I’ve been reading Mencius with my class this week.  Many of his passages jump off the page with contemporary resonance.  Here’s one that gets at both the futility and self-reproducing quality of the kind of violence that we see in Iraq these days:

Mencius said: "Only now have I realized the true gravity of killing a man’s family members.  If you kill his father; he’ll kill your father.  If you kill his brother, he’ll kill your brother.  There’s precious little difference between that and killing your father or brother with your own hands. (259)