{"id":12472,"date":"2007-04-26T20:20:48","date_gmt":"2007-04-27T03:20:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2007\/04\/26\/taoism-in-the-service-of-the-state-sam-crane\/"},"modified":"2009-03-07T23:39:57","modified_gmt":"2009-03-08T06:39:57","slug":"taoism-in-the-service-of-the-state-sam-crane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2007\/04\/taoism-in-the-service-of-the-state-sam-crane\/","title":{"rendered":"Taoism in the Service of the State – Sam Crane"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nThe author of The Useless Tree<\/a> wrote a commentary post about the Xinhua news on “China to build harmonious society with wisdom of Taoism:<\/a>”\n<\/p>\n

\nMaybe the Party is making a big mistake. By bringing Taoism into the political discourse they are opening the way (Way?) for all sorts of ideas that push against authoritarian power. How about passage 75 of the Tao Te Ching:\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

\nThe people are starving,
\n
and it’s only because you leaders feast on taxes
\n
that they’re starving.<\/p>\n

The people are impossible to rule,
\n
and its only because you leaders are masters of extenuation
\n
that they’re impossible to rule.<\/p>\n

The people take death lightly
\n
and it’s only because you leaders crave life’s lavish pleasures
\n
that they take death lightly,<\/p>\n

they who act without concern for life:
\n
it’s a wisdom far beyond treasuring life.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nDo they really want people running around reciting such lines? [Full Text]<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The author of The Useless Tree wrote a commentary post about the Xinhua news on “China to build harmonious society with wisdom of Taoism:” Maybe the Party is making a big mistake. By bringing Taoism into the political discourse they are opening the way (Way?) for all sorts of ideas that push against authoritarian power. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[2160],"class_list":["post-12472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cdt-highlights","tag-taoism","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\nTaoism in the Service of the State - Sam Crane<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2007\/04\/taoism-in-the-service-of-the-state-sam-crane\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Taoism in the Service of the State - Sam Crane\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The author of The Useless Tree wrote a commentary post about the Xinhua news on “China to build harmonious society with wisdom of Taoism:” Maybe the Party is making a big mistake. 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