The chapter opens with its governing paradox: when government is unobtrusive and lenient, the people are pure and simple; when government is vigilant and intrusive, the people become anxious and crafty. Surveillance breeds the very slyness it watches for; ease breeds the honesty no policing can produce. Then the lines every Chinese schoolchild once knew: misfortune is what fortune leans upon; fortune is where misfortune hides. Who knows where the turning point lies? Good and bad luck are not opposites but phases of one another, and their alternation has confused people for a very long time — the upright becomes devious, the good becomes monstrous.
The response to such a world is the sage's four-fold gentleness, the chapter's real teaching: square-edged but not cutting; principled but not wounding; straight but not aggressive; bright but not blinding. Keep your shape without using it as a weapon — corners, convictions, directness, and brilliance all retained, and all rounded at exactly the point where they would start drawing blood.
Key verses
When government is unobtrusive and lenient, the people are pure and simple. When government is vigilant and intrusive, the people become anxious and crafty. Misfortune is what fortune leans upon; fortune is where misfortune hides. Who knows where the turning point lies? When the upright becomes the devious, and the good becomes monstrous — people have been confused about this for a very long time. Therefore the sage is square-edged but does not cut; principled but does not wound; straight but not aggressive; bright but not blinding.
Read Chapter 58 in full
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ਐਪ ਵਿੱਚ ਮੁਫ਼ਤ ਪੜ੍ਹੋਪਰੰਪਰਾਵਾਂ ਤੋਂ ਪੁੱਛੋ
ਇੱਕ ਸਵਾਲ। ਪੰਜ ਪਰੰਪਰਾਵਾਂ ਦੇ ਜਵਾਬ।
ਬਿਨਾਂ ਖਾਤੇ ਦੇ ਹਰ 24 ਘੰਟਿਆਂ ਵਿੱਚ 2 ਸਵਾਲ।