Draft:Daodejing

This is a proposed draft copy of a replacement for the present "Tao Te Ching" article. It treats the text as primarily political, and so may seem quite different from other discussions, but I am fairly sure it is academically respectable. I would appreciate guidance on what appear to you to be its faults.

Note that "Tao Te Ching" and "Daodejing" are the same words. "Tao Te Ching" is an obsolete romanization of the Chinese characters of the title, while "Daodejing" is the form that most modern sources would use. I would suggest turning the "Tao Te Ching" page into a redirect to a "Daodejing" page, and changing the romanization in the article itself, no matter what is done with the content. Maelen (talk) 04:00, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

The Daodejing (Tao Te Ching)

The Daodejing (Tao Te Ching),¹ or Canon of the Way and Its Power, is an ancient Chinese philosophical work. It is relatively short, about 5000 words, and is presently divided into two “books” and 81 short chapters or verses. The style is poetic and aphoristic, frequently shading into the gnomic and obscure, a feature that is unfortunately accentuated in some translations. The presentation is often disconnected, which suggests that it was created out of a mix of writings that may have addressed the concerns of several different audiences.² Modern scholarship considers the text to have taken shape gradually during the fourth and third centuries BCE, and to be from more than one hand, with the present division into “books” even later than this.³

There are no direct clues to the identity of the author(s) in the text. Tradition ascribes it to Laozi 老子, a former court scribe said to have been a senior contemporary of Confucius (551-479 BCE).⁴ This is very doubtful. The meaning of the name “Laozi,” his alleged connection with the Daodejing, and the date of the text are all disputed.⁵

The Daodejing is a work that pretends to be earlier than it actually is, sacrificing authenticity for authority.⁶ It is a carefully crafted attempt to undermine the premises of Confucian thought and present a competing vision of the person and the state, and the first text in Chinese history to advocate deceiving inferiors and keeping them in helpless ignorance as an essential component of rule. Its lyrical flights and literary merit have won it a permanent place as an inspiration to artists and poets, but many of its political and social propositions are malignant.

The Way and its Power

The Analects (Lunyu), the record of Confucius’ words and deeds produced by later followers, uses the word dao or “way” frequently. It usually refers to moral teachings or a moral world order, the best examples of which were provided by the paradigmatic sage rulers of antiquity, “the Way of Kings Wen and Wu” of the Zhou dynasty (11th century BCE).

The Daodejing rejects this understanding of the Way in its opening words:

A Way that can be specified is not a timeless Way,

A name that can be specified is not a timeless name. (1)⁷

The “timeless” or “constant” Way cannot be labelled or named, because naming entails distinguishing what is from what is not. Since the true, “timeless” Way encompasses all, this is impossible (32). Even calling it the “Way” is no more than a makeshift driven by linguistic desperation.

The “Way” of the Daodejing is not a single specific rule but a comprehensive general model entailed by the nature of things (ziran, literally the “so of itself”), which can only be approached obliquely by descriptors such as “formless, purposeless” (wu) and “murky, mysterious” (xuan). As the ground of being, “Way” indicates both the source and the activity by which all things emerge (42) through natural development.

The Way (dao) produces things, its Power (de) nurtures them, the physical world shapes them, and their environment completes them... causing growth without domination is termed “mysterious power” (xuan de). (51)

De or “power,” usually indicating moral influence in Confucius, is now the drive-train of the universal order, derived from the Way and dependent on adherence to it as an undifferentiated whole. Harmonizing with it confers political power, long life, and even invincibility, possibly an oblique reference to disciplines intended to strengthen and enrich the “matter-energy” (qi) that physically comprises all things:

Those who possess an abundance of power (de) resemble an infant. Poisonous insects and reptiles will not sting them; wild animals will not seize them; birds of prey will not attack them... (55)

This “power” will secure the state against threats internal and external, such as those from the hostility of ancestral spirits (60), though why the ancestral spirits should become hostile is nowhere indicated.⁸

Action and Rule

In the Confucian order, the government of the state is that of the family writ large: superiors stand in a parental relationship to their inferiors, who are shaped by the example of their superiors. From parent to emperor, the superior is like the wind, and the inferior like the grass that bends at its touch.⁹ Superiors are thus directly responsible if inferiors misbehave.

The Daodejing accepts this almost magical power of influence (de) but traces it to a different source. Instead of Heaven, which Confucius is said to have credited as the author of his own de,¹⁰ the Daodejing derives it from modelling on the undivided Way. A traditional structure of government is assumed, with a royal ruler who is ideally in harmony with the Way (25), but the ruler is advised to renounce desires, address problems immediately, and above all, “rule” as little and as lightly as possible. The ideal is wuwei, “nonaction” or perhaps better “unpredetermined action,” a tricky concept that involves nipping any differentiating activity in the bud impartially, with as little disturbance as possible (23). Since no divisive examples are set by the superior, there will be no strife among inferiors, and the state will be brought to perfect order:

Do not exalt worth, and the commoners will not contend; do not value precious goods, and the commoners will not engage in theft; do not display the desirable, and the commoners will not become disturbed. (3)

This takes the Confucian conception of the influence of superiors to an extreme, while on the other hand assuming that the moral teaching intended to combat disorder is in fact one of its primary causes – a crude vivisection of the living unity of the Way (18). It thus declares that the common people can be made pure by their sentiments being returned to undifferentiated unity. It assumes that human beings are in a natural harmony with the Way, that “desires” roused by outside stimuli are unnatural and corrupting, and that all that is needed for perfect rule is to keep the people free of temptation by the exemplary conduct of the sage: “Manifest simplicity, embrace the plain; selfishness will decline and desires will lessen” (19).

The exemplary paradox

A problem arises here. Reaching and preserving this state of nature necessarily entails radical changes in society. The Daodejing may praise government restraint, “ruling a state is like cooking a small fish,” (60) but some of the actions it advocates to reach this ideal are the very reverse of restrained.

Thus sage rule empties the mind and fills the belly, weakens the will and strengthens the bones. It reduces the commoners (min) to perpetual ignorance and apathy, and coerces the knowledgeable into passivity. Implement nonaction (wei wuwei), and all will be ruled. (3)

Even if you do not destroy the fish in the frying pan by incessantly poking at it, it still ends up cooked and eaten. Emptying minds, weakening wills, and silencing the educated all demand decisive government action:

Make the commoners (min) return to the use of knotted cords [instead of literacy]; so that they consider their food tasty, their clothing handsome, their residences tranquil, and their customs enjoyable. If they live within the sight of another state, even though the chickens crow and dogs bark at each other, the commoners will never visit or receive visitors their whole lives long. (80)

Again, in Chapter 65 the text declares that “those of old who were expert at implementing the Way” used it not to enlighten the common people but to make them stupid (yu),¹¹ and that “the reason the commoners are hard to rule is that they know too much.”

So, what has created these obstacles that prevent the common people attaining and maintaining an ideal level of “stupidity”? The prime culprit is a contradiction inherent in the nature of rule by de, the power of exemplary influence. To be perfectly ruled, the commoners must be preserved in their primal simplicity, but this preservation requires a prince who is alert to the smallest changes in the polity and ready to respond to them.

Act on things before they are fully manifest; put them into order before they fall into disorder....a long journey begins by taking a single step. (64)

While positive action dictated by pre-set norms is condemned, reaction that flexibly meets the needs of the situation is repeatedly affirmed.

The concept of wuwei, non-active-action, thus combines with a faith in de, the “power” or inherent influence of an exemplary figure, to put the Daodejing into a bind. In searching for, perceiving, and reacting to outside forces and changing situations, the ruler will be actively engaging with the world. But the ruler is also and inescapably the model for the commoners, which means that if he is open and frank about what he is doing, the power (de) of the example he is setting will corrupt their primal simplicity.

How then is a state of dull insularity to be preserved, an incurious passivity so great that the commoners will never so much as take a five-minute stroll over to the next village to greet their neighbours? The answer is both simple and unfortunate: for their own good, the sage ruler must deceive them.

The useful devices of the state should not be shown to others (people; ren). (36)¹²

The sage ruler, in his desire (yu) to be supreme over the commoners (min), must pretend to be inferior to them, and in his desire to take precedence over them, must make a show of following in their rear. Hence the sage ruler places himself over the commoners but they do not sense his weight; he takes precedence over them but they do not consider it harmful. In this way, no one in the world ever wearies of supporting him. Because he does not contend, no one in the world is able to contend with him. (66)

The sage ruler must be free to act, but to avoid corrupting the ideally ignorant masses, he must deploy a bodyguard of lies to conceal his actions. He maintains an appearance of “stupidity” and “does not desire to display his ability” (77). An open display of ability, the stock in trade of a Confucian sage ruler, would set off a chain reaction among inferiors that would destroy their primal simplicity.

If those who understand me are few, then I will be exalted. Hence the sage wears coarse clothing, and hides the jade insignia of office in his bosom. (70)¹³

Only if the prince succeeds in deceiving those he rules will his subjects “attain to complete submissiveness” (zhi da xun; 65), maintained through a deliberately constructed false consciousness of the naturalness of their subjection, deprived of even the words they would need to become aware of their situation (17).

Hence the sage puts himself last but is in the lead, rejects himself but is preserved. Is this not because he appears free of his own ends? This is how he can accomplish his own ends. (7)¹⁴

The ideal and the reality

Much of the fascination that the Daodejing has had for readers in later times is derived from its paeans to the simple, natural life. Passages that can be read that way, especially if taken out of context, do make up a considerable part of the text, and some of them are superbly written with an artistry that survives translation. The contradiction, or hypocrisy, of the text’s central argument is no barrier to much of it being fascinating: as Barzun has argued in his discussion of Thoreau’s works, logic and coherence are not required for an artistic masterpiece to have influence and impact.¹⁵

The Daodejing has a solid claim, on many fronts, to importance. But it is, at its core, a political document. And when we reflect on the political ideals of the text, the impossible fantasy world its artistry crafts for us, we can see that its veneration of the natural Way is advice on how to erect a structure where the only free person would be the ruler of the state. The “fundamental problem of desire” may have been solved, but at what price? Can a life lived at the expense of multitudes of others, who are used only to be discarded,¹⁶ be in any way authentic? It’s all assumed to be for their own good, of course, but any philosophy arguing for the forced illiteracy and ignorance of the vast majority of the human race stands condemned by that fact alone. The world of the Daodejing is one where a tiny ruling elite – perhaps only a single person – has absolute power over all other beings. The demand that the exercise of this power be sharply limited in order to ensure its enduring supremacy is hardly a sufficient excuse.¹⁷

Notes

(1) There are several different systems of representing Chinese words alphabetically when writing in English. This article employs Hanyu pinyin, the system used to teach Chinese in China, which is the standard for modern publications. The English title in brackets in in the Wade-Giles system, common in older sources, and early translations and discussions display a bewildering array of variants, some of which are based on pronunciations in dialects other than standard Chinese.

(2) Several vague references to the “mother” and to the female might indicate influence from matriarchal ideas (6, 28, 52, 59), although some might be no more than the mutterings of a male writer contemplating how those darned women always seem to get their own way (“The female gets the better of the male through passivity, using passivity to abase herself,” 61). There is also a great deal of water imagery (8, 15, 28, 66, 78), occasional mentions of deities, such as the “valley spirit” (gu shen; 6), and characterization of the Way by reference to five mythological ancient rulers, the Lords (di): “I do not know its lineage; it seems prior to the Lords” (4). None of these references plays an authoritative role in the argument of the text; they are cited as examples and illustrations only.

(3) Manuscripts of the Daodejing, more or less complete, have been recovered from tombs dated from the third to the first century BCE. These differ in few significant ways from the present text. The earliest surviving commentaries are two that are preserved among the writings of the Legalist philosopher Han Fei (d. 233 BCE); their exact relationship to him is unclear. For a translation and study, see Sarah A. Queen, “Han Feizi and the Old Master: A Comparative Analysis and Translation of Han Feizi Chapter 20, ‘Jie Lao’ and Chapter 21, ‘Yu Lao,’” in Goldin, Paul R. (ed), Dao Companion to the Philosophy of Han Fei, New York: Springer, 2013, pp. 197-256.

(4) For a detailed account of the stories and legends surrounding the origin of the text and the supposed author of the Daodejing, see Ronnie Littlejohn, “Laozi,” The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://iep.utm.edu/laozi/

The entry on Laozi in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is intermittently useful, especially for variants and the commentarial tradition, but its discussion of the Daodejing is more valuable for its concise presentation of the opinions of a wide variety of scholars than it is informative about its intended topic. It is jumbled and confusing, mixes in ideas that are not prominent in the text, and is overly credulous about the text’s supposedly early origins. It has a good bibliography, though. See Chan, Alan. (2018). “Laozi,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/laozi

(5) For Laozi, “Old Master” is probably the best interpretation. It is crude one-upmanship on Confucius, Kongzi, “Master Kong,” effective in a context that has always featured deep respect for seniority. A similar tactic can be seen in the stories from the Zhuangzi (see Littlejohn op. cit.) which have Laozi talking down to Confucius, and even addressing him by his given name, Qiu, a gratuitous insult intended to underline his junior and inferior status.

(6) Deneke, Wiebke. (2010). The Dynamics of Masters Literature: Early Chinese Thought from Confucius to Han Feizi. Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press, Chapter 6: “The Race for Precedence: Polemics and the Vacuum of Traditions in Laozi,” pp. 207-230.

(7) Verse numbers to the Daodejing are given in brackets after quotations. All translations are my own.

(8) The Daodejing does not absolutely condemn military action, but insists that it be purely defensive and carried out in a restrained and regretful spirit. This is very similar to the attitude of the Confucian school; neither had much use for men on horseback.

(9) The need for severe punishments thus signals a moral failure among superiors. As Confucius is supposed to have said, “If you desire good, then the people will do good. The power (de) of the exemplary man is like the wind; the power (de) of the petty man is like the grass. The grass will certainly bend to the wind blowing over it.” (Analects, “Yan Yuan,” 19).

(10) Analects, “Shu Er” 23.

(11) Yu “stupid” indicates dull, slow-witted, and possibly rustic or “hayseed.” Confucius’ favorite disciple Yan Hui gave the appearance of being yu when he failed to respond to anything said to him for an entire day (Analects, “Wei Zheng” 9). In another place, Confucius was said to have remarked that while the yu of antiquity was naivety, the yu of today was nothing but fraud (Analects, “Yang Huo” 16).

(12) This line is quoted in the "outer chapters" of the Zhuangzi, one of those almost certainly not written by the Daoist philosopher Zhuang Zhou himself. And a good thing, too, because the passage from the chapter "Qu Qie" ("Cutting open containers") attains a Khymer Rouge level of violence in an unbalanced rant against the appurtenances of "civilization," demanding the forcible silencing of all other viewpoints, the burning of musical instruments, the smashing of scales and measures, gluing shut the eyes of the perceptive and breaking the fingers of artisans. For a good discussion of this strain in Daoist thought, see Hagop Sarkissian, "The Darker Side of Daoist Primitivism," Journal of Chinese Philosophy 37(2), June 2010, pp. 312-329.

(13) Another relevant passage is found in Chapter 67 on the ruler’s “three treasures”: “The first is unconditional love (ci); the second is restraint; the third is not taking precedence in the world. Unconditional love means I can be bold; restraint means I can be far-reaching; not taking precedence means I can be the leader of my inferiors.” Again, a show of one virtue is adopted as cover for something much more active.

(14) One could also translate the last two sentences of Chapter 7 as “Isn’t this because he feigns unselfishness? By so doing, he can be utterly selfish (neng cheng qi si, "able to consummate his selfishness"),” but this is perhaps putting a bit too sharp an edge on the passage.

(15) Barzun, J. (1987). “Thoreau the Thorough Impressionist.” The American Scholar, 56(2), 250-258. Just as Thoreau created an “American myth” based on inconsistent arguments and a transparently fraudulent return to nature, the deliberately antiqued Daodejing creates a “Daoist myth” of a world impossibly forced back into its supposed natural state, on the one hand demanding results that would entail extreme measures, and on the other seeming to declare that such measures must always fail. Barzun suggests that the attraction of Thoreau’s myth is based on the fact that “There is in it something for everybody and a void of clear goals that might divide followers” (253).

(16) Cf. Daodejing 5, the notorious passage that states that the sage ruler will treat people like straw sacrificial images of dogs, venerated when useful but ruthlessly discarded after the services. This is justified by a parallel drawn with the “inhumanity” (bu ren) of Heaven and earth. The word used for “people” here is baixing, “the families” (those important enough to have family lineages) rather than ren “(other) persons” or min “commoners.” Baixing is found twice more in the text (17 and 49), in both cases as targets of the sage’s deceptive arts, so it may indicate those with at least a smattering of education, who are a potential threat to “sage” rule.

(17) The demand in the Daodejing for the people to be kept in abject ignorance was not shared by the other, supposedly more “controlling,” schools of thought in ancient China. The scholars who modeled themselves on Confucius considered literacy open to all males, and there was no formal objection to the education of women, though literary attainments were considered superfluous to their more “proper” activities. As for the Legalists (fajia), their entire system depended on the unchanging reality of written laws and the ability of all people to understand them, the absolute reliability of the laws symbolized by their being inscribed in writing on metal or stone and put on public display – as were the canonical texts of Confucianism in the early centuries CE.