Branding Tao

Can the principles of Taoism be commodified and sold?  It would seem that some are trying to do this:

THE Chinese philosophy of Taoism advocates the natural way of things and the harmonious blending of the two opposite principles of yin and yang for man to form a trinity with heaven and earth. It is widely believed that Tao bears love, love bears restraint, restraint bears acceptance and acceptance bears the world. As such, all things begin with love and end with restraint, but it is acceptance that brings harmony.

As a result, the refining of Chinese culture throughout the ages cultivated a deep sense of restraint in all aspects of social and personal life. Chinese familial relations are famously strong on ties, but also unique in their restraint from obvious displays of affection while the concept of face implies restraint from uncontrolled public expressions of emotions. Even traditional Chinese fashion has reflections of restraint, such as foot binding, the form-fitting qi pao and layers of restricting undergarments.

For its Spring/Summer 2010 collection for men and women, international Chinese luxury brand Shanghai Tang taps into this characteristic Chinese culture of personal restraint and the universal emotion of passionate love and romance to proclaim the seductive female form with a subtle Chinese sensual essence....

Let's start with largest-scale irony here: the conspicuous consumption of "restraint."  The purpose of luxury branding is to call attention to oneself, to demonstrate that one has the means to be surrounded with high-priced commodities.  "Dressing down" in a certain style is an expensive and noticeable posture, a pose.  It is, in short, the opposite of "restraint."  Thus, the luxury branding of Tao is a most un-Tao like activity.

Notice the other distortions at work here.  Who says "Tao bears love"?  What does that even mean?  It seems to me that even a cursory reading of the Tao Te Ching and Chuang Tzu reveals a kind of emotional detachment, a notion of transcending, or at least disentangling from, both love and hate.  "Love" in conventional terms is just another form of worldly attachment that can cause us to lose sight of Tao.  That's why Chuang Tzu stops mourning his wife in a traditional manner.  And that is why the Tao Te Ching recognizes that Tao encompasses both good and evil:

Way is the mystery of these ten thousand things.

It's a good person's treasure and an evil person's refuge.  Its beautiful words are bought and sold and its noble deeds are gifts enriching people.

It never abandons even the evil among us. (62)

So, yes Tao bears love, but it also bears hate and ugliness and tragedy.  To simply assert "Tao bears love" is to create a sanitized concept that does not challenge our sense of the world, a vapid feel good idea that can ease bourgeois anxieties.  Again, not Tao at all.

And do they really want to invoke foot-binding as a model of restraint?  The practice was "restraining" only in the sense of forcing the natural development of the female body into a distortion meant only to please sexual and aesthetic senses.  How is that in any way keeping with Taoist ideas?

It's strange what happens when a marketing department meets ancient cultural ideas and practices: fetishisms of various sorts are made into symbols of restraint. 

Comments

[donna]

Tao isn't about restraint, it's about non-attachment, realizing that things come and go. You can be a rich Taoist, too, or even a flashy one if that's in your own nature -- but you would recognize your wealth or style is not about the Tao itself, and try to use it to Tao purposes instead of self-aggrandizement or an unnecessary show. In a position of wealth or power you act in accord with what is right for your position, though.

Any kind of false display is most certainly not Tao in nature, even false displays of restraint or poverty.

[isha]

The Tao of Junk
Pundits bemoan our trade deficit with China. But those container ships aren't heading home empty.
By Daniel Gross

http://www.slate.com/id/2173594/

...the containers that arrive at West Coast ports laden with Chinese goods return home full with a commodity that America produces in abundance.
====================================================================================

Well, that was Sept. 17, 2007, ancient history. Now they are sending Hollowwood junks, like Avatar, which in the Taoist's point of view, are nothing but trash that are exploiting the emptiness of the senses such as sex, violence, aggression, a false sense of greatness and self-righteousness; you don't even need a container to move them New Age Junks.