on convenient audio cassettes. Today's talk is Future of Politics, Part 3. Please remember we prefer that you don't make copies of this program off the air without express permission from the Alan Watts Institute. Now here's Alan Watts with Part 3, Future of Politics. Yesterday afternoon, if I may bring you all up to date, I was discussing the two marvelously opposed books out of Asia on political theory. The Arthashastra from India and the Daolejing from China, both written by highly perceptive people, taking the two opposite possibilities

[01:02]

of political behavior. The Arthashastra taking the point of view of complete tyranny and absolute control, and what are the conditions of that. And the Daolejing taking the opposite point of view of anarchy, of the curious situation in which the emperor himself is the great anarchist, and governs by not interfering, by letting everything alone. And the more skillfully the emperor leaves everything alone, the better the government, because he makes an act of trust in the people. And the only basis upon which a society can really exist at all is in mutual trust. And by making laws and having policemen, you're just kidding

[02:03]

yourself. You're deferring responsibility. As the author of the Power Within Us, a journal of the Spanish Explorer says, the country is demoralized when people treat the country as if it were an entity by itself, and would do things for you. Because then you fail to recognize that you all, to use that nice southern expression, are the state. And it won't work, nothing will work, if we just leave it to George, as it were. Leave it to the government. Because then, if you just leave it to the government, the government becomes a business. The government becomes a vested interest in governing. And then in accordance with the

[03:16]

parable of the trees and the forest, and who would be king of the forest, it was only the bramble who accepted the offer to be king of the forest, because the bramble had nothing useful to do. And so in the same way, people who go in for government, think of this for a moment. There's a very curious problem here. We say, we have a difficulty in this country because really good businessmen are so occupied with their business and doing a good job there that they won't accept government positions. And therefore government positions lie open to second-rate individuals who are lousy politicians, who take law. A really good attorney is making so much money that a judge's salary is too small for him. And he will only take a position

[04:22]

on the court if he has that sort of vanity that he wants the honor of being a judge, your honor. So, here's a kind of a funny paradox. When people will not really accept the responsibility of governing themselves, those who will accept the positions of government will be game players and power seekers. And they will establish a racket that will make government a business separate from the business of the world, the business of everyday life, the business of going on. And they will try to control everything. So the only healthy, fundamentally healthy

[05:26]

government is no government. But no government means everybody takes responsibility. That's the real meaning of anarchy, Kropotkin's idea of anarchy. The popular conception of anarchy is that there's somebody who goes around with whiskers on and a bomb and throws this under everything, you know, and is always destroying the organization. That's a joke. Kropotkin had a real sophisticated theory of anarchy that is analogous to Lao Tzu's philosophy in the Tao Te Ching, which is that government is kidding yourself. For example, let's take the institution of daylight saving. This is a good illustration of it. In the summertime, we say, we would have more hours of daylight if we got up one hour earlier. But instead

[06:32]

of simply getting up one hour earlier, we change the clock. So then we say, well, we have reason to get up one hour earlier, because it's the same time as before. And so in the same way, people would say, if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him. This is Falker. See? So that we have these ways of kidding ourselves that something else is controlling us, because we ourselves don't want to take the responsibility. But basically this absolutely has to be recognized, that not only in matters of government and politics, but in matters of cosmology. See, we play the game that I came into this world, I am

[07:35]

the victim of circumstances. I didn't ask to be born. My father and mother were playing around and fell into some mischievous activities. And as a result, I am here. Too bad. I am the victim of circumstances. And as long as you play it that way, OK, you are the victim of circumstances. That's the role you play. You play, I complain. And if you find yourself victimized, it's only because you don't have the guts to get up and fight it out. Or whatever technique you use, there are all kinds of them. Violent, non-violent, every kind of way. But you

[08:37]

are never really the victim, except by your own choice. And the game of life, you see, is a kind of, what do I call it, sort of a flip-flop of our consciousness. This way, this [...] way, like that, between thinking, I'm in control, I'm not in control. And that goes back, you see, that is based on the fundamental game of hide and seek. Now you see it, now you don't. That is the cosmos. That is the very nature of vibration. When you listen to sound or you feel feelings, everything is going on and off, on and off, on and off, on and off. And by that means of on and off, you know that it's here. If it's on all the time, you forget it. If it's off all the time, you forget it. But if it keeps repeating between the two, then you know it's happening. Here

[09:41]

we are. You sit next to a girl in the movies, and you put your hand on her knee. And if you leave it there, she forgets you're there. But if you pat her, she knows you're there and you're interested. So it's rhythm that always is at the basis of it. And so of course too, because of this rhythmic nature of things, you could say that politics is the art of sleeping on a hard bed. There is no final position. You sleep first on the left, and then on the right, and then on the tummy, which is center, and then on the back, which is sort of a bit different. And then you have to move to the left again, not to the right, because it all eventually gets uncomfortable. So there is no solution, in those terms. And

[10:47]

but the best solution is that people realize there isn't a solution. That makes them adaptable. That makes them sit loose to life. That makes them come of it. They don't get passionate about ideologies. Now this is one of the very serious problems, and here we have to consider the contribution of the thought of Confucius, as well as Lao Tzu, to politics. One may laugh a great deal about Confucius, because he is so smug and stuffy, and because Chinese Confucians were very, very sticky and puritanical, and so absorbed with literacy

[11:53]

that they didn't give sufficient study to nature. These are their worst sides. But they also had something very commendable. Confucianism is a theory of social order, which has proved itself amazingly enduring, for the reason that it never claimed to be more than a social convention. It didn't claim to be divinely authorized. Even though there were ceremonies, a Jesuit missionary, Matteo Ricci, instantly understood that he as a Roman Catholic could take part in Confucian ceremonies without compromising his religion. And he became a

[12:58]

Confucian dignitary. He wore the ceremonial robes and everything that went with being a Confucian, because he understood that Confucianism is not a religion, in the sense that Roman Catholicism claims to be a religion. To take part in a Confucian ceremony is exactly the same thing as, say for example, paying respect to the American flag is in this country. Although some of us now may have certain things to think about there. But the thing is that Matteo Ricci, going to China, saw that he could be a Confucian without in any way compromising his loyalty to the Pope, the Church, and the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Because

[14:01]

what Confucianism constitutes is a social ritual. A method of morality, of law, which does not invoke the divine authority for its truth. So you could say the Confucian idea of morals, of law, is purely conventional. But they know it. It's an agreement between human beings. And it is all based on a virtue called Run. The Chinese character is untranslatable. Some people have called it benevolence, but that's not right. The best translation is

[15:02]

human heartedness. But that means something that we can never put our finger on. When you say someone is really human, humane, you don't know what you mean, quite. Because you're one of them, you see, and you can never define yourself. That's part of the whole philosophy of Chinese thought. The recognition, there's a poem which said, it, which means the ultimate reality, is like an eye that sees but does not see itself, like a saw that cuts but does not cut itself. So you, as humane, you never really know, you can't make an objective statement about what humaneness is. And if you try to, you're going to lower yourself. Because you're going to say that something which I can define, which I can put my finger

[16:07]

on, that is me. So you see, in justice, there is a kind of judge who always gives his decision by the letter of the law. And he doesn't make a good judge. He's rigid, he's narrow. The finest judges are those who, as lawyers say in their own language, make decisions by equity instead of law. They have a feeling for, like saying, I'll come off it now, what is the, it doesn't matter what the books say, but what is the fair way to work this thing out? And a man who has that sort of sense makes for a great judge. So Confucius had the feeling that the quality called ren is exactly that kind of feeling of fair play, of humaneness.

[17:12]

And he, when his disciples questioned him and said, now exactly what do you mean by this? He said, I won't define it. You have to know it. And now in the descending order of virtues, which he also taught, there comes righteousness, propriety, filial piety, and so on. All lower in ranking than ren, humaneness, which he, as I say, he wouldn't define. So then, in this kind of thinking, Confucius is completely at one with Lao Tzu. Although Lao Tzu debates with him and says, heaven and earth are not humane. They regard human beings as straw dogs. That is to say, straw dogs are ritual dogs made out of straw, which

[18:23]

are sacrificed, burnt up in a certain ceremony. And so, in the Christian Hebrew language, which is said, God is no respecter of persons. When there's an earthquake, it makes no selection between the good guys and the bad guys, everybody gets demolished. In the storm at sea, everyone's equal. Lao Tzu argues against Confucius, or rather against Confucians, when they think they know what virtue is. Lao Tzu says, the highest kind of virtue is not virtue, and therefore really is virtue. The lower kind of virtue cannot get rid of the concept of being virtuous and therefore isn't virtue. Virtue in Taoist philosophy, the word dì in Chinese, means

[19:30]

not virtue in the sense of being goody-goody. When we use the word virtue in the sense of the healing virtues of a plant, almost magic, wonderful power. When you see an artist perform he would say, he's a virtuoso. You see, it means virtue in that sense. So, when you know, or think you know, what virtue is, and try to apply it, then you don't have it. Same way, Confucius wouldn't define the fundamental virtue. Because this is something you have only to the extent that you don't force it. The minute you start forcing it, everybody

[20:33]

detects that you're playing a false note. And they say, you're not coming on sincerely, you're forcing it. And they recognize your charity as phony charity. They recognize your love as phony love. So we get into this frightful double bind situation where people say to each other, do you really love me? And you can't answer that by saying, I'm trying very hard to. Either you do or you don't. And there's no way you can make it happen. You have to follow your feeling. So, therefore the Chinese have a philosophy of social and natural order that is quite different from ours. Because it is not based on the concept

[21:40]

of law. There isn't any word that the Chinese use for the order of nature that is the same as our word law. They do have a word in Chinese that corresponds to law in the way we generally use it. The word in Chinese, zi, shows when you go to the original pictograph, it shows a picture of a cauldron with a knife beside it. And I'll explain that in a moment. But the great Taoist philosophers speak of the Tao, of the course of nature, as being wu zi, that almost means illegal, not working by law. So go back now, what does this character

[22:49]

mean, the cauldron with a knife beside it? It means that in certain ancient times, some emperors, governors, carved the rules of the laws on the sacrificial iron cauldrons. So that when the people came to make the sacrifices, they would read the laws. And certain sages objected to the rulers doing this because they said, if you write the laws down, people will develop a litigious spirit. As Jesus said, woe unto you lawyers, because you're always eternally creating trouble by debating about the meaning of words. See, you can go on forever. Nobody can write a law so tight that a good lawyer can't ride through with a six horses and a carriage. So when it's said that there is no, when the Tao, the

[24:00]

way of nature, the order of nature is wu zi, it means that it's not formulated, or not formulable. Look at it in this way, let's consider various Chinese words that mean order. There is, for example, the word fa, which is used to translate the Sanskrit dharma, to mean the doctrine, principle of Buddhism. What does fa mean? It doesn't mean, people say that the doctrine of Buddha is the law. And H. P. Blavatsky, who promoted the whole theosophical movement, which had incalculable effects on western understandings of Buddhism, used the idea of law, and said that the ultimate reality is not a god, either personal or

[25:06]

impersonal, but absolute, immutable law. Now this is nonsense. There is not that idea of law in Asian thought. As something laid down, as if, you know, life had to move on tracks that are previously established. There was a young man who said, damn, for it certainly seems that I am a creature that moves in determinate grooves, I'm not even a bus, I'm a tram. Thinking, you see, of nature as a process of behavior which obeys rules, goes back to the ancient Chaldean model of the universe, which has moved into Hebrew, Persian, and therefore western thinking, Egyptian thinking, that the universe obeys the will of a commander.

[26:14]

The Chinese never thought that way. Even the emperor moves in accordance with, not the laws of heaven, but the principles, the motions, the spontaneous, because when you say, in Chinese, that something is so heaven, there's this way of writing, tian lan, heaven so. It means the same thing, exactly, as if you can put into a position of the character of heaven, the character of itself. What happens of itself, what happens spontaneously. So the idea of order is what happens of itself. Because you grow your hair without making

[27:25]

plans to do so. It happens of itself. And you have eyes without making plans. It happens of itself. And you do it beautifully. Wowee. So they feel, you see, that all things that happen, happen excellently to the extent that they are trusted to happen. And not interfered with. There's a story, you know, about a young man that came in late one evening on the farm. And they said, why are you late for dinner? And he said, well, I've been helping the millet to grow. And in the morning they went out and they found that all the millet was dead. Because what he had done, he had gone out and he had taken each little

[28:27]

fresh shoot and pulled it up a bit, slightly, all over the field, see, helped it to grow. Technology. So, in Chinese way of thinking then, you have words for law, order and so on that are quite different in meaning from ours. Let's take a number of these words just for illustration. The word fa, which translates the Sanskrit dharma, the way of Buddhism, has the original meaning of a water level. Establishing something by the level of water. Balance. This has really

[29:35]

nothing to do with law in the sense of somebody sitting and saying, God damn it, you do what I tell you and if you don't I'll hit you. It is balance in the sense of, look, there is a state of affairs, there are certain conditions of life, they're not rules. It isn't like life because there is gravity, for example, and if you jump off a building you'll fall down and hit yourself. It's not a rule that somebody imposes and says, it's not a rule imposed in a violent spirit. Gravity is just the way things go. So, that's the meaning of fa, you see. The water level. It's just the way things go. There's no spite about it, there's no pride about it, there's nobody going to be offended if you disobey it, except yourself. It's just understanding the grain of things. So, going from the idea

[30:42]

from fa, the water level, to the idea of grain, you get the next word they use, which is li. And the word li, meaning the organic pattern of the universe, has the original sense of the markings in jade, or the pattern of fiber in muscle, or grain in wood. And you look at these patterns, you see the markings in jade, and you say, gee, isn't that beautiful? But it's not symmetrical. It's like the pattern of a cloud, and you know that the way a cloud is organized, or the way foam in water is organized, is something that's not a mess. Now, how do you put your finger on the difference between a mess, say a filthy ashtray, or a bunch of dirty dishes with food scattered all over it? How do you make a difference between

[31:44]

that kind of pattern, and the pattern of foam? You scratch your head and you say, gee, I don't know. I just can't put my finger on it. There certainly is a recognizable difference, but I don't know what it is. And nobody ever will know. Because if you did know the difference, you wouldn't appreciate the difference. Because it's the same problem as you can't put your finger on yourself. If you could, you'd be an object, and you'd be dead. You see? But just because there's something that you never can pin down, there's always this sort of wonderful, undefined, gorgeous thing that we'll call Lee, the organic pattern of the world. So then, the symbol idea run in Confucian thinking, meaning humaneness or human-heartedness,

[33:00]

is called the Tao of Man. The other symbol, Lee, meaning organic pattern, can be called the Tao of Heaven, which means of the universe at large. And in each case, you see, the Tao, the very first line of Lao Tzu's book says, the Tao which can be spoken, which can be defined, in other words, is not the eternal Tao. So in the same way, the law which can be explicitly stated, is not a just law. Because then you always, what always happens

[34:04]

when you've got the law most explicitly stated, is you run into bureaucracy. You run into some wretched official who says, well it says here in the rules that we can't do it this way. I'm sorry, we just have to abide by the rules. And you say, could I please speak to a person instead of a book? Haven't you someone, an authority above you? I have a thing going on with a telephone company at the moment, that I have an answering service, and they have to list this answering service number in San Rafael, where I don't live. And I say, can't you put my sofrito address next to this San Rafael number? They say, no, our regulations don't allow this. Why not? Well they just don't. So I have to write to the Public Service Commission, to the chairman of the Pacific Telephone Company, and deride them for their

[35:08]

irrationality before anything will happen. Because it says this way in the book. You are stuck with it. So this comes back to our eternal perennial problem of trying to work out a relationship between life and words. And words are the tools, the instruments, for a way of understanding life, which is what we call conscious attention, and takes

[36:13]

it in bit by bit. And in order to remember and keep track of these little grasps of comprehension, we use words to tag and file our experiences. Therefore, laws, therefore rules, therefore records, therefore IBM machines, computers, all these things for keeping track of life. In terms of scanning, where I look at things this way, one by one, bit by bit, bit by bit,

[37:18]

put it all together, see? Every kind of legal, academic, intellectual comprehension of life is based on scanning. Let me spell it out. Say, I don't understand how to dance. Draw me a diagram. They say, well, when you want to waltz, it's like this. You put your feet in this position, you go one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three. But other people, when they learn to dance, they don't learn to dance, they don't take any lesson, they just do it. And if they become accomplished at it, they become artists, it's not through a process of analyzing the details, but practicing the feel of it. But so many people say, how

[38:26]

do you do it? Show me, how do you fly a plane? How do you ride a bicycle? Could you give me a book about it? And the thing is, yes, we can write a book about it. We can reduce this process to an analytical, one-by-one, step-by-step way of doing a thing. But you don't really understand it that way. You get it because you have a capacity for learning in you, which can work and function without having anything explained to it. And if you don't have faith in that capacity, you can never learn anything. That's why the psychologists

[39:31]

have never really come up with a satisfactory theory of learning. They're always debating endlessly about, how does one learn anything at all? And they never come up with a satisfactory explanation, because we don't know. And we don't know for exactly the same reason, going back to this central principle, that the finger can't touch the finger. You could say then, that life is an act of faith. Faith, which means letting go, and being here, are exactly the same thing. And to the degree that you can't do that, you can't make faith, to the same degree you are in the act of committing suicide. Because the one thing about death,

[40:40]

you know, we say there are two things in life that are certain, death and taxes. And if you want to be absolutely sure about something, you know, you don't want any more uncertainty, shoot yourself. Because that's the way of pinning yourself down. You're really fastened on the wall, you're packed up, crucified. You say, oh I have faith in that man, look, he's packed up. Well, we're going to take it in. You've been listening to Alan Watts with Part 3 from a seminar entitled, The Future of Politics. If you'd like to hear this lecture again on an audio cassette, or perhaps play it for a friend, you can get an audio cassette of two minutes.

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