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When going slightly against common sense, people tend to randomly add Chinese quotes, usually from Lao-tzu, and it is almost always a bad idea. But here this te

by gbog 13y ago

When going slightly against common sense, people tend to randomly add Chinese quotes, usually from Lao-tzu, and it is almost always a bad idea. But here this text is vibrating strongly with one of the core idea of daoism, it is impressive. It could be found more closely in Zhuangzi or even Lizi. These guys were living in a time when many have been killed for their ideas, and many had strong beliefs. Their solution for survival was to be an empty vase, a useless tool. A good example is the tree: a straight trunk is the sure path to death for a pine tree, while if you are twisted in a way that makes you useless you survive much longer. There is also this empty boat story. If a big vessel sees a small boat in her way the captain will shout at the small boat, but let the small boat be empty and the captain will just move around. Daoism is all about being this empty boat. And it is it's limits: society also need people with strong belief and ready to die for them. Just take slavery; it is a moral belief and duty to be against slavery. Even if by some rational reasoning slavery was proven a better solution than freedom, we would still have to stand against it, and some have died for this moral belief. So I think I cannot fully agree here. Edit: Or to be more precise, there is a limit to the reduction of one's identity. Maybe this limit is just that common identity we all share: humanity.

mbrock 13y ago
Great comment. I'm not particularly gung ho about humanity as identity. That concept has very often been used as a carrier of more or less conscious prejudices and ideals. Some philosophers (Agamben among others) make the case that humanity traditionally defines itself as the animal which goes beyond animality. This means that humanity is not a simple essence, but a process of separation and an attempt at transcendence. Which is obviously kind of messy and complex. Plus, what's the reason to identify as human rather than mammal, animal, or simply life?
- gbog 13y ago
  Yes, this differentiation between humans and other animal is kind of axiomatic here, but I fear that if you remove it the consequences are too dangerous. I believe that exploiting crops or cows in a field, and killing them, is morally acceptable, while exploiting fellow humans in a factory is not.
diydsp 13y ago
The Taoism analogy is an interesting one. Underpinning much of it is the idea that there is a time to move and a time to stand still. iow it's useful to learn when to resist and when to yield. Many times when people express opinions, they are given with the urgency of "this needs to be done, now!" e.g. we need to stop them from stoning women to death Right Now(!), we need to let gays marry, now. But the belief that we can do these things right now is an illusion. That would be like me walking out of my office to the airport, buying a ticket in cash to Iran, finding someone who stoned a woman to death, and killing him with my bare hands. It's not strategic. The Tao is a collection of wisdom of strategy that says, "Don't do everything that you feel right now, right now." Instead, "Find the right time to act." And you don't always act all of the way. You have to figure out how much when to act and how much. So it seems to crass to sit still while listening to stories of gut-wrenching atrocities, but at least one school of ancient wisdom teaches us we have to be strategic and flow when the time is right, when others are moving at the same time and our force is multiplied, when the "bad guys" have their guard down, etc. And we need to learn to perceive these conditions. And we need to tame this urge to railroad our opinions into other's actions and forced agreement. In the slavery and suffragist examples, their opinions were much more powerful as they gained domain knowledge and when they coordinated their efforts, becoming the smoothly flowing, powerful water, instead of a disparate cloud of angry electrons.

by gbog 13y ago

mbrock 13y ago

Great comment. I'm not particularly gung ho about humanity as identity. That concept has very often been used as a carrier of more or less conscious prejudices and ideals. Some philosophers (Agamben among others) make the case that humanity traditionally defines itself as the animal which goes beyond animality. This means that humanity is not a simple essence, but a process of separation and an attempt at transcendence. Which is obviously kind of messy and complex. Plus, what's the reason to identify as human rather than mammal, animal, or simply life?

gbog 13y ago
Yes, this differentiation between humans and other animal is kind of axiomatic here, but I fear that if you remove it the consequences are too dangerous. I believe that exploiting crops or cows in a field, and killing them, is morally acceptable, while exploiting fellow humans in a factory is not.

diydsp 13y ago

The Taoism analogy is an interesting one. Underpinning much of it is the idea that there is a time to move and a time to stand still. iow it's useful to learn when to resist and when to yield. Many times when people express opinions, they are given with the urgency of "this needs to be done, now!" e.g. we need to stop them from stoning women to death Right Now(!), we need to let gays marry, now. But the belief that we can do these things right now is an illusion. That would be like me walking out of my office to the airport, buying a ticket in cash to Iran, finding someone who stoned a woman to death, and killing him with my bare hands. It's not strategic. The Tao is a collection of wisdom of strategy that says, "Don't do everything that you feel right now, right now." Instead, "Find the right time to act." And you don't always act all of the way. You have to figure out how much when to act and how much. So it seems to crass to sit still while listening to stories of gut-wrenching atrocities, but at least one school of ancient wisdom teaches us we have to be strategic and flow when the time is right, when others are moving at the same time and our force is multiplied, when the "bad guys" have their guard down, etc. And we need to learn to perceive these conditions. And we need to tame this urge to railroad our opinions into other's actions and forced agreement. In the slavery and suffragist examples, their opinions were much more powerful as they gained domain knowledge and when they coordinated their efforts, becoming the smoothly flowing, powerful water, instead of a disparate cloud of angry electrons.