dust

I'd quite like to believe that, but the archaeological evidence does (seem to) point to much shorter lifespans way back then

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23084993 I've only read the abstract, but it offers an interesting idea. It seems fairly likely that our morality has become more condition-dependent and far less random over the last few millennia, thus (if we go by the results of the study) leading to a higher lifespan overall. This would explain shorter lifespans in paleolithic times very simply: people physiologically couldn't live as long as we can now. Taking this into account, we might argue that agriculture and the "stability" of more modern societies has been responsible for our increased lifespans. What we must also consider is that thing called relativity: A dog lives 17 years, a human 65, a tortoise 250. Whose life is “better”? A prehistoric human lives 40 years, a modern human 80. Whose life is “better”?

I'd forgotten about this! TT... in the other thread you said I had my interpretation backwards: looks like it's the same disagreement 4 months later! We could go back and forth all day, and in the end there's no way to prove who 其 is referring to -- the ruler or the ruled. So I don't have much hope that we'll come to an agreement... I'll just point out a couple of thoughts I've had since last time we discussed this: He is clearly talking about, again, ruling the masses. By suggesting that one should 使 cause the people to stop fighting over rare things and stealing from each other, he is suggesting interfering. By suggesting that a ruler does anything at all -- by even acknowledging that there is a ruler -- he is acknowledging that some interference will occur. Why, in the middle, would he suddenly start talking about feeding himself and weakening his own ambition? And then, right after that, talk yet again about 使民無知無欲 causing the people to have no knowledge and no desire Also, to wei wuwei can be interpreted as to force non-forcing, or enact non-action

OK, this I can work with. It is... plausible.. that it's a version of 继. However, 继 is simply an altered version of 绝 -- illustrating putting the cut pieces of silk back together (i.e. continue) Please take a look at the chapter 20 slips and tell me what you think of the first character there. It has double the reels of silk compared to the character in ch.19 (though this doesn't necessarily mean anything other than that someone forgot to write the extra 2 reels in the first one!)

I think many are, too. But which? I think if we talk of specific ideas, some will be found to be useful and logical, and some will fall apart. That depends on which chapter we're reading, and how honest we're willing to be about the interpretation. I do. I think it's certain that this is a safe idea for any ruler. I think that most rulers in recorded history have done this. Hmm... but he doesn't use the word malicious, does he?

Riyue, I think... this isn't the place for discussing individual character transcriptions in specific chapters. Perhaps we can talk about it here: http://thetaobums.com/topic/17082-ttc-study-chapter-19-of-the-tao-teh-ching/page-4 The ruler does; he makes sure others don't. For if others don't, the ruler doesn't need to do so much. It's all right there in ch.3...

Riyue, At the moment it seems like you're making guesses / assumptions based on what you think the character resembles. On what are you basing your opinion? If you haven't yet, read this: http://dict.shufaji.com/word-1728.html And if you're still not convinced, go here: http://www.zitizhuanhuan.com/zixing/ and search 绝 ... and you will find a number of permutations for the character, some of them resembling very closely the Chu

Food and religion

Yeah, beyonder, excellent finds. Thanks for that. Apech -- I'm not entirely sure what you mean by psycho-spiritual stress etc, but either way you make some good points. To me, simply knowing that one's dead relative is decomposing a few feet below where one sleeps should be enough to cause some psychological disturbance!

In the context of a couple of chapters, though, and assuming we are either concerned with Laozi's idea of wuwei or we more generally want to use the Laozi to help us in defining wuwei as a broader Daoist concept, ... 是以聖人之治虛其心實其腹 The wise therefore rule by emptying hearts and stuffing bellies 弱其志強其骨 by weakening ambitions and strengthening bones; 常使民無知無欲 If the people lack knowledge and desire, 使夫知者不敢為也 then those with knowledge will not try to interfere; 為無為則無不治 Practicing wuwei, nothing is left ungoverned The wise man has active intent, no? I'm not sure if it's "alterior", but he has motive, and he's certainly interfering. He's also, by keeping knowledge to a minimum, actively trying to prevent other people from interfering with society's status quo. To me, the wei wuwei in the last line here is explicitly referring to making sure other people are being wuwei: by doing implementing wuwei, nothing is left ungoverned -- because by, as simply as possible, keeping people from action, there is nothing left to govern. People farm and eat and sleep, and as long as he's good at preventing war (GD 14 / WB 64), the ruler doesn't have much left to bother with...

Aha! In the context of the Zhuangzi chapter, it doesn't really work (right?) BUT This could be something very much worth considering in Guodian LZ ch.56! Because it is written as 智之者弗言 言之者弗智

I agree, Daoism is that. And whilst LZ might not have 'invented' it, many people believe that he did and that the Laozi book is the bible for Daoist thought. Most of us here know that there's much more to Daoism than just the TTC, but many of us still look to it as the definitive text -- and in many ways, it is. It's been used as such for centuries. For sure, but that wouldn't change the original meaning of any particular chapter, would it? For sure, there's contradiction in other ways, and he was a paradoxical writer. But is there contradiction in the passages about leadership/governance? I think the thread is fairly uniform, fairly consistent. Yes I agree (I did mention that I think much of his advice might be good advice, as sinister as it seems) Yeah. But I'm not convinced that everything people apply is necessarily applicable. I think we sometimes apply things because we believe that they'll be helpful because we read them in the TTC, and if they don't turn out to be helpful -- or even if they actually harm us -- we won't put the blame in the right place. Maybe.

Also, just to be sure we understand the character: The GD character is comprised of 2 ball-like objects and a right-angled structure. The balls are simplified reels of silk. The right-angled structure is the knife.

I'd like you to review a few chapters in this subforum where I've participated with Guodian translations. I've spent a good few months transcribing the text myself, using a number of different sources as reference. The Chinese I've quoted in the OP is as close (in most cases) as we can get to the Guodian character with modern Chinese typed text. I have developed some understanding of the Guodian Chu characters, and my transcription is closer than you'll find elsewhere without reconstructed characters such as can be found here (an excellent paper, by the way). Point being, this "better understanding" of Laozi is something I've already been working on.... As far as the first character, look here: http://dict.shufaji.com/word-1728.html Note the similarity between the GD character and the 金文 Jinwen version of 绝 People often group Chu script with 篆文 Zhuanwen, but anyone who's scrutinized the text more than a little will realize that it is somewhere in between 金 and 篆. It's often much closer to 金文. Some characters are entirely different from anything else we know of, and some are mirrored. In this case, the version of 绝 that can be seen in both 金文 and 篆文 has been simplified -- I'm not sure whether this is to fit on the slips or simply because the Chu version of the character was already a simplified version. Feel free to challenge me on more "wrong transcriptions", but know that in most cases I have already questioned it myself!

Firstly, thanks for the 'bravo' -- I didn't think this would get a positive response from many (if any). Secondly... well, take everything I've said with a grain of salt. I'm not trying to turn thousands of years of thought on its head, or presuming to be able to. That being said, I'm certainly not planning on editing the OP. As far as my current understanding of the text goes, I stand by what I've said, and will stand by it as my past understanding in the future. Thirdly, yes: most people who read LZ these days are not rulers! But we're reading a text that was written, at least in part, for rulers... surely we need to take that into account before applying advice to everyday situations? It's certainly not something I've always taken into account, as it's something I've previously overlooked, and so many translators mistranslate certain words and ideas, and end up misinterpreting a large portion of the text. Compare Feng's original translation with my edited version at the end of the OP. Small differences combine to paint quite a different picture. And when the average reader reads a nice homogenized translation of an obscure ancient Chinese text, they say, "Well, this chapter seems to be geared towards a ruler of ancient China, but it seems pretty innocuous... and maybe it's applicable to my working life or home life." Well, maybe it is... maybe everything in the text is useful for every person... maybe...

Erm... Firstly, using words like "primitive" and "civilization" in the way you just did is an excellent subtle way of degrading the viewpoint you want to attack. Well done. There is no inherent value in the word "civilization" when one realizes that what "civilization" amounts to is a bunch of hairless chimps running around fucking and killing each other in concrete jungles. Secondly: Good... And yours, and mine? Are we immune to disease? Is everyone in the "civilized" world well-fed? Have we not replaced wild animals with cars and guns and crazy bastards with bombs? I've known people, in cities around the world, who've died of cancer, AIDS, and mental disease. Not to mention hearing about violent rape and murder every single day in the media. And again, we're not immune to infection just because we live in cities. As mentioned in a previous post, crowding together has been a cause of many of our problems. I'm not convinced that "civilization" -- living in the city -- is more "civilized" than living in the woods.

Anyway, though it inevitably leads to talk about going 'off-grid' and whether or not people should leave civilization behind, the article is intended to question whether agriculture was in the first place a mistake -- or, in other words, whether people would be happier if it hadn't developed (however unrealistic that hypothetical actually is). It's not a popular view, I know, but in my opinion -- and there's quite some evidence for it in recent discussions in the TTC subforum -- Laozi originally spoke of the benefits of keeping agriculture going to keep the masses fed and stupid. Not in a malicious way, but because he knew it was easier to keep the peace that way.

Do people take offense? (I use the pinyin simply because this is how I was taught..and because it makes more sense) My argument is currently that LZ talked about how to govern with relative ease, and ZZ talked about ... well, whatever he liked.. their ideas about Dao were the same, essentially, but the Laozi is a manual not dissimilar to the Art of War (though far more obscure), and the Zhuangzi is a book of poetry and riddles. I'm not sure how you figure that there's no "pretense" in LZ. Most of the chapters are obscure and nearly impossible to translate "correctly" -- i.e. there are so many possible interpretations that we often just don't know for sure what was meant originally..

I waited to post a response as it seems like a trick question This line from the ZZ story actually shares 2 identical phrases with the LZ: 夫知者不言，言者不知，故聖人行不言之教 He who knows does not speak, he who speaks does not know; so the sage teaches without talking -zz 是以聖人處無為之事，行不言之教 The sage resides in wuwei, and teaches without talking - lz 2 知者不言，言者不知 He who knows does not speak, he who speaks does not know - lz 56 However, I'm not sure of the overall intent of ch.56 in LZ, as most of the rest of it still reads like nonsense to me...

I love reading your writing. And this time it's nice to share the same belief as you (for once)

I don't have a smartphone.. I do have this laptop. That's not what I'd miss, though. There are many people I wouldn't want to leave behind. edit: There's also the small issue that I wouldn't have the first clue where to go or how to survive. What to eat, how to hunt, how to fish, how to build a shelter, how to make tools.....

I've never heard of him before. Why does reading his stuff require such effort? Lack of citation? (edit: I did check some studies he mentions, and a couple do not check out, but nothing in the article is far-fetched or flying in the face of common sense.) Clearly humankind went the way we did, and I would argue that there can therefore have been no other way to go. Development is inevitable, indeed. That doesn't mean that we should continue to accept and perpetuate systems or processes if we believe that they are faulty...

? Not sure I understand...

http://www.open.edu/openlearn/body-mind/proper-men-proper-women-gender-roles-contemporary-uk-society In humans (and most other animals), we see male and female. Most humans cannot understand that the 2 are different parts of a whole, that each of us had the potential to be the 'opposite', and indeed that even when it comes to something as apparently static as gender, there is a spectrum, and all of us have both of the 'gender-specific' hormones floating around in our blood streams. Just as with temperature or colour, there is room for movement. But humans take our male/female roles very seriously. Most people believe that we must be either hot or cold, black or white; there's no way to mix the 2. This is both genetic and cultural; at once an innate and a learned belief. Innate because... well, look between your legs. You've most likely either got a pole or a hole. (You might have both...or something in between..). This is a clear visual marker (we're generally very visual beings). And most of us are attracted to the one that we don't have. We want to put our pokey thing in the hole or vice versa. Learned because... well, look at society. Read the article above. You use the term 'gender identity'; this seems to speak of the idea that different genders have different identities. Physiologically speaking, this is true to a point: there are clear physical/chemical/biological differences between men and women, and even without cultural influence these can probably translate into mental/psychological differences. But our major differences in society are almost entirely perceived; created from situation, and perpetuated through conditioning. Socially, every culture in history has assigned different roles -- and thus identities -- to the genders. They differ between cultures, but it's something that humans can't help doing. See recent topic for some basic reasons for inequality between people (not just the sexes). These differences exist, but mostly, only because we make them so. They are not all innate, but people believe they are. Now, I don't know exactly what happened, but it would seem to me that a woman who has a problem with you apparent disregard for gender roles/identity simply has a superficial understanding of gender roles herself, and combined with your apparently dismissive and oblivious attitude to people's feelings, this causes anger.

Hmmn. I don't know how difficult it is to understand. Seems to me like you understand what's going on but would rather continue to appear to be 'in the dark' so as to be able to carry on with the same attitude regardless. (For the record, I think it's a great attitude -- your understanding of gender from a young age has been far more 'healthy' than that of most people in even their old age -- but this isn't going to fly with many people, especially extreme male or female chauvinists.)