In Lu there was a man named Shu-shan No Toes who had had his foot cut off. Stumping along, he went to see Confucius. “You weren’t careful enough!” said Confucius. “Since you’ve already broken the law and gotten yourself into trouble like this, what do you expect to gain by coming to me now?” No-Toes said, “I just didn’t understand my duty and was too careless of my body, and so I lost a foot. But I’ve come now because I still have something that is worth more than a foot and I want to try to hold on to it. There is nothing that heaven doesn’t cover, nothing that earth doesn’t bear up. I supposed, Master, that you would be like heaven and earth. How did I know you would act like this?” . . .
No-Toes told the story to Lao Tan. “Confucius certainly hasn’t reached the stage of a Perfect Man, has he? What does he mean coming around so obsequiously to study with you? He is after the sham illusion of fame and reputation and does not know that the Perfect Man looks on these as so many handcuffs and fetters!” Lao Tan said, “Why don’t you just make him see that life and death are the same story, that acceptable and unacceptable are on a single string? Wouldn’t it be well to free him from his handcuffs and fetters?” No-Toes said, “When Heaven has punished him, how can you set him free?”
(Watson: 71-72)
Clearly here in the said extract, we can somehow perceive the common distinction of Confucianism and Taoism. Confucianism, as I have understood, focuses on the concept of moral meritocracy; the giving of good to the good, and bad to the bad. Although unlike that of the very law of the state, as how it was suggested to come about through following the virtues, not of any legal proposals and coercion, still the virtues here were not totally different to that of the legal recommendations of the state. Why? Because like the latter, it somehow prompts an ideal character which the people must acquire themselves in order to fit their selves in, not only to the society, but to the very world under the heaven; all of that constitutes every whereabouts of this whole creation thing. In short, such suggests an "ought-to-do" to the all of the people.
But Taoism, on the other hand, sees no need for meriting, for for him, we are all in the "terra firma" , that's why no one should suggest an ideal basis of morality, but rather let the heaven be the judge and the so-called "penal institution" which will give the appropriate penalties and reinforcements. In other words, as how I interpreted such, no one shall be over the other, because we are all under the heaven which is indeed the only one that is over us. It can somehow be associated to that of the Socratic wisdom that only "god" ( a certain divine supreme) is the one who is wise, and no one shall ever claim to be, except him/her/it.
Either way, these two somehow suggests not a cancelling out of one another, but a suggestive and respective opposition that carries out uniqueness in their stands. Although we must not myopically conclude that these two are totally distinctive to one another. It's just that they do not share a common viewpoint of the thing about meritocracy; whether if is it to be done here within the realms of the human world by certain someone, or if is it to be solely accredited to the heaven alone?
You? What do you think?
No comments:
Post a Comment