No More Learning

Do I think that my interpretation is free of cultural biases that might prevent me from fully recovering the Daode jing's original meaning? I think most likely it is not. In the course of twenty-five years' study of this work, I have discovered many cases of mistakes due to such biases, and I can only suppose there are more that I have not yet become aware of. I just don't know what they are at this point. If I did, I would try to correct my interpretation to remedy these inadequacies.
If time permits, I do sometimes begin the study of the Daode jing by drawing out students' previous associations with ''Daoism,'' derived often from books like Hoff's The Tao of Pooh or Capra's The Tao of Physics. It is often helpful to have some explicit discussions of this kind of ''American Daoism'' as a point of contrast with early Chinese Daoist texts such as the Daode jing and the Zhuangzi, but also to make it clear that this difference does not necessarily and by itself imply that American Daoism is by nature inferior.
I also try to make it clear that students are responsible for understand- ing the interpretation of the Daode jing given in my commentary. I don't think there is anything very essential about my translation of the Daode jing, in con- trast to the translations of other competent scholars such as Addiss and Lom- bardo, Victor Mair, Mary Ellen Chen, Wing-tsit Chan, D. C. Lau, J. J. L Duyvendak, and Arthur Waley. I do advise students against using other ''translations,'' such as those of Stephen Mitchell and Witter Bynner, which may be good for spiritual inspiration but are not appropriate for my courses since they are not informed by historical and linguistic competence. (In col- laboration with Julian Pas I've published an essay explaining some of the difficulties one faces in translating the Daode jing and some major reasons for variations in translations. This includes some illustrations of cases where Mitchell and Bynner insert lines that bear little or no relation to the Chinese text. )
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Doesn't the Daode jing itself say that its message can't be put into words? Doesn't this mean that academic analysis is an obstacle to understanding Dao? Your approach to interpretation is not a Daoist approach.
Exactly. The approach to interpretation I am teaching is not a Daoist approach. So far as I can see, Daoists were totally uninterested in the project of recovering the original meanings of texts, or challenging themselves by wrestling with sympathetically reconstructed views of the world fundamen- tally at odds with their own. The course I teach is not religious instruction aiming to make students into Daoists. If it were, we would need a teacher who would put us through a rigorous training of a different sort.
The fact that Dao cannot be put into words does not mean that it has no definite content, that it is vague, or that whatever inspirational meaning anyone attributes to this word gets at the meaning it had for the Daode jing's authors. One should not confuse depth with vagueness. The project of recovering orig- inal meanings requires that we develop some clearly articulated proposals about what this text might mean, so that these proposals can be tested. Likewise, the project of confronting ourselves with a challenging text requires that we specify clearly what it is that we are confronting. Leaving the text vague makes it easier to domesticate, reducing it to some views more familiar and more congenial to our own views of the world. There is an important sense in which understanding what Dao is requires going beyond what can be expressed straightforwardly in conventional language and concepts. This is due to the limitation of conven- tional language and concepts, not to the fact that Dao is not a definite and precise notion. And this kind of understanding normally takes place after struggling with some difficult notions, not as a substitute for such struggle.
Method in Reading
In practice, my pedagogy in courses on the Daode jing combines trying to teach students to be ''competent'' readers of the text, on the one hand, and summarizing for them the main elements of ''Laoism''5 on the other. In courses where I can devote only a brief time to the Daode jing, the first as- signment I give is usually to read several short essays in the topical glossary that accompanies my translation and commentary on the Daode jing. 6
As to competence, one of the main issues I focus on is the issue of how to understand the proverblike aphorisms contained in the Daode jing. 7 When we hear proverbs familiar in our own culture, spoken in contexts where they are appropriate, we have no difficulty understanding their meaning without
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analysis. But when we are forced to think reflectively on unfamiliar aphorisms from another culture, the usual reaction is to try to read them in a literal- minded way. By ''literal-minded'' I mean that we construe each word according to a dictionary definition, or simply think of whatever meaning comes to mind, and that we take statements to be enunciating a general principle applicable in an unrestricted way to all situations whatsoever. Literal-minded reading is one of the main sources of misunderstanding of religious texts, and in particular is the source of many objections students immediately think of to many lines in the Daode jing. ''One who shows off will not shine''--but how about people who get famous by self-advertising (e. g. , Madonna)? ''One who knows does not speak''--but what about speaking the words of the Daode jing? And so on.
I try to go through some common American proverbs to show that they are also generally false if we take them literally. ''Slow and steady wins the race''--but did so-and-so win the hundred-yard dash by going slow and steady? ''No news is good news''--but last week I had no news about my midterm grade because it was so bad the teacher was afraid to tell me about it. ''When it rains, it pours''--but all last week it just drizzled every day.
The opposite of literal-minded understanding is contextual understanding. In regard to proverbs and aphorisms, this means chiefly two things: relating the aphorism to some appropriate restricted range of situations and construing the words of the aphorism in a narrow way so that they make sense in relation to each other.
First, any given aphorism makes sense only in relation to a restricted range of circumstances. ''Slow and steady wins the race'' applies only to some kinds of races or competitions, the kind where pacing oneself is important. This is something we intuitively understand in our common use and understanding of proverbs. It is something we have to explicitly think about when trying to understand aphorisms in the Daode jing. When trying to understand ''One who shows off will not shine,'' one should not right away start directly thinking of possible meanings of these words. The first thing to do is try to imagine the kind of situations that this aphorism might apply to in such a way that it would make sense.
As Arthur Waley pointed out long ago, much of the Daode jing is intensely polemical. This means that the ''situation'' any given proverb addresses is one in which the speaker thinks there is some mistake being made that needs cor- recting. Identifying the situation to which the aphorism applies means iden- tifying the particular mistake that the speaker means to counteract. This again is true of many proverbs and aphorisms in common use today. For example, ''If it ain't broke, don't fix it'' is meant to counteract the common tendency to meddle with something even if it is functioning in a reasonably satisfactory
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way. ''It takes two to tango'' is usually meant to counteract the tendency to blame one person in a quarrel when both are at fault. If one does not know what the proverb means to counteract, one does not know its meaning.
Hyperbole is a common feature of proverbs related to this counteractive function. ''Don't believe anything you hear, and only half of what you see'' states its point in a very exaggerated form no one would ever take as a literal rule. It does this because it wants to say something that contrasts in the strongest possible way with the tendency toward gullibility that it means to counteract.
I think this is one of the most important methodological principles that ought to guide a ''competent'' reading of the Daode jing, combating the ten- dency toward literal-mindedness. Part of the polemic strategy of the Daode jing's' authors is to use terms that go against common views in the most flagrant way. ''The five colors make men's eyes go blind'' (chapter 12) is clearly false if taken literally. It exaggerates the point that overstimulation causes in- sensitivity in order to counteract people's attraction to stimulating sensations. ''Discard wisdom [sheng]'' (chapter 19) doesn't make literal sense in a text that otherwise idealizes ''the wise [sheng] person. '' It exaggerates its opposition to a certain kind of wisdom by the use of flagrantly shocking language. (I think this point must be kept in mind also when interpreting the line ''Heaven and Earth are not benevolent . . . the wise person is not benevolent. '' ''Benevolence'' [ren] functions in the Daode jing as a code word for Confucianism, and I think this passage in chapter 5 is most plausibly read as an exaggerated polemic against the Confucian ideal of the benevolent ruler. It has no parallel elsewhere in the Daode jing, which in many places recommends a caring attitude on the part of rulers. )
The other important point in a contextual understanding of aphorisms concerns the way that the words of a saying need to be interpreted in relation to each other in a way that makes sense. The saying ''A watched pot never boils'' is false if one first interprets each phrase separately and literally, then tries to join them. Literally watching a pot will clearly not prevent it from boiling. We normally don't take each phrase separately and literally. We con- strue the words in relation to each other in such a way that they make sense. Anxious watching will make it seem as though the pot will never boil. Not all nice guys finish last, but a certain kind of niceness will put one at a com- petitive disadvantage (''finish last'' is hyperbole).
This is important in understanding many paradoxical sayings in the Daode jing. In each case, we have to construe the words in relation to each other in such a way that they make sense. Not all kinds of showing off cause people not to shine in all circumstances, (chapter 24), but some kinds of showing off turn other people off and cause dislike rather than admiration. Not all kinds of fine
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speech are insincere (chapter 81), but in certain cases smooth talk should make one suspect insincerity.
Applying this principle would avoid literal-minded understanding of sayings about ''not doing'' (wu wei) in the Daode jing. ''Do nothing, and nothing will remain un-done'' does not amount to the admittedly ''radical'' but ulti- mately silly assertion that things will always work out right if you literally do nothing (the ''Pooh Bear'' interpretation). The saying invites listeners and readers to stretch their mind to imagine some possible meaning of the phrase ''do nothing'' in such a way that it could plausibly help in getting things done. We ought to be guided in this imaginative process by other passages in the Daode jing giving advice about how to get things done.
Roots and Branches
This methodological principle about competent understanding of aphorisms leads to a further, more substantive set of ideas that recently occurred to me as a way of describing the unique structure of the Daode jing thought to students. I first thought of this as an answer to a frequent student objection, which goes as follows: The Daode jing advocates being humble. But it also says that if you are humble you will become the ruler over all. This is a contradiction. A truly humble person would not want to become ruler over all.
I think the answer to this is that the Daode jing advocates rulership rooted in humility--or more precisely, rulership rooted in a deferential attitude and style of interaction (I think the word ''humility'' is misleading in this context). To use a common Chinese metaphor: Deference ought to be the root, rulership the branch (''Not presuming to act like leader of the world, so able to be head of the government''; chapter 67). The problem does not lie in wanting to be a ruler, but in wanting this ''branch'' unconnected with the root Laoists think it ought to have. (''To act like leader without putting oneself last, this is death''; chapter 67. )
I think this is an example of a more general characteristic of the formal structure of Laoist thought that makes it different from thought-structures we are more accustomed to. We tend to conceive of issues as either/or questions, a choice between opposites. Either you can be humble or you can want to be a ruler; the task is to choose between these rather simple and clear alternatives. Laoist thought is also structured around opposites, but rather than advocating a choice of one over the other, it typically advocates taking the more uncon- ventional choice as the root of the more conventionally attractive one.
Being a ruler is conventionally associated with self-aggrandizing moti- vation and a self-aggrandizing manner. From a Laoist point of view, this is a
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branch not properly rooted. It ought to be rooted in a characteristic that is the opposite of a ''ruling'' attitude as conventionally conceived. The interpretive challenge is to construct a concept with a more unfamiliar set of associations: a kind of self-effacing motive and manner that would also plausibly lead to success as a ruler.
This general idea can be used to explain the basic structure of Laoist thought in various areas, such as the following.
People tend to prefer activity and excitement to stillness. Activity not rooted in stillness wears one out. It is not that activity should be abandoned, but that it should be rooted in stillness. One needs to set aside some periods to cultivate mental stillness, but then carry the spirit of this stillness into one's active life. (This ideal is conveyed by the image of ''an infant who screams all day without becoming hoarse,'' an ability attributed to the infant's having attained ''the perfection of [internal] harmony''; chapter 55. )
Some people have the ambition to cultivate personal qualities that others admire. They try to repress qualities and impulses not admired by the society around them. This results in artificial virtues and lack of internal wholeness: branches without proper roots. It is not that one should abandon the quest for personal excellence, or even cut off all caring about what others think. It is rather that genuine personal excellence is rooted in an integrated and natural balance involving the whole person; attaining such excellence requires pay- ing special attention to those qualities in one's own being that might be im- portant in achieving wholeness, but that feel worthless, ''empty,'' ''nothing,'' because they receive no recognition, or might even feel socially embarrass- ing. So chapter 28 advocates cultivating femininity and cultivating what feels embarrassing--parallel notions for men in a male-dominated society--in order to recover one's ''uncarved'' self. Cultivating what might seem in the conven- tional mind to be the opposite of excellence is the root of true excellence.
Some people prize the ability to be articulate and speak eloquently. Elo- quent speech without sincerity is show without substance (flower without fruit, as chapter 38 puts it). But this is not a rejection of all impressive speaking. The Daode jing is after all itself an example of a kind of great verbal artistry and a kind of eloquence. Rather, the most impressive articulation of ideas is the kind that is rooted in inarticulate knowledge. This I think is good advice for students writing papers. They read writings that are finished products of someone else's thought and don't understand the struggles authors have gone through to produce them. Each student feels that other students in the class are very articulate in contrast to her own inability to put her thoughts into words that adequately express her inarticulate feelings and ideas. I think the best kind of writing is rooted in this initially inarticulate kind of knowledge. One of the
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things students can learn from the Daode jing is to value this inarticulate knowledge, while not giving up the attempt to put it into words that commu- nicate it well.
We are familiar with the image of the competitive and aggressive person who wants to prove his superiority in battle. We are also familiar with the opposite of this, the person who advocates gentleness in all human relation- ships and encounters and has no desire to win out over others. Laoists criticize direct confrontation and love of victory through violence, not because they are adamantly opposed to the desire to win out over others, no matter what the circumstances. Rather, this is an example of branches without proper roots. They admire the ''softness'' of water precisely because it wins out over what opposes it. They approve of victory won through ''soft'' tactics (see chapter 36).
This is the same as the doctrine of yin-yang, the uniting of opposites, right?
I suppose you could call this a way of integrating opposites, but it doesn't seem to be what most people mean by integrating opposites. It has nothing to do with having yin qualities and yang qualities in equal measure, for example, or alternating between yin and yang. In general, Laoism pictures yin qualities as the proper ''root. '' Yang qualities are branches: okay when they are rooted in
yin qualities, not okay when they are not.
Mysticism, Philosophy, Metaphysics, Cosmology
Statements in the Daode jing about a transmundane Dao that is a world-origin present special difficulties for an interpretative approach aimed at ''making sense'' of the material. I take ''make sense'' to mean, first, to understand the pragmatic implications of a given idea: what change accepting this idea would bring about in a person, her outlook, or her conduct. It also means to under- stand why a sensible person would adopt these ideas as a principal guide to how to lead one's life. A focus on historical understanding means in addition that we try to understand what the Daode jing's authors most likely took to be the pragmatic implications of the ideas they put forth, the most likely basis they had for believing in these ideas, and the basis on which they hoped these ideas would be accepted by their contemporaries. These kinds of questions have guided my own research efforts, and I try to engage students in asking and trying to answer these kinds of questions.
This is an approach I think one should take to all religious texts. I realize it is not a very common approach taken in published accounts of the Daode jing's teaching. One often gets a simple statement about ''what Daoists believe'' about
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Dao. Attempts to give some reason why they believed this are confined to drawing parallels to other religious or philosophical systems. These ''doctrines about Dao'' are assimilated to doctrines various mystics teach about an ineffable transcendent reality, to the Brahman of Hindu thought, or to Hegel's Absolute, to ''metaphysical'' doctrines held by various Western philosophers, and so on. The established respectability of these parallels appears as an easy substitute for the more difficult task of giving a plausible historical account of why the Daode jing's' authors believed what they believed on this subject. (Is there evidence that these doctrines came to them in mystical ecstasy? On what basis did they then persuade nonmystics to believe them? Is there evidence that they were philosophers speculating on metaphysical issues? ) And one can always fall back on the common attitude: It is well known that religious people simply believe what they believe--there is no explanation.
Statements about the pragmatic implications of ideas about a transmun- dane Dao customarily take a similarly ahistorical approach: What conclusions would I draw if I held that Dao was the origin of the world? Many students who have some previous associations with ''Daoism,'' for example, come with an idea that they also associate with ''The Force'' in the movie ''Star Wars'': the idea that Dao is the origin of the world is translated into the idea that Dao is a kind of force or energy that some people can feel pervading the material world. Such people can tap into or unite with this force, and ''becoming one with the universe'' in this sense is what it means to ''become one with Dao. '' This, then, is their version of the pragmatic implications of the cosmogonic statements about Dao in the Daode jing. So far as I can see, this version finds no support in any statement made in the Daode jing itself. It never connects statements about Dao as world-origin with the idea that Dao is something present in the world around us. It never says we can learn about Dao through observations about or perceptions of phenomena or events in the world, or that we can become one with Dao by becoming one with the world. When students bring up these ideas, I sometimes make this an occasion for making a distinction central to my approach to interpretation: the fact that we have two questions to deal with here. One question is ''Is this a good idea? '' A quite different question is ''Is this likely to have been their idea? '' If there seems to be general interest, I devote some time to spelling out what the ''Star Wars'' view amounts to, and what might be good reasons for relating to the world in this particular way, before going on to look at evidence as to the probable basis for beliefs about Dao as world-origin in the Daode jing and pragmatic implications its authors associated with these beliefs.
My approach to the question about the basis for these beliefs is determined by one of the results of my research concerning reflections in the Daode jing of
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contemporary self-cultivation practices. 8 To give students some background, I sometimes read with them passages from the proto-Daoist Nei Ye and/or from the Mencius relevant to these practices. 9 I also summarize for them the results of my study of special recurrent terms in the Daode jing: emptiness, femininity, stillness, steadiness, softness, weakness, clarity, harmony, uncarved, merged, oneness, Dao, De, and the Mother. Many of these terms are descriptive, de- scribing a quality or state of mind one is advised to cultivate in oneself. They do not describe different states, but different aspects of a single state of mind. There is a tendency to ''hypostatize'' these states, to speak of them as though they were independent presences or forces inhabiting a person's mind. Dao and De serve in the Daode jing as summary references to this way of being and are similarly hypostatized. Dao and De are pictured as hypostatized internal presences ''welcoming'' (chapter 23) or ''supporting'' (chapter 41) a person, and this is the same presence that is termed ''the nourishing Mother'' (chapter 20; Dao and the Mother are identified in chapter 25).
These observations present us with understandable reasons why Laoists would attribute great importance to Dao. It was a hypostatized summary ref- erence to the state of mind Laoists cultivated, associated with attitudes and styles of behavior advocated in Laoist polemic aphorisms, and was thus exis- tentially foundational for a way of life that had its own intrinsic attractiveness. (This needs to be distinguished from the view that doctrines about Dao serve as an epistemological foundation for Laoism; they did not, first, for unknown rea- sons, begin believing in some doctrines about Dao, then use these doctrines as ''first principles'' from which to derive a ''Daoist system of philosophy. '') This way of construing Laoist thought is one of the main targets of criticism in my Tao and Method.
Also relevant here are two features of ancient Chinese thought and rhet- oric. One is the habit of attributing cosmic importance to factors regarded as of central importance in human social life. The Confucian Xunzi, for example, says of the central Confucian virtue li (etiquette, ceremony, refined politeness), ''By this the sun and moon shine, by this the four seasons proceed, by this the stars take their course . . . by this the myriad things flourish. ''10 Chapters 16, 25, and 39 of the Daode jing reflect the custom of picturing the Chinese emperor as one of the pillars of the cosmic order along with ''Heaven'' and ''Earth. '' The other feature of Chinese thought and rhetoric important here is the habit of expressing evaluative priority by using images of chronological priority, and ''origin'' images (''source,'' ''root,'' ''ancestor,'' etc. ). I ask students to imagine equivalent images in our own culture: What kinds of terms and images do we use to express these same things? Some students suggest, for example, terms like ''center'' or ''foundation. ''
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It no longer comes as natural to us to use cosmic imagery as it did to many ancient peoples. One of the closest parallels is love and falling in love, and I try to point to some of these as well. (''Love makes the world go 'round''; ''The first time ever I saw your face I thought the stars rose in your eyes''; ''I felt the earth shake under my feet and the sky come tumbling down'').
I also ask students to think about the pragmatic implications of the idea that Dao is the origin of the world. What specific changes in a person's outlook on the world did Laoists associate with this idea?
I think the most important element in an answer to this question is the picture, implicit in several places, of two states or layers of mind. The more original state or deeper layer is completely still, not yet stimulated by exciting or desirable things in the world.
There has not yet arisen that outward-directed flow of energy that comes with desiring things in the world, competing for fame in the world, or ''working'' to make one's mark on the world. In this state one's personality is still ''uncarved''; that is, it retains an organic wholeness not yet diminished and distorted by being ''carved'' to produce qualities admired by the world. This layer of one's mind has a kind of holistic awareness of the world, not distorting reality by pigeon-holing judgments that usually go along with rigid conceptual thought. This layer of one's mind is soft and flexible (see chapter 76), not having yet developed that kind of hardness associated with con- frontationally trying to force the world to conform to one's wishes. 11 This state or layer of one's mind is the primary concrete referent of the term ''Dao. ''
The character of the social world we live in is determined by an opposite mentality: by the attraction to exciting and desirable things, to impressive out- ward appearance, to forceful, dominating ways of interaction, to imposing conceptual order on the world, and so on. Social acceptance gives things as they appear from this perspective a certain solidity or ''being. '' But from a Laoist point of view, this is an illusory solidity, false appearances not backed up by any- thing of substantial value. The state or layer of mind that Laoists cultivate, even though it seems like ''Nothing'' from the conventional perspective, is the basis of all that is truly valuable and important in life, in the sense that one sees things in their true meaning, as important, when one sees them rooted in this ''Nothing. '' ''[True] 'Being' is rooted in [this] 'Nothing,' as chapter 40 expresses it.
This is also what I think it means to say, ''''The world has a source, the Mother of the world. Once you get the Mother, then you understand the chil- dren'' (chapter 52). To ''get the Mother [Dao]'' is to acquire the state of mind Laoists cultivate. ''The children'' are circumstances and events in the world. The fact that the state of mind one cultivates is ''the origin of the world'' means in concrete terms that this state of mind gives one the key to understanding
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circumstances and events in the world as they should be understood. I take it that this is equivalent to the way things are pictured in the polemic aphorisms; for example, one should understand that being low is the proper foundation of high social status, that fine speech and appearances are typically deceiving, that the most important qualities are ones that are frequently overlooked or looked down upon, that agitation wears one out but stillness enables one to last long.
On this view, ''the world'' that has Dao as its origin is primarily the socio- logical and psychological human world. (I think there is no evidence that Laoists turned away from the human social world to become interested in the natural world of trees and animals, rocks and rivers, other than as sources of meta- phorical images representing Laoist themes. )12 The idea that Dao is the ''origin'' of this world represents a kind of social and axiological ontology. The world perceived by the conventional mentality is in some sense an illusory world: the meanings of phenomena as perceived in this world are false meanings. To see them rooted in Dao is to see them quite differently, but to see them as they truly are.
There is then a kind of ontology implicit in the Daode jing, but it is not the kind of theoretical ontology of the kind developed in Western philosophy and theology. Western thought has generally been much more oriented to devel- oping an objective account of the nature of the external world (in modern times considered quite separately from the human social world) and lacks the strong emphasis on self-cultivation found in Laoism. On my view, the primary referent of the word Dao in the Daode jing remains the state of mind that Laoists cultivate. It is the Dao that some people have as the result of self-cultivation that is a ''world-origin. '' Statements about Dao as world-origin do not yet represent ''theories'' about the world believed in as the contents of intellectual beliefs in the absence of any concrete self-cultivation.
I arrived at the foregoing understanding of the Daode jing prior to any study of Neo-Confucianism, but was struck by seeing how closely this basic pattern of thought, and its connection with self-cultivation, is mirrored in certain strains of Neo-Confucian thought, particularly as represented in the opening chapters of Zhu Xi and Lu ? Tsu-ch'ien's Reflections on Things at Hand and in some of Thomas Metzger's descriptions of basic Neo-Confucian themes in his Escape from Predicament.
Since my courses treating Daoism also usually treat Buddhism, one other contrast I have found helpful in pinpointing the precise character of Laoism is the contrast between the use of the term ''empty'' in the Daode jing and ''empty'' as a key term in certain strands of Mahayana Buddhism. The Ma- hayana Emptiness doctrine is aimed against people who are looking for some unchangingly reliable reality having its own being (svabhava) independent of
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the flux of cause and effect in the world; the point of the Emptiness teaching is to cut off all craving for some particular reality to depend on, by asserting that there are no realities beyond this constantly changing flux. ''Emptiness'' in the Daode jing, on the other hand, is directed against those who are overly im- pressed by ''solid,'' ''full'' things, that is, those things that make their presence forcefully felt in the human social world. Laoist ''Emptiness'' teaching com- bats this by insisting that the most valuable things in life are those that lack such solidity. They are so subtle that they feel ''empty. ''
Meditation
When I teach courses on Buddhism, I generally introduce students to a simple (Vipassana) form of Buddhist meditation, because I think attempts to meditate give students a helpful experiential basis for understanding Bud- dhist ideas. I've tried to devise also some meditation techniques based on Laoist ideas that might give students some equivalent basis for understanding Laoism, and I devote seven to ten minutes of several class sessions to this. I've thought of three basic guiding ideas for such meditations.
''Bringing about Softness'' (chapter 10) seems related to practices de- scribed in The Secret of the Golden Flower involving attempts to breathe very softly and smoothly, and to Qigong practices involving attempts to locate and dissolve tensions in one's body through a kind of mental massage.
''Working'' in Laoism refers I think partly to the sense of strain we associate with ''pulling oneself together'' in order to go out into public, a strain that makes dealing with the public something that tires one out. Such strained ''working'' often takes place more or less continually on a preconscious level, so it is helpful to try at meditation to become more conscious of such strain and try to relax it.
In pulling themselves together, most people probably achieve a sense of controlled orderliness in their being, which engenders a certain corresponding fear of the apparent internal disorder that might occur if one lets go of this control and lets oneself ''come apart. '' I think the ''chaos'' theme in the Daode jing (chapters 15 and 25) suggests that one needs to overcome this fear and on occasion yield to apparent internal disorder in order to foster the arising of a less strained, more natural and organic internal harmony. One could use this also as a guide to a meditation practice aimed at relaxing control and letting one's mind become a kind of chaotic mental soup. (I was told once that the term hun dun, ''chaos,'' is the origin of the modern ''won ton,'' the name of a kind of soup. )
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''But this doesn't apply to me. I'm one of the people, not one of the rulers. '' I try to emphasize that a historical approach to the Daode jing is not an alternative to one that considers its potential relevance to people today. The message of the Daode jing is one that can be generalized and applied to many situations other than the specific ones envisioned by the original authors. I often have students break down into small groups to discuss specific chapters of the Daode jing and encourage them in these discussions to consider what it might mean if a person wanted to apply these passages to her own life today. One of the biggest obstacles to this in many students' minds is the fact that so much of the Daode jing consists in advice about how to rule a country. I try to point out that much of this advice can be generalized and applied, for example, as advice to parents about how to deal with their children. Still, students typically find this aspect of the Daode jing at best irrelevant to their lives, and at worst objectionably elitist. Advice is relevant only if it ''applies to the lives of ordinary people like us. '' There seems to be something objec- tionable in itself about writing a book advising people in authority on the best
way of maintaining and using that authority.
This is an excellent opportunity for illustrating what I mean by ''confron-
tational hermeneutics. '' That is, the student reactions just mentioned reflect a set of assumptions implicitly taken for granted in much Western thought. Our general tendency is to take these assumptions as a normative framework within which to understand and evaluate works like the Daode jing. Whatever we can, we interpret in a way that accords with these basic assumptions. Whatever does not accord with these assumptions we reject as fundamentally mistaken. (This is the way that I myself read the Daode jing when I first became attracted to it in my hippie days in the 1970s'. ) When this is done, our own basic assumptions are protected from any kind of questioning. There is never a confrontation between them and the different assumptions the text's authors may have held. What I think needs to be done instead is to make our own assumptions explicit and hold them at arm's length, temporarily suspending our commitment to them, in order to seriously consider a set of assumptions differing from ours on a very basic level.
In the present case, I try to articulate as a basis for discussion some assumptions prevalent in the United States today, first asking students if my list accurately articulates their sense of things. My list is something like the following:
All important truths are universal truths, equally applicable to the lives of all. The very idea that some people should have authority over others is of
questionable legitimacy.
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''The people'' are in general good. They usually have complaints and want to reverse various decisions made by those in power. Our sympathies should generally lie with the people protesting against the establish- ment.
The proper way to react to the abuse of authority is to limit the power of authorities and give more power to the people. This applies especially to ''bureaucrats,'' who, being appointed rather than elected, are not directly responsible to the people.
If an idealistic individual finds herself living in a society whose norms she cannot respect, the proper responses are (1) withdrawal, (2) publicly dramatizing one's dissent, or (3) working to undermine the present order and bring about fundamental, revolutionary change. Revolu- tionaries inevitably represent themselves as working on behalf of the people.
Politics is ideally the struggle for the victory of what is right, and also the struggle for the victory of the people over the powers that be. These are for the most part identical.
One should generally assume that people who aspire to positions of power do so out of egotistic desire to assert that they are ''better than other people,'' one of the worst sins in modern egalitarian democratic societies. Identifying oneself with the people is a basic precondition for moral respectability in this kind of society.
Side by side with this list, we can list a set of assumptions taught or taken for granted by the authors of the Daode jing:13
What the people most need is an orderly and harmonious social order, an environment conducive to peace and moderate prosperity. Such social order depends on the ability of the government to unify the people under its leadership and on its paternalistic work for the common good, in contrast to individuals striving on behalf of personal and private interests. The government is able to do this only by gaining the willing allegiance and cooperation of the people. So the prime concern of political thought is, first, how to gain this willing allegiance and cooperation and, second, how to wield the power thus gained in a way that will produce a social environment most conducive to human flourishing.
If an idealistic individual finds herself living in a society whose norms she cannot respect, the proper response has two aspects, one personal and one social. First, on a personal level, one must internally free oneself from the distorting influences of social pressure so as to cultivate a
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more organically harmonious way of being. And one must develop a relation to some reality beyond and superior to the norms of society-- thus the importance of developing a relation to a ''transcendent'' Dao. Second, on the social side, one should devote oneself to making society a better place for others. One can be most effective in doing this by gaining positions of responsibility and influence within the present sociopolitical structure or by winning the ear of those who have the most power and influence. The crucial thing is that people in such positions must use those means of gaining allegiance and cooperation and carry out those public policies that are most conducive to harmony and prosperity in society.
These two endeavors are governed by different ideals, described in differ- ent aspects of Laoist teaching. Teachings related to self-cultivation are not universal truths applicable to the lives of all, but are intended for idealistic individuals who voluntarily take on the project of self-transformation. This group is open to all, but the general assumption is that not everyone in the society will have this ambition. So this teaching about the mental qualities or states of mind to be cultivated is not the basis for a proposed transformation of the entire society, nor a curriculum to be taught to all the people. (The Daode jing shows no interest in the internal state of ''the people'' [min], and never speaks about them as anything other than the objects of rule. ) One does not teach the people Daoist values and self-cultivation, but concentrates on fos- tering unity, harmony, and moderate prosperity in the society. Thus politics is not the struggle for the public victory of those values one believes in most passionately and cultivates in one's personal life. It is the practical attempt to provide an environment conducive to a relatively good life for people not like oneself.
Tendencies commonly found in rulers--exploitation, self-aggrandizement, meddlesomeness, arbitrary imposition of rules, willing resort to armed violence--are regarded as some of the main obstacles in the way of achieving a unified and organically harmonious society, since such a ruler acts as a foreign presence stirring up people's resentment rather than gaining their willing cooperation. But the solution is not to limit the power of rulers and give more power to the people. Instead, the solution is to convert rulers to a style of lead- ership that will make them both worthy of respect and effective in gaining it. 14
Setting these two sets of assumptions side by side invites a comparative evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of each. To stimulate discussion, I try to present a case for integrating some of these ancient Chinese ideas into
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our own attitudes--not as a substitute for the democratic ethos and institu- tions, but as a counterbalance correcting some of its weaknesses.
We can start with the problem of alienation. Alienation occurs when the influences that dominate the public realm--influences that determine who receives recognition, status, prestige, wealth, and power--are not correlated with what people regard as true values. Alienation in this sense is widespread today, at both ends of the political spectrum. I think that it is justified: people with good moral sensitivities should be alienated. The development of good moral sensitivities requires that one strongly resist the tendency to assume that most successful people in our society deserve their success, that the views and values of the most powerful and influential people in our society actually de- serve our respect, that there is some close correlation between yielding to social pressure and actually being a good person.
There is an assumption in modern Western culture that the proper re- sponse to alienation is denunciation and opposition. If one feels that the system is corrupt, not publicly taking a stand against it also feels like moral compro- mise. This I think is ultimately shaped by the ''prophetic'' strain in the Judeo- Christian tradition. 15 This has been coupled in modern times by a structural and populist utopianism. Structural utopianism is an important element in what is now called ''modernism'': the confidence that rational political science could discover for us a set of structural reforms and political institutions that would remedy all injustices. By ''populist utopianism'' I mean a confidence in ''the will of the people'' as the agent that will actually bring about a just society.
In class discussions, I try to raise questions about the validity of these assumptions and about the practical effects of acting on them.
As to structural utopianism: Does anyone know of a specific set of political and social institutions that will produce a society fundamentally more just than our own? Do we have good reasons to think that, in the near future, someone will discover such a revolutionary new system that we could implement? Of course, one cannot rule this out, but is it wise to predicate our behavior on the assumption that this will actually happen? The system we have is a combina- tion of a free market economy, electoral politics, the rule of law, an expansion of areas of individual freedom, and at the same time a counterbalancing expan- sion of a managerial government called on to remedy many undesirable effects of the free market and the free choices of individuals pursuing their own interests. I argue that, in the absence of any radically different practical alter- natives on the horizon, the best we can hope for, in the near future at least, are adjustments in this basic system. Such adjustments could result in major improvements in the system areas, such as wider and more equal availability of
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health care and education, more genuine equality of opportunity, and so on. But each of these adjustments comes with a cost, generally an expansion of government with an attendant limitation of individual freedoms, increased taxation, increased power for politicians and government bureaucrats, and so on. And I don't see that any amount of adjustment promises to produce a fundamentally more just and less alienating society.
Populist utopianism seems likewise predicated on assumptions at odds with reality. The idea that there exists an actual large group whose desires if listened to would revolutionize the social order for the better--such an idea has a great initial appeal. Anyone who questions it is immediately suspect of being an elitist, siding with some elite group and putting down the people. But this should not prevent us from considering how closely this idea matches actual conditions today. The idea of ''the will of the people'' seems predicated on the further idea that people suffering from domination and injustice will feel sol- idarity with other victims and will struggle for the common liberation of all. But what we seem to see instead is various interest groups each advancing its own interests that conflict with the interests of other groups. What group of voters feels that their voting should be guided, not by their own interests, but by some consideration of the common good? Some political theorists express confidence that competition among interest groups will itself bring about the common good, but it seems more often just to result in stalemate, or in political com- promises that give the word ''politics'' an exceedingly negative connotation in modern democracies. ''Democratic'' electoral politics thus becomes a major cause of alienation rather than a solution.
Some might argue that we should keep alive utopian hopes even if they are unrealistic, because this is the most effective way of preventing wholesale and devastating moral compromise, in which people accept the legitimacy of the present order just because of its actual power. I think there is some validity to this, but one must also consider the actual effect of the attitudes and behavior that it leads to. What strikes me most in this respect is the way protest against the system, and especially against the government, has become characteristic of right-wing groups, those least concerned about the plight of the poor and the powerless in society. And indeed, for the most part, weakening the power of the government in favor of ''the people'' does not actually result in bettering the conditions of the poor and powerless, but in a more Darwinian society favoring the interests of those who are already wealthy and powerful. As bad as it is, the government is the only agency from which we can hope for any reduction in the injustices caused by free market economic forces, free competition for jobs, education, medical services, and so on. The fact that alienation from the system tends to keep the best, brightest, most idealistic individuals out of government
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service actually works to the detriment of the system itself, in which we all have to live.
In light of these considerations, the alternative reactions to alienation expressed in the Daode jing have more to recommend them than one might initially suppose.
Laoists were also obviously alienated from their society. This is expressed, for example, in their love for paradox, praising qualities looked down on in their society and criticizing those qualities most admired. But their reaction to alienation followed a Chinese pattern (shared with their Confucian rivals) that is more bifurcated than the typical Western pattern. It is bifurcated in that it offers a personal program different from the social and political program it also offers. Their personal solution was self-cultivation. Self-cultivation means freeing oneself on a personal level from the influence of the false values that dominate public life in conventional society, and cultivating intensely in one- self those values one thinks are true values. Internalizing these qualities to a very high degree ''saves'' a person from meaninglessness even in the midst of a corrupt society. It enables him to unite with a reality, Dao that transcends the social world. (The fact that Dao needs to fulfill this function makes it important that Dao not be a vague and indeterminate reality or concept devoid of any real content having specific pragmatic implications. ) Laoists wanted to offer this personal solution to all individuals whom they could interest in taking it up. But they did not envision a society in which all individuals would actually engage in this self-cultivation. It was a rather perfectionist project which had to be vol- untarily taken up by individuals willing to invest considerable time and energy on it. It was not envisioned as something already innate in the masses of the people, just waiting to be released by weakening the influence of bad leaders.
But offering this personal, ''individualist'' solution to alienation indepen- dent of any social change did not lead to abandoning any interest in social reform on behalf of the people. Laoists were interested in making society a better place for the masses of the people outside ruling circles. But this did not lead them to identify themselves with ''the people'' in opposition to rulers and managers, nor did it lead them to any plans for a radical restructuring of their society. On the contrary, they accepted the hierarchical structure of society and its accompanying paternalistic approach to governing. Their program for social reform was focused on attempts to infuse social leadership with Laoist values, both by elevating good Laoists to influential middle-level administrative posi- tions, and by acting as counselors to higher level princes and kings (who at the time were either the remnants of hereditary nobility or warlords newly come to power). This leadership would not directly teach Laoist values to the people, nor enshrine them in laws to be obeyed by all. Leaders would, rather, personally
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embody Daoist qualities, qualities that would be felt in their personal presence (De) and their style of social interaction, and so would result in a more powerful government, assumed to be necessary for a harmonious and prosperous society.
I ask students, in the light of all this, to reconsider their instinctive an- tipathy to any advice encouraging any ambition to become a representative of the system and to improve and strengthen it, which seems to them to imply rejection of their preferred stance of identification with ''ordinary people'' in opposition to the system. I point out that, willy nilly, most of them will probably at some time become functionaries in some large organization, private or state-run, with responsibilities that place them in control of other people who are either employees or clients of this organization. Their ten- dency is to look on this as an unfortunate economic necessity. Laoists would have them look on this as an opportunity to make the world a better place, at least that corner of the world that they are in charge of.
These are all matters to think about. I want students to suspend their own views long enough to take a sympathetic look at different Laoist attitudes, but then to engage in serious critical thought as to the pros and cons of each way of dealing with these issues. If Laoist views on these subjects are applicable today it is not because they are timeless truths possessing some intrinsic and timeless authority, but by coincidence--because current circumstances bring certain issues and problems to the fore today, and Laoism has a better way of dealing with these issues than the responses that most readily come to minds shaped by the Western cultural tradition. This is a good example of the ad- vantages of a historicist approach over a free reading focused most often on finding ''universal truths. '' Historical reconstructions focusing on particulari- ties of views from the past and other cultures give us something challenging to chew on. ''Universal truths'' tend to get their universality by being vague; lacking specific content and specific implications, they offer us nothing chal- lenging to struggle with.
notes
1. I've outlined this theory in Language and Gnosis: Form and Meaning in the Acts of Thomas (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), chap. 1; ''Socio-historical Research and the Contextualization of Biblical Theology,'' in The Social World of Formative Chris- tianity and Judaism: Essays in Honor of Howard Clark Kee, ed. P. Borger, J. S. Frerichs, R. Horsley, and J. Neusner (Philadelphia: Fortress Press 1988), 3-16; ''Are Texts Determinate? Derrida, Barth, and the Role of the Biblical Scholar,'' Harvard Theolo- gical Review 81, no. 3 (1988): 341-357; Tao and Method: A Reasoned Approach to the Tao- te-ching (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994), 5-43) and Michael
hermeneutics and pedagogy: old-time historicism 191
Lafargue ''Recovering the Tao-te-Ching's Original Meaning: Some Remarks on His- torical Hermeneutics,'' in Lao-tzu and the Tao-te-ching, ed. Livia Kohn and Michael LaFargue (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), 255-276. I owe a great deal both in hermeneutics and in pedagogy to the mentoring of Dieter Georgi,
and partly through him to his teacher Rudolf Bultmann.
2. My resulting interpretation of the first two chapters of the Acts of Thomas was
published as Language and Gnosis.
3. See Michael Ermarth, Wilhelm Dilthey: The Critique of Historical Reason (Chi-
cago: University of Chicago Press, 1981). For my critique of Gadamer, see LaFargue, Tao and Method, 7-12; for Derrida, see LaFargue, ''Are Texts Determinate? ''
4. I've found most helpful Ted Kaptchuk's The Web That Has No Weaver (Chi- cago: Congdon & Weed, 1983) on Chinese medical theory, and B. Frantzis, Opening the Energy Gates of Your Body (Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 1993).
5. I've adopted A. C. Graham's term ''Laoism'' as a convenient designation of the specific teaching of the Daode jing, to distinguish this from other teachings associated with the term ''Daoism. '' See A. C. Graham, Studies in Chinese Philosophy and Philoso- phical Literature (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990), 118, 124. This enables me to avoid engaging in struggles over what properly deserves the prestige name ''Daoism. '' For students concerned about this question, I recommend Nathan Sivin's very informative article, ''On the Word 'Taoist' as a Source of Perplexity, with Special Reference to the Relations of Science and Religion in Traditional China,'' History of Religions 17 (1978): 303-330, for the situation in China, and Julia Hardy's ''Influential Western Interpretations of the Tao-te-ching,'' and The Tao of Pooh, ed. Benjamin M. Hoff (New York: Penguin Books, 1983), for a history of ''Western Daoism. ''
6. See LaFargue, The Tao of the Tao Te Ching, A Translation and Commentary (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), 219-253. I assign the essays under the following topics: Organic, Natural, Appearances, Self-Promotion, Con- tending, Confucianism, Empty, Nothing, Uncarved Block, Agitation, Desire, Still, Naming, Understanding, Impressive, Strict, Hurting, Forcing, Low, Softness, Im- provements, Working, Dao, and De. These give an overview of my attempts to re- construct the original historical meaning of the Daode jing.