VOLUME VI, CHAPTER 3, SECTION 13

VOLUME VI, CHAPTER 3, SECTION 13

The Communist Dream Was Good to Begin With, and the Old Road of Grabbing Was Wrong

The sections before took you to undo that lock, culture warming the person, politics cutting off the power, law setting the rules straight. But it was said that there is still the innermost strand left, not undone. From this section on, we come to undo that innermost, and largest, strand. This section looks down from a higher, more fundamental place, and it is the passage in this book where the argument is set the deepest. To undo that innermost strand, we have first to turn back and speak of a thing that has taken much cursing, and whose heart was in truth good, communism. These two words are the most sensitive of all, and the ones who touch them either dare not touch them, or stand on one side to curse the other. Here today, we do neither. We will not quarrel with you, and we will not have you pick a side. First let me take you to see clearly that the communist dream was good to begin with. Then let me break open its old road of grabbing, and see where, exactly, it went wrong. See these two things clearly, and you can see the new road the next section means to point out for this dream.

I. The Communist Dream Was Good to Begin With

The moment you hear the two words, communism, your heart most likely tightens a little first. These two words, over this hundred years, have borne too much, some raising them to the heavens, some treading them into the mud. Bring them up, and someone wants to quarrel with you, wants you to pick a side. Here today, we will not quarrel, and we will not have you pick a side. The first section said it, set down the war of names, and come back to the plainest position to look. Let me take you to look, just this once, in that way, peel off all the clamor around these two words, communism, and look at its innermost heart, and see what it is.

What you will see is that that heart is good. What does communism want? Peeled to the very bottom, it is one line. To let every person have a way to live, be provided for, and not one person be starved, be frozen, be let to fall through by this world. What it wants is equality, not that every person is exactly the same, but that every person should have a dignity to live and be a human being, that it should not be that some clutch a mountain of gold and some have not one mouthful of food. What it wants is that all under heaven be shared, that the things of this world should not be swallowed up by a few, that they should be the common holding of all under heaven, with a share for every person.

Lay these out and look at them, every person having a way to live, every person having dignity, all under heaven shared, not one person let to fall through, and which of these is not good? And this is not only what communism wants. This is the great dream that humanity has dreamed, over and over, for thousands of years. Look back at the bottom of this book. The first section, the four systems, at bottom, all settle people, so that people live and work in peace. The second chapter, even the lowest, even that one picking through the trash, has his position, has his salvation. This chapter, saving the slave, the laborer, the one who lives on capital, not one let to fall through. What this whole book wants, and what that heart of communism wants, at the innermost, are the same one thing, do not let any single person be let to fall through by this world, be starved, be frozen, lose his dignity.

The ancestors, thousands of years ago, spoke of this dream too. Confucius spoke of the Great Unity, spoke of the old having their end well seen to, the strong having their use, the young having their growth, spoke of the widowed, the orphaned, the lonely, and the disabled all being provided for. What he spoke of is exactly this, that every person, the old, the strong, the young, the lonely and the hard-pressed, should have a way to live, have care, have a place to come to rest. This is the Great Unity dream that the Chinese people have held in their hearts for thousands of years. That heart of communism and this Great Unity dream of the ancestors are of one lineage, both of them wanting all the people under heaven, not one missing, to have a way to live, and to have dignity. Such a dream is one of the most beautiful, most good longings of humankind, and to curse it is to curse the cleanest yearning in the human heart. So here, on no account will this dream be cursed.

So today, let me make the first line plain. The communist dream was good to begin with. Here, it is not cursed. It is not standing on one side to curse the dream of the other. A dream that wants every person to have a way to live, to have dignity, how could it be cursed? The one to be cursed was never this dream.

Then where does the problem lie? The problem does not lie in what the dream wants, for what it wants is good. The problem lies in the road it walked to realize this dream, which went wrong. That heart is good, but that road does not go through, and once it is walked, great trouble comes of it, and instead it harms the very people it wanted to save. That road which went wrong, which road is it? Below, let me break it open for you. See these things clearly, and you will see the new road pointed out for this thousands-of-years-old good dream, where it is new, and why this time, for the first time, it goes through.

II. Where the Old Road Went Wrong: Things Were Not Enough, So There Was No Way But to Grab

That old road, laid bare, is one word. Divide. Or to put it more bluntly still, grab.

Its thinking runs like this. In this world some have much and some have little, some clutch a mountain of gold and some have not even a meal. Then how do you let every person have a way to live? You take from the ones who have much, gather it up, make it common, and hand it to the ones who have little. Take the rich man's and give it to the poor, level the much over to the lacking. And that way, does not everyone have a share?

Hear it at first pass, and it sounds reasonable enough, fair enough. But think one layer deeper, and under this road there is trodden a deadly premise. Things are not enough. It is exactly because things are not enough that if one person takes more, another has less, and to let the lacking have some, you can only level it over, take it over, from the ones who have much. Everything on this road is built on things being not enough, on having to move it from over here to over there.

You see, this premise hides deep, but it is the very bottom of the whole old road. Why must you take from the rich to give the poor? Because things are not enough, and the share in the rich man's hand is exactly the share the poor man lacks, and if you do not take from the rich, the poor man has none. This thinking sets everyone into a situation of you-more-and-I-less, I-more-and-you-less, sets them into a grab. In this situation, the rich and the poor are born enemies, and what the rich take over is what the poor were robbed of, and the two can only fight to the death over that one pie that is not enough to go round. The deepest flaw of this old road is right here. From the very start it takes it as settled that things are not enough, that there is no way but to grab, and so all its life long it teaches how to grab more fairly, and it never once thinks that you could simply make things enough, so that no one has to grab at all.

Then to move it from over here to over there, by what means is it moved? To divide it by everyone's own willingness will not move it, for very few who clutch a thing will hand their own over gladly to be divided out. It will not move, and then only one road is left, to take it by force. To collect it in, to make it common, to grab. And with this grabbing, that dream which was so good begins to change its flavor, begins to bring trouble.

The first thing, it has to reach out and grab other people's things. But look back at the seventh section, the eighth section. The ones who clutch things in this world are not only those few clutching a mountain of gold, they are you and me and him, they are every ordinary person with a bit of savings who wants to build a wall against the wind for his family. This road of grabbing the much and dividing it to the little, once it truly begins to be walked, that sharp tool of grabbing cannot tell the one clutching the mountain of gold from the proper ordinary person saving his money. It grabs and grabs, and grabs its way onto the heads of ordinary people, and their hard-saved coffin money, their wall against the wind, is taken for the much as well, and made common, and divided out. The eighth section said it, in history this was truly done. Shout to make the rich common, to bring down the ones clutching the mountain of gold, and go truly making it common, truly grabbing, and the ones who fell were millions upon millions of proper common folk, their hard-saved households raided, divided out, so that one gust of wind and the family was broken and its people lost. Shout to save the poor, and the result is to smash the poor themselves.

This reasoning, that false target in the eighth section already told it through. The moment the sharp tool of grabbing is swung up, it cannot tell the good from the bad. It meant to grab those few truly clutching the mountain of gold, those few truly wringing people, but those few, with their vast reach, have long since moved their households off, long since slipped away. Grabbing on to the end, the ones who fall are all those proper households who could not run, could not hide, who held on to one bit of a hard-earned store. This is the most harmful, and most unjust, thing about this old road of grabbing. Under a flag that says it vents the anger of the poor, that it saves the poor, what it smashes is the poor man's own home, the proper man's own home. A good-hearted dream, once it walks onto the road of grabbing, is no longer free to stay good-hearted, and it becomes a sharp tool that wounds people, and wounds even the ones it wanted to save.

The second thing, deeper, is that this road cannot cure the root. Even if you grab it all in, and level it out even, things are still only that many, still not enough. Level it even today, and tomorrow? Things are still not enough, and people still have to fight over what is not enough, and the strong still find a way to take more, and the weak are still crowded down. Press it flat today, and tomorrow it rises up again. You have to grab forever, press forever, make common forever, because that source, things not being enough, so long as it is not solved for one day, the grabbing and dividing cannot stop for one day.

Think, to level it even, can you level it once and have it level for a lifetime? You cannot. Today you spend a heaven-great effort collecting it all in and spreading it out flat, and it looks level. But the days go on, and people still have to work, still have to live, and some are diligent and save up more, and some are idle and spend it fast, and in a few days there are again some with much and some with little, again not level. Are you to collect it in every day, level it every day? Then this world is not to be lived in, every day a grabbing, a collecting, a struggle session, and not one peaceful day. This is the most wearing, most endless thing about the road of grabbing, it cures the surface and does not cure the inside. The inside is that things are not enough, and so long as this is not solved, however level you make it, in a blink it is not level again, and you have to grab on and struggle on without end.

You see, this old road went wrong in that it wanted to use dividing, use grabbing, to solve a problem of things not being enough. But dividing and grabbing never divide out any more things. A pie that big, however you divide it, grab it, make it common, is still that big, is still not enough for ten people to eat. Cut it as even as you like, and ten people still cannot eat their fill. And to cut it even, you have to reach out and grab and drag even the peaceful ones in, and that good heart of letting everyone eat their fill ends up filling not one person, and adds a whole ground of chaos besides.

Think, ten people dividing a pie only enough for five, however you divide it, can all ten eat their fill? They cannot. Divide it as fair, as even, as you like, and each gets only half a person's share, and all ten are still hungry. This is not a question of whether it is divided fair. It is that that pie, simply, is not enough. On a pie that is not big enough, fight and grab and divide, fight until your heads are broken, and you still cannot conjure up the food for the sixth person, the tenth. For thousands of years, how many people, on this pie that was not big enough, fought until their heads were broken, struggled to the death, and in the end the pie was still that pie, and the hungry were still hungry. The problem was never in how the pie is divided. It was that the pie was too small.

This is the deadknot of the old road. The heart is good, the road is wrong. The heart wants everyone to eat their fill, a good heart, and the road grabs and divides that pie which is not big enough, a wrong road. The pie is not big, and however you grab it, however you divide it, you cannot fill people, and you wound people besides. Then this deadknot, how is it undone? Follow it along and you see. Since the deadknot is that the pie is not big, then the way to undo it is not in how the pie is divided at all, it is in this, making the pie big. Make the pie big enough, big enough that no one can finish it, and is there still any need to grab? Any need to make common? Every person reaches out and takes, and there is enough, and all eat their fill, and there is still more left over, and no one need go grabbing another's share. This is the new road that is to be pointed out for that thousands-of-years-old good dream. This new road, for thousands of years, could only ever be an empty dream, because the pie could never be made big. But today, for the first time, the pie can truly be made big. How it is made big, the next section tells.

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