No More Learning

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
hermeneutics and pedagogy: old-time historicism 189
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
190 recent scholarship and teaching the daode jing
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. I sometimes also assign the longer and more systematic essay on ''Organic Harmony'' in LaFargue, Tao and Method, 160-172. I think organic harmony as there defined is the core value in Laoism.
7. More complete explanation of my theory about how proverbs mean is given in LaFargue, Tao and Method, chaps. 6-7. See also my ''Understanding the Aphorisms in the Tao-te-ching,'' Journal of Chinese Religions, no. 18 (fall 1990): 25-43.
8. LaFargue, Tao and Method.
9. Ibid. , 104-112, 181-195. My attention was first drawn to parallels between the Daode jing and the Nei Ye by the work of Hal Roth; see ''Psychology and Self-Culti- vation in Early Taoistic Thought,'' Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 51 (December 1991): 599-650.
10. A. C. Graham, Disputers of the Tao: Philosophical Argument in Ancient China (LaSalle, Ill. : Open Court Press, 1989), 243.
192 recent scholarship and teaching the daode jing
11. Many of these ideas are implied in passages using the key recurrent term ''turn back. '' For example chapter 16 speaks of ''turning back to the root,'' which it says is equivalent to achieving a mental stillness (jing) that is the opposite of activity (zuo); this implies that stillness is a kind of primary or ''root'' state, compared to which activity is secondary and derivative. The common tendency is to flee this ''root'' and involve oneself in outward-directed activity. Laoist advice to ''turn back'' is advice to reverse this outward flow and turn back to this neglected root. Similarly, chapter 64 says one should ''desire [to be] desire-less, learn [to be] un-learned . . . turn back to the place all others have gone on from''; chapter 28 speaks of ''turning back to an infant [-like state], turning back to [being] uncarved''; chapter 52 speaks of ''turning back
to the [internal] Mother,'' in contrast to occupying oneself with phenomena in the world, the Mother's ''children''; chapter 32 says that the ''naming'' involved in legalistic rule making is a result of ''cutting up'' an initially ''uncarved'' Dao. I think the end of chapter 1 also pictures conceptual naming as something that arises out of a prior ''merged'' state of mind, that is, a state of mind prior to the emergence of well-defined concepts. If my understanding is correct, this aspect of Laoist thought is probably summed up in the rather cryptic passage in chapter 25: ''One can call it [Dao] 'Great. ' Great means going forth, going forth means going far away, going far away means turning back. '' ' The social world we see is the result of a ''going forth'' from Dao, a movement that initially alienates this world from Dao. Overcoming this alienation is the object of Laoist self-cultivation, which is a reversal (''turning back'') of this cosmic movement away from Dao.
12. LaFargue, Tao and Method, 172-174.
13. Some elements in this list are the result of my attempts to situate the Daode jing in its social setting in ancient China, spelled out in LaFargue, Tao and Method, chaps. 3-5. Many of these assumptions are not specifically Laoist, but were elements of a political culture that Laoists shared with other thinkers of the time, including their Confucian rivals. The tendency among Western scholars is to try to assimilate divisions between different Chinese schools to modern divisions we are familiar with (right vs. left, religious vs. secular, etc. ). I think n historical reading should focus instead on the way that the shared political culture of ancient Chinese thinkers differs from the shared political culture that shapes modern thought.
14. See the remarks by A. C. Graham on what he calls ''hierarchical anarchism'': the utopias of even the most ''primitivist,'' anticivilization thinkers in ancient China were presided over by a sage emperor. Disputers of the Tao, 299-311.
15. This attitude is well represented, I believe, in the Gospel of Mark, another of my favorites among religious classics, though its message is in many ways directly opposed to the Daode jing. See my ''The Authority of the Excluded: Mark's Challenge to a Rational Hermeneutics,'' in Religious Propaganda and Missionary Competition in the New Testament World: Essays Honoring Dieter Georgi, supplement to Novum Tes- tamentum, no. 74, ed. Lukas Borman, Kelly DelTredici, and Angela Standhartinger (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 229-255.
? Selected Bibliography
Abram, David. The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More- Than Human World. New York: Vintage Books, 1996.
Allan, Sarah, and Crispin Williams, eds. The Guodian Laozi: Proceedings of the International Conference, Dartmouth College, May, 1998. Early China Special Monograph Series no. 5. Institute for East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 2000.
Barnhart, Michael, ed. Varieties of Ethical Reflection: New Directions for Ethics in a Global Context. New York: Lexington Books, 2002.
Barrett, T. H. Taoism under the T'ang: Religion and Empire during the Golden Age of Chinese History. London: Wellsweep Press, 1996.
Bell, Catherine. Ritual: Perspective and Dimensions. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
Berling, Judith A. A Pilgrim in Chinese Culture: Negotiating Religious Diversity. Maryknoll, N. Y. : Orbis Books, 1997.
Bilsky, Lester J. ''The State Religion of Ancient China. '' PhD diss. , University of Washington, 1971.
Birrell, Anne M. ''Studies on Chinese Myth Since 1970: An Appraisal. '' Part I. History of Religions 33 (1994): 380-393.
------. ''Studies on Chinese Myth Since 1970: An Appraisal. '' Part II. History of Religions 34 (1994): 70-94.
Blofeld, John. The Secret and Sublime: Taoist Mysteries and Magic. London: Allen & Unwin, 1973.
------. Taoist Road to Immortality. Boston: Shambhala, 1985. Bradbury, Steven. ''The American Conquest of Philosophical Taoism. ''
In Translation East and West: A Cross-Cultural Approach, ed. Cornelia N. Moore and Lucy Lower. Honolulu: University of Hawaii College
of Languages, Linguistics and Literature, and East-West Center, 1992.
194 selected bibliography
Bynam, Caroline Walker. Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Gender and the Human Body in Medieval Religion. Boston: Beacon, 1992.
Capra, Fritjof. The Tao of Physics. Boston: Shambala, 1975 (1983, 1991, 1999). Chan, Alan K. Two Visions of the Way: A Study of the Wang Pi and Ho-Shang Kung
Commentaries of the Lao-tzu. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991. Chan, Wing-tsit. ''Influences of Taoist Classics on Chinese Philosophy. '' In Literature of Belief: Sacred Scripture and Religious Experience, Neal E. Lambert, Provo, Utah:
Brigham Young University Press, 1981.
------. Source Book in Chinese Philosophy. Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1963.
Chang Chung-yuan.
Creativity and Taoism: A Study of Chinese Philosophy, Art and
Poetry. New York: Harper & Row, 1970.
Ch'en, Ellen. ''Is There a Doctrine of Physical Immortality in the Tao-te-ching? '' History
of Religions 12, no. 3 (1973): 231-247.
Chen, Ellen Marie. The Tao Te Ching: A New Translation with Commentary. New York:
Paragon House, 1989.
Chen, Guying. Lao Zhuang xinlun. Hong Kong: Zhonghua shuju, 1991.
Chu Hsi. Reflections on Things at Hand. Trans. Wing-tsit Chan. New York: Columbia
University Press, 1967.
Clarke, J. J. Oriental Enlightenment: The Encounter between Asian and Western Thought.
London: Routledge, 1997.
------. The Tao of the West: Western Transformations of Taoist Thought. London:
Routledge, 2000.
Creel, H. C. The Birth of China. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1937.
------. The Origins of Statecraft in China. Vol. 1: The Western Chou Empire. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1970.
------. Shen Pu-hai: A Chinese Political Philosopher of the Fourth Century B. C. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1974.
------. What Is Taoism? And Other Studies in Chinese Cultural History. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1970.
Csikszentmihalyi, Mark, and Philip J. Ivanhoe, eds. Religious and Philosophical Aspects
of the Laozi. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999. Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York:
Harper & Row, 1990.
Culler, Jonathan. Structuralist Poetics: Structuralism, Linguistics, and the Study of
Literature. Ithaca, N. Y. : Cornell University Press, 2002.
Davis, Lydia. ''The Professor. '' Harpers', February 1992, 56-59.
deBary, William Theodore. The Buddhist Tradition in India, China and Japan. New
York: Random House, 1972.
------, ed. Sources of Chinese Tradition. New York: Columbia University Press,
1960.
Eliade, Mircea. The Sacred and the Profane. New York: Harper & Row, 1967. Ermarth, Michael. Wilhelm Dilthey: The Critique of Historical Reason. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1981.
Fish, Stanley. Is There a Text in This Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities. Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1980.
Frantzis, B. Opening the Energy Gates of Your Body. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 1993.
Girardot, Norman. ''Behaving Cosmogonically in Early Taoism. '' In Cosmogony and Ethical Order, ed. R. Lovin and F. Reynolds. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.
------. ''Chinese Religion: History of Study. '' Encyclopedia of Religions 3, ed. Mircea Eliade. New York: Macmillan, 1987, 312-323.
------. Disputers of the Tao: Philosophical Argument in Ancient China. LaSalle, Ill. : Open Court Press, 1989.
------. ''Kristofer Schipper and the Resurrection of the Taoist Body. '' In The Taoist Body, by Kristofer Schipper. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. ------. Myth and Meaning in Early Taoism. Berkeley: University of California Press,
1983.
------. ''Part of the Way: Four Studies on Taoism. '' History of Religions 11 (1972): 319-
337.
------. Studies in Chinese Philosophy and Philosophical Literature. Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1990.
------. '' 'Very Small Books about Very Large Subjects': A Prefatory Appreciation of
the Enduring Legacy of Laurence G. Thompson's Chinese Religion: An
Introduction. '' Journal of Chinese Religions 20 (fall 1992): 9-15.
------. The Victorian Translation of China: James Legge's Oriental Pilgrimage. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2002.
------. ''Whispers and Smiles: Nostalgic Reflections on Mircea Eliade's Significance
for the Study of Religion. '' Ed. Bryan Rennie. Albany: State University of New
York Press, forthcoming.
------. ''The Whole Duty of Man'': James Legge and the Victorian Translation of China.
19th Century Transformations of Missionary Tradition, Sinological Orientalism, and the Comparative Science of Religions. Berkeley: University of California Press, forthcoming.
Girardot, N. J. , James Miller, and Liu Xiaogan, eds. Daoism and Ecology: Ways within a Cosmic Landscape. Cambridge, Mass. : Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School, 2001. Distributed by Harvard University.
Goodspeed, Bennett W. The Tao Jones Averages: A Guide to Whole-Brained Investing. New York: Dutton, 1983.
Guodian. Ed. Guodian Chumu zhujian. Wenwu chubanshe. Beijing: Jingmen Museum, 1998.
Hall, David, and Roger Ames. ''Daoism. '' In Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward Craig. London: Routledge, 1998.
------. Thinking from the Han. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998.
Hansen, Chad. A Daoist Theory of Chinese Thought: A Philosophical Interpretation. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
selected bibliography 195
196 selected bibliography
------. Language and Logic in Ancient China. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1983.
Hardy, Julia. ''Influential Western Interpretations of the Tao-te-ching. '' In Lao-tzu and the Tao-te-ching, ed. L. Kohn and Michael LaFargue. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998.
Hu, Shi(h). Zhongguo gudai zhexueshi. 1919. Taipei: Shangwu, 1961.
Ivanhoe, Philip J. , and Paul Kjellberg, eds. Essays on Skepticism, Relativism and Ethics in
the Zhuangzi. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996. Kaltenmark, Max. Lao Tzu and Taoism. Trans. Roger Greaves. Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1969.
Kaptchuk, Ted. The Web That Has No Weaver. Chicago: Congdon & Weed, 1983. Kirkland, Russell. ''The Book of the Way. '' In Great Literature of the Eastern World, ed.
Ian P. McGreal. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
------. ''The Historical Contours of Taoism in China: Thoughts on Issues of
Classification and Terminology. '' Journal of Chinese Religions 25 (1997): 57-82. ------. ''The History of Taoism: A New Outline. '' Journal of Chinese Religions 30
(2002): 177-193.
------. ''On Coveting Thy Neighbor's Tao: Reflections on J. J. Clarke' s The Tao of the
West. '' Religious Studies Review 28, no. 4 (2002): 309-312.
------. ''Person and Culture in the Taoist Tradition. '' Journal of Chinese Religions 20
(1992): 77-90.
------. ''A Quest for 'The Foundations of Taoist Mysticism. ''' Studies in Central and
East Asian Religions, nos. 12-13 (2001): 203-229.
------. Review of The Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature, ed. Victor
Mair. Education about Asia 3, no.