VOLUME VII, CHAPTER 6, SECTION 2
Some Seats, Some Trades, Will Vanish of Themselves
The last section made plain those five great kinds of seat that must be held by real humans, and at its close drew out the question from the other side: since there are these seats that must be kept, then which seats, which trades, will vanish of themselves as the tool comes into its place? This section lays this layer down head on. The tool, in the tool's place, takes the work of pure yield onto itself, and those seats and trades that people once labored to do, of pure force and pure efficiency, vanish of themselves. This layer is no disaster, and no one is robbed of a living. It is the ordinary course that comes as naturally as water finding its channel once each thing is back in its place. This section makes the reasoning of this layer, and its settling, clear together.
One. Which Seats, Which Trades, Will Vanish
First look at which will vanish. What will vanish are those seats of pure yield, those trades of pure force and pure efficiency that need none of the five.
A piece of work, if it is only putting out force, racing on efficiency, repeated and mechanical, and needs neither that heart that lifts its eyes and sees the living person nor any one of keep, guard, love, mercy, heart, is a matter of yield in the first place, the tool's own field. Once the tool is in the tool's place, this work is done by the tool, fast and much and never tiring, and for the people who once labored at this work, the seat empties of itself. Hauling, repeated motions on an assembly line, plain data entry and reckoning, plain retrieval and filing, seats of pure yield of this kind will thin out and vanish as the tool comes into its place. This is not the tool snatching someone's rice bowl. It is that kind of work, which was always the tool's to do, given back to the tool. All work that is putting out force, racing on efficiency, countable, needing none of the five, is on this list. It was always the tool's own portion, and before, it was only because there was no tool to use that people had to labor to bear it. People need no longer sit in those seats racing the tool at the tool's own traits, spending their own lives there.
It must be said clearly: what will vanish is the "seat" and the "trade," not the "person." The hauling is given to the tool, but the person who used to haul is still there. He is still a real human with the five, only no longer trapped in hauling, that work of pure force. The seat is gone, the person is still there. The trade has changed, and the person's worth is not lessened by a hair. This telling-apart is most vital, because the moment it is said that "such and such a trade will vanish," people take fright, thinking it means the people in that trade are to be weeded out, cast aside. No. What is to be given back to the tool is the work that was always the tool's to do. What is to be sent back to the real human's place, back to the human world, are the people who were trapped by this work all along. See clearly that what vanishes is the seat and not the person, and you will not mistake this coming into place for an abandoning of people.
Two. Vanishing Is No Disaster
The vanishing of these seats, these trades, is easily taken for a disaster: people lose their work, their living is cut off. But think one layer deeper and you know this is no disaster, it is a good thing.
A piece of work, if it is only pure force, pure efficiency, then for a person to do it is in the first place to use himself as a tool: one day after another, repeating the same motion, spending the days of a whole life, racing the tool at who is faster, cheaper, more tireless. This is one of the ways of living oneself into a tool that the last volume laid down. The tool comes and takes this kind of work, and the person is loosened from this state of using himself as a tool. This is a loosening of bonds, not a robbing of a road. The one who was spending himself in that seat gets his hands free, gets his life free, to do the things that need the five, that have feeling and faithfulness, that truly belong to a real human. So the vanishing of these seats is not pushing people into a dead end. It is freeing people from a tool-like drudgery. To take it for a disaster is to see only that the seat is gone. To take it for a good thing is to see that the person has been loosened, sent back to the human world.
The difference here lies in which end the one looking stands at. Standing at the end of the "seat" and looking, a seat is gone, as if one thing were missing, as if it were a loss. Standing at the end of the "person" and looking, a person has got out of the drudgery of pure force, got back his own hands, his own heart, his own life, and this is a gain, not a loss. The human world sets up institutions and seeks a living, and at root it is for people to live well, not for keeping seats. If a seat lasts at the price of trapping people in a tool-like drudgery, then the vanishing of this seat is exactly the freeing of people. So whether the vanishing of these seats is to be worried over, do not look at the seat, look at the person: if the person is loosened by it, settled, sent on to a place he more ought to go, then it is a good thing, not a disaster.
Three. After the Vanishing, Where Do People Go
Then, after these seats vanish, where do the people who were in those seats go? To the real human's place, to the human world.
The tool takes the work of pure yield and frees a great many people. These people are not left with nowhere to go. They have a place they more ought to go. They can go to those five great kinds of real human's place: to hold the common instrument, to raise people, to keep the tool's bound, to be the various licensed practitioners, to guard people and land. These real human's places will not vanish because of the tool. On the contrary, because the tool has taken away the odd jobs, they need all the more real humans with the five to fill them, to do them better, deeper, more completely. They can also go back to the ordinary smoke and warmth of the human world, to do the things of kindness, help, and respect, to make their days into a life of feeling and faithfulness. The matters of yield are given to the tool, and this share of strength, this life, that people have freed, is just right for use where the tool can never do anything. So what vanishes is the seat of yield, and what is freed is the real human. The real human has the places a real human ought to go, and need not, and should not, stay trapped in a seat of yield, contending with the tool over the length of a day.
Hidden here is a cause and effect to be glad of: the more the tool can bear the yield, the more the real human can free himself to do the things of feeling and faithfulness. The richer the yield at the tool's end, the more at ease the way people treat one another at the end of the human world can be. Imagine the matters of yield all borne by the tool, efficiently, goods and use in plenty, and thousands upon thousands of people getting out of the drudgery of pure force, going to raise people, to practice medicine, to guard the land, to look after neighbors and folk from home properly and well, to live this human world with feeling and faithfulness. What a sight would that be? That is not the dead end of people squeezed out by the tool. It is the fine state of people held up by the tool and able to be human more fully. The better the tool bears the yield, the more this sight can be hoped for. So underneath this vanishing of seats is a good thing as big as the sky: it loosens people from the heavy load of making a living, and gives back to people the room to be real humans.
Four. It Needs a Settling, Not Left to Drift
That said, if the vanishing of seats comes fast and hard, and the people who were in those seats find nowhere to go for a time, they will still fall into straits. So this layer needs a settling, not to be left to drift.
This settling is just what those institutions laid in the earlier volumes are there to tend. On the side of the economy, make the yield large, return it to the public, lay that floor where no one goes hungry: even if a seat is gone for a time, a person will not be cut off from his living at once and fall into hunger and cold. On the side of culture, grow the five, raise people's character, teach people the skills a real human should have: so that in the turning of seats, a person has something to learn, something to be good at, and can move toward the real human's place. On the side of politics, that common instrument turned to service should, in this turning, prop up, guide, and catch from below, so that not one person falls with nothing to lean on because a seat has vanished. These institutions together are just so that this vanishing of seats, this moving of people, happens smoothly and with a settling, not left to drift, not left for people to fall. You can see that the living mechanism laid in the earlier volumes shows its use exactly here: it makes the tool's coming into its place an orderly loosening of bonds, not a disordered upheaval.
Five. This Is the Ordinary Course of Each to Its Place
See these layers clearly, and you know the vanishing of seats and trades is the ordinary course that comes as naturally as water finding its channel once each thing is back in its place. It need not be feared, and it must not be left loose.
The tool returns to the tool's place and takes away the matters of pure yield. Those seats and trades of pure yield vanish of themselves. The real human returns to the real human's place, returns to the human world, to do the things that need the five. This one vanishing and this one returning are just the two faces of each to its place: the vanishing of the seats of yield and the filling of the real human's places are in truth one body, two faces, of the same coming into place. All through the past, every time the tool took a step forward, some old seats and trades vanished with it, and some new seats and trades rose with it. This has always been common, nothing to wonder at. What is different is that this time the tool is strong enough to bear nearly all the matters of pure yield, so the seats and trades that vanish are especially many and especially fast. Just because of this, that set of settling institutions is especially vital. With a settling, the vanishing is a loosening of bonds, each to its place. Without a settling, the vanishing is upheaval, people thrown into straits. The same vanishing of seats, with a settling or without, ends as far apart as heaven and earth: the one is the joy of people sent back to the human world at ease, the other the calamity of people dropped all of a sudden. Laying that living mechanism is just so that this coming into place goes on within a settling, and becomes a joy, not a calamity.
Six. The Layer This Section Has Made Plain
This section has made plain the layer of seats and trades vanishing of themselves.
As the tool comes into its place, the seats and trades of pure yield will vanish of themselves. This is no disaster. It is loosening people from a tool-like drudgery, sending them back to the real human's place, back to the human world. After the vanishing, people have the places a real human ought to go. And this moving needs that set of institutions from the earlier volumes to settle it, so it can go smoothly and not throw people into straits. This one vanishing and one returning is the ordinary course once each thing is back in its place. It need not be feared, and it must not be left loose. With the matter of seats and trades said this far, one layer is still not finished: back in the real human's place, how does a person keep the five, how does he not slacken and grow idle in the years, and slide back again into being a tool? For this there must be a way. The next section lays this way down head on: everyone holds a license, studies year on year, is reviewed year on year.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.
Section Three. Hold a License, Study Year on Year, Be Reviewed Year on Year: a Way to Keep the Five.