VOLUME VI, CHAPTER 5, SECTION 3
That Contrast That Makes Your Scalp Crawl, the Representatives of the Law Turn Out to Be Illiterate in the Law
The last section set the true nature of the law firmly: it is a living ruler that leads people to keep themselves in check, its intent is to protect the people, and its highest reach is few statutes, a clear bottom line, everyone keeping himself in check. But look back at the law in reality: it is not leading people to keep themselves in check, it is harming people; it is not cutting down the statutes, it is piling up a mountain; it is not protecting the people, it is suppressing, tormenting, robbing, and hounding the people to death. Why? This section is to shine through that contrast that makes your scalp crawl: the ones people see as the representatives of the law turn out to be illiterate in the law. And then to sort out one most important thing, who in the end is illiterate in the law, so that you do not mistake the common people who do not know the statutes for the illiterate in the law.
One. Who Represents the Law, Who Symbolizes the Law
First let me set this contrast squarely before you. Think: in this world, who represents the law, who symbolizes it, who embodies it? The lawmaker: the words he sets down are the law. The judge: he wears the robe, sits in the court, strikes the gavel, and while he sits there, people feel the law itself is sitting there; he is the embodiment of the law, the symbol of the law. The lawyer: the one who reads the law as his trade, who explains the law to people; in people's eyes, he is the representative of understanding the law, the spokesman of the law. The law-enforcement officer: his very title carries the word law; what he does is called enforcing the law; what he does is the law in motion.
These four kinds of people: if you go looking for where the law is, it is them that people point to. They say one word, and it is as if the law said it; they move, and it is as if the law moved. In this world's eyes they are the law itself, the representatives of the law, the symbols of the law, the embodiments of the law. People see them and are all respect. The robe goes on, the gavel strikes, and so many people below do not dare even breathe loud. They carry a signboard as big as the law itself, and stand high above everyone's heads.
Two. Take That Yardstick of the Intent and Measure Them
Now take that yardstick of the intent from the last section and measure them. Measure by the intent of the law is to protect the people. Measure by read the intent, not the letter. Measure by the law is a living ruler that leads people to keep themselves in check. Measure by few statutes, a clear bottom line, everyone keeping himself in check. Hold this yardstick up against these four kinds of representatives of the law and measure them from head to toe, carefully, once through. What does it measure?
One line to say what it measured: they are illiterate in the law. Hearing this line, did your heart give a jolt? The ones people see as the representatives of the law are illiterate in the law. The ones people see as the symbols of the law do not understand the law. The one draped in a robe, sitting in the court, is empty inside. The expert who explains the law as his trade explains the letter, not the intent. The one who does law enforcement, whose title carries the word law, enforces that coercion which ought never to have existed. The representatives of the law are illiterate in the law. This contrast makes your scalp crawl.
Three. The Bigger the Signboard, the Emptier Underneath
It is like a man in a white coat, a stethoscope round his neck, whom everyone calls the expert, who is in fact a quack, and when he has treated someone to death says, I went by the textbook. A man who stands at the lectern, whom everyone calls teacher, who in fact teaches the book backwards and teaches the students bad besides. A man who hangs out a fire brigade signboard, and every time he answers a call, goes not to put out the fire but to pour on oil.
Savor the taste of this; this is what is most intimidating, and most wounding. If an open villain, a bad man anyone can see through, comes to harm you, you can still guard against him, keep away from him, tell people he is bad. But this nest of the illiterate in the law carries this world's most upright signboard, the one most deserving of people's trust: the representatives of the law. When you go to them, you go with hope, hoping they will uphold justice for you, protect you. And it turns out they are empty underneath, blind, and with the very signboard that should most protect you, they turn around and harm you. You are harmed, and still take it for the law, for what is right by heaven and earth, and cannot even find a place to lodge your grievance. The more upright the signboard, the more you trust him; the more you trust him, the deeper he harms you. This is what is most scalp-crawling about this contrast.
The more the part fits, the more upright the position, the bigger the signboard, the emptier underneath, the blinder, the more intimidating. This is the deepest contrast under heaven, and the most intimidating too, because he carries that most upright signboard, the one that should most put people at ease. Who dares think he is empty underneath? Who dares point out that he is illiterate in the law? Here, I dare point it out. Why? Because this yardstick of the intent in hand is more fundamental, truer, higher than that gavel of letter, procedure, and status in their hands. That gavel of theirs measures the letter, procedure, compliance; this yardstick measures whether the people were protected. That gavel of theirs was given to them by the world: status, position, signboard. This yardstick is held up by the thousand-year-old golden saying, the law is nothing beyond human feeling. Set the two yardsticks against each other: measured by the world's yardstick, they are the representatives of the law; measured by the yardstick of the intent, they are illiterate in the law. Exact opposites. Then which yardstick counts? The one of the intent. Because the whole meaning of the law is to protect the people, and that worldly gavel, if it has not protected the people and has turned around and harmed them, however upright, however imposing, is crooked, is empty. So the representatives of the law, truly and surely, are illiterate in the law.
Four. For Thousands of Years No One Dared Point It Out
This one contrast, for thousands of years, no one has dared point out. Why has no one dared? Because they carry a signboard as big as the law itself, and to point them out is as good as pointing out the law. Ordinary people dare not. Their colleagues dare not, for to move them is to move themselves. Even the thousand years of legal debate before, on the letter and the spirit, at most said that certain rulings that picked at the letter were wrong, that certain individual judges should read the spirit; no one dared take this whole great class of people, those who make the law, judge by the law, expound the law, enforce the law, this whole nest, and point them all out as illiterate in the law.
Here, I dare. Not because I am bold, not because I do not know how heavy these words are, but because this yardstick of the intent in hand leaves no choice but to point it out. So many people have been driven by this nest of the illiterate in the law, lawfully, by procedure, in robes, to a broken home and family dead, onto the road of death. If it is not pointed out, who will point it out? If it is not pointed out, those people do not even have a yardstick to reason by.
Five. First, Clear Away a Misunderstanding
With this contrast lit up, let me stop first and sort one thing out, so that a misunderstanding does not rise in your heart. The misunderstanding goes like this. Say illiterate in the law, and a person perhaps floats up in your head: a common person who never had many days of schooling, cannot read many characters, does not know the statutes. In common usage, illiterate in the law means a person who does not know the law, and mostly it means just this kind of common person. You are probably thinking: the illiterate in the law spoken of here, does it take in these common people who do not know the statutes too? If so, would this book not turn around and bully those at the very bottom who never went to school?
The first thing is to clear this misunderstanding away. The illiterate in the law spoken of here has nothing whatsoever to do with whether one knows the statutes. Then what does it have to do with? With whether one understands the intent of the law.
Six. The Common People Who Do Not Know the Statutes Are Not Illiterate in the Law
A common person who cannot read and has never read a statute, does he understand the law? You say he does not know the statutes; right, he does not. But look back at what the last section set up: the intent of the law is to protect the people; the law is a living ruler that leads people to keep themselves in check; the highest reach of the law is everyone having character, tormenting no one, holding the bottom line himself. Then this common person, does he have in his heart that bottom line of do not harm people, do not take what is others', do not bully people? Most likely he does. Does he understand that I may not harm my neighbor, may not steal my neighbor's things, may not bully those weaker than me? Most likely he does. Then does he himself keep to this bottom line? For the most part, he does.
He understands the intent of the law, not harming people, holding the bottom line himself; he has lived himself into the shape that ruler ought to measure out; he is a person who understands the law. The statutes he has never read, the letter he does not know well, but that does not matter; the intent of the law he understands, and he has lived it out. He is not illiterate in the law; he is one who truly understands the law, and the ruler in his heart stands more upright than anyone's. So the first line to nail dead for you: the common people not knowing the statutes does not matter. A common person who has character in his heart, does not harm people, and holds the bottom line himself is a person who understands the law, and he is not in the least illiterate in the law.
Seven. The True Illiterate in the Law Are That Nest Who Should Understand the Intent but Understand Only the Letter
Then in whom is the illiteracy in the law? In those who in theory should understand the intent of the law, who occupy the positions of understanding the law, and yet understand only the letter and the procedure. The lawmaker: he makes law, and his proper duty is to make law that protects people; in theory, by his office, he should understand the intent of the law, protecting people. The judge: he decides cases, and his proper duty is to decide cases justly by the intent of the law; in theory, by his office, he should understand the intent of the law. The lawyer: he explains the law to people and uses the law for people; in theory, by his office, he should understand the intent of the law. The law-enforcement officer: he does matters connected to the law; in theory, by his office, he too should understand the intent of the law.
This whole great class of people are the ones who should understand the intent of the law. They sit in those positions, draw the pay for managing matters on the people's behalf, carry the signboard of representatives of the law, and in theory, by their office, understanding the intent of the law is their proper duty. But in reality? They understand the letter, the procedure, the clauses, the loopholes; these they know inside out. But the intent of the law, protecting people, they cannot read, have read it away, or have even never read it at all. They take the law for a heap of dead letters, a set of procedures, a system, with only words in their eyes and not the living person underneath. This is the true illiterate in the law. What he knows is the dead letter; what he is blind to is the living person. Sitting in the position that should understand the intent of the law, and yet having lost exactly that intent: this is the illiterate in the law. Should understand and does not, and that is far more vile than not understanding.
Eight. The Higher the Position, the More Expert, the Greater the Illiterate in the Law
And this illiteracy in the law has one deepest layer more. Let me point it through for you in one line: the higher the position, the more expert, the greater the illiterate in the law. You probably feel that those who have read law their whole lives, passed the hardest law exams, sat in that highest position of judge, surely must understand the intent of the law? They have read the most, studied the deepest. Let me tell you: backwards. The more a person is of this kind, the more likely he is the greatest illiterate in the law.
Why? Because what he read, was tested on, studied, is all that set of the letter, procedure, clauses, loopholes. The more he masters this set, the more easily he forgets the intent, until it is wiped clean. Those dense statutes before his eyes, those ingenious procedures, those loopholes that can be slipped through, stuff his whole head full; the living person underneath he long ago stopped seeing. His expertise is exactly the road that turns him into one illiterate in the law. So the judge may well be exactly the greatest illiterate in the law in this world. These words sound startling, but look back at what the fourth chapter told: the judge who, compliant with procedure, drove a person to a broken home and family dead; the judge who picked at the letter and drove to death a person who had guarded his home his whole life. It is not that they did not know the statutes; they knew them best. Not that they could not work procedure; they knew it most thoroughly. It is exactly because they knew that set of letter and procedure best, most thoroughly, that they could, so righteously, so procedurally, drive a person to death. And that common person who cannot read and does not know the statutes, the ruler in his heart that protects people stands steady. Who understands the law? By the letter, by the signboard, by schooling, that judge. By the intent, by that yardstick that protects people, that common person who cannot read. Shine this yardstick of the intent on it, and it is clear as day; who understands the law and who is illiterate in the law, one measure and it is known. With this contrast sorted out, the next section takes you to see how many forms this nest of the illiterate in the law grows into in the human world.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.