VOLUME III, SEMESTER 4, CHAPTER 45, SECTION 3

VOLUME III, SEMESTER 4, CHAPTER 45, SECTION 3

Harmonize and Do Not Merely Agree, Not Agree and Be Out of Harmony

This chapter speaks of common dwelling, and to here the reason of the bound is laid out full: the four each have their position, overstepping has only managing too much and letting go too much, the way to pull the hand is three questions, and overstepping is often covering. There is one last matter: to find for these two words common dwelling a line that can hold them down.

This line the ancestors left long ago, only six words: the gentleman harmonizes and does not merely agree. It comes from the Analects, in the chapter Zilu, and the lower half is: the small man agrees and is out of harmony. This section takes these two lines apart, sees clear where harmony and sameness differ, and closes this chapter.

One, agreeing and out of harmony, what it looks like

Look at the lower half first, for it is more common. Agreeing and out of harmony looks like this: on the face one and the same, underneath each keeping his own. A meeting in a shop says this year the quality must go up; a room of people all nod, not one opposes. The meeting breaks, and the one who keeps the stock brings in the same cheap stock, the one who keeps the process still will not change his own step, the one who keeps the sales still takes those orders with murderous due dates. Every person spoke the same one line, every person moved not at all.

This is sameness: wipe out the differing sayings first, wipe till in the meeting hall there is one voice only. Wiped, the scene looks fine, and answers well, yet those unsaid splits are not one fewer, only moved from the tabletop to under the table, into each man’s heart.

The splits on the tabletop can be talked over, the splits under the table can only be each doing his own. So the place of agreeing and out of harmony often looks the most peaceful, all one soft mass, and the matter is the least done, and once a thing goes wrong, the fewest are willing to stand out and carry it.

Two, harmony is letting the different each keep its position

Now the upper half. Harmony is not no splits, it is just that the splits are all there, and all set on the tabletop, each speaking his own reason, and at the last gathered into a matter that can be done. If that shop runs by harmony: the one who keeps the stock says how much the cheap stock saved, the one who keeps the process says how many re-works this batch of stock cost him, the one who keeps the sales says what the customer truly cares for—three men each speaking his own, quarreling a round, the face perhaps reddened a little, and at the last a way is set that all can work by. Not one of the three was talked over, each keeps his own account in his heart, yet the matter is done.

The difference of harmony and sameness is here: sameness wants people at one first, then the matter goes on. Harmony lets people each speak at his own position, and the matter goes on in the middle.The first saves trouble, and what it saves is true words. The second costs trouble, and costs work and temper, and what it keeps is true matter.

Chapter forty-three spoke of Yanzi’s broth: water and fire and salt and plum all put in to the full, each its own taste, gathered and become a new taste, and take water to blend water, who will drink it. That broth speaks of just this layer. The four rules are those several things, each its own taste, none needing to turn into another, and none to be short.

Here guard a mistake in passing: harmony is not forever quarreling. Quarreling is a means, not a skill. Some places quarrel daily, quarrel and settle nothing, one matter dragged three years, and that is no harmony, that is each refusing to yield. Harmony’s mark is plain: look whether at the last a way all can work by is set, and set, whether the ones who opposed will work by it. Set, and workable, that is harmony. Not set, or set and each doing his own, that is another face of agreeing and out of harmony.

Three, harmony wants two conditions, short one and it cannot be

Harmony did not fall from the sky; it wants two conditions, each set by one of the earlier chapters. The first condition is each whole, set by chapter forty-three: the wage sheet truly pulled open, the floor truly holding, the stake truly reaching, that wall truly watched. The four each standing straight, and there is a thing to harmonize. The four all done to a half, and that is no harmony, that is a gourd of water blending water, every taste a little, no taste to the full.

The second condition is each keeps its bound, set by this chapter: each whole without keeping the bound, and the four fight, the hand of need into the wage sheet, the hand of labor into the sickroom, none yielding, butting daily. Keeping the bound without being whole, and the four turn to the half-things of splitting the difference, looking all quiet and well, the tabletop unquarreled, in truth not one matter done.

So whole and keeping the bound are harmony’s two legs; short one it cannot stand. Whole lets each grow to the shape it should have, keeping the bound lets it grow in the place it should. Gathered, they are that line: all things grow together and do not harm one another, the ways run side by side and do not run against one another. These two conditions explain one thing too: why harmony is so hard. Because it asks at once two things that look opposite: that each be firm, and that each know to where it stops. To be firm is easy, to know to stop is hard, and the one bent wholly on stopping often softens, and cannot get his own matter done.

Four, harmony is a thing a person tunes year by year

One more layer to say clear: harmony is not a frame set once, it is a work tuned daily. When Yanzi spoke of that broth he said a most solid line: the fire is watched and tuned, the taste too strong eased a little, too thin added to a little. A broth tuned well cannot have the lid put on and be walked away from; the fire too high must be drawn down, the water too low added to, the person walks off and the broth spoils.

The bound between the four is so too. Which matters go on that list not shared by what is put in, to what measure the floor holds, how big that grid, which contracts count and which may not be written—none is set dead once. A hundred years and more ago, no child down the shaft was a newly drawn bound. Later, the eight hours, the rest day, the work-injury pay, were bounds drawn one by one. Every bound was quarreled fierce when drawn, and the opposers each had reason, and drawn and passed a few decades on, it became to the later a thing under heaven taken for granted, not to be thought over at all.

So this section gives no set picture, and can give none. What this volume can give is the three ways of drawing the bound and the three questions of pulling the hand. As for where each year, each place, it should be drawn, that leans on the one standing there to tune. The third semester’s line takes force a third time here: the mechanism guards the bottom line, character fixes the height.

Five, harmonize and do not merely agree is said of persons too

There is one last layer, this chapter’s weightiest landing: these six words speak not only of the four rules, they speak of the ones holding the rules. In one shop, the one who puts out strength sees the wage sheet first, the one who carries risk sees the bank’s due day first, the one with an old one at home sees the medicine bill first. Three men see not one and the same thing, and speak not one and the same word. Here own a line: not one of the three lied, and not one is selfish, still less narrow of eye.They only stand at different positions, and the position differing, what the eye sees first differs to begin with.

Chapter forty-one set: position is not identity. This line is used here once more. To make the three speak one and the same word is sameness. To let the three each speak his own, seated at the same table, is harmony. So the way of harmonizing and not merely agreeing lands back on chapter forty-four’s three things: the account can be seen, so the three look at one and the same account; the talk can be talked over, so the three have one table; the man can leave, so every one keeps in his hand one no he can say aloud. These three all present, each speaks his own, and the quarrel is a quarrel yet the matter is done. Short one, and the table by and by keeps one voice, the others not talked over but fallen silent, and it slides to the side of agreeing and out of harmony.

This layer can shine back on chapter forty-one too. That chapter said reading position as identity breeds two ills, one hating men, one bowing to fate. Harmonizing and not merely agreeing is the cure for both: not hating men, for the position he stands at is what lets him see those things; not bowing to fate, for the position can be changed and the bound can be talked over. The table still there, the talk still to be said, the man still able to leave, and a person need hate no one, and need not bow to fate.

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

What this section sets is a line: the shape of common dwelling is harmonizing and not merely agreeing, not agreeing and be out of harmony. Put this chapter’s three sections together: the first set the bound, the four each with their position, keeping the bound not no dealings but not deciding for the other, and the one who oversteps mostly of good heart. The second looked at the two shapes of giving way, managing too much and letting go too much, the two pits equally deep, for the question was never manage more or less but to whom the matter belongs, and overstepping is often covering, and covering says the own position is empty. This section closes on Confucius’ six words: harmony wants two conditions, each whole and each keeping its bound, and wants tuning year by year.

Coexistence speaks of all being there, common life of feeding one another, common dwelling of each keeping its bound. Three set firm, and one last remains: an account turned to the last always has a share none can say whose it is. To whom does that share belong? The next chapter speaks of common sharing.

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

Chapter 46: Sharing: Diminishing Excess to Replenish Deficiency