Politics, Paradox, and Efficiency in the Way
Reading “Understanding the Tao” #4
In a previous post, I offered to start reading the book Comprendre le Tao (Understanding the Tao) by the French scholar Isabelle Robinet.
I did not start reading this book without a specific idea in mind. I am currently running a series of collaborative seminars with a specialist in French philosophy and a specialist in phenomenology with a comparative background. In May, the seminar will cover some parts of the Taoist scriptures.
I have already published several posts about this book by Robinet. You can read or reread them here: Taoism.
In this new post, I would like to continue my reading.
The Art of Governing
Chinese traditions of thought tend to have a political dimension. Not that these thoughts necessarily have a political purpose as their ultimate goal, but that the question of how to conduct politics has been considered important by many Chinese thinkers. Taoism is no exception in this regard.
For Laozi, the ideal ruler must be an incarnation of and one with the Tao. Like the Tao, the good ruler acts without action, that is, without specific intention; he does not interfere with the natural course of things. His function is to make the world work well, spontaneously.
As the Tao, the good ruler is the root, the model, and the center around which everything revolves, without having to act for it, without having to establish moral or ethical laws, unlike the Confucian ruler who rules by example and morality.
Indistinct and confused like the Tao, his presence is so elusive that the people hardly know he exists. (p. 34)
Robinet goes on to draw a distinction between the Taoist and the Confucian ruler. The former is one with the Tao, and when, as it should happen, a progressive decadence occurs, he does nothing special, unlike the Confucian, who tries to fix the state of affairs by social prescriptions, education and laws.
When Confucian says “more,” Taoist says “less,” when Confucian goes on, Taoist goes back: he returns time to a golden age of congruence with the Tao.
It is not simple nostalgia but the foundation of time itself and of the world; it is the time of the first Unity, made up of peace and harmony, translated into terms of society. (p. 35)
There is an ideal of frugality for rulers and ruled. Rulers and people should not pursue inexhaustible desires. Robinet’s reflects that this may be a teaching developed to respond to problems in times of violence and power struggles. In this context, Laozi “values selflessness over ambition” (p. 36).
Paradox and Efficiency Research
Robinet explains that because Laozi’s method is paradoxical, it has been accused of being a kind of stratagem, a clever trick, but a trick. It pretends to conquer by using weakness and softness.
Does it not nourish some desire for domination, and if it emphasizes the mobile, the obscure, the contradictory, is it not to teach us to take example from the power of water for the sole purpose of better turning a situation around and triumphing? (p. 36)
In other words, the Taoist ruler may be full of ambition without saying so. To such a question, Robinet replies that the victory Laozi promotes is not for domination, but as an act of pacification, to restore balance, for the sake of a balanced totality, where weakness and renunciation balance violence and dominating power (p. 36).
(In this part, where Laozi’s thought is presented as a search for balance, I feel a bit skeptical. I understand that balance, or the search for balance, looks healthy. But is it not also what many political movements have proposed, which in reality have only sought political domination? Is balance itself a good thing, is it the Tao? Probably. But in politics, the question remains which discourses are honest and which are not, because when discourses are betrayed, at some point it is simply too late.)
It suggests that Taoist behavior, whether political or not, ensures its effectiveness and meaning in finding balance. It is a matter of restoring the natural equilibrium that guarantees conformity to the Tao.
Thesis and antithesis support and cancel reciprocally each other on the discursive level, but not on the level of existence. Both are existentially maintained together in a silent experience. (p. 37)
Thesis and antithesis! The reader is probably thinking of the yin-yang symbol, which represents two opposing forces giving way to each other, like two tears, one of joy and the other of sorrow, opposing each other’s feelings, but also giving way to each other.
Nevertheless, Robinet’s description suggests a kind of dialectical process. Does it result from the modern European context of reception of Taoism, or does it result from the nature of Taoism itself? For me, at least, this question remains open.
I will stop this reading here and continue in another post with a reading of Robinet’s presentation of Zhuangzi.
Thesis and antithesis leads me to Hegel, not Yin Yang.
The Tao, almost by definition, is always in balance. Just as the Yin and Yang have tiny tales where their opposite have giant heads, that is still a balance. No balance remains forever, otherwise there is not a balance, but a stasis. Perhaps it was such a stasis that existed before the creation of our present universe, which has been both seeking and achieving balance ever since.
Seeking to achieve a balance in the world of politics is like seeking to achieve one on the ocean. Swells, ebb tides, tsunamis and a number of other variations happen, all though in a balanced order for the ocean to remain itself.