VOLUME III, SEMESTER 4, CHAPTER 43, SECTION 3

VOLUME III, SEMESTER 4, CHAPTER 43, SECTION 3

Growing Together Is Not Blending, Not Splitting the Difference

The first two sections set two lines: all four cannot be pulled out, and none of the four can stand alone to the end. Set these two together, and nearly everyone reaches by hand for a third: then take a little of each, take a middle value, blend the most safe and steady recipe.

This line sounds the most reasonable, and the most like a mature and steady thing to say—said aloud and no one will oppose it, yet it is the very deepest pit on this whole picture. Chapter forty section three nailed it once, and there said only: no blending. This section speaks it through, makes clear where blending and growing together differ, and why the place they differ matters.

One, splitting the difference—first look at what it looks like

Splitting the difference is easy to know, for it is everywhere—in a shop, a section, a document, met at every turn. In one shop you can see it: the wage sheet should pull the gap open, but pull it open and it may hurt the peace, so the best done and the worst done, those two numbers at month end differ by only so little—so little no one is willing to bring it up.

The floor-under-the-feet end is the same. Sickness should be handled, but handle it too much and men may lean on it and not work, so only half is handled and the rest left to the man himself, and even the handling comes with a repeated word: this is a special favor. The risk end is vague too: a stake should have a return, but give it full and the words may grate, so give a little, no more no less, the giver uneasy, the taker unsettled too.

All four are there, all four only half, every one looks present, every one no use. On the face it is the steadiest way, all four ends looked after, no one offended. In truth it is four things none done, all four ends offended. The one willing to put out strength looks at the wage sheet and his heart goes cold: more done and less done differ by this much, why bother? The one in trouble looks at that floor-under sum and his heart goes cold too: not enough to live on, still must bear it himself. Both ends leaned on nothing; both lost their hope. One recipe, and the one most willing to put out strength and the one most needing a hand are chilled at once.

Two, the root of the ill: taking different matters for two ends of one matter

Splitting the difference breeds this ill from a very deep mistake: seeing the four matters as four points on one line, taking them for different degrees of one matter, more of this and less of that. Once seen so, the way is naturally to take the middle. More labor is less need, more yield is less fairness, as if the two ends of a balance—this side pressed down and that side lifts, so the steadiest place is dead center.

But they are not four points on one line. Chapter forty said it plain: they measure four different matters—what is put in, what is needed, risk, the forced hand. Four matters, each with its own reason, each with its own range. What is put in and what is needed are not two ends of one matter; they are two matters, each with its own range, its own position.

Two different matters—taking a middle value is meaningless. A man’s belly is hungry and wants rice, his foot is hurt and wants binding; you cannot say then split the difference, give him half a bowl of rice and bind half the foot. The rice must be given enough, the wound bound well—this is called getting the matter done. Give each a half, and it looks as if both were looked after; in truth neither matter was done, the man still hungry, the foot still rotting.

Splitting the difference has a more hidden harm: it smooths away, before the time, the very quarrel that should be quarreled. Where the four rules’ bound is drawn should be argued year by year, place by place, each arguer standing at one end, none thinking to finish in one go. That recipe of splitting the difference wipes this quarrel flat, wipes it till everyone can pass it and no one is content. The Salt and Iron debate of the first semester’s chapter six, quarreled to the end with neither wholly winning—that was not no result; that was two hands each pressing one end, holding the frame up. Splitting the difference is not holding up; it is both hands letting go at once.

Three, growing together is each growing whole

Now the Doctrine of the Mean’s line again: all things grow together and do not harm one another. Grow together—these two words are just the reverse of splitting the difference. On a hillside, the pine is pine, the bamboo bamboo, the grass grass. The pine did not grow a stretch shorter to humor the bamboo, the bamboo did not send out fewer shoots to look after the grass. Every one grew to the height it should have, the leaves above each taking its own sunlight, the roots below each running its own depth, crossed apart, none crowding another dead. This is called growing together.

Change this hillside to the shape of splitting the difference, and every one grows a half-stretch, the pine not like a pine, the bamboo not like a bamboo, a whole slope of things much the same height, much the same look. Neat enough to the eye, and nothing sticks out, yet nothing comes to timber, and when the wind comes the whole slope goes down together.

So the heart of growing together is in the two words each whole. The four coexisting is not the four each yielding a step; it is the four each getting its own matter done to the full—the wage sheet truly pulled open, the floor truly holding, the stake truly reaching, that wall truly watched. The four each standing straight, and this picture stands up. Let one bend at the waist, and the picture is short one pillar.

Four, divide the bound, do not divide the house

Here a line must follow at once, lest we walk to the other end. Each whole is not each on its own, unconcerned with the rest. The four grow on the same ground: one shop, one account, one person’s day, one life’s whole span. Their bounds must be divided clear, and divided clear they do not step over, yet their ground is the same ground, and none can carry it away. This is called dividing the bound, not dividing the house.

Dividing the bound means: this matter to this rule, that matter to that, and what steps past the bound is pulled back. Not dividing the house means: pulled back, it is still on the same account, and must still look after the other. The wage sheet pulled open, and the willing are more, and that floor-under sum has a source. The floor holding, and the one who puts out strength dares change trade, dares try a thing without a sure hold, dares fall sick, and the wage-sheet end too has someone willing to come stand there.

So whole and looking-after are two faces of one matter, not two matters. Each whole, and they can look after one another. Looking after one another, and they can hold each to its own whole. This layer on down is common life; the next chapter will speak of it on its own.

Five, the ancestors’ bowl of broth

This thing the ancestors spoke through long ago, and spoke more homely than anything. Two thousand five hundred years ago Yanzi spoke a passage to the Lord of Qi on what harmony is. Blending a broth, he said, water and fire and the vinegar and the paste and the salt and the plum, every one must go in, the fire watched and tuned, the taste too strong eased a little, too thin added to a little, and only then do the fish and meat come to a broth. But take water to blend water, and who will drink it? One string tuned to one note to the end, and who will hear it?

This passage divides two matters clean. Harmony is every thing put in to the full, each its own taste, gathered and become a new taste. Sameness is wiping out the different, leaving one thing added over and over, till at the last only that one taste. Splitting the difference is that water-to-blend-water thing, every taste a little, no taste to the full. Confucius gathered this into six words: the gentleman harmonizes and does not merely agree. These six words are this chapter’s landing, and one of the weightiest lines of this semester. The four coexisting share that broth of five tastes full, not that gourd of water blending water. The broth wants a person to tune, and what he tunes is the measure, not the tastes all tuned away.

Here add one word of measure, lest we walk to the other end. To say no splitting the difference is not to say no talking it over, nor that the four need never yield. The bound is to be talked over, the shares talked over, when to loosen and when to tighten talked over, and this layer is forever shifting. What cannot be talked over is another matter: one cannot take talking-it-over as an excuse to get every one done to a half. Yielding is yielding along the bound, not getting one’s own matter done to a half. This difference is very fine, and it is the line between growing together and blending.

Six, what this section sets, and the close of this chapter

What this section sets is a line: coexistence is growing together, not blending. The four each whole, and only then is there talk of coexistence. Put this chapter’s three sections together: the first said not one has been thrown out, because the four matters are all real. The second said not one can stand alone, because past the bound it is pushed back by the matter. This section said the four must each grow to the full, and that recipe of a middle value, safe as it looks, is in truth four matters none done. Coexistence, to here, has its bones: not standing side by side without a fight, but each at its own position, each grown to the shape it should have.

But coexistence is still only being on the same ground together. Is there any tie between them at all? Do they each grow their own, well water not touching river water, or do they still feed one another? The next chapter answers just this: pull one out, and the other three all sicken. One layer below coexistence is common life.

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

Chapter 44: Co-nourishment: Two Sides Sustain Each Other to Grow