The north wind and the sun

It's long been noticed in the art of strategy and of life that sometimes the more we try to push something, the more others want to resist it. And that overly aggressive actions tend to backfire and/or have unintended consequences.Several of the "soft" martial arts are based on that understanding.

Last night as I was driving home at the end of a long day I started listening to Aesop's Fables courtesy of my local library. One that stuck in my mind was the fable of the north wind and the sun.

Here's an older translation:

THE WIND and the Sun were disputing which was the stronger. Suddenly they saw a traveler coming down the road, and the Sun said: “I see a way to decide our dispute. Whichever of us can cause that traveler to take off his cloak shall be regarded as the stronger You begin.” So the Sun retired behind a cloud, and the Wind began to blow as hard as it could upon the traveler. But the harder he blew the more closely did the traveler wrap his cloak round him, till at last the Wind had to give up in despair. Then the Sun came out and shone in all his glory upon the traveler, who soon found it too hot to walk with his cloak on.

         “KINDNESS EFFECTS MORE THAN SEVERITY.”

You could also say the moral was that persuasion works better than compulsion.Or that unskillful actions and arguments can make others cling even harder to problematic behaviors and beliefs. 

The Tao Te Ching, the ancient Chinese classic of philosophical Taoism advocates wu wei or non-action as opposed to aggressive action. It doesn't mean doing nothing but it does mean acting in ways that are timely and appropriate rather than forced. Think sun versus wind.

“Tao abides in non-action.  Yet nothing is left undone” 

“He who acts defeats his own purpose;  He who grasps loses.  The sage does not act, and so is not defeated.  He does not grasp and therefore does not lose” 

Take it from Aesop or from Lao Tzu, any way you look at it, that one has a lot of applications.

Of drownings and shoestrings

El Cabrero has long been intrigued by the Taoist idea of wu-wei, which is usually translated as "non-action." It doesn't mean not doing anything but is more like doing what is timely and appropriate when conditions are right without a lot of hoopla or wasted energy.

My guess is that this is something the world's most effective people have always known, even if they didn't think about it in exactly those terms.

I think Henry David Thoreau came up with one of the best expressions of that concept in Walden. It's pretty short and sweet:

Rescue the drowning and tie your shoestrings.

SPEAKING OF RESCUING THE DROWNING, the White House has called on the Senate to extend COBRA benefits so that jobless workers can afford insurance and urged an extension of fiscal aid to states via the federal Medicaid match. These issues may be up for a vote this week. Last week I urged people contact their senators to support these steps. If you haven't done so yet, this would be the time.

WHACKADOODLE FEARS. Here are 10 things that people on the far right are scared of.

A RARE EVENT. It doesn't happen at this blog very often, but I found this op-ed by Thomas Friedman to be worth a link.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

ACTIVISM OR NON ACTION

Caption: Feline Taoist sage Seamus McGoogle has mastered the art of non action.

El Cabrero was lucky to stumble upon his first copy of the Tao Te Ching as a teenager. I can't seem to keep a copy of it as I keep giving it away.

That ancient classic of Chinese philosophy is the guiding thread through this week's Goat Rope. If you haven't already, please click on the earlier entries.

Ever since starting to try to soak up that little book, I've always cringed when called an activist. From the Taoist point of view, that's a bad thing (see yesterday).

Briefly, Lao Tzu taught that aggressive action usually leads to resistance and unintended consequences. Instead, he called for non action (wu wei). Non action doesn't mean not doing anything, although it might if there's nothing better to do, but it does mean doing nothing that isn't timely and appropriate.

The best example I can think of comes from martial arts, where you often fail if you try to force a technique but can easily succeed if you wait for the proper opening. Too often, we're busy but not getting anything done and wasting energy. As they used to say in judo class, "If you're trying too hard, you're not doing it right."

In practice this may mean focusing on prevention rather than intervention, looking for the solution within the problem itself, or working with rather than against the grain of the situation.

Tao abides in non-action.
Yet nothing is left undone...

He who acts defeats his own purpose;
He who grasps loses.
The sage does not act, and so is not defeated.
He does not grasp and therefore does not lose.

The style of work advocated does not resemble chanting slogans from the barricades (although at rare times it might); at its best, it is often invisible. Non action can also mean waiting until there is an opportunity for effective intervention. As the eminent philosopher Tom Petty noted, the waiting is the hardest part. Lao Tzu asks,

Who can wait while the mud settles?
Who can remain still until the moment of action?

MORE ON SAGO. According to the new federal report on the Sago mine disaster, lightning may have set off the chain of events, but other precautions could have prevented or reduced the severity of the incident. Here's Ken Ward from today's Gazette.

LIVING WAGE FOR MARYLAND. This week Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley signed that state's new living wage law, which sets a baseline of pay for government service contractors. Here's more from the AFLCIO blog. A number of local governments have passed living wage ordinances, but Maryland is the first state to do so and could set the example for others to follow.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED