VOLUME III, SEMESTER 3, CHAPTER 31, SECTION 2
Standing nailed labor down, the examination pried one crack
The last section looked at that earliest age where labor flowed free, and saw it followed the simple and the small. This section walks on down: when the things grew more and more complex, the heaven and earth more and more large, how was that free flow locked up by one thing. This thing is called standing. And it looks at what pried it open.
One, how standing nailed labor down
The thing once complex, the positions grew many, and parted into high and low. Once parted into high and low, the man sitting in the high place wished to keep this good place for his own sons and grandsons. How to keep it. Bind the position fast to the bloodline. This one binding, and standing came out, and that lock was locked.
What is standing. It is that the moment you are born, the road you can walk is mostly settled. Your father a noble, and you a noble, those good places yours from birth. Your father a slave, and you a slave, and however able you are, you cannot shift. The one share of labor in your hand, before you are even grown, is already nailed in place by the position you were born into.
Think back to the ideal of the last section: choose the worthy and the able, a man rises by his skill. This lock of standing turns it exactly the other way round. In the age of standing, a man rises by his birth, not by his skill. A man with skill as big as the sky yet born to the low is locked in place, his one share of labor cannot shift his whole life, rotting in the position he was born into. A man with no skill at all yet born to the high gate holds the best place and brings nothing off. Labor, so, was nailed down by standing. This is a very very long stretch of the road man has walked.
Two, walk near a man, a whole body of skill locked in place
Walk near such a locked man, and look down under him.
Set a smith’s son, born into that age standing nailed down. The craft of beating iron is handed down in his house, but he has one more thing his forebears had not: his head is sharp beyond measure, he plans a matter and thinks it dead right, the stuff of a man who could mind a great spread of things, who could take the call for a whole countryside of common folk. Yet his road was sealed off the moment he was born. He is of the artisan roll, and generation on generation must beat iron, and cannot enter the position where his gift for planning could be spread out.
That one pair of hands, a whole life swings the hammer on the anvil. That one head that could set a countryside in peace and lay the plans, follows those hands, and in the smithy, year on year, rusts. This is not that he would not strive, it is that the lock of standing, from the moment of his birth, nailed him down. Such men, in one age, run to thousands upon thousands. Their one most precious share of labor, locked by standing, can never flow to the place it ought to go. This is the place where the lock of standing aches most in the heart.
Three, the examination pried one crack
Man is not resigned. Locked so, too many good stuffs rotted, too many good places were held by the useless. There had to be some way thought out, to pry this lock. The way the men of China thought out swayed more than a thousand years, and it is called the examination.
What is the examination. Said through, it is a road that asks not your birth, asks only your skill. It sets one paper there, and the readers of all under heaven, whether your father tills or holds office, all come to sit it. Sit it well, and you can hold office, and can from the very bottom walk all the way up to a very high place. Sit it poorly, and though you are a son of the high gate, you cannot go up. It takes one paper, and pries that lock of the bloodline open one crack.
See the weight of this crack. Before the examination, a smith’s son who wished to hold office dreamed it in broad day. After the examination, so long as he could take to the books and sit through, there truly was such a road. That man of the last passage, his skill rusting on the anvil, the examination gave him a chance: take the books through, go and sit it, and by that one head that could set the land in peace and lay the plans, walk to the position he ought to reach. This crack let labor flow again, let skill shift again to the place it ought to go. This is a marvelous living road pried out of an age nailed shut.
Four, but this crack is only a crack
The rule of this book is that the good must be told, yet not told past its measure. The examination pried one crack, but it was in the end only a crack, not a door flung wide.
How narrow this crack is. The first thing, it opens only onto the one road of the books. You can wage war, can grow the finest crop, can make the most cunning implement, and these skills, that paper of the examination cannot weigh, does not own. It owns only your reading of the classics, your writing of the essay, this one gate. The second thing, reading takes a stake. It takes idle hours, takes books, takes a teacher. A house so poor it cannot meet its three meals, the child from small must go to the fields to work, and where is the leisure for ten cold years at the books. So this crack, that looks open to all, the ones who can truly squeeze in are mostly still those whose house can bear the cost of reading.
See this layer clear. The examination is marvelous, it is the first road in that age nailed shut that goes by skill and not by bloodline. But it is only a crack, not a door full open. It let labor flow a little, but it did not let labor flow whole. The true condition that lets labor flow over a great reach was not yet gathered. What this true condition is, the next section speaks of on purpose.
Five, the heroes of all under heaven, come into my bowshot
On this crack of the examination, there is a line that tells its two faces, the open and the drawn in, right through. It is told that Emperor Taizong of Tang watched the newly passed readers file in one by one through the palace gate, and ran a line: the heroes of all under heaven have come into my bowshot. So runs the line in the Collected Sayings of Tang.
Put it plain. The bowshot is the reach a bow and arrow can strike. The heroes of all under heaven have come into my bowshot, the heroes and the bold of all under heaven have all come into the reach my bow can govern. Taste the two faces in this one line.
One face is open: the heroes of all under heaven says, asking not the birth, the able of all under heaven are all invited in, and this is the marvelous face of the examination. But the other face is drawn in: come into my bowshot says, these able men are all gathered into a frame set up by the top, a frame that can be held. The examination on one face pried the lock of the bloodline, letting skill flow. On the other face it drew for this flowing one only road, marked out toward the holding of office. You would flow, well and good, but you may flow only along this road of mine. This is the true shape of that crack: it truly opened, but it opened with a limit, and the way it opened was arranged beforehand. Hold this measure.
Six, what this section set, crossing to the next
Good. This section looked at how labor was locked, and how one crack was pried.
The things once complex, the positions parted into high and low, and the man in the high place bound the position fast to the bloodline, and the lock of standing was locked. It turned choose the worthy and the able the other way round, letting a man rise by birth and not by skill, nailing thousands upon thousands of men’s one precious share of labor in place to rust. Man was not resigned, and thought out the examination, taking one paper that asks not the birth, and pried this lock one crack, letting labor flow again. But this crack is very narrow, opening only onto the books, and only the ones whose house can bear the reading can squeeze in. It truly opened, but it opened with a limit, and its way was arranged beforehand.
The position this section set is: standing nailed labor down, the examination pried one crack that let labor flow again, but this crack is far from freedom yet.
So what in the end is the condition that truly lets labor flow over a great reach, and free. Is it that once the lock of standing is smashed whole, labor is free. It is likely not so simple. The next section goes to look at what the flow of labor truly leans on. It leans not on the two words flow itself, it leans on another thing more solid.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.
Section 3, The true condition of flow is not the flow itself, it is the chance