The Virtue of Non-Benevolence

Laozi, an important philosopher of the Spring and Autumn period, often sought to translate the operating principles of the universe into practical wisdom for the human world. A passage in Chapter Five of his Daode jing has often drawn criticism:

“Heaven and Earth are not benevolent; they treat the myriad things as straw dogs. The sage is not benevolent; he treats the people as straw dogs.”

Many who know little of Daoist philosophy read this passage as cold-heartedness toward life, but its real meaning is that Heaven and Earth have no partial love or hatred and treat all things equally. The sage as ruler should imitate Heaven and Earth, refrain from bestowing favors and blessings from on high, know how to delegate and to yield, and allow all things to grow according to their own nature.

Ren仁 (benevolence) is a central concept in Chinese philosophy, and the Confucian tradition has built almost its entire philosophical framework around it. Laozi, however, acutely points out that benevolence and evil conduct often share the same axis, and both assume that superiors possess an innate power to dominate those beneath them. The momentary preferences or aversions of superiors can often become mainstream social values. The limited nature of such values means that rewards and punishments meted out by their measure do not necessarily produce positive results.

Turning the pages of history, one readily finds how governance carried out in the name of “benevolence” can violate its original purpose and turn into its opposite. The “benevolence” of superiors is cloaked in legitimacy and filled with the arrogance of self-assured correctness, as they carve and mold all things according to their own will. As circumstances change, the beautiful utopian blueprint collapses, and only then do people perceive that “benevolence” has been a shackle. Intervention in and guidance of others or society are necessary for maintaining the current order and consolidating group consensus, but the relativity of value judgments makes us aware that such intervention has boundaries and must be continually adjusted as reality changes. Once a value judgment about good and evil solidifies into an absolute dogma of a society, its protection of all beings may turn into oppression and harm.

Today we seem increasingly to lack the opportunity and the power to “be our own masters.” In an environment of excessive regulation, excessive judgment, and excessive intervention, family, institutions and society have already planned our entire lives for us. Once we fail to meet the established plan, these “masters” punish us with a fall in fortune. Yet are such regulation and guidance truly beyond reproach? Managers’ intervention in every detail can stifle an organization’s own innovative potential. Parents’ lifelong planning in the name of love prevents children from discerning their inner desires, let alone becoming their ideal selves. All-encompassing algorithms, in the name of “for your own good,” are carrying out the most refined form of control over the whole population. Each self-styled “benevolent” subject is imposing excessive interference, even suppression on others. Ultimately, a “tyranny” exercised with pure and noble goodwill inevitably obscures sensitivity to individual differences, erases the varied natures of different lives, and blocks the spontaneous emergence of creativity. The depression and anxiety of countless individuals become a bitter fruit that must be tasted.

For people today, the lesson of Laozi’s “Heaven and Earth are not benevolent” is not to let people indulge without restraint or to deny morality and goodness, but to keep us humble and tolerant, respect the rhythms and natures of all things, reduce the display of arbitrary power, and restrain the impulse to intervene rashly. The true virtue of superiors in various social systems is not to gratify their own loves and hatreds by inducing others through favors and threats, but to give all things time and space to grow on their own, so that each may fulfill its own nature and appreciate its own beauty. This is the “virtue” of the Great Dao that transcends worldly “benevolence.”