Post date: Nov 1, 2016 3:33:59 PM
This is the twelfth and final post in a series for those who:
1- desire to read or teach Confucius' Analects as philosophy, but
2- lack knowledge about classical Chinese language, culture, history, philosophy.
(The translations from Chinese are my own; bear in mind, I'm still learning and practicing.)
| Part 1, On The Analects | Part 2, On Confucius | Part 3, On the Zhōu | Part 4, On Militarism and Legalism | Part 5, On Scholarly Learning |
| Part 6, The Central Argument | Part 7, On Nature and Culture | Part 8, On Nobility | Part 9, On Consummate Conduct | Part 10, On Power |
| Part 11, On Harmony |
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The Dàodéjīng (道德經, literally Book of Way and Power) represents perhaps the most venerable alternative to the Confucian approach to living well and sustaining social harmony. Attributed to Lǎozǐ (老子, literally Old Master), the text likely anthologizes short fragments written by similarly-minded scholars who, having abandoned learning and rejected ritual convention, chose instead to model their conduct after nature unaffected by culture.
The Dàodéjīng presents one of the most influential indigeneous competitors to the Analects’s approach for living well. Beware that the text is terse, dense, and ambiguous—as is appropriate for those who deny that living well involves proper learning.
Rejecting Culture?
One theme running through the Dàodéjīng is that culture—learning, ritual convention, the arts—is a symptom of, rather than a solution to, social decline. Consider, for example, an excerpt rom Chapter 38:
故失道而後德，失德而後仁，失仁而後義，失義而後禮。夫禮者，忠信之薄，而亂之首。前識者，道之華，而愚之始。是以大丈夫處其厚，不居其薄；處其實，不居其華。故去彼取此。
Gù shī dào ér hòu dé, shī dé ér hòu rén, shī rén ér hòu yì, shī yì ér hòu lǐ. Fū lǐ zhě, zhōng xìn zhī bó, ér luàn zhī shǒu. Qián shí zhě, dào zhī huá, ér yú zhī shǐ. Shì yǐ dà zhàng fu chǔ qí hòu, bù jū qí bó; chǔ qí shí, bù jū qí huá. Gù qù bǐ qǔ cǐ.
Therefore, charismatic power follows after the way is lost, consummate conduct follows after charismatic power is lost, appropriate responsiveness follows after consummate conduct is lost, and ritual propriety follows after appropriate responsiveness is lost. Ritual propriety is the meager remainder of loyalty and trustworthiness, from confusion and disorder among the ruler. The first knowledge made the way magnificent, thus beginning its stupidity. Therefore, the man of great character resides in profundity, not standing for frivolity; he resides in the actual, not standing for the magnificent. So it is that, by removing the latter, one begets the former.
This passage portrays paradigmatic Confucian excellences as defects, their presence indicating departure from rather than progress toward the way of heaven. Chapter 18 makes the same point more forcefully:
大道廢，有仁義；智慧出，有大偽；六親不和，有孝慈；國家昏亂，有忠臣。
Dà dào fèi, yǒu rén yì; zhì huì chū, yǒu dà wěi; liù qīn bù hé, yǒu xiào cí; guó jiā hūn luàn, yǒu zhōng chén.
Abandoning the great way, there is consummate conduct and appropriate responsiveness; with the rise of knowledge and intelligence, there is great deception; when the six intimate relatives do not get along, there is filial piety and compassion; when states and philosophical schools are dazed and confused, there are loyal officials.
The implicit reasoning in the passage involves making a counterintuitive inference from an intuitive correlation. The correlation is between communities that depart from the proper way of heaven and communities that promote culture: as the former increase, the latter increases as well. The inference is that the latter promotes the former and, conversely, that reducing the latter (culture) promotes reducing the former (social disorder).
So it is that the Dàodéjīng recommends abandoning all culture. Consider, for example, an excerpt from Chapter 48 focusing on cultural learning:
為學日益，為道日損。損之又損，以至於無為。無為而無不為。
Wéi xué rì yì, wéi dào rì sǔn. Sǔn zhī yòu sǔn, yǐ zhì yú wúwéi. Wúwéi ér wú bù wéi.
Do in accordance with learning day by day, and doings that accord with the way daily decrease. Decreasing it and decreasing it still more, thereby arrive at effortless doing. Do without effort and nothing is left undone.
Learning, as a pillar of culture, promotes departures from the way of heaven. Abandoning learning, therefore, promotes returning to the way of heaven.
Embracing Nature?
The Dàodéjīng characterizes acting with the way of heaven as effortless (無為 wúwéi, not doing). Effortless doing is effortless, because it requires no cultural refinement. And it leaves nothing undone, because doing what comes naturally suffices for doing what must be done for the sake of social harmony.
The Dàodéjīng develops the idea of effortless doing through several metaphors. Perhaps the most famous is the metaphor of being unhewn (樸 pǔ). Consider, for example, an excerpt from Chapter 19:
絕聖棄智，民利百倍；絕仁棄義，民復孝慈；絕巧棄利，盜賊無有。此三者以為文不足。故令有所屬：見素抱樸，少私寡欲。
Jué shèng qì zhì, mín lì bǎi bèi; jué rén qì yì, mín fù xiào cí; jué qiǎo qì lì, dào zéi wú yǒu. Cǐ sān zhě yǐ wéi wén bù zú. Gù líng yǒu suǒ shǔ; jiàn sù bào pǔ, shǎo sī guǎ yù.
Withdrawing from the sages, abandoning knowledge, the people benefit a hundredfold. Withdrawing from consummate conduct, abandoning appropriate responsiveness, the people once more become filial and compassionate. Withdrawing from the skillful, abandoning ritual convention, stealing and thieves become no more. These three as culture are insufficient. For commands are beneath them: appearing natural and unadorned, embracing unhewn simplicity, [there is] less selfishness and scant greed.
Being unhewn means not being reformed by culture. This involves behaving in accordance with natural inclinations—not having thoughts reshaped by learning, not having emotions and dispositions shaped by ritual convention, not having skillful mastery of culture through the arts.
Insofar as humans resemble other animals, and insofar as other animals manage to live together harmoniously without culture by virtue of embracing their natural inclinations, one might expect that humans, too, would achieve social harmony by virtue of embracing their natural inclinations. Chapter 37 expresses this very expectation:
道常無為而無不為。侯王若能守之，萬物將自化。化而欲作，吾將鎮之以無名之樸。無名之樸，夫亦將無欲。不欲以靜，天下將自定。
Dào cháng wú wéi ér wú bù wéi. Hóu wáng ruò néng shǒu zhī, wàn wù jiāng zì huā. Huā ér yù zuò, wú jiāng zhèn zhī yǐ wú míng zhī pǔ. Wú míng zhī pǔ, fū yì jiāng wú yù. Bú yù yǐ jìng, tiān xià jiāng zì ding.
The way always does effortlessly, and yet nothing is left undone. If noblemen, in ruling, were able to observe this, the ten thousand things would take care of themselves. Desiring to speak of this taking care, I shall watch it by not naming its unhewn simplicity. Not naming its unhewn simplicity, men also shall have no desires. Not desiring because of such quiet, all the lands under heaven shall fix themselves.
This is tantamount to a wholesale rejection of the Confucian approach to living well—and the militaristic and legalistic approaches, by extension.
Enculturation as Natural
Confucius and his students were aware of so-called primitivists, those advocating a return to unhewn nature as an alternative to the Confucian program to “hew” nature with culture. Mèngzǐ (孟子), a scholar writing within the Confucian tradition in the late fourth century BCE, developed a sustained reply to the primitivist approach for living well. But passages in the Analects contain the seeds for some of Mèngzǐ’s later responses
For example, Analects 12.8 makes the subtle point that culture is, in some sense, equal to unhewn nature.
棘子成曰：「君子質而已矣，何以文為？」子貢曰：「惜乎！夫子之說，君子也。駟不及舌。文猶質也，質猶文也。虎豹之鞟，猶犬羊之鞟。」
Jízǐ Chéng yuē: “Jūnzǐ zhì ér yǐ yǐ, hé yǐ wén wéi?” Zǐgòng yuē: “Xī hū! Fū zǐ zhī shuì, jūnzǐ yě. Sì bù jí shé. Wén yóu zhì yě, zhì yóu wén yě. Hǔ bào zhī, yóu quǎn yáng zhī.”
Jízǐ Chéng said: “Jūnzǐ is unhewn and nothing more. So why become cultured?” Zǐgòng said: “Geesh! What a pedantic explanation of jūnzǐ. Your words do not reach far enough. Culture is akin to unhewn nature, unhewn nature is akin to culture, [just as] tiger and leopard skins are akin to dog and goat skins.
Tiger and leopard skins belong to wild animals, dog and goat skins to domesticated ones, both are animal skins. The “domesticality” of dog skins is inseparable from their animality, as is the wildness of tiger skins. So domestic and wild do not exclude each other—they are equal in the sense of not being absolutely different, by virtue of each being animal.[1] So being wild does not require lacking domesticity entirely, because lacking domesticity entirely requires lacking its necessary companion, animality, but there is no wildness apart from animality.
The reasoning generalizes. When two things are equal, having one while entirely lacking the other is impossible. So if unhewn nature and culture, like goat and leopard skin, are equal, the primitivist recommendation to embrace unhewn nature by entirely abandoning culture is impossible. Indeed, it would seem that unhewn nature and culture are equal, by virtue of each being nature—unhewn in one case, hewn in the other.
Embracing Culture as Embracing Nature
Analects 18.6 makes a stronger claim: the primitivist approach is not just conceptually unworkable; it also, by inveighing against the Confucian approach, commits the very error it purports to avoid.
長沮、桀溺耦而耕，孔子過之，使子路問津焉。長沮曰：「夫執輿者為誰？」子路曰：「為孔丘。」
曰：「是魯孔丘與？」曰：「是也。」曰：「是知津矣。」問於桀溺，桀溺曰：「子為誰？」曰：「為仲由。」
曰：「是魯孔丘之徒與？」對曰：「然。」曰：「滔滔者天下皆是也，而誰以易之？且而與其從辟人之士也，豈若從辟世之士哉？」耰而不輟。
子路行以告。夫子憮然曰：「鳥獸不可與同群，吾非斯人之徒與而誰與？天下有道，丘不與易也。」
Cháng Jǔ, Jié Nì ǒu ér gēng, Kǒngzǐ guò zhī, shǐ Zǐ Lù wèn jīn yān. Cháng Jǔ yuē: “Fū zhí yú zhě wéi shéi ?” Zǐ Lù yuē: “Wéi Kǒng Qiū.”
Yuē: “Shì Lǔ Kǒng Qiū yú?” Yuē: “Shì yě.” Yuē: “Shì zhī jīn yǐ.” Wèn yú Jié Nì, Jié Nì yuē: “Zǐ wéi shéi?” Yuē: “Wéi zhòng yóu.”
Yuē: “Shì lǔ Kǒng Qiū zhī tú yú?” Duì yuē: “Rán.” Yuē: “Tāo tāo zhě tiān xià jiē shì yě, ér shéi yǐ yì zhī? Qiě ér yǔ qí cóng pì rén zhī shì yě, kǎi ruò cóng pì shì zhī shì zāi?” Yōu ér bú chuò.
Zǐ Lù xíng yǐ gào. Fū Zǐ wǔ rán yuē: “Niǎo shòu bù kě yú tóng qún, wú fēi sī rén zhī tú yú ér shéi yú? Tiān xià yǒu dào, qiū bù yú yì yě.”
Cháng Jǔ and Jié Nì were plowing together. Confucius, passing by, sent Zǐ Lù [his disciple] to ask for directions [to the river crossing]. Cháng Jǔ said, “For which master do you ask, there in the carriage?” Zǐ Lù said, “For Confucius.”
[Cháng Jǔ] said, “Is it Confucius of Lǔ?” [Zǐ Lù] said, “It is.” [Cháng Jǔ] asked Jié Nì, “Do you know the river crossing?” Jié Nì said, “Why do you ask?” Zǐ Lù said, “Because it is the second month of the season [for rain].”
Jié Nì said, “You are studying with Confucius of Lǔ?” [Zǐ Lù] respectfully said, “Correct.” Jié Nì said, “There is torrential flooding in all the lands under heaven, and who shall change it? Rather than follow a scholar who opens himself to people, would it not be better to follow a scholar who opens himself to the entire world?” His harrow [for breaking up dirt] never stopped.
Zǐ Lù reported this back. The Master, disappointed, respectfully said, “Birds and beasts should not live together in the same ways. If I did not [open myself] to people, with whom would I do so? If the lands under heaven follows the way, I would not need to change it?”
There is a nice playfulness with words in this passage: “”Cháng Jǔ” means something like lengthy stop, and Jié Nì” means Emperor of Drowning. But there is also the beginning of a reply to the primitivist’s alternative approach to living well.
The reply involves gesturing toward the idea that, although living well for humans is, in some sense, equal to living well for birds and beasts, there are differences, too. These differences, moreover, involve humans being able to do things together that they cannot do with birds and beasts. Insofar as pursuing mastery of culture is among these things, there is nothing unduly unnatural about Confucius’ approach. That is: although one does not find culture among birds and beasts, culture nonetheless remains part of nature. So recommending the people abandon culture turns out, upon closer inspection, to involve recommending that they abandon nature—and this is precisely contrary to the recommendation to embrace nature. (Analects 18.7 develops some specifics for this line of reply.)
[1] The second chapter of the Zhuāngzǐ (莊子), titled On Equalizing Things, (齊物論 Qí Wù Lún), famously develops this reasoning style.