the short of it:
You can’t scare people who aren’t afraid of death, with death
74. The Delusion of Coercing.
When the people do not fear death, to what purpose is death still used (as a punishment) to overawe them? And should the people be kept in continual fear of death, and I lay hold of those who are not to be so intimidated and slay them, -who would dare? There is always the Great Executioner. Now for any [person] to act the Executioner’s part, I say, it is hewing out the Great Architect’s work for [them]. And [those] who [undertake] to hew for the Great Architect rarely fails to cut [their] hands.
74. ‘Restraining Delusion.’
74.1 The people do not fear death; to what purpose is it to (try to) frighten them with death? If the people were always in awe of death, and I could always seize those who do wrong, and put them to death, who would dare to do wrong?
74.2 There is always One who presides over the infliction of death. [Those] who would inflict death in the room of [those] who so preside over it may be described as hewing wood instead of a great carpenter. Seldom is it that [those] who [undertake] the hewing, instead of the great carpenter, does not cut [their] own hands!
74. Overcome Delusion.
74.1 If the people do not fear death, how can they be frightened by death? If we make people fear death, and supposing some would (still) venture to rebel, if we seize them for capital punishment, who will dare?
74.2 There is always an executioner who kills. Now to take the place of the executioner who kills is taking the place of the great carpenter who hews. If a [person] takes the place of the great carpenter who hews, [they] will rarely, indeed, fail to injure [their] hand.
the death chapters (part 2):
Chapter 74 of the Tao Te Ching is the heart of Lao Tsu’s Death Chapters (73-76), and directly addresses capitol punishment.
However, a lot of translations disagree over the very first stanza. Is Lao Tsu asking who would dare to slay people who don’t fear death (Chalmers)? Or is he asking who would dare risk death from capitol punishment (Legge and Suzuki)?
Like Legge and Suzuki, a lot of translators try to twist Chapter 74 into a truism about how to coerce people into good behavior through capitol punishment. It is not.
As Lao Tsu proves over and over again, he doesn’t use logic as a tool for convincing us of anything. Instead he sets up paradoxes, and lets us to do the work.
Chalmers’ finds the paradox in his translation above, as does a commentary by Li Hsi-chai:
“If people are not afraid of death, what use is threatening them with execution? And if they are afraid of death, and we catch someone who breaks the law, and we execute them, by killing one person we should be able to govern the rest. But the more people we kill, the more break the law.” (Pine 148).
Li taps the pulse of Lao Tsu’s paradox here: you can’t scare people who aren’t afraid of death, with death. You’ll just wind up slaughtering people unnecessarily.
As long as we’re looking for the paradox, this is clearly it.
Human Gaul.
But who is the executioner? And why does Lao Tsu compare them to a carpenter? No two translations are alike.
Most translations read like the executioner is obviously human (see Ames, Henricks, Lau, Wang, etc.). But the best translations (see Chalmers and Legge) leave room for ambiguity leaning towards nature as the executioner (Chalmers translates “Great Executioner,” and Legge the “One”).
But that’s the beauty of Lao Tsu’s writing, it’s flexible enough to accommodate multiple meanings. In the case of Chapter 74, the executioner can be both human and nature at the same time, depending on whether we have the gaul to try and replace nature as executioner.
The master carpenter.
If a person (or government) acts as executioner, they are in effect acting as the master carpenter. Lao Tsu writes this in parallel terms so we don’t miss it (see Star 243). But he knows the human mind. He knows how governments operate. And he knows people are going to kill other people for what they think is the greater good.
But for Lao Tsu, the ends never justify the means. How we operate (Tao) is directly related to what we get out of things (Te). And artificially culling the herd will never be as efficient and impartial as the great Tao.
Nature will always be the master carpenter. So if we want to emulate nature and assume the role of the master executioner, Lao Tsu leaves room for that. But he warns us not to fool ourselves into thinking we can do it better. Because more often than not, those who try to imitate the Master Carpenter only wind up cutting themselves.
-TB
works cited
Lao-tzu. Lau, D.C. Tao Te Ching. United Kingdom: Penguin Publishing Group, 1963.
Lao Tzu. Pine, Red. Lao-tzu’s Taoteching. United States: Mercury House, 1996.
