Yin vs. Yang Approach；Balance-Seeking and Non-Self-Assertiveness(“无为”)

This article was first posted on this website on 2015-08-31 and is being re-posted as a "source article" for a section of the author’s new book DAOIST-LEGALIST SOCIALISM: One with real Chinese characteristics, §I-6(1) The liberalist “spontaneous order” argument judged in the Daoist non-self-assertive (无为) and balance-oriented perspective

Yin vs. Yang Approach；Balance-Seeking and Non-Self-Assertiveness(“无为”)

EDITOR’S NOTE: Here are two excerpts from the author’s book in Chinese on philosophy and social theories published in 2013. The book partially summarizes the results of the author’s decades-long exploration in the realm of ideology and is rich in ideas both old and new at the same time – new expositions in modern terminology of traditional Chinese thought as applied to social issues and ideologies of the world today. Any comment and criticism and any offer to help improve the English translation of the whole book will be welcome and appreciated. For a list of contents of the book with links to other translated parts, please see:

II. Human Society: A dynamically-balanced multi-dimensional whole (continued)

The above discussion shows that, though both materialist dialectics and Yin-Yang theory deal with “opposites”, they are referring to different things when they use the word “opposition”: With the former, it boils down to that between two forces, of which one promotes while the other obstructs human efforts in seeking benefits from nature in a one-way relationship, i.e., without respect for nature. From the Yin-Yang point of view, this attitude is the ultimate manifestation of the Yang nature of human culture.

In contrast, Yin and Yang denote the two postures of every being (human or non-human, individual or group), two postures mutually opposite and complementary as well to each other: In modern philosophical terms, Yin stands for the eternal relatedness of each and every being with all other beings and a behavioral tendency showing consciousness of and respect for this relatedness, while Yang represents each being’s relatively independent nature and a behavioral tendency showing consciousness and assertion of this independence. Here are some instances from social institutional beings:

Nation-state Sovereignty, economic interests and cultural identity Balance of interests between nations

The Yin and Yang of human state of mind and tendency in behavior might be summarized as follows:

Serene-minded: Free from excessive desires Aspiring: Enterprising, challenging, overreaching

Defensive: Not imposing on others Assertive: Provocative, Offensive, aggressive, unyielding

Nurturing: Fostering, protecting and boosting life Confrontational: Relentless, unscrupulous, destructive

Humble: Modest, self-restrained, respectful Arrogant: Self-conceited, pretentious, overbearing

The Yin or Yang posture of a thing can be the result of the Yin or Yang tendencies of each of its constituting parts or aspects combining with or offsetting one another, thus displaying either Yin-Yang balance, or imbalance in either way, i.e., either one being too much stronger than the other.

Yin or Yang does not denote the growing or declining tendency of anything. That means that something assuming the Yin posture might be growing and something else assuming the Yan posture might be actually exhibiting signs of decline. China’s Daoist classic The Yellow Emperor’s Four Canons says: “The Yang mentality is characterized by pride, pretentiousness, arrogance, and aggressiveness, while the Yin attitude by modesty, respectfulness, gentleness, and self-restraint. The Yang character is born of self-complacency whereas the Yin of open-mindedness. One might benefit from his Yang aggressiveness once a while, but the benefit is not necessarily a blessing to him. The Yin self-restraint may bring about temporary losses, but it should be rewarding in the long run. If the Yang person keeps reaping benefits by being aggressive, he is actually sowing seeds for future disasters or self-destruction. A Yin person might suffer repeated losses for a time, but she is accumulating merits for the future. If she sticks to her Yin principle, she will surely be blessed with unexpected happiness.” (Chap 16: The Yin vs. the Yang Mentality.) This serves as a good mirror which reflects present-day humanity’s attitude towards Nature with its foreboding results. Besides man-nature relationship, the quote can of course be also applied to all social and international relationships.

Yin and Yang do not only denote a kind of posture but a status as well, such as being on the disadvantaged and weaker or advantaged and stronger side in a relationship, stronger, for instances, with authoritative power or wealth or fame etc. Somebody’s strength in a certain status, however, is not absolute but relative. For example, seniors may be physically weaker and in a disadvantaged status but in a more favorable and advantaged position in a society with a strong patriarchal or humanistic tradition because they would enjoy more respect and care as social ethics require. For another example, in a society or an era when and where high moral standards prevail or in a spiritually cultivated person (i.e., one constantly in a Yin-Yang balanced state of mind), the potential Yang tendency lurking in one’s authoritative power or wealth or fame etc. would be contained before being externalized and developed into tyranny or arrogance.

In a word, Yin-Yang balance involves an integration of status and posture. Therefore, those, either individuals or nation-states, with power and influence, or great wealth, or prominent reputation, or higher status in any other senses, that is, already in an advantaged position, no matter whether morally justifiable or not, should more conscientiously stick to the Yin principle by staying in a serene state of mind, abasing oneself (“What makes a great state is its being (like) a low-lying, down-flowing (stream)”, from Dao De Jing, Chap 61, trans. by Legge), restraining one’s desires, being modest and prudent, not imposing one’s own will on others but treating them as equals and with sincerity.

A Yin-Yang balanced state of mind of those in more favorable positions is the strongest guarantee for balanced social relationships. This, on the other hand, calls for the cooperation of those in weaker positions. If there are no bullies around, the weaker ones should also feel contented with their lower positions and take the Yin approach. If there is too much Yang in one’s attitude which makes one spiritually out of balance and take others’ modest self-restraint as opportunities to be exploited to one’s advantage, then social relationships would still lose balance.

But if those in advantaged positions indulge the potential Yang in them to further inflate their ego, it will more likely lead to bullying of those in less favorable situations and to imbalance and chaos in social order. Under such circumstances, those weaker ones being bullied would need to have a bit more Yang and stand up against more powerful but morally unjust forces (not ruling out tactical concessions), but should still be on guard, in the general approach, against over-assertiveness, overreaching oneself, arrogance, rashness, petty-mindedness, should still stay within the limited goal of overcoming unjust bullying in line with the highest moral principle, and, at the same time, overcome whatever imbalances might be existing internally. Only thus can one balance out excessive Yang from outside with properly measured Yin from inside.

II-3(8). “Balance-seeking” and “non-self-assertiveness” (无为): Is “non-self-assertive government” (无为而治) the same as lassez-faire indulgence of “spontaneous social order”?

Regarding “balance-seeking”, liberalists might oppose it by saying that it interferes in people’s personal freedom. Both Western liberalists and some Chinese Confucian scholars would take over the Daoist catchword “non-self-assertive government” and distort, wittingly or unwittingly, what “non-self-assertiveness” really meant to suit their purpose. For instance, a dozen years ago, a Western scholar Ken McCormick published an article entitled “The Tao of Laissez-faire” (Eastern Economic Journal, 1999, Vol. 25, Issue 3, PP. 331-341), in which he mutilated a complete sentence from the Chinese Daoist classic Dao De Jing and quoted only a broken part of it, ignoring some closely related and very important idea. The original sentence reads: “I take no action and the people are transformed of themselves; I prefer stillness and the people are rectified of themselves; I am not meddlesome and the people prosper of themselves; I am free from desire and the people of themselves become simple like the uncarved block.” (Chap 57, Trans. by D.C. Lau.) But the quoter deliberately left out the last segment “I am free from desire and the people of themselves become simple like the uncarved block.” The whole sentence in the original classic contains four “无”s constituting a complete line of thinking, and what is left out here tells something very important, because:

a) The words “free from desire” should not be taken superficially, i.e., too literally without real understanding. As any human beings, even a saint, cannot do without basic things such as food and drink for survival, what “free from desire” means here cannot be anything but “free from excessive desires”. Similarly,“无为”can neither be taken literally as to mean “take no action” but to mean “take no self-assertive action”.

b) How, then, should we tell excessive from not excessive desires and tell self-assertive from not self-assertive actions? To make earnest studies, especially of a self-contained and widely influential school of thought, one should not mutilate sentences and passages and interpret them out of context, but has to relate every word of it to the whole written texts of the thought system. This is a basic approach for academic studies.

If one has made an overall study of Daoist thought, it is not difficult to find the demarcation line between “excessive” and “not excessive” desires, and between “self-assertive” and “not self-assertive” actions, and here it is:

“It is the Way of Heaven to remove where there is excess and add where there is lack. The way of people is different: They take away where there is need and add where there is surplus.” (Dao De Jing, Chap 77, Trans. by Charles Muller.)

Obviously, this quote provides the criterion by which to tell non-self-assertive from self-assertive actions, the former being “free from (excessive) desire” while the latter not. When a social administrator is free from personal desires, which would be “excessive” when one is serving in a government position, he would either do something to “remove where there is excess and add where there is lack” as is mandated by the “Way of Heaven”, or he would “prefer stillness”, be “not meddlesome” and “take no (self-assertive) action” if there is no “excess” nor “lack”. The latter situation would be possible only when the administrator is “free from (personal) desires” and “not meddlesome”, that is, not asserting such desires, and so, the people are “rectified of themselves”, “transformed of themselves”, “prosper of themselves”, and “of themselves become simple like the uncarved block.” But when an administrator is not “free from (personal) desire”, he may then assert such desires in doing government work and “take away where there is need and add where there is surplus”, which would be against “the Way of Heaven”.

In a word, if the Chinese Daoist classic is read in its whole context, “take no action” can only mean “take no action against the Way of Heaven” and the key here is for government leaders and staff, when serving the public, to be “free from (personal) desire” that is against “the Way of Heaven”. This key might be beyond comprehension for a mainstream Western scholar, as gratification of personal desire is the very motive behind the prevalent capitalist system. That might explain why Mr. McCormick just ignored it in the quote. Why not, indeed, if it is inconceivable?

In Daoist theory, action without self-assertiveness involves both motivation and timeliness, the two of which are closely related to one another. Only people free from selfish motivation would have a high degree of wisdom to make the right judgment and hit the right time for action in line with the Dao, just like “pushing the boat along with the current”, not too early, nor too late.

If social order is in general in alignment with the Way of Heaven, social administrators would not need to take any action to change it. The Way of Heaven would work directly on the society without going through the medium of its government. But when the society is out of balance and its government takes needed actions to restore a balanced social order, its work embodies, and is part of, the Way of Heaven.

To sum up, not running against but following the Dao – this is what is implied in “non-self-assertiveness” (无为) or “action without self-assertiveness” (“为无为”, Dao De Jing, Chap 63), not inaction or lasses-faire.

However, those Westerners and Confucianist scholars who preached or are preaching lassez-faire were or are countering the Dao of Yin-Yang balance. What they prattle(d) about “no action” in governing is not authentic Daoism but only a distortion of it just to “take away where there is need and add where there is surplus” in service of the political-economic interests of the privileged class.

Besides, the pseudo-proposition which pits balance-seeking actions against Daoist non-self-assertiveness also finds expression in counterposing “constructed” to “spontaneous order” by liberal scholars such as Hayek. As a matter of fact, real social life is full of instances of constructed as well as spontaneous order. Before motor vehicles came into being, or on streets not open to vehicles, the traffic order should be a spontaneous one, usually with no need for regulation by a constructed set of rules. Pedestrians can avoid bumping against each other by mutual accommodation and spontaneous estimate of each other’s steps. But on streets open to both pedestrians and vehicles, there might be need for a constructed set of traffic rules to prevent accidents, or even “constructed” traffic lights at the crossroads for guidance. Can we really do without such “constructivist rationalism”?

Of course, a constructed order should still be based on a spontaneous one. The former is not totally dependable without the latter, anywhere any time. Even with the guidance of traffic lights, there might still be ever-changing situations not predicted by constructors of the lights and rules or not specifiable in the “construction” and, so, there is still need for drivers and pedestrians to make spontaneous judgments of the situation and mutual accommodations to avoid accidents. This is the “limitation of rationality”, including “constructivist rationality”, and why rationalism is untenable.

Furthermore, we can see from the evolution of traffic rules, from doing without them to implementing them and from simple to more complex ones, that the “construction” of such rules is itself a spontaneous act by people, “spontaneous” in the sense that there is no external force compelling them to construct such self-restraining rules but they “spontaneously” feel the need for such rules out of concern for their own safety. Or in other words, a minimum degree of construction motivated by people’s spontaneous feeling of need, accomplished through a proper process not going against their spontaneous will, and accompanied by still necessary spontaneous acts in a mutually complementary way – such “construction” itself is a manifestation and an integrated part of a “spontaneous” social order. The mechanistic way of pitting a constructed order against a spontaneous one as polar opposites cannot describe the true situation of how social order takes shape and evolves and cannot stand up to scrutiny. Insistence on such kind of either-black-or-white way of thinking can only bring harm to a healthy development of the social order.

The reasoning above can also be applied by extension to the study of the evolving process of the general economic-political-cultural order of a society. What is important is not whether it is constructed or spontaneously formed but what kind of order is formed, that is, whether it serves the insatiable selfish desires of a privileged few and, thus, must be an unbalanced order which has to be maintained by using violent force, or it is a balanced and peaceful order which is favorable for all people to share and enjoy a serene and happy life.

The Way of Heaven is inherently favorable to the spontaneous shaping up of a balanced order. It has been none other than the interferences from a few people holding much inflated desires that have caused serious social imbalances. The very purpose of constructing a certain order is nothing but to finally set up a social mechanism with rule of law at its core which can offset and fend off such interferences; this is a necessary prerequisite for restoring the naturally inherent “spontaneous order” through “non-self-assertive government”.

To cite an example from one of Dickens’ novels, a thief tries to defend himself by saying that, according to statistics, under normal circumstances there is always a certain percentage of the population who are thieves and he happens to be one of them, implying that, since this is “normal”, he should not be punished. Now that, according to Hayek, this “normal” percentage should be looked at as part of a “spontaneous order”, punishment by law is logically a sort of “constructed” institution, and the interpretation of “无为而治” by people like him, i.e., “governing by taking no action”, should mean letting the thieves do whatever they would spontaneously like to, without taking legal action against them. But nobody would believe that the liberalists would themselves like to live under such a “spontaneous order”.

This example cited here can be used as a metaphor to illustrate the necessity in real life for “constructing” social institutions aimed at restricting and finally eliminating global monopoly capitalists, as they are by far the most exploitative and most destructive “thieves”, and, furthermore, the necessity for “constructing” institutions aimed at preventing the breeding of such parasites.

In a word, to “construct” in line with the Dao or the Heavenly Way for the sake of maintaining a “non-self-assertive” (无为) government is an “action without self-assertiveness” (“为无为”).

To “construct”, and to do “balance-seeking”, in order to create conditions for non-self-assertive government, the constructor/initiator must be the first to free himself from personal desires. To “be free from excessive desires” so as to guarantee “non-self-assertiveness” is the very essence of the Yin approach, which only will be able to ultimately wipe out all social evils bent on destroying balances, harmony and peace in human society, on the planet Earth and in the celestial space.