Unity is one part love, one part hate, and one part ignorance. According to the Taoists (and I agree with this strongly), a true leader is one who can unite or harmonize the minds of the people. They must be of one love, cherishing the same things, and they must be of one hate, expressing the same dislikes. For both of these things are indelibly etched into the human soul, and if they will always be, then both must be focused and channeled appropriately. The people must also be, to a degree, ignorant. With many wise people comes many differing and often conflicting opinions, and while some would argue that from this conflict comes resolution, the immediate effect is disunity, chaos and unreliability in times of need. An open minded people may benefit from a wealth of knowledge, but without a way to be certain that all reach the same conclusion, conflict will be the inevitable result. What good is a wealth of knowledge if there is no consensus on how it must be used? While ignorant people suffer in that the individual is denied access to a wealth of information, they do benefit in a strong sense of absolution, unity, duty, and morality, because they have experienced only one dominant truth. Open mindedness benefits a society in the moment, but ultimately leads to corruption, diminished sense of collective self, and immorality. Close mindedness takes constant toll on a people, but it ensures the traits of an enduring cultural and national identity. Solomon once said that he who increases in knowledge increases in sorrow. This is true both on the scale of the individual and of the nation.
Applying the concept of Yin and Yang, or any Law of Balance, though, this idea can be rendered meaningless. There will always be flukes, things that do not adhere to the system, whether for good or for ill. In a close minded society, there will always be those who rebel against the barriers erected between them and information that the system denies them. In today's America, these are often thought of as heroes, and our culture glorifies them in all forms of media. This is the road more travelled. The rarer alternative is that in an open minded society, there are occasionally those who see the long term drawbacks of the system, and attempt to either flee or subvert it. These are often thought of as villains, and our present culture demonizes any non-conformity to open mindedness. This is the road less travelled, and therefore, I think, the more noble one.
(I'll split this into multiple comments, as there appears to be a word limit.)
ReplyDeleteI feel like analyzing this seriously and encouraging you to flesh out what you're saying here, throwing in a bit of my own critique along the way.
1. You wrote: "According to the Taoists (and I agree with this strongly), a true leader is one who can unite or harmonize the minds of the people." Why do you agree with this? I'm assuming that you do simply because it seems all around common sense. But out of curiosity, what about this statement appeals to you?
2. think what you say about unity vs. disunity is interesting. In Hegelian philosophy, for example, dialectic (two opposing forces colliding and coming to a higher synthesis) theoretically builds up to ultimate unity, but you are absolutely correct in saying that the dialectical process, in its incomplete state of opposing thesis and antithesis, provides no unity for practical action in the immediate present. This is something rulers have to deal with--even if people aren't unified, rulers still have to make a decision to act in a certain way. In Hegel's philosophy, conflict comes to a resolution in peace, as if every possible war had been fought and everything in the universe, having been firmly established by a series of victory and defeat, finally lay at peace, no truth shaky enough to squabble over. Even if we don't assume the idealism of Hegel's dialectic, assuming instead that conflict doesn't necessarily lead to truth in the end, the ruler is still faced with the problem of acting according to the will of a people in conflict. So yes--I agree with you here. In the presence of conflicting parties, a ruler in the real world still has to act in spite of the fact that some will disagree.
3. Following this statement, you wrote: "[A true leader] must be of one love, cherishing the same things, and they must be of one hate, expressing the same dislikes." This statement is a bit confusing. I'll label my first interpretation of it as(A). (A) follows thus: People are in conflict. Yet rulers must act. If rulers have the same likes and dislikes as their people, they won't be able to act at all, for if he both loves and hates acting in a certain way, he cannot act at all as a result of the consequent paradox. BUT, if you mean here what I think you may have been trying to say, you are right, and this statement follows from your previous one. This is my second interpretation--interpretation (B). (B): A ruler, as a consequence of taking one course of action over another, has to "hate" (go against) one party by acting in a certain way and simultaneously has to "love" (agree with) another. I don't know which option you meant to communicate, but your wording implies (A). However, as I have shown, only (B) makes sense if leaders must lead their people one way or another. If leaders do not lead, then they are not leaders, as they enforce no impositions of any kind, leading being the definition and purpose of leaders.
4. But from what I know about Taoism, (A) may or may not be exactly what the Taoists want to imply--namely, INACTION (see concept of wu wei). Now, I don't have the education or the space to go into what exactly the Taoists believed on the issue, so I'll refrain from doing so. But since this is your blog/meditation, my question is: "What do YOU think?" Action that displeases some, or inaction? (Interesting side note: choosing between action and inaction is itself an action; one can only be truly inactive if one is incapable of choice. The Taoists themselves pointed this out too, I believe).
ReplyDelete5. I agree with you that given more things upon which to disagree, the more potential conflict. Greater breadth of knowledge implies a larger battlefield.
6. You wrote: "Open mindedness [or, breadth of opinion] benefits a society in the moment, but ultimately leads to corruption, diminished sense of collective self, and immorality. Close mindedness takes constant toll on a people, but it ensures the traits of an enduring cultural and national identity." Your wording isn't very careful here. Potential for more conflict does NOT necessarily mean the more conflict will arise, nor does it specify how severe this conflict will be. You also say that conflict (disunity) is "corrupt" and "immoral" as if it had a negative ethical value. As I demonstrated above, conflict must exist for a leader to lead, for if there is no direction contrary to another direction to choose, then a leader cannot lead anyone one direction or another. General unity makes one choice easier for a leader if he has the interests of the majority of his people in mind. (Leading according to the greatest interest for the greatest number, by the way, is utilitarianism). Additionally, your first statement said that a virtue of leaders is to bring about harmony and unity as if those elements had positive ethical value. I asked you in paragraph (1) why you thought harmonizing to be a virtue of leaders. Now I ask you here: Why do you think unity has positive moral value? How is it better than disunity, in your opinion?
7. Lastly, you talk about heroes and villains. You said a hero is one who defies the established social construct. However, I think it really depends on the situation. People can either be considered heroes or a villains depending on how people view their defiance of the present social construct. You are right, though, that typically-individualistic Americans tend to side with the rebel. When you talk of villains, you run into the same problem, saying that adding laws to the social construct renders one a villain, when in fact, depending upon the situation, society could render a "lawmaker" either a hero or a villain. Abraham Lincoln brought about the ban on slavery, for example, but he is considered a hero.
8. Strangely enough, the conflict between following and modifying tradition lies central to the conflict between Confucian and Taoist philosophy! So while you mention Taoism, you actually come out more of a tradition-enforcing Confucian by the end(dun dun DUN!).
9. So--you conclude that preserving the social construct and eliminating conflict between the individual and the state are the better routes, as it promotes harmony. You imply that harmony is better than disharmony. Harmony, however, negates the need for a leader, so a true leader, according to your definition, leads by bringing about harmony, and then as a consequence negates himself entirely! So true leaders, if they are successful, do not exist. Cool. There IS conflict in the world, however, so I'm going to assume that there has never been a true leader, or if there was one, that something happened and conflict arose again.
ReplyDelete10. I think I fundamentally disagree with you that preservation of tradition and harmony is always the best way. What if the established order IS actually evil? Rebelling against that order doesn't necessarily make one either a hero or a villain anyway (7). Plus, you have to make it clear what makes someone a villain. Is villainy determined by what a person thinks of another person, or is it determined by that person's actually being wicked (see Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics). I personally think that a person's character, not his reputation, makes him either a villain or a hero.
11. At the base, I find my disagreement to lie in the fact that you haven't drawn clear lines between subjective and objective truth. Either something is good or it's evil. It can't be both. Therefore a social construct must either be good or evil--not both--given the existence of ethical values. If something could be morally neutral, though, and all truths and morals were subjectively based, then something could be both good and evil, technically and subjectively speaking--but not objectively. Your system of harmony preferred over disharmony functions under the model of absent ethical values. If everything IS subjective, then all you have to do is to get people to stop fighting. But if there is an objective good and evil, you should seek the good, whether that means going against or along with tradition. I personally don't think tradition matters in the face of objective truth and that we should seek it (objective truth) rather than tradition. HOWEVER--tradition, as it often comes about as a result of ages and ages of debate and thought, might possibly give us some information concerning what's right and wrong. Maybe a part of me's Hegelian. Oh well.
Keep philosophizing! :D