CHAPTER 74 – QUESTIONING CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

Chapter 74 – Questioning Capital Punishment

 

When the people are not afraid of death,
wherefore frighten them with death?
Were the people always afraid of death, and were I able to arrest and put to death those who innovate, then who would dare?
There is a regular executioner whose charge it is to kill.
To kill on behalf of the executioner is what is described as chopping wood on behalf of the master carpenter.
In chopping wood on behalf of the master carpenter,
 there are few who escape hurting their own hands instead.  Translated by D. C. Lau (1963)
The people are not afraid of death.
Why, then, threaten them with death?
Suppose the people are always afraid of death and we can seize those who are vicious and kill them, Who would dare to do so?
There is always the master executioner (Heaven) who kills.
To undertake executions for the master executioner is like hewing wood for the master carpenter. Whoever undertakes hewing wood for the master carpenter
rarely escapes injuring his own hands.   Translated by Wing-Tsit Chan (1963)

 

business man shrugTo me, this is one of those chapters that leaves a reader with more questions than answers.  If we consider some of those questions, perhaps a bit of understanding will emerge.

Q. Who are these people mentioned in the first two lines who are not afraid of death?

In the previous chapter, the sage considered the daring brave who often end up dead. This could be a continuation of that discussion, but I think not.  Those who are sufficiently oblivious to death to be considered brave, swashbuckling heroes usually make up a small minority of any social group.

The people who are mentioned could be those who believe in reincarnation or in an everlasting Paradise following their time in this world.  However, those concepts have not been discussed up to this point in the Tao Te Ching.

I believe that to make sense of the first two lines, it is necessary to look ahead to Chapter 75.  I had thought it might be good to discuss that chapter with this one, but have decided to look at each separately.  For now, let us simply consider that one reading of Chapter 75 says that a government that is overly zealous in taxing and controlling the people can push them to the point where they do not care if they live or they die.

In Witter Bynner’s translation, he reverses what are normally Chapters 74 and 75, so the chapter we are here considering as Chapter 74, is Chapter 75 for Bynner; and this Chapter 74 comes after he states that “men who have to fight for their living . . . are not afraid to die for it.”

Q.  Who is writing this chapter?

That is a reasonable question.  The next lines Lau translates: “Were the people always afraid of death and I were able to arrest and put to death those who innovate”; and Chan:  “Suppose the people were always afraid of death and we can seize those who are vicious and kill them.”  It makes a person wonder who is speaking.  Is Lao Tzu now the fastest gun west of the Yangtze and ready to form a posse to bring scofflaws to justice?  That doesn’t sound like anything the Old Master has said up to this point.

However, it does sound to me like something the later legalists would say.  I mentioned the legalist philosophy and Han Fei Tzu back in the discussion of Chapter 50.  Han Fei Tzu was a student of a neo-Confucianist known as Hsun Tzu.  Another of Hsun Tzu’s students, who became an important minister and strong proponent of legalism was Li Ssu, who is said to have written:  “Only an intelligent ruler is capable of applying heavy punishments to light offenses.  If light offenses carry heavy punishments, one can imagine what will be done against a serious offense.  Thus the people will not dare to break the laws.”

The ideas taught by Hsun Tzu and implemented by the legalists were based on the belief that the nature of man is evil, so man’s actions must be controlled by effective and severe punishment.  Such was not the traditional Confucian belief (which traditional belief was more nearly espoused by Mencius at about the same time as Hsun Tzu was teaching).  Since Lao Tzu had probably been deceased for a couple of centuries before the legalism of Han Fei Tzu and Li Ssu, it again seems possible that at least the first part of this chapter was written by someone other than Lao Tzu.

I have tried to find a true Taoist scholar whose research might support this conjecture on my part, but so far I have found none.  For now, it’s my story and I am kind of sticking to it for this essay.

Q. This chapter also talks about daring. Whose daring is being considered?

 The two translations set out above are very similar in almost all aspects except, perhaps, one.  I say “perhaps” because there is again a question of interpretation.  Lau says:  “. . . if I were able to arrest and put to death those who innovate, then who would dare?”  This sounds like the legalist approach mentioned above.  Harsh penalties serve to restrain any thought of illegal or rebellious action.

Chan, though, says:  “Suppose . . . we can seize those who are vicious and kill them, who would dare to do so?”  That translation sounds like the consideration is not of who would dare to break the law, but of who would dare to seize and kill the criminal.

Q.  How do the remaining lines of this chapter fit into what was said at the beginning?

 The remainder of the chapter seems more like the sage we have been following for the past 73 chapters.  We are told that there is a “master executioner,” which is not a human being, but is that aspect of Tao that is called “Heaven” or “Nature.”  Everything that has life in this world eventually experiences death to the world.  That is the natural flow.

We are also told about the “master carpenter.”  Again, that seems to be Tao.  The image of Tao as an “uncarved block” has been used many times.  It is the Natural way for Tao to hew that block to bring the 10,000 things into their existence.  For a human being to start slashing away at the block by causing an unnatural death of another is contrary to the Natural way – and we should all know what happens when someone starts messing with Mother Nature.

Recall that “Vengeance is mine, says the Lord” and “He who lives by the sword dies by the sword.”  Think, too, of global warming and genetically modified Frankenfood and acid rain.  All of that is jumping centuries ahead.  Suffice it to say here that this chapter ultimately counsels, as have others, that we humans should try to avoid violence and follow the course of Nature.

Q.  Is any of this relevant to the modern world?

As a matter of fact, yes it is.  One can see the first part of the chapter as a consideration of political approaches to the efficacy of capital punishment, while the latter part might be considered more an ethical or religious approach.  The difference between those two was illustrated very recently in a debate between the two major candidates in the 2014 election for Governor of Colorado, John Hickenlooper and Bob Beauprez.

In 1993, Nathan Dunlap, a man who had been fired from his job at a Denver restaurant, hid in a restroom until after closing and then shot and killed four of his former co-workers and injured another.  It took 20 years for the case to work its way through the complete maze of the judicial system, but Dunlap, who had been sentenced to death, was finally supposed to be executed in 2013.  Governor Hickenlooper intervened, and ordered an indefinite temporary stay.  Hickenlooper said that he had learned that it had not come out at trial that Dunlap suffered from a mental disability, a kind of bipolar disorder,

In a debate during the gubernatorial campaign, Beauprez – who is a staunch pro-life, anti-abortion, anti-euthanasia Roman Catholic Republican (who, by the way, does not think that global warming is caused by humans) – challenged Hickenlooper on that decision and stated that if he is elected Governor, he will order Dunlap’s execution.

Hickenlooper responded that many groups, including the Catholic Church, oppose the death penalty.  That led Beauprez to indignantly say, “I hope you didn’t question my Catholicity, because I am quite Catholic.”

Hickenlooper explained, “ I’m not a Catholic, and I certainly would never challenge your Catholicism, but [former Denver] Archbishop Chaput and I became very close friends over a variety of issues, and he was the one who first pointed out to me and walked me through the entire New Testament.  There’s no place for ‘an eye for an eye’; the entire New Testament is about forgiveness.”

Beauprez said he had reconciled his position with the archbishop.  His position seems to be that Colorado law includes the death penalty, so it should be enforced.

Again, it is the politics versus the ethics.

Q.  While you are getting carried away here, are there any other current election issues you believe need to be discussed?

Don’t even get me started.

Q.  Is it necessary to consider this chapter only in terms of capital punishment?

No.  Look at Wayne Dyer’s modern interpretation.  He renders (not translates) this chapter as follows:

“If you realize that all things change,
There is nothing you will try to hold onto.
If you aren’t afraid of dying, there is nothing you can’t achieve.
Trying to control the future is like trying to take the master carpenter’s place.
When you handle the master carpenter’s tools,
Chances are you will cut yourself.”

8 thoughts on “CHAPTER 74 – QUESTIONING CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

  1. Inevitable PS:
    The story of the 47 Ronin has been co-opted by wealth to be a tale about the virtue of loyalty to a master, whereas it is really about loyalty to virtue, and ideals. There’s a difference there which guys like Stapleton tend to miss. It’s a blindness created by devotion to wealth and power.

    • With respect to the 47 Ronin, I would like to refer again to Nitobe’s book, which was written less than half a century after Commodore Perry’s visit to open trade between Japan and the West. He says:

      Those who are well acquainted with our history will remember that only a few years after our treaty ports were opened to foreign trade, feudalism was abolished, and when with it the samurai’s fiefs were taken and bonds issued to them in compensation, they were given liberty to invest them in mercantile transactions. Now you may ask, “Why could they not bring their much boasted veracity into their new business relations and so reform the old abuses?” Those who had eyes to see could not weep enough, those who had hearts to feel could not sympathize enough, with the fate of many a noble and honest samurai who signally and irrevocably failed in his new and unfamiliar field of trade and industry, through sheer lack of shrewdness in coping with his artful plebeian rival. When we know that eighty per cent. of the business houses fail in so industrial a country as America, is it any wonder that scarcely one among a hundred samurai who went into trade could succeed in his new vocation? It will be long before it will be recognized how many fortunes were wrecked in the attempt to apply Bushido ethics to business methods; but it was soon patent to every observing mind that the ways of wealth were not the ways of honor. In what respects, then, were they different?

      “Of the three incentives to Veracity that Lecky enumerates, viz: the industrial, the political, and the philosophical, the first was altogether lacking in Bushido. As to the second, it could develop little in a political community under a feudal system. It is in its philosophical, and as Lecky says, in its highest aspect, that Honesty attained elevated rank in our catalogue of virtues. With all my sincere regard for the high commercial integrity of the Anglo-Saxon race, when I ask for the ultimate ground, I am told that “Honesty is the best policy,” that it pays to be honest. Is not this virtue, then, its own reward? If it is followed because it brings in more cash than falsehood, I am afraid Bushido would rather indulge in lies!

      “If Bushido rejects a doctrine of quid pro quo rewards, the shrewder tradesman will readily accept it. Lecky has very truly remarked that Veracity owes its growth largely to commerce and manufacture; as Nietzsche puts it, “Honesty is the youngest of virtues”—in other words, it is the foster-child of industry, of modern industry. Without this mother, Veracity was like a blue-blood orphan whom only the most cultivated mind could adopt and nourish. Such minds were general among the samurai, but, for want of a more democratic and utilitarian foster-mother, the tender child failed to thrive. Industries advancing, Veracity will prove an easy, nay, a profitable, virtue to practice. Just think, as late as November 1880, Bismarck sent a circular to the professional consuls of the German Empire, warning them of “a lamentable lack of reliability with regard to German shipments inter alia, apparent both as to quality and quantity;” now-a-days we hear comparatively little of German carelessness and dishonesty in trade. In twenty years her merchants learned that in the end honesty pays. Already our merchants are finding that out. For the rest I recommend the reader to two recent writers for well-weighed judgment on this point.[15] It is interesting to remark in this connection that integrity and honor were the surest guaranties which even a merchant debtor could present in the form of promissory notes. It was quite a usual thing to insert such clauses as these: “In default of the repayment of the sum lent to me, I shall say nothing against being ridiculed in public;” or, “In case I fail to pay you back, you may call me a fool,” and the like.”

      And with respect to Mr. Stapleton, I have already sent in my mail-in ballot, and I did not vote for him. Perhaps I will “Like” him on Facebook to make up for that.

      Do you have to have a Facebook account to “Like” someone? If that is necessary, I’m afraid I can’t even do that for him.

      • That’s a good observation by Nitobe. It sounds to me as though the quid pro quo “honesty” of the merchant has more to do with the small locality of personal agreements about merchandise – its quality, quantity, timeliness of delivery, cost, etc. – than it does with true honesty, which is present everywhere in the Tao and compromised only by the free will of individuals who may choose to twist its nature for selfish purposes.

        The merchant embraces only so much honesty as is necessary to effect the self-serving aim of the transaction, and embraces it only as a tool of mutual assurance required by conditions of the moment. It is a tool easily picked up and then put down again. As Nitobe observed, this sort of casual and intermittent form of honesty was alien to the samurai, who held honesty to be an intrinsic manifestation of virtue and sought to incorporate it wholly into thought and speech and action. As Nitobe observes:

        “…many a noble and honest samurai… signally and irrevocably failed in his new and unfamiliar field of trade and industry, through sheer lack of shrewdness in coping with his artful plebeian rival.”

        As we know too well, artfulness and shrewdness at managing to appear honest is not the same as being honest. Lack of honesty is a root and creator of self-centered illusion. When lack of honesty is honestly confronted and owned and recognized – bit of a catch-22 there, which is only circumvented when the individual chooses to choose again and be open to a different viewpoint – the curtain of illusion fades and behind it we behold the truth of honesty.

        It’s the high season for political fashion now, and everywhere the media runways are jam-packed with candidates wearing their shrewd and artful costumes. The quid pro quo there is despairingly superficial: “I will wear this, and you will vote for me.”

        It amazes me that the people, voting for a momentary appearance, often never realize that it is the appearance of a moment, and will continue to carry in their minds the illusion foisted upon them even after the future actions of their partner in political business reveal that it was just a single transaction, with no agreement or guarantee of future performance.

        The sage counsels us to let the people live and do as they will, and to be calm and wait until our way is revealed to us naturally. Then we act, then we speak.

        If the Emperor has no clothes we naturally offer that perspective up just as the child in the parable did. And perhaps, as Terry Pratchett observed, depending on how much one knows, or is willing to know, or is willing to not know and instead think of in terms of fear;

        “…it would be The Story of The Boy Who Got A Well-Deserved Thrashing From His Dad For Being Rude To Royalty, And Was Locked Up. Or the Story Of The Whole Crowed That Was Rounded Up By The Guards And Told “This Didn’t Happen, Okay? Does Anyone Want To Argue?”

        These days I vote hoping for the best and preparing for the worst. And if a candidate is patently and obviously naked beyond the thin idea of the raiment they have created out of whipped air for the moment, then I will say so.

        And if I am thrashed and sent into the exile of my own room or the dungeon I will still be the same child, growling defiantly that “…the danged idiot DIDN’T have any clothes on, and I COULD see his business, and that big old lifted 4×4 truck with the hemi engine he was riding in and waving from didn’t make it look any bigger at all!”

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