VOLUME VI, CHAPTER 3, SECTION 11

VOLUME VI, CHAPTER 3, SECTION 11

One Lock, Undone by Four Systems at Once, and Culture Goes First to Warm the Person

The last section nailed down one line, that to that hand, we do not bring him down, we undo his lock, because the one truly doing the harm is the lock, not the person. This section answers the question that has hung all along, that lock, how in the end is it undone. Let me first lay it out plainly, so you do not pin the wrong hope on it. That lock cannot be undone by the economy alone, because it is capital, power, rules, and the human heart, twisted into one hard knot, and it takes culture, economy, politics, and law, four systems, all at once. And this brings out one of the most important great positions in this book, that the institutions of this world are four, that they complete one another and check one another. Having set up this total position, it tells the first of them, culture, and how culture goes to warm the locked person.

I. One Lock Cannot Be Undone by One Institution Alone

That lock, how in the end is it undone? Let me first tell you a plain truth, so you do not pin the wrong hope on it. That lock cannot be undone by the economy this chapter speaks of, alone.

Why can it not? Because that lock is not a simple iron chain, that one snip of the shears will break. It is a lump tangled root and branch. Look back at how many things it is tied to. It is tied to capital, to that great crowd of investors behind him forcing him to earn. It is tied to power, and the back will tell how this lock is so tight, so unafraid, very often because it hooks into the power that runs things, and has power behind it to prop it up. And it is tied to the rules, for the current run of rules in this world is very often set following this lock, set so as to make the wringing of people lawful and to leave the wrung with nowhere to reason it out. You see, capital, power, rules, this lock is these three, twisted into one hard lump.

Picture it as a rope twisted of three strands. One strand is money, one is power, one is the rules, three braided together into a rope thick and hard, cutting fast into that person's neck. To loosen this rope, undo only the strand of money, will that do? It will not. You loosen the money strand, and the power strand and the rules strand are still braided tight, and the rope still cuts into the person, and the strand you loosened is soon drawn tight again by the other two. You have to undo the three strands at once, loosen this one, loosen that one, and the strangling rope, as a whole, comes loose. That lock is just such a rope of three strands.

Then take the economy alone and go undo it, will that do? It will not. You loosen it on the economic side, say by making things enough, so that he need not be so driven to earn, which the back of this chapter will speak of, and this can loosen the strand of capital. But the strand of power is still propping the lock up, and the strand of rules is still following it, and the lock is still not cleanly undone. You loosen one strand on this side, and the other two are still taut, and in a while it draws tight again. A lock of three twisted strands, undo one strand, and it does not come open.

Then what is to be done? It takes several things, all at once. The strand of capital, let the economy loosen it. The strand of power, that takes another thing to cut. The strand of rules, that takes yet another to set straight. Several things bringing their strength at once, and that hard lump of three twisted strands can come undone.

And this brings out one of the most important great positions in this book. The institutions of this world are not of one kind only. They are four. Culture, the economy, politics, law. These four institutions were never four separate blocks, each minding its own and unrelated to the rest. They are the five fingers on one hand, twisted together, propping one another, helping one another, and also keeping one another in check. A great matter is very often not a thing any one institution can accomplish alone. It takes the four together, propping one another, to do it.

Do not think small of this position of the four, it is a great load-bearing beam of this book. People used to think in one track, and running up against a hard problem, they would look to one single thing to undo it. Say the poor are suffering, and they cry, equalize the rich and the poor. Say the world is in disorder, and they cry, set up harsh laws. Say the hearts of men have gone bad, and they cry, preach morality. But one single thing cannot undo a problem tangled root and branch. The great problems of the world are never a single sickness, they are several sicknesses twisted into one. Cure only the one, and the others are still there, and the curing is in vain. This book breaks the institutions into four, culture to mind the hearts of men, the economy to mind productive power and its distribution, politics to mind power, law to mind the rules, four of them each minding a patch, and each propping and checking the others. Run up against a great problem, and the four come at once, this one loosening a strand, that one loosening a strand, and the strangled lump can be undone strand by strand. This is where this book's way of thinking a thing through differs most from that old one-track way.

That lock, twisted of capital, power, and rules, is exactly such a great matter. The institution of the economy goes to loosen the strand of capital, there is enough, and he need not be driven to earn. The institution of politics goes to cut the strand of power, to cut off the collusion of officials and business that props the lock up. The institution of law goes to set straight the strand of rules, to bend the rules that were set following the lock back into rules that protect people. And the institution of culture goes to warm the person's end of it, to let the locked person understand that he too is a person, and be willing, himself, to let go. Four institutions, four strengths, brought at once, to undo that one twisted lock. This is what is meant by the four institutions completing one another and checking one another. Not one of them fights alone, and not one of them can be missing. Missing one, and that lock always has a strand that will not come loose.

So let me tell you plainly, that lock, this chapter can undo only one strand of it. The other strands, the back chapters, politics and law, will go on to undo; and the most important strand of all rests on the thing the back of this chapter will speak of, that there is, for the first time, enough. For this one, first let me set up in you the total position, that it takes the four institutions combined to undo the lock, and then tell the first of them, culture, how it goes to warm the person.

II. Culture Goes First to Warm the Person

Which end of the lock does the strand of culture go to undo? It goes to undo the innermost end, the person. The person who is locked.

Look back at the last section. Behind that hand is a person. A person trapped by something, like that old woman who died in pain guarding her dead husband's money. That he cannot stop is half the doing of that lock on his head, earn no money and be wiped out. But the other half is a thing inside his own heart. Which half is inside his heart? It is that in his whole life, perhaps no one ever taught him, and he himself never learned, what a person can live for, other than winning, other than piling that mountain of gold higher.

Think, a person taught from childhood to be first, to stand out above others, that the more money the more of a success, grows up clutching his mountain of gold, and can he stop? He dares not stop. Stop, and he panics, for the whole worth of his life is staked on winning, staked on piling higher. Tell him to let go, that it is enough, to treat the people he wrung well, and he cannot do it, and not only because that outer lock is forcing him. It is that inside his heart it is empty, and he does not know what is left of him once he lets go, does not know what he would live by. This end, the outer lock cannot undo, and power cannot cut, and the rules cannot set straight. This end, only culture can undo.

Think about why. Those outer strengths, the law, the power, can hold a person's hand still, but they cannot reach into a person's heart. A person whose heart has gone empty, who no longer knows what he lives for, is a thing the law cannot manage, and power cannot manage. You can use the law to block him from wringing people, but you cannot use the law to make his heart grow, again, love, and enough, and the thought that others are people too. That is a thing of the heart, and it takes a thing of the heart to undo. And the thing that specially minds that patch inside a person's heart is culture, is character education. So the innermost, deepest end of that lock, the end rooted in the person's heart, the other strengths cannot reach, and only culture can reach in and undo it.

How does culture undo it? With the very thing the second chapter spoke of, character education. You remember the two legs of the second chapter. The leg of character is what lets a person's heart have others inside it, have love, torment no one. And this one clutching the mountain of gold lacks exactly this leg. In his head, the leg of science may be sharp indeed, able to calculate, to run a business, to roll capital over fast. But in his heart, the leg of character may have been missing from childhood, missing the plainest things of all, that a person lives not only to win, that others are people too and feel pain too, that once there is enough one ought to let go. What the strand of culture means to do is to patch this missing leg back on.

Think it over and you see. This kind of person is very often raised up by an education that speaks only of winning, only of standing out, only of the more money the more successful. From childhood what he was praised for was scoring first, was climbing over others, was being better than the rest, and no one ever earnestly taught him that living has, besides winning, other and more important things. So he grew up with all his skill turned onto winning, onto piling higher, and the place in his heart that ought to hold others, hold love, hold a contentment that knows when enough is enough, is empty. He was not born bad. It is that from childhood the leg of character was one that no one ever grew for him. So what the strand of culture means to do is not to punish him for this lack. It is to patch back on this leg missing since childhood, to let him, for the first time in his life, hear someone earnestly tell him that a person lives not only to win.

It is not to curse him, to judge him, to bring him down, for that is to push him toward death, and the harder he is pushed the tighter he clutches. It is, as with that old woman in the last section, to come up close, to see down to his bottom, and to let him also see that under his mountain of gold is trapped a pitiable person who does not know what he lives for. It is to let him slowly understand that he too is a person, that he too wants no more than three meals and a bed, and a few people who still hold him in their thoughts, and that if he lets go, the sky will not fall, and he can instead live like a person. A person who has had this leg of the heart patched back on, who has come to understand what enough is, that living is not only winning, that others are people, will himself less and less want to wring. Even if that outer lock is still forcing him, in his heart he has begun to walk toward letting go.

You see, the strength of the strand of culture is the softest, and also the deepest. Politics cutting off power, law setting straight the rules, both bring their strength from the outside. Culture brings its strength from inside the heart. The strength from outside can manage a hand, can make a man not dare to wring. The strength of culture can melt a heart, can make a man not want to wring. Manage the hand, and in his heart he still wants to wring, and catching a chance he will wring again. Melt the heart, and he himself does not wring, and this is to loosen the person from the very bottom.

Savor how far apart these two are, not daring to wring, and not wanting to wring. A person forced by the outer law and the outer power into not daring to wring still wants, in his heart, to wring, and he is only held back, only watched, and the moment the force that held him loosens, the moment the watching eye is off him, he wrings again at once. He is pressed down, not melted. But a person whose heart has been warmed and melted by culture into truly not wanting to wring will, even with no one to manage him, no one to hold him back, not one eye under heaven fixed on him, still not wring, because in his heart he no longer wants to do the thing that harms people. The former takes a lifetime of watching and managing, and wears people out and still cannot be guarded against. The latter takes no watching, for he guards himself. So the strand of culture, which looks the softest, the least remarkable, is in fact the deepest, the most useful. It does not press the hand down, it warms the heart soft and warm. And this is exactly this book's attitude toward that hand, do not bring him down, but save him. And to save a trapped person, the deepest stroke of all is to warm his heart, and let him understand of himself, and of himself be willing to let go. The strand of culture does this deepest, warmest work. The next section goes on to the other two strands, how politics cuts off the hand that props the lock up, and how law sets straight the run of rules.

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