More on the duality of good & evil. I understand how action is dangerous – an action can have both good and bad consequences. I understand how abilities are dangerous – a person with the capacity to do good also has the capacity to do evil. But defining good is also seen as a reinforcement of evil, because you can’t define one without giving an implied definition of the other. Contrasts always define each other. You can’t understand light without darkness, you can’t understand joy without sorrow, etc, etc, etc.
That said, is it bad to define evil? Based on what I’ve read, Taoists don’t like to enforce a universal standard of right and wrong that applies to everyone. And they have a point: just about every law that tries to define good has unintended bad consequences, and can be understandably broken in drastic circumstances. Example: the Somalian government recently tried to restrict money coming into the country because they were afraid it would fund terrorists. However, this kept many humanitarian aid groups from giving help to tens of thousands of starving people.
It seems like good and evil are so situation-dependent that they’re almost beyond definitions. Taoism isn’t really about attaining knowledge or wisdom, at least not in the sense of learning more. It talks about knowledge through subtraction, gradually filtering out undesirable bits of information or biases, things that get in the way of free thought. It also praises stopping at what cannot be understood. Defining good and evil would probably fit into this category.
But LeGuin’s characters still have a sense of when something is wrong with the world, when the natural order is disrupted. Is that how an ideal Taoist understands good and evil: by unlearning so much that they’re completely in tune with nature and can sense the disruptions?
Montaigne is certainly far away from Tao, but Smith’s discussion of Montaigne towards the beginning of the essay we read for today’s class certainly resonates — and offers an alternative vision — to this.