[TTC Study] Chapter 3 of the Tao Teh Ching

[majc]

[Procurator]

It's a good example of a translator trying to control his readers' understanding, and protect against dopey misinterpretations about sociopathic supreme beings. (For example).

Tut, tut, my reader, dont worry yr pretty little head about supreme beings, there is none, your big translator is looking out for u, sleep tight, dream about silver bearded kindly taoists and unicorns and how they dance and prance all together on pretty chinese meadows...all is well...all is well...

[Procurator]

 

 

 

And it's they're.

 

all your base are belong to us.

[majc]

Nice.

 

So what you're suggesting to everyone here (based on a speculative reading of Chapter 3 and some cherry-picked individual lines spread thinly throughout a 2500 year old book expressing joy in the non-purposiveness of action), is that all of this comes down to two possible types of view:

 

A "correct" view - which involves sharing in your realization of the existence of hypercontrolling all-powerful superkings who like to kill people.

 

And approximately 7 billion "incorrect" views - which involve made up fairy tales which we-the-ignorant tell ourselves in order to hide from the terrible reality of the existence of hypercontrolling all-powerful superkings who like to kill people.

 

Well thank you for the contribution. I have considered your suggestion and although I do recognize how strongly you believe this to be true, I nonetheless disagree - respectfully of course - because it's stupid. Maybe now we can return to discussing this single chapter of the Tao Te Ching without claiming that opinions based on gross personal bias and humongous theoretical extrapolations are, in fact, facts.

 

Peace, etc.

[Procurator]

Nice.

 

So what you're suggesting to everyone here (based on a speculative reading of Chapter 3 and some cherry-picked individual lines spread thinly throughout a 2500 year old book expressing joy in the non-purposiveness of action), is that all of this comes down to two possible types of view:

 

A "correct" view - which involves sharing in your realization of the existence of hypercontrolling all-powerful superkings who like to kill people.

 

Ancient Mass Sacrifice, Riches Discovered in China Tomb

Kevin Holden Platt in Beijing, China

for National Geographic News

January 29, 2008

 

A 2,500-year-old tomb containing nearly four dozen victims of human sacrifice has been excavated in eastern China, yielding a treasure trove of precious artifacts and new insights into ritual customs during the era of Confucius, archaeologists say.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1961583/posts

[Procurator]

. Maybe now we can return

whos stopping u?

[majc]

Ancient Mass Sacrifice, Riches Discovered in China Tomb

Kevin Holden Platt in Beijing, China

for National Geographic News

January 29, 2008

 

A 2,500-year-old tomb containing nearly four dozen victims of human sacrifice has been excavated in eastern China, yielding a treasure trove of precious artifacts and new insights into ritual customs during the era of Confucius, archaeologists say.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1961583/posts

Lots of different things happened 2500 years ago. You are projecting wildly speculative lines of connection between things according to a preconceived idea of history (and more relevantly, of the Tao Te Ching) which you hold fixedly in your mind. Connecting this tomb thing and the Tao Te Ching is ridiculous. What did I say about extrapolation?

 

 

whos stopping u?

No-one, I'm using you to demonstrate the practical application of Chapter 3. Feel free to learn at any time.

Edited December 4, 2010 by majc

[dawei]

see if we dig a bit deeper we will see that its not any old woman, but precisely , its a kneeling woman. why? because women made valuable slaves when a country was "pacified".

Upon further thought on this issue of suggesting the kneeling women. It is true the Shang had slaves and seems plausible that it therefore existed prior in the Xia period. But the issue remains as to the problematic origin of the kneeling woman. I know that many take it as a sign of the subordination of the gender.

 

I now find another intriguing possibility; that of female diviners kneeling in ritual. I looked back at Lady Fu Hao of Shang since I recall her status among the court. It seems that there is one theory that she is from a clan of "Fu" (diviners) which the shang court utilized due to their long history of divination practices. Among the famous Lady Fu Hao tomb findings were her clan symbol and a kneeling artifact.

 

[for some reason I see the graphics in preview but not in the final post. so here are links to paste into your browser]

http://members.fortunecity.com/maryhalpin/73b80960.jpg 
http://members.fortunecity.com/maryhalpin/09ea3900.jpg

 

----

 

I am sure we disagree less about the Warring State Periods bloody attempts to take control of the lands and I know Sun Zi's military tactics are at this time. I know there are many stories that can be told of this time; and not that the Zhou were as model a state as Confucius made them appear. But I reserve "ruthless totalitarian" for the Qin Dynasty and their legalist ways.

 

To touch on the issues of the distinct schools (or lack thereof), I did see your link. This one at least shares a little more info on The Fushion of Huang-Lao Daoism and Legalism:

The Ideal Chinese Political Leader

 

Although the Fushion is more than just those two. Huang-Lao obviously comes after Lao Zi has penned his words. Though typical of China, it is like a tree with many branches which all have some relationship. Lao Zi's ideas become Huang-Lao ideas which merge with some Yin Yang ideas and Legalist ideas (Chan traces them back to 600 bc); but it seems certain rulers preferred certain branches and the various 'thoughts' (or schools) criticized each other, yet they constantly borrow from each other. Yes, using distinct school names may seem to neglect this synergistic approach. It is similar to the problem of oversimplifying a definition of 'Dao Jia' and 'Dao Jiao' as 'philosophical dao' and 'religious dao'; this may not only miss the progressive nature of the teachings on Dao but also ignore that Confucians and Buddhist used the phrase 'dao jia' as well. There is no strict patent on the phrase, however much Sima Qian first used it.

 

And speaking of legalist; Han Fei is usually the name mentioned and the movement contained more Mo Zi than Xun Zi. Most do not know he wrote selected comments on the Lao Zi and are probably the oldest comments ever on the text. I recall one comment about his comments as having 'fear'. That is what I read in your translation word choie and why I said it reads more a legalist. Call them schools or not. Doesn't really matter to me. They all mixed and matched like finger paint.

Edited December 4, 2010 by dawei

[Procurator]

Lots of different things happened 2500 years ago. You are projecting wildly speculative lines of connection between things according to a preconceived idea of history (and more relevantly, of the Tao Te Ching) which you hold fixedly in your mind. Connecting this tomb thing and the Tao Te Ching is ridiculous.

 

"The Chinese premodern state was built upon sacrifice," said Plutschow, "and no theory of Chinese statehood could ever be proposed without reference to sacrifice and sacrificial ideology."

[Procurator]

 

What is your point about the Huang-Lao paper? Is this what you would say Lao Zi embraces as well?

 

this paper proves that there is no difference between daoists and legalists.

 

 

 

Do you have a link for this? It's hard to know how to translate the word you want to say is 'pacify', given the context, I could see 'subdue' as an equivalent idea. Given a military context, I can see a lot of liberty given to some words; we see that today in our government

http://etds.lib.ncku.edu.tw/etdservice/download_file?etdun=U0026-2804201014162400&fileName=ncku-99-k1894102-1.pdf

 

'pacify" 安 was always a military term, translating 安民 as peaceful people is ungrammatical and naife. Subdue is absolutely correct, cant agree w/u more.

 

 

 

/Your supporting argument is that LZ is a god? I am not sure how to take that... you mean the Han Dynasty deification of Lao Zi? Maybe you can just explain more.

 

You have asked whether LZ was a prophet, i said he is a god. A god as in personification of powerful ideas that rule national psyche. That is why Qin Shi Huang-Di or Mao were Daoists. As to his deification he was always a god. The story of his being a humble librarian is what is known as euhemerisation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euhemerus

[rene]

Umm...

 

TianShi, dawei, majc - you guys are so far off Chapter 3 - maybe two pages of this is enough.

 

Can you take this over to the TTC Subforum General Discussion thread, or down into the Taoist Discussion forum, if you want to continue?

 

Thanks!

[dawei]

this paper proves that there is no difference between daoists and legalists.

I'll disagree with that for finger painting reasons but I'll pay more attention to the mixing of colors.

 

http://etds.lib.ncku.edu.tw/etdservice/download_file?etdun=U0026-2804201014162400&fileName=ncku-99-k1894102-1.pdf

THANKS !

 

You have asked whether LZ was a prophet, i said he is a god. A god as in personification of powerful ideas that rule national psyche. That is why Qin Shi Huang-Di or Mao were Daoists.

That is quite interesting since I would call these two "Legalists" but there we are back to your first point above !!

 

Thanks many for the exchange.

[dawei]

Umm...

 

TianShi, dawei, majc - you guys are so far off Chapter 3 - maybe two pages of this is enough.

 

Can you take this over to the TTC Subforum General Discussion thread, or down into the Taoist Discussion forum, if you want to continue?

 

Thanks!

Rene, the proper way is to let a thread run it's course if meaningful or for a mod to break out the relevant parts to another topic. I am not against someone moving the relevant posts to another thread but I think it deserves to be in this subform. It is the history of ancient china at the time of Lao Zi and the influences that may of existed concerning an understanding of his translation. Did I just sound like I made a very long title of a paper?

 

If the idea is to explore the DDJ, then how can you explore that without exploring the historical time. I don't doubt that 95% of the people have no clue or interest in such things so just read and get their own feeling about the words. But that is why it still belongs in such a subforum; if you want to research it further, here it is...

 

This all said, and again, I am not against a mod cleaning up this thread to another thread in THIS subforum. (I am a mod of another forum and that is the logical direction I usually take to such issues).

[rene]

Rene, the proper way is to let a thread run it's course if meaningful or for a mod to break out the relevant parts to another topic. I am not against someone moving the relevant posts to another thread but I think it deserves to be in this subform. It is the history of ancient china at the time of Lao Zi and the influences that may of existed concerning an understanding of his translation. Did I just sound like I made a very long title of a paper?

 

If the idea is to explore the DDJ, then how can you explore that without exploring the historical time. I don't doubt that 95% of the people have no clue or interest in such things so just read and get their own feeling about the words. But that is why it still belongs in such a subforum; if you want to research it further, here it is...

 

This all said, and again, I am not against a mod cleaning up this thread to another thread in THIS subforum. (I am a mod of another forum and that is the logical direction I usually take to such issues).

 

Hi dawei, thanks for the reply!

 

I definately yield to you and others as to the "proper way to run a topic". I'm not a mod in this or any other forum; Twinner/Aaron can decide what he wants to do regarding those things.

 

My thinking was that while relevant, the discussion you guys are having would be relevant (if such is the case, and I agree with your point that it is) to the entirety of the TTC - not just chapter three.

 

Rather than have various versions of this discussion appear in other Chapters - or have to go looking for this discussion after there are dozens of Chapters up and going - the idea for a General Discussion thread was to capture these kinds of things - that were relevant to the entire body of the work.

 

In this case though, it might be that this discussion warrants a thread of its own... "How did the history of ancient china at the time of Lao Zi influence the TTC?" or some such for the title... that way those of us who are interested (I am) can better follow the ideas - without them being pinned to a specific chapter or repeating in other chapters.

 

That way, if I want to research or revisit it later, I'll know where the hell to find it.

 

FWIW - the FAQ Aaron posted facilitates nicely your starting a seperate thread for this.

A topic on overall china history? Not so much.

A topic on the TTC in situ ? Oh.. I'd very much think so.

 

Thoughts?

Edited December 5, 2010 by rene

[Procurator]

Umm...

 

TianShi, dawei, majc - you guys are so far off Chapter 3 - maybe two pages of this is enough.

 

!

in the post right above yours i am making a point about the header of the chapter 3. itch to moderate can be so distractive, cant it?

[rene]

in the post right above yours i am making a point about the header of the chapter 3. itch to moderate can be so distractive, cant it?

TianShi - not itchy, just lazy.

[dawei]

My thinking was that while relevant, the discussion you guys are having would be relevant (if such is the case, and I agree with your point that it is) to the entirety of the TTC - not just chapter three.

 

Rather than have various versions of this discussion appear in other Chapters - or have to go looking for this discussion after there are dozens of Chapters up and going - the idea for a General Discussion thread was to capture these kinds of things - that were relevant to the entire body of the work.

I cut your quote short... That's always the challenge. I tend to favor organization than free for all discussion which wanders like the yellow river; at times feeding and at times flooding the people.

 

While such talk like this could go into a general area or another thread, they cross over so much that there is no way to figure out their relation to the text in the end ! My recommendation is that when discussion of a specific chapter gets sidetracked, it get moved to a thread called , "Chapter 3, additional discussion". That way the original course of that thought can be traced backwards. It's not perfect but I tend to like some organization and following the source of the discussion works when in doubt.

[rene]

I cut your quote short... That's always the challenge. I tend to favor organization than free for all discussion which wanders like the yellow river; at times feeding and at times flooding the people.

 

While such talk like this could go into a general area or another thread, they cross over so much that there is no way to figure out their relation to the text in the end ! My recommendation is that when discussion of a specific chapter gets sidetracked, it get moved to a thread called , "Chapter 3, additional discussion". That way the original course of that thought can be traced backwards. It's not perfect but I tend to like some organization and following the source of the discussion works when in doubt.

 

dawei - I agree re having a bit of organizaiton, but disagree with your recommendation in this case. Next month, or next year, I wont recall that your and TianShi's and majc's discussion on these points will be in the "Chapter 3, additional discussion" thread.

 

But a thread called some variation of "TTC In Situ" ... now that I'd be able to find. For that matter, that thread could easily reference the various chapters to support the various positions, and...

 

Oh well.

[dawei]

dawei - I agree re having a bit of organizaiton, but disagree with your recommendation in this case. Next month, or next year, I wont recall that your and TianShi's and majc's discussion on these points will be in the "Chapter 3, additional discussion" thread.

 

But a thread called some variation of "TTC In Situ" ... now that I'd be able to find. For that matter, that thread could easily reference the various chapters to support the various positions, and...

 

Oh well.

After 81 chapters of splashing all around, we'll never find it whether in separate threads or in 100 pages of 'In Situ'. I'll restore to the "Search" function in either case

 

You make a good point... for the general mass, a single Titanic thread may be best

[majc]

The last bunch of posts about how to force these threads to unfold in the "correct" way has had nothing to do with the TTC. TianShi may have been swinging his handbag of global tyranny and fear around, but he does genuinely believe that the vast majority of useless crap falling out of it alongside his lipstick and mascara provides a coherent framework for Chapter 3.

 

This chapter is regularly interpreted as instructions for the government of others - even though this would conflict with ch 2's "teaching without words" / "forming a method without worded instruction" (whichever way you look at that line). Go figure, eh?

[Apech]

Until you guys started debating whether the posts were actually relevant to Ch. 3 - I thought the discussion was relevant to Ch. 3. So on this occasion I don't agree with Rene (though I usually do). Anyone can start a thread/topic it doesn't have to be a Mod.

 

I would see an argument for at some point going through the Chapter threads and moving out the tangential discussion - but this could be controversial and so should only be done with general agreement. My reason for this is so a new member can easily click on and get the full range of views for study purposes without distraction.

 

I see nothing else to moderate on here (although Aaron/Twinner is leading).

[Marblehead]

I see nothing else to moderate on here (although Aaron/Twinner is leading).

 

Actually, it has been my observation that when a thread goes off-topic it is because everyone participating in the discussion has already said what they wanted to say directly to the opening post. The side thoughts are of interest to some but not to all or not directly related to the opening post.

 

But then, I see no reason to stop a discussion just because it has gone off-topic. Anyone just reading but not participating in the discussion can quickly scan the posts to see which are relavent to them.

 

But this is only my personal opinion and I'm sure others have their own personal opinions concerning this as well.

[rene]

Hi Apech (-:

 

I would see an argument for at some point going through the Chapter threads and moving out the tangential discussion.

 

Too much work! If something like that was felt to be useful then establishing the framework early makes more sense.

 

It's fun to watch the Chapter discussions develop: first a handful of translations, then the newb/newage/philos comments, then the knowledgeable scholars debates, then....?

 

Who knows what will come as the Chapters wane; maybe the natural emptiness.

[rene]

Actually, it has been my observation that when a thread goes off-topic it is because everyone participating in the discussion has already said what they wanted to say directly to the opening post. The side thoughts are of interest to some but not to all or not directly related to the opening post.

 

It is? Oh, okay. Seems I've got a lot to learn about how things work here.

 

Thanks everyone for helping me understand! Most appreciated. (-:

 

warm regards

[Marblehead]

... maybe the natural emptiness.

 

That's where they all end up Rene. The great return into emptiness.

 

Everything matters but nothing matters.