VOLUME III, SEMESTER 3, CHAPTER 29, SECTION 2

VOLUME III, SEMESTER 3, CHAPTER 29, SECTION 2

Make the divide clear to form the group, Xunzi set the divide as a root

The last section, Mozi buttoned labor and position together, but he left one knot: the divide between man and man, on what ground is it set. This section calls Xunzi. This man spent a whole life thinking on one thing: man is so weak, on what ground can he live as the most forceful group under heaven. The answer he thought out is one word only, the divide.

One, Xunzi first asked a question at the very root

The question Xunzi asked is fierce, and it is at the root. He asked: on what ground man.

Man runs not so fast as the horse, and his force is not the ox’s. One ox can pull what a man cannot pull, one horse can run where a man cannot run. Taken as a single frame, man among these running beasts is a weak one. Yet just this weak man turns and pens the ox and the horse for his use, turns and becomes the group whose word settles all under heaven. Why is this. Xunzi set this question to the center of the table. Man’s force is not the ox’s, his running is not the horse’s, yet the ox and the horse are put to his use, why is this. He says: man can form a group, and they cannot form a group. So runs the line in the Xunzi, the Regulations of a King.

Put it plain. His force is not the ox’s, his running is not the horse’s, yet the ox and the horse are put to his use, why is this. Xunzi answers himself: man can form a group, the ox and the horse cannot form a group. Xunzi set the whole force of man onto one word: the group. That man can gather into one body, this is the root by which man passes over every running beast.

Two, but a group does not gather itself

Xunzi did not stop at the word group. He chased one step further, and this step matters most. He asked: on what ground can man form a group. On what ground can so many men gather into one body, and not fight into one heap.

Think. A crowd of men pressed together, each wanting one more mouthful, each wanting to spend one share less of force, each wanting the good place. Such a crowd pressed together, before they gather into a body, they fight first. Grabbing at things, contesting the places, none yielding to another, and at the last they scatter in a rout, or they wound both sides. Gather the men together alone, and it gathers no force, it gathers only a brawl.

So Xunzi says, for the group to come off, it leans on one thing. This thing is the divide. On what ground can man form a group. He says, the divide. One word. The divide is the parting of the work, each man his own position, each doing the thing he ought to do, each getting the share he ought to get. So runs the line in the Xunzi. You till the field, he beats the iron, I weave the cloth. You mind this stretch, he minds that. The positions parted, the matters parted, the shares parted, and only then does this crowd of men not brawl, only then do they gather into a body. The divide is the bone of the group. Without this bone, the group is a heap of loose sand.

Three, make the divide clear to form the group, four words strung into one chain

String this run of Xunzi’s thinking together, and it is these four words: make the divide clear to form the group.

Make the divide clear, tell the divide out clear, set every man’s position, his charge, the share he ought to get, out one by one and plain. To form the group, only so can a crowd of men truly gather into a group, into a body, and send out force. Four words, a chain of cause and effect: first the divide told out plain, then the group gathered into a body, then the force by which man passes over the ox and the horse and becomes the most forceful under heaven.

Set this line of Xunzi’s against distribution by labor. What is distribution by labor. It is to weigh every man’s labor clear, then by this labor, divide him the share he ought to get. Is this not making the divide clear. To tell the divide out plain, to reckon to each man what is his. Xunzi says, only with the divide made clear can the group be formed. Turned into today’s speech: reckon clear each man’s share, and only then can this crowd of men do things well together, and only then can they do the thing large.

Turn it about. What if the divide is not clear. The one with labor did not get, the one without labor took for free, the able pressed down, the placeholder brings nothing off. So then, who will still do the work well. The group scatters. So this line of Xunzi’s set a root, the deepest root, under distribution by labor: to reckon clear each man’s share is not to count small over small, it is to let this crowd of men gather and hold, long and long.

Four, Xunzi went one layer deeper than Mozi

Set Xunzi and Mozi side by side, and you see the layer Xunzi drove down into.

Mozi says, the position must be divided by ability, have the ability and be raised, lack it and be set down. Mozi settled what the divide should go by. Xunzi asked one line further down: the divide itself, why must it be. Xunzi’s answer: because without the divide there is no group, and without the group man cannot live. He took this matter of the divide, from a question of how to arrange it fair, into a question of on what ground man can go on living.

This layer is driven deep. It says, distribution by labor is not a good institution some clever man thought up, not one arrangement you may take or leave. It is a thing man cannot go around, if he would gather into a body and live. You want a crowd of men to do things together, you must reckon the shares clear. The shares not clear, and this crowd scatters. The men once scattered, back they go to that weak plight, running slower than the horse, weaker than the ox.

So with Xunzi, the divide is not a means, the divide is the root of life. This layer goes one deeper than Mozi. Mozi tells us how the divide should be divided to be fair, Xunzi tells us why the divide must be at all, else man cannot live.

Five, walk near a great flood, the divide made clear and a whole village lived

Walk near one plain thing, and see how the divide saves men.

Picture a village by a river, and the flood comes. The water arrives, and the whole village is thrown into one tangle. At this moment, to shout every man onto the dyke is of no use, that is a gathering, not a group, a heap of men with their wits gone pressed together, you knock me and I knock you, and it botches the thing instead.

But if someone sets the divide up: the strong of body to haul the sandbags, the quick of hand to pass them along, the aged and seasoned to watch the water level and take the call, the women and children to boil the water and cook, to see to the old and the weak. One word given, and each to his post. This village, all at once, turns from a heap of men in a panic, into a team that can wrestle with the flood. The same batch of men, when the divide is not clear, are a heap of loose sand. The divide made clear, and they are a group, and they have force.

This is Xunzi’s four words, make the divide clear to form the group, landed on the ground. The divide is never to part men from one another. The divide is to let men truly join. This village by the river lived by the divide. And once the divide is set up, the one hauling sandbags, the one passing them, the one taking the call, the one cooking, each share of force each puts out, each kept, each counted, this is by labor. The divide and by labor have always been the two faces of one thing.

Six, what this section set, crossing to the next

Good. This section called Xunzi, and set up his four words, make the divide clear to form the group, layer by layer.

Xunzi first asked on what ground man passes over the ox and the horse, and the answer is the group. He asked again on what ground man can form a group, and the answer is the divide. The divide made clear, and only then the group formed, and only then the force. He took this matter of the divide, from a question of arranging it fair or not, and drove it down into a question of on what ground man can live. The divide is not a means, the divide is the root of life. And distribution by labor is just this divide landed on money and share: to reckon clear each man’s due is to let this crowd of men gather and hold, long and long.

Mozi set the button of labor and position, Xunzi set the root of the divide. But hidden here is a thing most easily mistaken, most easily used. The divide, could it be divided too unlevel. Some more, some less, to what degree does trouble start. There is an old line among the people, the trouble is not scarcity but uneven share. Is this line saying the more level the better. The next section calls Confucius, to look at that line read wrong by countless men, at what in the end it means.

Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.

Section 3, The trouble is not scarcity but uneven share, that line of Confucius read wrong