Okay, while I'm certainly of the opinion that no text, no matter how sacred, should be exempt from harsh scrutiny, I think it's being a little premature to declare this as bollocks, especially since you're going from only one translation. Since a lot of the words used can't be directly translated, I think the least amount of work you can do before making judgements is to compare against another interpretation in order to triangulate what's intended. I think that's doubly important in a text as riddled with hidden meaning as the Tao Te Ching. Also bear in mind this is only one verse, being looked at out of context with the rest of the work.
Here's another translation anyhow (Ursula Le Guin):
True words aren't charming,
charming words aren't true.
Good people aren't contentious,
contentious people aren't good.
People who know aren't learned,
learned people don't know.
Wise souls don't hoard;
the more they do for others the more they have,
the more they give the richer they are.
The Way of heaven profits without destroying.
Doing without outdoing
is the way of the wise.
Here's how I'd interpret. I ain't no Taoist scholar.
True words aren't charming, charming words aren't true.
Truth is the essence, the actual thing/concept you're trying to describe. Language, as an abstraction of that Truth, should exist only to point the way to it. A word that is charming/beautiful in and of itself is serving two masters. It is declaring itself when it should only be declaring the thing it describes.
The Truth of a table is not the intricately-carved dragons or the lovely acid-etched phoenix. The Truth of a table is the flat bit you put stuff on and the four legs that stop it from crashing to the floor.
Economy of language. The more florid and complex it is, the further it gets from its intended fuction, the more it exists to serve itself.
Good people aren't contentious, contentious people aren't good.
NOT saying that you shouldn't express contrary viewpoints, just that to do so through argument is to put yourself in a position of weakness. To enter into argument is to allow the expression of your own viewpoint be defined by the other through opposition. There are more effective ways to propogate your ideas than through direct confrontation. Confrontation increases visibility, which escalates defences. Wiser birds go round the corner (as I heard Ian McKellen say once). The softest thing in the world shall lead the hardest.
People who know aren't learned, learned people don't know.
Cultivated Taoism encourages a different way of thinking. The favoured method of learning in the world, narrows the scope of knowledge the further you go. Primary school gives an overview of everything. High School moves from overview to more selected subjects. College and Uni narrow the field of study even more until the scholar commits to specialist fields. Knowledge builds like a pyramid, getting smaller the further you go.
Taoist thought grows through the workings of the body, how that relates to the world and how that relates to the universe, increasing exponentially in scope as it goes. It is a holistic way of thinking that does not see knowledge as something to be aquired and filed, but as a habitat to be lived in. For a Cultivated Taoist, knowledge flows in and out like water, and should not be grasped. This is a harder concept to get, but has a wealth of writing and methodology backing it up.
That's the jist of what I get from it anyhow. Can't be arsed doing the rest 'cause it's six in the morning, but that seems to be the bit that's causing the most trouble. |
