Number Thirty Violence
30
the Army marches on
behind them, barren ground
thistles and thorns
Lesson # 30
After the army passes,
all that can grow
are thistles and thorns.
Crops fail
long after the soldiers
have moved on.
Embrace violence
and you will leave suffering in your wake.
Embrace peace and goodwill
and the universe
sighs with gratitude.
From: 81 Lessons from the Tao Te Ching
Number 30 Violence
War doesn’t work
Violence
spawns resistance rebellion and more violence
After the army passes
all that can grow are thistles and thorns
The crops fail long after the soldiers move on
World leaders need to learn the following
just do what barely needs to be done
and then let it go and move on
Don’t brag boast or even think that
victory couldn’t have happened without you
Step out of the spotlight and let things evolve as they will
Or go ahead and grab control
force victory at any cost
and catastrophic misfortune is coming right towards you
NUMBER THIRTY
He who would help a Ruler of men by Tao
Does not take soldiers to give strength to the kingdom.
His service is well rewarded.
Where troops dwell, there grow thorns and briers.
After great wars, there follow bad years.
He who loves, bears fruit unceasingly,
He does not dare to conquer by strength.
He bears fruit, but not with assertiveness,
He bears fruit, but not with boastfulness,
He bears fruit, but not with meanness,
He bears fruit, but not to obtain it for himself,
He bears fruit, but not to show his strength.
Man is great and strong, then he is old,
In this he is not of Tao.
If he is not of Tao
He will quickly perish.
Isabella Mears, The Tao Teh King, A Tentative Translation from the Chinese, William McLellan, Glascow, 1916.
Number 30 (Commentary) How long do we have?
We leveraged greed into planetary destruction.
The war industry made bigger and better weapons, with bigger and better profits until they achieved the perfect weapon.
With the 12,500 nuclear warheads and bombs that now exist, we can eliminate all life on this planet.
We are the Avatars of the Annihilation, the Gods of Destruction.
Should our species survive, we will need to learn to step away from the endlessly hungry battle for profit, power and control, and embrace service for the common good instead.
We will need to step away from victory and embrace imperfect, unprofitable, unsteady peace instead.
Tangent and Tool #30, It’s gonna’ get messy A question and a reflection: “How long do we have?” In 1947, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists created a graphic for their concerns for how close we were to nuclear annihilation, The Doomsday Clock. It was set for 7 minutes until midnight, the moment of nuclear annihilation. Every year it is adjusted. In 2007, the scientists added disastrous climate-related factors into its deliberations. We are now 90 seconds to midnight and complete annihilation.
Should we survive, it is not going to be to emerge into a golden age of compassion, peace, goodwill and universal justice. It might be a regression into barbarism and the collapse of civilization. It might consolidate into an oligarchy of world domination through massive surveillance and brutal enforcement. Or we may crawl through, preserving many democracies, creating international treaties that truly curb capitalistic, runaway competition, treaties that control the use and manufacture of nuclear weapons and educational systems that promote the development of a deeper (and probably desperate) acceptance of our responsibility as stewards of our ecosystem. But it will be an uneasy peace, needing constant vigilance and compromise. Hopefully that effort will keep us stumbling towards a more stable environment in all ways: natural, political, religious, moral and philosophical.