Original Text
Abandon cleverness and wisdom, and the people will benefit a hundredfold; discard benevolence and righteousness, and the people will return to filial piety and compassion; forsake skill and profit, and thieves and robbers will disappear. These three—wisdom, benevolence, and skill—are mere adornments and insufficient for governing the world. Therefore, let the people's thoughts have a foundation. Keep to simplicity and purity, reduce selfish desires and distracting thoughts, and abandon the doctrines of wisdom, ritual, and law—then there will be no worries.
Guide
Laozi proposed the governing philosophy of "abandoning sageliness and discarding wisdom," "abandoning benevolence and discarding righteousness," and "abandoning ingenuity and discarding profit." He believed that concepts like "benevolence," "righteousness," "sageliness," and "wisdom" are insufficient as principles for governing a state; only by returning to the primordial state and preserving the inherent nature of things can the world be free from turmoil.
Analysis
In this chapter, Laozi further elaborates on the social ills mentioned in the previous chapter and proposes specific governance solutions for these societal maladies.
In the previous chapter, Laozi said, "When wisdom emerges, great hypocrisy arises," so he begins this chapter by stating, "Abandon sagacity and discard wisdom," which inevitably raises doubt: "Since intelligence, wisdom, eloquence, and cleverness are what people desire, why must they be rejected and abandoned?" Wisdom is a good thing, no one can deny that, but good things are not necessarily put to good use. That is to say, if intelligence and talent are used to serve the people and cultivate virtue, that is undoubtedly good and should be strongly encouraged; but once they are applied to harming others for personal gain, it becomes extremely frightening, and it would be better to have no wisdom at all. Hence, Laozi advocates discarding such cleverness and cunning.
Laozi believed that "sageliness" and "wisdom" easily breed cunning and deceit, and governing with legal systems and cunning becomes a "purposeful" policy that disturbs the people. Abandoning such disruptive practices allows the people to gain tangible benefits. Thus, it is clear that Laozi did not truly advocate a policy of keeping the people ignorant. The sage of "inferior virtue" relies on legal systems to introduce various hypocritical moral concepts, and only those with "thoroughly corrupt courts" can enjoy the material wealth produced by this culture, which also corrupts the simple-hearted people, tempting them to desire "rare goods." This culture is the "beginning of chaos." From this, it is evident that Laozi denounced the rulers' culture, seeing it as contradictory to the Great Way, and argued that it must be abandoned because it brings no benefit to the people. Therefore, Laozi proposed a utopian idea—to isolate the people from this culture. Although this political stance has some idealistic elements, his advocacy of "manifesting simplicity and embracing genuineness, reducing selfishness and curbing desires" holds significance for restoring human nature.
Many editions end this chapter with the phrase "reduce selfishness and lessen desires," placing "abandon learning and be free from worry" as the beginning of the next chapter, and "abandon learning and be free from worry" can indeed be juxtaposed with the preceding phrase "see simplicity, embrace genuineness, reduce selfishness, lessen desires." The phrase "abandon learning and be free from worry" has also sparked considerable controversy in academia. One view holds that it means discarding learning leads to no worries, implying that Laozi sought to destroy all culture and thus rejected learning, leading to the conclusion that he was the founder of a policy of ignorance and a proponent of such thought and policy. Another view argues that "abandon learning" refers to rejecting the knowledge of sagely wisdom, benevolence, righteousness, and cleverness, placing it outside oneself to avoid the temptation of power and desire, thereby achieving a state free from worry. A third view suggests that Laozi's "abandon" actually means the ultimate skill, referring to profound and unique knowledge, and that only by attaining such distinctive knowledge, different from the mundane, can one be without desire or demand and truly practice non-action.
In ancient times, humans and nature coexisted harmoniously, with everything people consumed or used taken directly from nature. Human understanding was limited then, no more advanced than that of other animals. But as knowledge grew, people gradually gained the ability to transform nature, believing themselves to be the masters of all things, and they constantly disrupted nature's balance, thus incurring its punishment. In truth, this was the price humans paid for possessing wisdom. Later, deceit, suspicion, and mutual slaughter emerged among humans, also adverse consequences of cunning intelligence. There is a story that offers insight: a passenger plane crashed in the desert, leaving eleven survivors, including a professor, an official, a manager, an officer, a housewife... and a fool. Daytime temperatures in the desert reached fifty to sixty degrees Celsius; to survive, they had to find water promptly, and the instinct to survive drove everyone to search for water. Yet the vast desert kept playing tricks on them—whenever they spotted an oasis and rushed toward it, the oasis vanished instantly, and this happened several times. They began to realize that the oases they saw were merely mirages. They became disheartened and despondent. Only the fool, unaware of what a mirage was, knew only that he was thirsty and needed water. After the others had completely given up, he continued desperately searching for water, eventually climbing a sand dune, seeing water, and shouting for the others to come, but no one heeded the fool. Three days later, when rescuers arrived, they found that only the fool was still alive; the other ten had died.
A fool does not understand what a mirage is, nor does he understand deception, so naturally he does not suspect or wait for death; those people, on the contrary, are pushed to their doom by their own cleverness. The fool is blessed by his foolishness, and it is his foolishness that saves his life. Of course, this chapter does not advocate that we all become fools, but rather inspires us not to use our wisdom to suspect or harm others, and to be simple, honest, and free from excessive desires, so that we may connect with the Great Way.
Classic Analysis
Some believe Laozi opposed all culture and thought, aiming to return people to a primitive state of ignorance, making him a pioneer of obscurantism and an advocate of deceptive policies. While his philosophy has an anti-intellectual tendency, it was not intended to keep people ignorant. What Laozi truly opposed was the cunning deceit and hypocritical benevolence in human interactions, seeking to free people from the temptations of power and desire, thereby achieving spiritual freedom.
Laozi lived in an era of feudal lords contending and wars erupting everywhere, where all wars were waged under the banner of upholding ritual propriety and justice for the world; every ruler without exception claimed to be a sage; and the itinerant politicians and thinkers were all regarded as "wise men" in people's hearts, using doctrines that promised benefits to the feudal lords to incite conflict and seek fame and fortune. In Laozi's eyes, this was precisely the root cause of incessant warfare and the people's suffering.
Therefore, based on his observations of the era, Laozi believed that these "sagely wisdom," "benevolence and righteousness," and "skill and profit" were the root cause of the Great Way's decline. It would be better for people to be without these "benevolence and righteousness" and "clever wisdom," and instead return to that ideal state of ignorance without desire, without contention or conflict.
In the Zhuangzi, it is written: In ancient times, people tied knots to record events, regarded coarse food as delicious, plain clothes as beautiful, lived happily in simple customs, and were content in humble dwellings. Neighboring states could see each other, hear each other's roosters and dogs, yet people grew old and died without ever traveling back and forth. That was truly a time of great peace. Now, people crane their necks and stand on tiptoe, saying, "A sage has appeared in a certain place," then rush off with provisions, abandoning their parents and neglecting their own affairs, traveling back and forth—all this is the fault of pursuing sageliness and wisdom while straying from the Great Way.
The meaning of happiness is complex; some say learning brings happiness, others say ignorance is the happiest; some find joy in quiet meditation, while others take pleasure in climbing mountains; for many common people, happiness is living without war and working in peace, but renowned figures like Zhang Yi and Su Qin regarded achieving great deeds and gaining fame as happiness; some rulers spend their days indulging in drinking and pleasure, while others work tirelessly without rest... Laozi believed that wisdom and fame cause people to be restless and exhaust their spirit and body. In reality, we can only say that figures like Laozi and Zhuangzi are idealists. While appreciating their beautiful ideals, we must also recognize their limitations; on one hand, we learn from Laozi to abandon petty cleverness and small gains and follow the great Dao, on the other hand, we must see the flaw of being overly idealistic: those who completely abandon cleverness and gain cannot survive in this world.