue back. So let's go line by line, straight from his own words.
Benevolence is loving as one body. Righteousness is benefit. — Canon I (经上)
Other schools enshrine "righteousness" up in the clouds, the more mystical the better. Not Mozi. In the Canon he gives it a definition flat as a blade: righteousness is benefit (义，利也).
That single cut lays open centuries of pretty talk. To speak of righteousness is not to sound noble — it is to bring people real, tangible benefit. In the same chapter, "loyalty" is "exerting oneself for the ruler's benefit," and "filial piety" is "benefiting one's parents." Loyalty, filiality, benevolence, righteousness — Mozi lands every one of them on the single word benefit. Love is invisible, untouchable; but benefit can be weighed on a scale and laid out in the open. So anyone who truly carries love shouldn't keep it on their lips — they should prove it in benefit.
Hold onto those three words: righteousness is benefit. Everything below grows from here.
What shall replace [mutual hatred]? Master Mozi said: "Replace it with the way of loving one another and benefiting one another." … Regard another's state as your own, another's household as your own, another's body as your own. — Universal Love II (兼爱中)
Why is the world in chaos? Mozi's diagnosis: it arises from people not loving one another. His prescription is six words — love one another, benefit one another.
"Jian (兼)" means to love all alike, drawing no line between self and other; "benefit one another" means both sides gain. Note: it is loving one another, benefiting one another — mutual, reciprocal. Many deliberately twist it into something one-directional — the reflex is self-sacrifice, hollowing yourself out for others. But how is that loving one another? Hurting yourself for others, or others for yourself — neither is mutual love. Only win–win — you gain and the other gains — is universal love.
Regard another's state, household, and body as your own — and who would then attack another's state, scheme against another's household, or harm another's body?
Mozi anticipated the objection: jian'ai is fine, but who could actually do it? So in Universal Love III he sets up a test — take two men, one holding to "partiality" (别, self only), one holding to "inclusiveness" (兼, others too):
The partial man says: "How could I treat my friend's body as my own, my friend's parents as my own?" … The inclusive man says: "… I must treat my friend's body as my own, my friend's parents as my own — only then can I be a noble man in the world." — Universal Love III (兼爱下)
Now suppose you're about to march into battle in armor, or be sent far away on a long mission, your survival uncertain — and you must entrust your family to someone. Do you hand them to the partial man who cares only for himself, or to the inclusive man who treats your household as his own?
Mozi's conclusion is merciless:
In all the world there is no fool, man or woman, who — even while condemning inclusiveness — would not entrust their family to the inclusive man. … Their words reject inclusiveness, yet their choice takes it. — Universal Love III
Even the loudest critic of universal love, when it's time to entrust everything he holds dear, will choose the inclusive man. The mouth rejects it; the body is the honest one. That is the ironclad proof that universal love is not only practicable, but something everyone already acknowledges in their heart.
As for the type who cares only for himself — selling fakes, gaming a merchant with malicious returns — that is Mozi's "partial man" (别士), with no heart of mutual love at all. Honestly, keep your distance.
Universal love sounds soft, but it is a sharpened razor. Watch this relentless escalation from Condemnation of Offensive War I:
To kill one man is called unrighteous, and incurs one death-penalty's worth of guilt. … To kill a hundred men is a hundredfold unrighteous, and incurs a hundred death-penalties' worth of guilt. At this, the gentlemen of the world all know to condemn it and call it unrighteous. But now, when the greatest unrighteousness — attacking another state — is committed, they fail to condemn it; they follow along and praise it, and call it righteous. — Condemnation of Offensive War I (非攻上)
Stealing peaches is punished; stealing chickens or oxen is worse; killing one man is a capital crime — everyone can do this arithmetic. Yet once it scales up into a war of aggression, with the slain piled in the fields, the crowd turns around and praises it as "righteous." Mozi uses one ruler, measuring all the way from stolen peaches to invaded states: a moral standard must not flip its face as the scale grows. That insistence is the hard core of universal love.
What the humane person must do, Mozi says in a single line:
One must devote oneself to promoting what benefits the world and eliminating what harms it. — Universal Love III
Promote the world's benefit, remove the world's harm — that is universal love, and it has nothing to do with starving yourself to feed another.
"Universal love always loses, and is doomed to be short-lived" — the most poisonous line ever hung around its neck. But Mozi answered it long ago, carrying the account all the way up to Heaven:
Heaven desires righteousness and detests unrighteousness. … Those who accord with Heaven's will — loving one another, benefiting one another — will surely be rewarded; those who defy it — hating one another, preying on one another — will surely be punished. — Will of Heaven I (天志上)
Accord with Heaven and practice mutual love and mutual benefit, and Mozi calls it "government by righteousness"; bully the weak by force, and he calls it "government by might." Righteous government, he says, "benefits Heaven above, the spirits in the middle, and humanity below — three benefits, benefiting all." In plain terms: universal love is not a losing trade. Stretch the timeline out and it is the only way of life in which none of the three parties loses.
Don't believe it? Look around: the win–win way of a boss like Pang Donglai, set against those who treat their workers as "consumables." Which one goes the distance is plain to see.
If the logic is this solid, why has it gone unpracticed for two thousand years? Because our minds are a territory under constant contest.
Every piece of news pushed to us, every viewpoint that enters our ears, every value that meets our eyes, and even the thoughts that emerge from within our own minds, is a living "Wille-gene." It has only one fundamental purpose: to survive and replicate. To this end it will relentlessly compete for our attention, seize control of our actions to win still more attention, and finally replicate itself into the minds of others. The successful ones reign in our heads and shape our worldview; the failures are forgotten — a Darwinian war waged without smoke or fire. And "universal love always loses, and is doomed to be short-lived" is one wildly successful Wille-gene that has been swindling you for two millennia.
So we must become the sentinels of our own minds and practice DYOR (Do Your Own Research): scrutinize every appearance we perceive, interrogate the Wille behind it, stay wary of every idea — including this very page. Because the kind of Wille we let take up residence is the kind of person we become.
And once you've scrutinized them, don't let that crowd of Willes rule by chance — choose one and seat it at the head of the table: the Wille of Love, the will-to-love. It is no passing flutter, but a foundational Wille you confirm again and again and cultivate on purpose: when something happens, first ask whether it can be made win–win, first ask how to land love onto benefit. To stop a single war, Mozi walked ten days and ten nights to the state of Chu (Gong Shu) — that walk was powered by exactly this will.
Of all things, none is more precious than righteousness. — Esteem for Righteousness (贵义)
Nothing, says Mozi, is more precious than righteousness. And righteousness is benefit. Stack those two together and you reach a conclusion that would have startled the ancients: free and fair trade is the top-tier arena for practicing universal love and promoting the world's benefit.
What is the iron law of free trade? The deal closes only when both sides taste something sweet. Buyer, seller, and every party involved all come out ahead — that is the most concrete face of "benefiting one another," and love is hidden right there, in the hinge where one hand passes and another receives.
In this world everyone is a vital player. You can be Qian (the Creative) — bringing the market excellent goods and services, actively building positive-sum games, creating benefit and creating love. Or you can be Kun (the Receptive) — cheering on the Qian-firms willing to share love and share profit, becoming their loyal fans, making exchange real, growing the pie together toward win–win. When Meituan exploited a loophole to turn its riders into "self-employed individuals" and skip their social insurance, yes, it took on a whiff of greed; but the way to break the deadlock is not to overturn the pot and cut off people's livelihood — it's to cook a new meal and offer a better free option. JD, willing to share profit with its people, stands head and shoulders above the rest. If the public will play Kun and, all else equal, lean toward principled "inclusive rulers and inclusive men," people gathered become momentum, and love is shown through benefit — that is the warm face universal love was meant to wear.
Righteousness is benefit. Love is invisible; benefit can be told apart.
A "love" spoken aloud is not real love — it is only a declaration anyone can make and anyone can fake. Only when it is felt, truly and tangibly, in your every dealing with others, in real benefit, does it finally come alive.
Love one another, benefit one another; show love through benefit, walk the Dao through love.
I started an X Community called "Love of the Dao of Change." I mainly read the Dao De Jing, the I Ching, and the Mozi through the lens of love, hoping to bring a little more love into the world of Web3. These views are my own; if they're not to your taste, no need to flame — I only hope to cast a brick and draw jade. You're welcome to share your own insights.