Dao De Jing's Social and Political Thought

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The 4th century BCE Chinese classic, the Dao De Jing (道德經), attributed to the legendary sage Laozi (老子), is often read today as a discourse on metaphysical and mystical thought.  However, its composition in the middle of a 260-some year long Chinese civil war, and the fact that a number of its later chapters are directly addressed to rulers of small states, makes it much more likely that it was a sort of handbook on rulership in its original context.  In fact, its earliest commentaries in Chinese were written by a political advisor.  While it drew on cosmological themes, these themes were largely employed for the purposes of exposing what it believed to be flawed ways of governing (mostly Confucian ones) and counseling its readers on wise ruling. 

In this thread, I'd like to translate and make a few comments on some of the text's most interesting chapters on governing and society.  Of course, I invite your thoughts.  And, if anyone would like to discuss a chapter I leave out, feel free to bring it up.   

[The Mikado]

Following this thread closely.

Question: has Dao received the kind of revival that the works of Confucius has in recent years?

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Following this thread closely.

Question: has Dao received the kind of revival that the works of Confucius has in recent years?

Glad that you are enjoying the threat so far! 

Yes, very much so.  Both in academic and popular culture in China, interest in Daoism has experienced an enthusiastic revival.  It has also received a wealth of attention in Western scholarship.  I'll be glad to say more about this if you have further questions.

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I will replenish this thread with the chapters I had originally translated for it.

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Literally over a hundred published translations of the Dao De Jing into English exist, it's actually the most-frequently translated text from any Asian philosophical tradition into Western languages.  But the plasticity of the Chinese language itself and the varying perspectives of its translators make every rendition unique.  Everyone always talks about how to translate the first chapter.  So, here is my version.

DDJ 1

道可道         Paths (that) can guide
非常道.        are not constant paths.
名可名.        Names (that) can name
非常名.        are not constant names.
無名            "Nothing" is called
天地之始;     the beginning of heaven and earth;
有名            "Something" is called
萬物之母.     the mother of the myriad things.
故常無欲      Thus, always desist from desiring
以觀其妙;     in order to see what is subtle;
常有欲         (and) always abide with desires
以觀其徼.     in order to see boundaries.
此兩者，      These two things,
同出            proceeding forth together,
而異名.        yet are differently named.
同謂之玄.     Together, they are called dark,  
玄之又玄，   dark and ever more dark,
衆妙之門.     the gateway to a multitude of subtleties.

First, some semantic and grammatical notes.

The first has to do with how the all-important word 道 (often rendered "way") is to be understood here.  It's an extremely common word among all philosophical persuasions in ancient China, and like a host of words, it can be used both nominally and verbally.  As a noun, 道 can mean "path," "course," "method" or "way," though the last of these is more abstract and covers the range of its major nominal meanings, e.g. "a way to go somewhere," "the way things work," "the way one lives or does things" ect.  The character combines the words "foot" or "going on foot" and "head," and so has the sense of a person walking in some set direction.  I like what Roger Ames has recently written about the word having a "processual" or "gerund"-like sense, akin to such words in English as "work" or "building," which have the sense of both a completed product as well as the process involved in making the product.  Now, as a transitive verb in classical Chinese, 道 almost always means "to guide" or "to give someone directions," which is to say it has to do with speech that informs someone of how something is done or arrived at.  Finally, in most cases in classical Chinese, there is no morphological difference between singular and plural forms of a noun (almost no plural endings), and one has to determine from the context which one is meant.  I have chosen the word "paths" above because it seems to me, in the present chapter, what is being talked about are at least two things as well as two approaches to understanding and comporting with the world.  At least here then, 道 is not some rarified, divine "thing," but a way to approach living, just as in the parallel sentence 2, 名 are "names" that can name things.  The chapter is primarily about how to live, and only secondarily about reality.

The only other major grammatical point I want to make regards how to translate sentence 4.  Lots of translations have something like: "without names, heaven and earth began; with names, heaven and earth have a mother."  In my view, several recent translators have definitively shown that this kind of rendition is wrong.  There are two reasons.  First of all, this sort of translation completely botches the rather simple grammar of the clauses.   天地之始 and 萬物之母 are unambiguously noun phrases ("the beginning of heaven and earth," "the mother of the ten thousand things" respectively), and so to think 無 and 有 are in this case adjectival quantifiers (which they in many other cases can be) of 名, as in "without names," "with names," would leave these clauses with no explicit or implicit predication whatsoever.  Classical Chinese grammar is flexible, but not that flexible!  It seems clear then that, in both these clauses, 名 is a verb ("named" or "called"), and so 無 and 有 are what one calls the alternative noun phrases in question.  In addition to the grammar, there is one other fact about the stanza that supports this reading.  Sentence 6 begins with the words 此兩者 "these two things."  The last word 者 is very strictly used as an individual identifier; it cannot refer to two modes of something (lacking and having something) but only to distinct things, which again in this case are  無 and 有.  One may of course still want to quibble over how to render these last two words, but something like the above is the only sensible way to render the grammar of sentence 4.

Ok, enough with grammar and semantics; what is the stanza saying?  The chapter talks about three pairs of alternatives, "nothing and something," "not desiring and desiring," and "subtleties and boundaries."  With "nothing," one has the beginnings of heaven and earth, which is subtle and can't be talked about precisely, while with "something" one has the "mother of the myriad things," or rather, the production of all the diverse things and beings in the midst of the world where we find ourselves.  Connected to this is living a life with minimal desires, which enables one to see all the subtle ways the world functions.  By contrast, living a life motivated by desires makes one aware of concrete limits (if I want this and not that, I have to do this and not that--very good Mohism and Legalism, and somewhat good Confucianism!).  So, just as "something" and "nothing" are different 名 words or names that describe different states of the world (its beginning and its diversified production), so desiring and not desiring are different 道, paths or methods or ways to live that lead to different kinds of understanding and orientation in the world.  Neither path is "constant" or "ever-present" (常), for, even though they "emerge" or "proceed" together (同出), they can be alternatively adopted, either by different people or by the same person.  But even though perhaps in some ultimate sense, these two "things" of the world, "nothing" and "something," "subtlety" and "limits" go together or are united (同), exactly how they do or are so is a mystery, it is shrouded in "darkness" (玄. which is actually a color, a deep dark red).  

For all the abstruse metaphysical speculation to which this strange stanza has led in both China and in comparative discussions over the centuries, it is very significant that it is immediately followed by half a dozen chapters on the best way, among various alternatives, to govern.  The Dao De Jing is very much a political text.

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DDJ 2

天下皆知,            Everyone under heaven knows (that)
美之為美             (when) the beautiful is treated as beautiful,
斯惡已.               this is itself ugliness.
皆知,                  Everyone knows (that),
善之為善             when good is treated as good,
斯不善已.            this is itself not good.       
故有無相生,         Thus, something and nothing generate one another,
難易相成,            difficult and easy complete one another,
長短相形,            long and short shape one another,
高下相傾,            high and low incline to one another,
音聲相和,            tune and voice harmonize with one another;
前後相隨.            before and after follow one another.
是以聖人             Just so, the sage,
處無為之事,         with the work of doing nothing, handles matters,
行不言之教.         (and) practices a teaching without doctrines.
萬物作焉             The myriad things are initiated from him,
而不辭.               but are not bidden,
生而不有,            (he) generates (them) but does not possess (them),
為而不恃,            acts (on them) but does not rely (on them),
功成而弗居.         (he) succeeds, but does not dwell on it.
夫唯弗居,            Only because he does not dwell on it,
是以不去.            it never leaves (him).

The Dao De Jing assumes a kind of naturalism that scholars have called a "correlative cosmology," a worldview in which opposing forces, energies, tendencies and systems in nature conflict, but are also mutually dependent.  Thus, though "difficult and easy," "long and short," "high and low," "tune (instrumentation) and voice" and "before and after" are opposites, and to that degree also oppose one another, they are also inextricably related, spacially, temporally and in terms of process, to one other.  The text of this chapter calls that brand of naturalism to mind, but only to give some political guidance. 

That guidance consists here in arguing that when only certain things or persons are treated (為 means "act" or "treat" but can also have the connotations of "consider" or "deem") as "beautiful" or "good," that treatment immediately generates the preferred value's opposite (ugliness and wickedness).  As the Dao De Jing will point out explicitly in succeeding chapters, when a society idealizes wealth, the standards of wealth create want, and having in this way created the difference between wealth and want, the society will experience contention over them.  When a society idealizes "knowledge," that is, when it creates a "knowledge class" of political literati, the standard set for knowledge also defines what constitutes ignorance, and this opposition too will generate a tension in society between the preferred "know-it-alls" and the ostracized masses.  Finally, when a society deems certain truths and behaviors as "good," it thereby gives a shape to what is considered evil, and should these definitions ossify, permanent contention may be created that does not leave room for change, even though change is the one thing that nature always guarantees.

The "sage" (聖人), an ideal ruler in this case, practices the "work of doing nothing" (處無為), which does not mean literally doing nothing, but the opposite of treating or deeming (為), as above, only one fixed set of standards as ideals to the exclusion of all else.  Furthermore, he does not, as is expected of Confucian rulers, proclaim and teach society one ready-made path of virtuous conduct, but instead practices a teaching (教) that employs no "doctrines (言, a character that generically means simply "word(s)", but in the context of Warring States Period literature often means "doctrines" or "principles" held by particular philosophical schools).  Such a practice imitates nature, generates and gives life (生) to things without either decreeing standards or taking credit.  Only this kind of rulership can, according to the text, lead to a state's and society's abiding success.

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DDJ 3

不尚賢                 Not esteeming worthies
使民不爭.             causes the people not to contend.       
不貴難得之貨        Not prizing goods that are hard to obtain
使民不為盜.          causes the people not to steal.   
不見可欲，           Not showing (off) desirable (things)
使心不亂.             causes the heart not to be confused.
是以聖人之治，     Just so, the government of the sage
虛其心，              empties their hearts
實其腹，              (but) fills their bellies
弱其志，              weakens their aims,         
強其骨.                (but) strengthens their bones,
常使民無知           He always causes the people to lack knowledge
無欲.                   and lack desire,
使夫知者              and causes men of knowledge
不敢為也.             not to dare act.
為無為，              From the activity of not acting
則無不治.             there is but nothing that is ungoverned.

This apparently provocative chapter is, it turns out, merely an extension of the advice given in the previous one.  In classical Chinese thought, no less perhaps than in our own, "worthy men" (賢), aims that are born of resolve (志), which in turn have their origins in desire (欲), and certainly knowledge or wisdom (知) are social and psychological goods.  But here, the Dao De Jing asserts that the wise ruler will temper desire by not putting rare treasures on display, and will see to the people's needs of food and health in order to suppress ambition and cunning.

I would suggest that one key to at least understanding such seemingly counter-intuitive guidance lies in minding the position of small states during the then-raging Chinese civil war.  About fourteen small, under-resourced and minor states were sandwiched in and around about six major ones, and the Dao De Jing is interested in helping the rulers of these small states survive.  One of the necessary conditions for survival in these circumstances is to prevent a state from falling to internal collapse, and that is why the text always keeps a watchful eye on the possible causes of internal, popular contention (爭).  Where there is social rivalry, people are tempted to compete; where there are valuables, people are tempted to theft; where there are men of knowledge, people are tempted to scheming, and perhaps, by implication, to betrayal on the level of treason.  A state under constant external threat needs to be internally governable, and, it is argued, curbing ambition helps achieve such an end.

Moreover, echoing the previous chapter, the wise ruler engages in the "activity of not acting" (為無為), which again suggests that was is meant is not idleness but a governing style that basically ensures that the people have just what they need and then are left alone.  But especially interesting in this chapter is the text's first mention of causing people's hearts to be empty.  It is always important to note that, in classical Chinese, the character 心 means "heart/mind."  The word itself originates from an ancient pictogram of the heart and aorta blood vessel, and is considered an entirely physical organ which both feels and thinks.  No abstract separation is acknowledged in classical Chinese thought between the emotional and rational aspects of human consciousness, for the same organ performs them both.  In the present context, a heart-mind that is "empty" (虛) is one that is not perturbed by either desire or knowledge.  At first blush, this emptiness of heart and mind may strike us as a kind of vacuous privation of feeling and thinking, as if the Dao De Jing were advocating that the masses should be made into compliant zombies.  Such is not the case, however, as we will see in succeeding chapters, the Dao De Jing does not see emptiness as a state of sheer privation or dull status, but as the very source of creative potential in nature.         

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DDJ 5

天地不仁，            Heaven and earth are not caring,
以萬物為芻狗;        they treat the myriad things like straw dogs;
聖人不仁，            sages are not caring,
以百姓為芻狗.        they treat the hundred families like straw dogs.
天地之間，            (What is) between heaven and earth,
其猶橐籥乎?          is it like a bellows?
虛而不屈，            (It is) void but unyielding,
動而愈出.              (it is) moved but yet expands all the more.
多言數窮，            (Do not) add up and exhaust (too) many words,
不如守中.              instead, guard what is in the midst (of the world).

This is one of the Dao De Jing's short but most interesting stanzas.  Some of the arcane and technical terminology make the chapter elusive, but its meaning is rich, and typically provocative.

The first four lines draw a parallel between "heaven and earth," which is to say nature, and sagely rulers.  Neither, it is said, are 仁.  This term, embodying the highest of Confucian and Mohist moral ideals, is difficult to translate well.  The character combines an abbreviated form of the word for person (人) and the number two (二). though there is one older and different etymology.  Often translated as "humane" or "benevolent," the adjectival character denotes both the capacity for human beings to live in relationships and the moral aim of perfecting human relationships.  The oldest systematic Chinese dictionary, however, defines this word through the character 爱, which in modern Chinese means "love" but in classical Chinese is more often used in the sense of "care" or as a transitive verb "to care for," which is why I have chosen the above translation  Departing from personalized notions of heaven common to Confucianism (up to that point) and Mohism, the Dao De Jingannounces here that heaven and earth do not care for people, or do not love them, or are not good to them!  Instead, both heaven and sages treat things and people like "straw dogs" (芻狗). 

In ancient China, "straw dogs" were not merely useless, however.  They were in fact employed in certain kinds of rituals as offerings to ancestral spirits.  But, while they were treated with solemn reverence during such rituals, after the rituals were over, they were trampled on.  What the text seems then to be saying is that heaven employs things to their proper purposes for a time, after that time has been used up, heaven crushes those very things it generated.  Similarly, sages treat the "hundred families" (百姓) in just this way; they respect people for a time, and then destroy or discard them.  Sounds ominous, even sinister.  What sorts of rulers do such things?

The stanza has an answer for this question.  Rulers act like this who realize that what is between heaven and earth is like a bellows; nature expands and contracts flexibly so that energy may be pumped through it in order to produce a certain sound.  The forced air obviously has a use, but the air is only important insofar as the bellows can use it to emit an inexhuastable kind of music.  This cannot be explained, and so one should not try too hard to explain it.  The Dao De Jing repeats time and time again that, while heaven and earth do have a mysterious origin, that origin and its meaning are forever shrouded in darkness and mystery, and cannot be thoroughly understood by anyone.  Instead of understanding and trying to sermonize about where nature came from or what its ultimate telos might be, the sage emulates nature in its treatment of living creatures, in order to safeguard (守) what is in the midst (中) of the world.  The wise ruler then does not love people, he safeguards their proper place in the order of things.  What is left unexplained here, disturbingly, is just how the ruler is expected to discard people as straw dogs are dispatched after rituals.

In its historical and philosophical context, this statement by the Dao De Jing is meant to be at once grandiose and humbling.  It is grandiose in the sense that the sagely ruler should aspire not just to be a great human being, but to emulate heaven and earth themselves.  Great rulers are not just seminal people, they are veritable forces of nature, on this view.  But, at the same time, rulers are not expected in this early "Daoist" vision to care for the populous with perfect benevolence, though this was the rulership ideal for both Confucian and Mohist thought.  As we will see, the early "Daoists" are suspicious of such idealized forms of monarchical paternalism, since they don't see love, care, virtue or filiality as inexorable moral duties, but rather as responses that are evoked from human beings when circumstances call them forth. 

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DDJ 11

三十輻共一轂;           Thirty spokes join together at a hub;       
當其無，有車之用.     just in its nothing, there is the cart's use.
埏埴以為器;              Mixing clay produces a vessel; 
當其無，有器之用.     just in its nothing, there is the vessel's use.
鑿戶牖以為室;           Cutting doors and windows produces a room;
當其無，有室之用.     just in its nothing, there is the room's use.
故有之以為利，         Thus, a thing's something produces benefit,
無之以為用.              a thing's nothing produces use.

This is just a magnificent chapter, and has inspired everyone from ancient Chinese commentarial prodigies like Wangbi to modern Western architects like Frank Lloyd Wright.  Something magical is being articulated in this chapter, and everyone who reads it thoughtfully seems to sense it.

A recent book by Richard Wagner entitled Wangbi: The Craft of a Chinese Commentator lays out two alternative ways this chapter was read by contemporary third-century CE exegetes named Wangbi and Zhong Hui.  I won't bore readers here with the details, but I'll only say that I am very tempted to read the text like Zhong Hui does, but am for the moment still more compelled by the former's interpretation, and that's what I'm following here. 

There are two main difficulties with understanding this chapter.  The first is how to translate the terms 無 and 有 in this context.  Many modern Western philosophical readers, still a bit too enmeshed in the history of European metaphysics, understand the terms as meaning "non-existence" or "no-being" and "existence" or "being" respectively.  This is overblown, for reasons I'll explain shortly.  The other difficulty is trying to figure out in a modern rendition how best to parse lines 2, 4 and 6.  Like many ancient languages, classical Chinese had no overt system of punctuation beyond a few final particles, and so in reading a classical text, it is often possible to analyze a sentence in several different ways that may give it multiple variants of predication that all make grammatical sense, but end up having very different meanings.  In this case, the question is whether to put a "," between the words 無 and 有 in lines 2, 4 and 6.  Ancient Chinese commentators disagreed on this question, and so do modern translators.  I've chosen after a lot of wrestling with the alternatives to go with the "," because it seems to make the most sense of the stanza as well as other uses of these terms throughout the text.

Now to my current perspective on the chapter.  In the end, I think the chapter is about how to understand the concepts of benefit (利) and use(fulness) (用).  The Confucian and Mohist schools of thought were at odds over this pair of terms.  Briefly, the Mohists believed that the ultimate goal of rulership was righteousness, and their definition of righteousness was whatever benefits the people of the world.  There were various standards the Mohists believed could be employed to determine what benefited people, and one of those standards was usefulness, which was when a thing could be successfully implemented in such a way as to achieve positive results for the people's well-being.  Confucians understood (in my view misunderstood) the Mohist concept of benefit to mean nothing more than "material profit," and so accused the Mohists of championing a kind of crass materialism.  For Confucians, rulers who pursued nothing more than material profit should be considered immoral.  For Confucians, what is really good for people is happy relationships, and the ancient sages handed down rituals that, when widely practiced, can create a society of happy relationships. 

The Dao De Jing enters this debate, and, like the Mohists in a very general sense, sees value in both benefit and usefulness.  But the text tries, from its own perspective, to deepen our appreciation of how things in the world become precious to us by asking the question: "where do benefit and usefulness come from?"  These goods do not, as the Mohists believe, come merely from the ancient sages, popular consensus and observation, in other words, they are not just social constructs.  Instead, they come from the very nature of things themselves.

The text tries to demonstrate this by using three examples of ordinary things that people make, products of artifice and artistry, the wheel of a cart, a vessel or vase and a room or house.  The spokes of a wheel extend from the rim to meet at the hub; the clay of a vase is mixed to form its exterior and interior; the features of a livable room are made by woodworking.  The spokes, clay and wood are the "something" (有), the matter or the stuff of a thing, they give it material reality and, depending on the material's abundance or rarity, give the thing a material worth.  But the spokes have to meet around a hub in order for the wheel to function; the vase has to have space inside it in order to be usable; the house has to have apertures in it in order for people to go and see in an out of it, and presumably also room inside it in order to make it habitable.  The hub, the space and the apertures are the "nothing" (無) of the wheel, the vase and the house; they are not "concrete things" but are instead "emptinesses" which, when arranged rightly, can make things serviceable for our lives.  So, in the end, everything is a source of both benefit and use, but in order to find them, we must attend to both the matter and the emptiness of things.

And at this point I return briefly to the discussion of chapters 3 and 5 above.  In those discussions, I tried to emphasize that concepts like "empty hearts" and the "space between heaven and earth" were not merely understood by early "Daoists" to be privative.  Emptiness, betweenness, nothingness, these all are seen in the Dao De Jing as sources of creative order in the world, and, as it turns out, in people too.  To really appreciate the nature of things, we shouldn't rely only on what we can see and grasp, but, even more importantly, we must be attuned to what cannot be seen or touched or appraised, but what at the same time makes a thing available to the world as what it was meant to be.

As it turns out, beyond the existential and social ramifications of this idea, there are also political ramifications, as we shall see shortly.  The Dao De Jing will end up arguing that the person of the ruler himself must be that empty space at the center of the realm, a "ravine" or "fulcrum" of the realm who, in his very absence, can help the people function in their most optimal ways.     

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DDJ 17

太上，下知有之;   The best superiors are those least noticed there; 
其次，親而譽之;   after that are those familiar and praised;
其次，畏之          after that are those feared;
其次，侮之.         after that are those ridiculed.
信不足，             (When) trust is lacking,
焉有不信焉.         there will be no trust (for him).
悠兮，                (But) when in time
其貴言.               his words are rare,
功成事遂，          (and he) successfully accomplishes matters,
百姓皆謂             the hundred families all proclaim:
我自然.               "we ourselves are so!"

Here we have an interesting evaluation of rulers based upon popular perception.  Or, ideally, the lack of popular perception! 

Once again we encounter the theme of how precious or rare (貴) rulers should keep words or speech (言).  On one level, this is a prevalent theme across most schools of ancient Chinese political counsel; rulers should rely on the success of their deeds without big talk, lest they fail and their talk is recognized by all as hollow.  This chapter conspicuously invokes trust (信), and even a brief look at it will reveal that the character "trust" combines the words "person" and "word," or as Ezra Pound put it at the beginning of the twentieth century, means "a person standing next to their word."  The rulers who are not trusted are those that do not first place trust in their people, and this is a point that seems to be made singularly by theDao De Jing.

The greatest benefit, according to this stanza, of rulers who are not noticed is that when they adeptly manage the affairs of the realm without being preachy or making announcements, the people will attribute the success of their circumstances to their own character, to the character of the kinship (or in this context national) community.  In other words, the best rulers take the least credit, and it is this, rather than the eloquent speeches or high-minded rhetoric loved by Confucians, that gives a people a sense of shared achievement. Despite the resonant theme of the doing and not talking leader, we are here a long distance away from the Confucian sage-king who is "like the wind" while the people are "like grass" that bends to his charisma and will.

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DDJ 31

夫佳兵者           (Even) the weapons of excellent men     
不祥之器，        are inauspicious instruments,
物或惡之，        they are loathed by all beings,
故有道者不處.    thus, those who have the way don't deal with them.
君子居則貴左，  A nobleman as a rule places honor toward the left,
用兵則貴右.       (only) in using weapons placing honor to the right.
兵者不祥之器，  Weapons are inauspicious instruments,
非君子之器，     they are not the instruments of a nobleman,
不得已而用之，  (though when) nothing can be done but use them
恬淡為上.          tranquility and restraint are the best course of action.
勝而不美，        Though victorious, there is no beauty (in them),
而美之者           and those who still regard them as beautiful
是樂殺人.          are delighting in slaughtering people.
夫樂殺人者        Men who delight in slaughtering people
則不可以得        will never be able to obtain
志於天下矣.       (their) aspirations under heaven.
吉事尚左，        In happy circumstances, prefer the left,
凶事尚右.          in grievous circumstances, prefer the right.
偏將軍居左，     A lieutenant takes his honored place on the left,
上將軍居右,       a general takes his honored place on the right,     
言以喪禮處之.    it is said, in order to observe rituals of mourning.
殺人之衆           Multitudes of slaughtered people 
以哀悲泣之，     should be treated with grief and mournful sobbing,
戰勝                 (and) the victorious in war
以喪禮處之.       should acknowledge them with funerary rituals.

As mentioned, the Dao De Jing was originally composed and compiled during the middle of the Warring States Period in ancient China, and so, like early Chinese philosophical classics, it represents counsel in warfare.  The most popular and widely disseminated works in this period were devoted to military strategy.  Though the bulk of the Dao De Jing's stanzas focus on advising rulers of small, vulnerable states how to keep out of war, war obviously cannot always be avoided.  This chapter deals with the ideal ruler's attitude toward war.

This is one of the very few chapters of the texts that speaks positively about the need for ritual (禮).  Rituals were the primary means through which the Confucians believed the socialization of people could be most beneficially brought about, and so elaborate systems of ritual were devised for all occasions, from state rites of divination and political investiture to household ceremonies of burial and ancestor veneration.  Most of the time, the Dao De Jingexcoriates such rituals as contrivances, and indeed their very existence is for the "Daoists" the telltale sign that society, having lost its capacity for spontaneous virtue, most resort to artificial rehearsals of it.  But there is one occasion, as seen above, that especially calls for a solemn ritual protocol, and that occasion is war.

But the rituals recommended are not the rituals most will perhaps expect in times of war, grand marches that display both troops and weapons, celebrations of national unity, victory parades and so on.  The only appropriate wartime rituals are funerals, devoted especially to the victims of one's own military actions.  As the stanza emphasizes, even when there is no other legitimate choice that to do battle, the outcome of war is human slaughter, and to celebrate slaughter, the text asserts, is perverse and will ultimately lead to calamity for the rulers who participate in such things.  Several times, the chapter refers to the distinction between the places of "left" and "right" in wartime rituals.  Without going into too much detail for present purposes, the left, though normally considered the position of the superior in ancient military marches, should according to the advice given here be occupied by the second-in-command, while the commanding general takes the right-hand position of less esteem, since his victories represent regrettable occasions for killing masses of people, and so more properly embodies the sadness proper to wartime.   

[anvi]

DDJ 57

以正治國，         Use corrective measures to govern the state,         
以奇用兵，         use deceptive tactics to employ the army,
以無事取天下.     (but instead,) use no activities to secure the world.
吾何以知            How can I know
其然哉? 以此:     things are like this?  Because of these (reasons):
天下多忌諱，      Under heaven are many unmentionable things
而民彌貧;           (that) only increase the people's poverty;
民多利器，         when people have more and more valuable vessels,
國家滋昏:           the resources of country and kin fade;
人多伎巧，         when people become more and more crafty,
奇物滋起;           deceptive things tend to arise;
法令滋彰，         when standards are decreed and made manifest,
盜賊多有.           plunder and thieves are there in abundance.
故聖人云:           Therefore, the sage says:
我無為，            "I will not act,
而民自化;           and the people will transform themselves;
我好靜，             I will value remaining still,
而民自正;           and the people will correct themselves;
我無事，            I will not force matters,
而民自富;           and the people will enrich themselves;
我無欲，            I will not entertain ambitions,
而民自樸.           and the people will remain uncarved."

The text once again returns to the theme of how a ruler's restraint, rather than intervention, will inspire the populous to productive activity.  In typically anti-Confucian, anti-militarist and anti-Legalist polemic, the Dao De Jing casts considerable doubt about whether corrective measures in governing (正治), the use of military force (用兵) or legislation (法令) will end up doing anything but increasing internally destructive coercion, ambition and law-breaking.  Fighting poverty through the government's active efforts to increase prosperity only ends up increasing poverty by depleting resources and increasing the people's jealousy for one another's goods.  Trying to enforce law and order only increases the temptations of the populous to either get around the law without being caught or to actively violate it.  Sage rulers who disdain from intervention on the other hand inspire the populous to achieve order, use their limited resources wisely and in ways that will increase them rather than coveting the possessions of others, and leave them untarnished and unsuspicious of external influences.

If all this sounds like governing magic, it did to the Confucians and everyone else too.  Much more prevalent in ancient China were theories of activist government, which implemented economic policies to create standardization, advocated moral living and devoted significant resources to military power.  If there is anything that can remotely be called "faith" in the proto-"Daoist" political views embraced by this text, it would be the faith it places in the populous (民), in their creativity, industry and even in their natural desires to create moral order just so long as no one deigns to impose it on them.

[anvi]

DDJ 61

大國者下流，     A large state is (like) a low-lying stream,        
天下之交，        the intercourse of the world,
天下之牝.          the female of the world.
牝常以靜           The female always uses stillness
勝牡,                to vanquish the male.
以靜為下.          (though) stillness can be considered subordination.
故大國              Thus, a large state
以下小國，        can place itself underneath a small state,
則取小國;          and yet come into possession of the small state.
小國                 A small state (also)
以下大國，        can place itself underneath a large state,
則取大國.          and yet come into possession of the large state.
故或下              Thus, placing (oneself) underneath (another)
以取                 can get (oneself) possessed
或下                 or placing (oneself) underneath (another),
而取.                on the other hand, can possess (another).
大國不過 欲       A large state only desires
兼畜人，           to double (its size) and herd people,
小國不過 欲       A small state only desires
入事人.             to serve people.
夫兩者各得        Both parties each get
其所欲，           just what they want,
大者                 (and so) the larger one
宜為下.             should act (as) the subordinate.

The Dao De Jing is, as it turns out, never shy about using soft porn illustrations to make its political points.  The relationship of large states to small ones is explicitly compared to the (customary) positions of men and women during sex.  It only appears to be the case that men "conquer" women, but in fact, though a woman lies on the bottom and is relatively still during sexual union, she outlasts the man, and so it is said in the end defeats him in the encounter.  In a similar manner, large states, if they simply try to "conquer" small states outright, will, as far as the Dao De Jing is concerned, likely exhaust themselves in the process.  Instead, any state that wishes to come into permanent possession of the other should place itself underneath its object of desire, which is to say, act as its servant and subordinate.  Such a strategy is a win-win situation for the relationship, since the large state wants to expand and the small to make itself accessible to its people.  Thus, so to speak, just as love is better than war, surviving while being on the bottom is better than being beaten on the top!  

In the intro to this thread, I noted that the Dao De Jing is likely a political handbook for rulers of small, vulnerable states during the Warring States period, and its direct address and overt advice to such rulers in many other late chapters do make this evident.  Though this chapter addresses itself to rulers of major and more powerful states, it tells them to get through international crises like small states do, and in that vein, while overt force expends itself, tranquility preserves itself; feeding and supplying small neighbor states is a better way to gain their lasting allegiance (coming into possession of them) than, not to put too fine a point on it, raping them.  Well, of course, large states didn't listen to such advice then, just as they don't now

[anvi]

Some months ago, another poster (I apologize for not remembering who it was), suggested that the Dao De Jing might be thought of as an ancient Chinese strand of libertarian thought.  Obviously, the political circumstances of ancient China were quite different from our own, and so I was at first hesitant to say that this characterization applied to ancient Daoism.  But, in retranslating these chapters and reconsidering them, it's hard for a modern reader not to miss some general resonances.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Wow, you've put up a lot here!  I'm interested, but it'll take me some time to catch up on reading all this.  In 1, do you interpret the "nothing" to be connected to the desisting from desiring and the "something" to be connected to the desire?

[anvi]

Thank you for the question, shua.  It is a lot of material, and there's obviously no rush.

Yes, I do think in the first chapter that the "nothing" and "something" are connected to the issue of desiring and not desiring.  In fact, there are two ways that two clauses of sentence 3 could be sensibly translated.

The first one is the one I've chosen:

故常無欲         Thus, constantly lack desires
以觀其妙;        so subtleties can be seen;
常有欲以         constantly have desires
觀其徼.           so boundaries can be seen.

Or, one can do it this way:

故常無             Thus, (if) constant nothing
欲以觀其妙;      is preferred, subtleties will be seen;
常有                (if) constant something
欲以觀其徼.      is preferred, boundaries will be seen.

I've talked about this with a friend of mine who is a better classical Chinese scholar than I am for some time, and he argues for the second alternative, and thinks it's more consistent with the distinction between "these two things" (此兩者) that starts the very next sentence.  It's possible he is right.  But I've gone with the first parsing because I don't think the entirety of the text ever argues that either "nothing" or "something" are constant or can be constantly abided with; they always alternate in the goings-on of the world.  Once again, how one parses a line in Classical Chinese is always tricky.

But I do think, on either reading, one gets a similar message and a similar connection between the lines.  The beginning of heaven and earth is shrouded in mystery, because they emerged from "nothing," from "emptiness," from "non-distinctness," and so that beginning cannot easily be talked about or described or understood.  However, the world as it exists now, with all its distinct things, their differences, their specific relations, is concrete, and so it can be spoken about and understood, and the functions of things in the world as it stands now can be delineated (their boundaries can be seen).  So, if one either "prefers to concentrate on nothing," or, alternatively, has "no desires," one can see the subtleties of the world, the "nothing" that, in chapter 11, makes all things useful.  On the other hand, if one "prefers to concentrate on something," or alternatively, "has desires," one will see the "something" of things, which, again in chapter 11, gives things their concrete specificity, their matter, their benefit.  Depending on what one prefers, or depending on whether one is desireless or desiring, different patterns and values in the world will be disclosed, and one will see these different patterns and values in different ways, and thus live life differently according to them.

DDJ 1 is arguably the text's most difficult chapter, because it's pretty abstruse, and that's why people have argued about what it means for so long.

That may have been more than what you wanted, but thanks for the question!