Taoism is not Corrupt

    I just found an article at the Asia Times that discusses government corruption in India, China and Indonesia.  An interesting comparison, but it had this rather bizarre paragraph:

Culturally, the Taoist framework of self-maximization has much to do with corruption in China. In contrast with the Confucian principles that call for officials to act for the common good, Taoism recognizes the need and right of individuals to act for their own benefit. This allows Chinese people to accept the need for officials to enrich themselves, and,indeed, many see the richer as more successful. This is why corruption is quite open and direct; you can almost predict what any particular activity will cost.

    The only way I can understand this assertion is that the author is extrapolating from the religious Taoist practice of life extension, searching for medicinal means to prolong health and life span.  But the interpretation fails, utterly.  The author has obviously never seriously read the Tao Te Ching, Chuang Tzu or Lieh Tzu.  If he (she?) had, he would know that Taoism is not about selfishness.  It is not about "the need and right of individuals to act for their own benefit."   Let the Tao Te Ching say it (passage 22):

Give up self-reflection
and you're soon enlightened.
Give up self-definition
and you're soon apparent.
Give up self-promotion
and you're soon proverbial.
Give up self-esteem
and you're soon perennial.
Simply give up contention
and soon nothing in all beneath heaven contends with you.

 The point here is to give up the conscious pursuit of self-interest, which will allow the real "self-interest" of finding one's natural place in Way to become manifest.  Using a public office for personal material gain - which is how corruption is usually defined - is very far from this ideal.  A  person looking to give up self-promotion and self-esteem would, first, eschew political office and, second, not be interested in material pleasure.  After all, "things rare and expensive make people lose their way." (TTC, 12).  The  Asceticism of Taoism is well-known and well-established.

    This whole thing just strikes me as cultural misinterpretation at its worst.

Comments

[Casey Kochmer]

:) It's interesting

To embrace the Tao is to embrace oneself fully. Yet western culture and ideals have twisted personal needs to be wholesale material needs, ego and greed. So when looking at Taoism many make the mistake to make this leap to say Taoism is an ego centric practice.
when that is so far from the case. But people have a had time putting ego into proper perspective.

To embrace oneself means to let go of greed .. minimize ego down to a small role in the larger concept of true self and as that artical lamely states: "self-maximization" . Heh its one of the miconceptions I had to fight against in writing the Personal Tao , as I knew people would make this type of leap of logic...

But at the same time it's possible to use that type of thinking and help spin people back around into discovering what Taoism is about.

:) Spiritual jujitsu if you may...

[windlotus]

The paragraph struck me as being dropped into the story; it doesn't fit the context where it sits at all. My first thought was that it was an attack on religion/spirituality in the larger sense, and Taoism got caught (badly and inaccurrately) in the crossfire. I saw no alternative "framework" offered in the article, but I'd be willing to wager if one were, it would be entirely secular.