Re: The Connatic as the perfect Taoist

Subject:

Comments:
: : How about this... : : "Whoever takes the empire and wishes to do anything with it I see will have no respite. The empire is a sacred vessel and nothing should be done to it. Whoever does anything to it will ruin it; whoever lays hold of it will lose it." (XXXIX,66) : : Again, : : "Governing a large state is like boiling a small fish."(LX, 138) : : In both passages we see the state or empire is a delicate thing that can be ruined by the least handling -- or a sacred vessel that must not be tampered with. The state is as much a part of the natural order (pardon me, Rousseau) as the world of inanimate objects and, being part of the natural order, will run smoothly so long as everyone follows his own nature (vis. Faceless Man). To think that one can improve on nature by one's own cleverness is a form of profanity -- the natural order is delicately balanced; the least interference on the part of the ruler will upset this balance and lead to disorder. : : I could go on and on, and probably will... : This reminds me of the Fable of the Bees, beloved of philosophers in the eighteenth century A.D., especially the scholars of the Scottish Enlightenment. : The argument errs in many regards. Most notably, the argument dismisses one kind of human action (i.e., governance by a "ruler") as "unnatural," but exalts other kinds of human nature (presumably everything except governance) as "natural." Why is the attempt to gain wealth natural, but the attempt to govern unnatural? In attempting to gain wealth, don't many persons exert control over other persons? And isn't that a form of "governance"? And does it make sense to say that the state is so delicately balanced that any attempt to govern it will ruin it, but that it can withstand actions by other entities (e.g., large corporations) that may affect large numbers of people in ways just as profound? And what constitutes "interference" in this "natural" system? Is a legal system a form of interference? And how do we know that an ungoverned state (isn't that an oxymoron) is "orderly"? Whose order? Wouldn't many people object that such a state was disordered? : If you want an example of an ungoverned state in Vance, look to the Beyond. There people act in "natural" fashion, unconstrained by artificial attempts to govern them. Vance may romanticize the Beyond to some extent, but he clearly depicts it as a place where people are brutalized: where horrible events such as the Mount Pleasant raid can occur, where women can be enslaved, etc. : The Connatic does not attempt to impose his rule over the Beyond; his rule over the civilized worlds is just a gloss on the governmental systems of those worlds. From my memory of the books (which are not my favorite Vance), the Connatic goes around righting occasional wrongs, but his job really doesn't require that he work that hard: most of the work of governance is done by the local authorities. (And I'm not sure how much Vance cares for those: see the Durdane trilogy.) : I have gone on and on . . .

Optional Link URL:
Link Title:
Optional Image URL: