VOLUME V, CHAPTER 6, SECTION 2
The Highest Reach of Confucius, Where Everyone Governs Himself
The previous section showed self-discipline as the single highest law a person can give himself. But if not one person but an entire group can govern itself, where does law retreat to. Twenty-five hundred years ago, Confucius gave the answer, a state where disputes never reach the court. This section sets down that highest position, what everyone governing himself actually looks like once it lands on a real group.
One. Most Readers Take Confucius's Line, "That There Might Be No Litigation," Too Lightly
Around 500 BC, Confucius spoke a line in the Analects, Yan Yuan, quoted earlier.
In hearing litigation, I am like anyone else. What is necessary is to cause litigation not to arise at all. Confucius, The Analects, Yan Yuan.
In judging cases I am no different from anyone else, but what I truly want is for disputes never to arise in the first place. For twenty-five hundred years, generation after generation of readers have returned to this line, and yet few have ever truly grasped its deepest layer. The common reading takes no litigation to mean simply avoid going to court, and from there favors mediation and harmony, which is not wrong, only shallow.
Confucius is not saying going to court is bad, nor is he offering a technique for mediation. He is pointing to a deeper position, bringing an entire group to a place where using law becomes fundamentally unnecessary. Once a group reaches that position, disputes naturally do not arise, and law naturally does not need to move. What that position actually is needs to be unfolded further.
Two. Why Disputes Arise at All Has a Surprisingly Plain Answer
Because someone did something another person did not want done to him, took something he should not have taken, used power he should not have used, said something he should not have said, hurt someone he should not have hurt. All of these should-nots are the root of every dispute.
Turn it around, and if every person, before acting, first asked himself, what you would not want done to yourself, do not do to others, would I be willing to be treated this way, will the gain I am about to take wound someone else, and having asked, held back, then the dispute would never have been born at all. This is the deepest layer of Confucius's that there might be no litigation. Law exists for those unwilling to discipline themselves. Litigation exists for a dispute that has already occurred. Everyone governing himself is what makes neither of these ever necessary to use.
Three. One Thing Must Be Said Plainly Here, No Litigation Is Not the Same as Sealing the Lid
No litigation does not mean pressing a dispute down and forbidding it from surfacing, that would be sealing the lid. Sealing the lid leaves the dispute still there, only kept off the table, and the conflict piling up underneath, bound sooner or later to burst out even larger. No litigation means the dispute never arose from its root in the first place, because each person could not get past his own inner check before ever acting. One relies on suppressing, the other on dissolving. One treats the symptom, the other treats the cause. What Confucius wanted was the second kind.
Take the most common example. Two households share a wall, and one wants to build it higher. The litigation road is, the wall goes up, it blocks the light, a fight breaks out, and the two sides finally take it to court to argue it out. The mediation road is, the fight breaks out, someone is brought in to talk them down, and each side gives a little ground. The no-litigation road is, before breaking ground, the family planning to build higher first asks itself, if this wall goes up, will the neighbor's window still catch the sun, and finding the plan lacking, changes it on the spot. The dispute dissolves right there on the drawing board, never even reaching the wall, let alone the courtroom. Of the three roads, each one further down the line costs more effort, and each one further up the line depends more on the check inside every single person's own heart. No litigation depends entirely on that inner check.
Four. No Litigation and Everyone Governing Himself Are Two Faces of the Same Thing
When Confucius speaks of no litigation, he speaks of the result, at the position where everyone governs himself, disputes need not occur. When this book speaks of everyone governing himself, it speaks of the cause, the root reason disputes need not occur is the cultivation carried inside every single person's heart. Result and cause are two faces of one thing, only phrased differently. The ancestors already said it long ago, and this work only tells it again, in today's plain speech.
Why call self-discipline the highest stage of law, rather than the outer law itself. Because the outer law relies on you did it, so I punish you, which is after the fact, reactive, and costs something every time it is enforced. Self-discipline relies on I myself am unwilling to do it, which is before the fact, active, and costs nothing at all to enforce. In a society, the denser and stricter its outer law grows, the more that itself often signals how thin self-discipline has worn, needing more and more outside force to prop it up. The thicker self-discipline runs, the less the outer law is ever needed. So the highest stage of law is law retreating, on its own, to a position it no longer has to be used, handing that position over to every person's own self-discipline.
Five. Laozi Speaks of Doing Nothing, Zhuangzi Speaks of the Equality of Things, Confucian and Daoist Thought Land on the Same Position
Around 500 BC, Laozi wrote, in the Daodejing.
I do nothing, and the people transform themselves. I love stillness, and the people rectify themselves. I engage in no affairs, and the people prosper of themselves. I have no desires, and the people simplify themselves. Laozi, Daodejing, Chapter 57.
I do nothing, and the people naturally transform. I love stillness, and the people naturally correct themselves. I take on no affairs, and the people naturally prosper. I hold no desire, and the people naturally return to simplicity. Laozi's doing nothing does not mean doing nothing at all, it means arriving at a position where governing is no longer necessary, where the thing governs itself. This position is the very same one as Confucius's no litigation, Confucius names it from the bench of justice, Laozi names it from the seat of governance.
Around 300 BC, Zhuangzi wrote another line.
That side has its own right and wrong, and this side has its own right and wrong. Zhuangzi, Zhuangzi, Discussion on Making All Things Equal.
That side carries its own sense of right and wrong, and this side carries its own. Zhuangzi is saying that once every person can see that a quarrel, underneath, is nothing more than two different positions, the quarrel dissolves on its own. Once everyone holds this ability to see the other side's position, disputes naturally do not arise, and this is the deepest root of no litigation inside the human heart. Confucian thought speaks from self-cultivation, Daoist thought speaks from governance, two different roads landing on the very same place, a position where nothing needs to be forced into order, because human affairs have already set themselves straight.
Six. Did China, Across Two Thousand Years, Ever Reach It. Partly, and Through the Village Compact
Around 1080, the Lü brothers of Lantian, in the Northern Song, wrote down the Lü Family Community Compact, turning the ideal of no litigation into a workable set of rules for a village.
Urge one another toward virtue and achievement. Correct one another's faults. Exchange courtesies according to custom. Aid one another in hardship. The Lü Family Community Compact.
Urge each other toward virtue and accomplishment, correct each other's faults, exchange courtesies according to custom, help each other through hardship. This was China's first systematic village compact. It was not a text hung on a wall, it was villagers gathering regularly, speaking openly of who had done good and who had erred over that stretch of time, so the good could be learned from and the erring corrected face to face, giving the person a chance to change himself. Over time, everyone in the village carried an inner scale, knowing their neighbors were watching, and most small disputes settled themselves before ever growing large. Around 1518, Wang Yangming, in southern Jiangxi, systematized this kind of compact and paired it with local justice, forming a complete progression, mediation, self-discipline, and formal judgment when truly necessary, and this ran widely at the grassroots level through the Ming and Qing dynasties.
But the other side must be laid out just as honestly here. Speaking of an ideal is not the same as achieving it, and achieving it is not the same as achieving it well. A village compact was led by local gentry, and easily tilted toward whoever already held power. Mediation aims at harmony, and harmony can sometimes be exactly what suppresses a genuine injustice, leaving a wronged and weaker party with no remedy stronger than being told to make peace. The ideal of no litigation, and the practice of the village compact, were both real. They could also, at times, become a tool for pressing down the weak. Both sides are laid on the table, and the reader can judge for himself.
Seven. Turn the Camera West, and There Stands a Culture Almost the Opposite of No Litigation
The Anglo-American legal tradition developed a culture of litigation, its core being to push disputes into court, relying on lawyers, judges, procedure, and precedent to arrive at a formal ruling. It has real strengths, transparent procedure, and rulings recorded as precedent for later reference. It also carries real costs, an enormous legal industry, an ordinary dispute potentially costing tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees, a case dragging on for years, and the two sides left thoroughly estranged. A number of societies today are known for heavy litigation, with per capita lawsuit rates extremely high, and a considerable share of a whole society's energy spent on litigating.
A litigation culture is not a bad thing. In a reality where self-discipline is not universal, it gives the weak a road to argue their case, and that is its real service. But its cost sits right there too, it assumes a dispute will happen, and so pours its full strength into what to do once a dispute has occurred, rather than into making disputes occur less often. The more strength piles up at the back end, the more barren the front end becomes.
No litigation places its strength at the very front, so the dispute is never born. A litigation culture places its strength at the very back, cleaning up once the dispute is already born. Both ends are needed, in truth, but as for which one ranks higher, Confucius made that plain twenty-five hundred years ago. The contemporary East is also moving steadily toward litigation, with traditional mediation slowly pushed to the margins, and this is one of the deepest tensions of the present age. This work passes no verdict here, it only lays out the position and the cost of each vein, side by side, for the reader to see for himself.
Eight. But One More Step Must Be Taken, What Actually Makes Everyone Governing Himself Possible
Everyone governing himself sounds good, but it carries a condition that cannot be stepped around. In a group where part of the people go hungry and cold, they cannot govern themselves, they must fight, they must seize, simply to survive. So the first cornerstone of everyone governing himself is material, the very line this book has carried from beginning to end, output greater than need. Output greater than need means no one has to seize from another to survive, and without needing to seize, the heart can settle, and only once the heart is settled does self-discipline even become possible to speak of. Laozi speaks of a prosperous people being easy to govern, Guan Zhong speaks of enriching the people first, both belong to this same vein, the ground beneath self-discipline is output greater than need.
But output greater than need together with everyone governing himself is still not enough. Because even with material abundance and most people self-disciplined, there will still be a minority who, given even the smallest scrap of power, use it to its very limit to torment others. At the counter, the paperwork is complete, and yet he insists one form is missing. Getting a stamp approved, today the supervisor is out, tomorrow the system is down. A small matter that should take one visit is dragged, on purpose, into three or five. None of this is great villainy, no one goes to prison for it, and yet it wears down an ordinary person's spirit drop by drop, a worm inside a cup of otherwise clean water. So true no litigation still needs the layer Volume IV already set down, torment no one.
Nine. The Position Set by This Section
This section sets the eighteenth layer. No litigation is the highest reach Confucius pointed to, and its deeper layer is what everyone governing himself actually looks like once it lands on a real group. Confucius, Laozi, Zhuangzi, and this book's everyone governing himself all belong to the very same vein. But true no litigation does not rest on the human heart alone, it is three layers biting together at once, everyone governing himself, output greater than need, and torment no one, and losing any one, the whole thing cannot stand.
Output greater than need without everyone governing himself, and material is sufficient while the heart is not, so people still reach for more than their share. Everyone governing himself without output greater than need, and most people may wish to discipline themselves, yet a person going hungry cannot manage it, telling a starving man what you would not want done to yourself, do not do to others is easy to say standing at a comfortable distance. Both of the first two layers in place, and missing torment no one, someone holding even a scrap of power will still make life unsettled for others. Only all three together form the deepest reach Confucius pointed to twenty-five hundred years ago. It has never once been fully achieved across history, and yet as a direction, it is worth walking toward more than any single well-designed system ever could be.
The next section turns to the law within the heart, torment not yourself. No litigation asks a person not to torment others, but the hardest thing of all is not to torment oneself. A person worn down long enough by this world most easily turns and torments himself, and then torments those weaker than himself in turn. This section takes up how to set down, inside one's own heart, a law that forgives oneself first, before it can ever refrain from troubling anyone else. This is the capstone section of this part. Carry this highest position of no litigation, and walk into the next section.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.
Section Three. The Law Within the Heart. Torment Not Yourself.