Tao of Heaven Liberalism Discussion Series
Heaven Tea Talk Seven: Staying Below and Behind. Why Shouldn’t the Government and Rulers Have Privileges?
Liu Jun Ning
Translated By: Selene Cong
Confucius: A dilemma has always troubled me: people in the world are so selfish; men of power will especially use their power for personal gains! I could never find a solution to this problem. If everyone in the world, regardless of politicians or common citizens could put aside their selfish desires, there would not be conflicts in the world. Since I can’t find a satisfactory solution, I would like to hear your opinion.
Lao Tzu: This is indeed a big problem for human beings. In my understanding: All creatures, including humans, live between Heaven and Earth (Tian-Di). Heaven and Earth are eternal while all other living creatures are mortal. Heaven and Earth do provide living space for themselves, but for other creatures. However, these creatures are different from Heaven and Earth; they live for themselves and therefore they are selfish. Selfishness is in the roots of the nature of every living being, and it is manifested through every action. Therefore, you will never see any type of trees that helps other trees grow instead of growing itself, or any kind of animals that lives for other animals but not itself. Selfishness is the condition for the existence of all living beings. Of course, when there is selfishness, there is disagreement, and when there is disagreement, there is conflict. The true difficulty is how to alleviate or end the struggles that result from selfishness with the understanding that selfishness will always remain with us. People may not like to accept selfishness but many examples indicate that the greater disasters result from trying to exterminate selfishness than any troubles brought forth by individual selfishness.
Confucius: I know you are criticizing the Confucian ideal of worshipping the communal while limiting the selfish. I personally do not like the focus on the self. Instead, I prefer the interests of the community, loving the group while overcoming the self. Of course, I am not suggesting to eliminate all selfish desires. The philosophers of the Late Song, especially Zhu Xi, who supported eliminating human desires, went too far. His beliefs are not mine. Although it is impossible for me to excommunicate him from the Confucian School now, but I still wish to state our differences.
Lao Tzu: Although there are still many people who favor the works of Zhu Xi, but the result of combining the teaching of ending all selfish desires with power is disastrous, e.g., the condemnation of the self during the Cultural Revolution era. There are two criteria to evaluate a teaching: the first is to see the teaching from purely as contained in itself, a work of philosopher, and the second is to see the teaching from the perspective of its political consequences. When we are dealing with teachings of pure academic values, the former criterion is sufficient; however, if we deal with teachings that may lead to political consequences, I believe the latter criterion is more important.
Confucius: Let us return to our original topic. Since selfishness cannot be eliminated, how should we deal with it?
Lao Tzu: It helps to understand selfishness if we see it from the relationship between Heaven and Earth and the other creatures. The government is like Heaven and Earth, and the citizens are like the other creatures. The citizens are of course selfish; it is the necessary condition for their survival. It is their nature to pursue freedom and happiness. There is nothing more natural than for the people to have self interests. However, the government and the people in power should not be allowed to be selfish or be granted special privileges. If the government and its bureaucrats are permitted to maximize their personal benefit, the lives of the common people would be jeopardized. If the common people cannot live, how could the government or the rulers live? You must know that the government isn’t established for the head and the body of the bureaucrats, but it is for the entire society; the government belongs to the public, not the select few. Those who rule are only representatives of power instead of possessors of power. Therefore, it is immoral for people in such positions use the public power for personal gains; they must be stopped. The citizens have the right to make demands of the government based on their personal/selfish needs, even if they are unreasonable. The government should balance the requests that are conflicting, but it must not use the public power to benefit itself.
Confucius: But how could we get the government to give up its privileges or the rulers to overcome their selfishness?
Lao Tzu: This is the greatest obstacle and it lies in the difference between the government and Heaven and Earth. Heaven and Earth are autonomous while the government is made of a portion of the citizens. Rulers are humans! The economists say that even the rulers are motivated by economic incentives! Men are not gods; how could they not be selfish? The nature and duty of the government does not permit the rulers to be selfish but the rulers, as ordinary men, are selfish. Besides, because the rulers are living humans, the greater power they possess, the greater their selfishness is.
My solution is: “remain behind and below.” The government should step behind and outside. When it comes to benefits, the ideal government and rulers should emulate the Tao of Heaven, “remain behind” and not compete; it should give up personal privileges completely, and abandon all desires to compete with the citizens for benefits. Whenever there is benefit, they should let the people enjoy first and remain behind themselves. Only then can they receive the support of the people.
Tyrannical governments are different. It is typical for their rulers to compete for benefits in the forefront. Whenever there are benefits, the people of power will always be ahead of others, pocketing the greatest benefit themselves and leaving scraps for the citizens to fight over; they’ll even impose taxation on the little that is left. Under the oppression of political violence, the citizens are forced to eliminate their selfish desires so the rulers could maximize their personal benefits; the power machine of the state is even used to compete with the citizens for privileges. The citizens will always lose. When the citizens have nothing more to lose, they will rise up against the oppressors; the government and the rulers will be the losers now, and they will even lose their lives. None of the Chinese Dynasties was an exception to this end.
Confucius: You have explained clearly what “remain behind” is, but what is the meaning of “staying below?”
Lao Tzu: The meaning of “staying below” is that the government and the rulers should not see themselves as the paramount of virtue and wisdom while seeing see the citizens as idiots, nor should they remain lofty while keeping the citizens firmly beneath their steps. The government and the rulers must be respectful toward the people and remain lowly. Once we acknowledge the existence of selfishness in everyone, we must acknowledge that each person is the best judge of his own welfare. Each individual knows where his own welfare lies and he does not need the government to interfere, telling farmers what to grow, workers what to build, or scholars what to write. The government and the rulers are not omniscient or omnipotent. Their knowledge doesn’t increase with their power. Why must they think they know everything and therefore must supervise and direct everything? The government must follow the people instead of pretending to be the leaders of the people or to lead the people. They must not promote actions such as “I wave and you march.” The government should listen to the people and not vice versa. The ideal political body lets the people tell the government what to do through election, representation or media. The government and its bureaucrats are public servants. It should be the citizens who wave and the public servants who march. Only under a tyrannical government, do the leaders wave and the citizens march.
To summarize “remaining behind and below” is that the government must not have selfish desires or promote itself. You must understand, the government does not rule the country by its own power; it rule by the power of the Tao of Heaven and the people. Therefore, to give the people the greatest degree of freedom is to respect the autonomous rights of the citizens, and to not interfere with their private lives. The government must limit itself to the realm of the public affairs and stay out of the realm of private affairs.
Confucius: You like to use the word “government,” here. However, in the original text of the Tao Te Ching, you liked to use “the sage.” Are they interchangeable? And if yes, isn’t it suspected of supporting autocratic rule?
Lao Tzu: Good question. In our current understanding, the usage of the word, sage, to mean government is somewhat suspicious of promoting an autocratic government. However, the word, “government” did not exist in our time. The tradition to attribute personal qualities to institutions exist both at home and abroad, e.g., the use of “legal entity” in law to refer to non-persons. I used the sage to represent a personified and idealized political system and its idealized government and rulers. They are the personification of the Tao of Heaven and justice. The real sage should be like an empathetic politician; as the footnotes of Shuo Wen indicated: begin from the ear, then the mouth, hearing all and accepting all. Its nature is to use the ear more often than the mouth; do more good and less propaganda. Of course, I despise the false sages. Those sages should be used with the quotation marks.
Tao of Heaven Seven
Heaven is long-enduring and earth continues long. The reason
why heaven and earth are able to endure and continue thus long is
because they do not live of, or for, themselves. This is how they are
able to continue and endure.
Therefore the sage puts his own person last, and yet it is found in
the foremost place; he treats his person as if it were foreign to him,
and yet that person is preserved. Is it not because he has no
personal and private ends, that therefore such ends are realised? (J. Legge Translation)
The Heaven and Earth are eternal. They are eternal because they are selfless, allowing all life to grow. The ideal government should give up its private privileges, creating a sufficient environment for the citizens to pursue happiness and peace freely. Therefore, the government should give all benefits to the people, forfeiting all privileges, not interfering with the private affairs of the people, and creating the conditions for the people to pursue happiness and peace freely. Not because the rulers do not have selfish desires in a political system as such, but because they have given up their selfishness and privileges, they have realized their true self worth.
