Avoiding Violence (Tao Te Ching 30)

30

Taosurfers teach leaders
to avoid violence.
For those who use violence
inevitably meet violent ends.
Invasive weeds grow whenever armies
march through a land.
After great wars,
countries sink into famine
and economic depression.

Good leaders know to apply
just enough force to reach their goal,
then they step back.
They don’t become addicted to power.
They reach their goal but don’t boast.
They reach their goal without humiliating opponents.
They reach their goal but aren’t arrogant.
They reach their goal but aren’t itching for a fight.
They reach their goal without destroying their enemies.

Whatever profit one gains
from immoral means
never lasts long.

Written Reflection

This chapter resonates with Jesus’ teaching: “Live by the sword, die by the sword.” (Matthew 26:52). It is also one of several places where we see a sort of healthy “selfishness” at play. We’re referring here to the possible influence of the school of Yang Chu, who taught a kind of ethical egoism. This isn’t the self-destructive selfishness of narcissists and gluttons, but rather an emphasis on personal health as foundational for one’s ability to care for others. As they say on commercial flights: In the case of an emergency cabin decompression first put on your own oxygen mask before assisting others.

The good news in all of this is that doing the right things for others—especially when we see them as interconnected with ourselves—brings us back to mutual gift-giving and unconditional love (something we see elsewhere in the Tao Te Ching (see chapter 49). In other words, if we treat others the way we want to be treated because we see how they are united to ourselves, we will also learn to treat ourselves kindly.

Being cruel is self-defeating in the long run. The results can be horrific. For instance, during World War II, the Germans treated Soviet POWs horrifically. The details are hard to recount. One reason for this was the Nazi ideology’s disdain for Slavic people in general. But another reason for their mistreatment of Russian humans and killing of 250,000 of them (give or take a couple hundred thousand) was that the Reich didn’t want individual soldiers on the Eastern front to surrender. By being cruel to the Russians, German soldiers knew that they would endure excruciating treatment if they were to be captured by their enemy. After 1945, hundreds of thousands of German POWs died after being worked to exhaustion in Siberia. When it comes to international law and human rights, those who commit atrocities usually end up tasting their own medicine, or at best, end up charred in a ditch like Adolf Hitler. Violent means lead to violent ends indeed.

Despite all this, although Lao Tzu routinely rejects the way of violence, domination, and force, this text is not naively pacifist. There are times to fight, it teaches. There are times when manifest evil creates a situation in which refusal to fight is a matter of appeasing evil rather than piety. In such times, one fights to accomplish a specific goal. Good leaders identify their precise goals, work efficiently to accomplish those goals, then back off when they’ve achieved those goals. Going beyond that courts disaster.

For instance, at the conclusion of World War I, allied nations punished Germany financially and emotionally, following the Treaty of Versailles (1918), the deep economic depression, coupled with a loss of territory and pride, created a situation that was perfectly fertile for the rise of ultra-nationalism and the subsequent Nazi party’s takeover of the government. Once again, it’s not just that the Allies were not nice to the Germans, it’s that their harsh treatment had negative effects that came back to cause the Allied leaders and their children to suffer grievously in a subsequent war, not to mention the anti-Semitism and fascism that flourished in the wake of World War I.

Lao Tzu predicted all this would be the case, not because he had supernatural vision, but because he studied the way nature works. This chapter mentions the idea that, when wars are waged, the scarred land with its wheel ruts and trampling of fields is bad for the flourishing of the people. Where healthy natural vegetation once was, survivors see only shrapnel, clods, burn marks, and corpses. The good plants get crushed. Invasive species and noxious weeds spring up in the wake of the machines of war. The people suffer deprivation. There are a lot of losers even on the “winning” side.

Nevertheless, the Taosurfer remains prepared to do battle when all peaceful options are exhausted. Upon reaching the precise goal of their struggle, they return to repose. They don’t become addicted to vengeance in their own inner life and they refuse to contribute to a military industrial complex in the world of politics. As soon as they win a war, they become their former enemy’s friend by helping them rebuild in justice and mercy. This is what Sun Tzu described in the Art of War (3.1) as “taking whole.” This is to bring the enemy onto your side rather than demolishing them.

All of this emerges not just from a Taosurfer’s good will or kindly nature, but also from their concern for self-protection. Violence begets more violence, but love is inexhaustible, and creates exponential quantities of love when it is spent on others, whether they deserve it or not.