Chapter 71

Chapter 71

Knowing you don’t know is wholeness.
Thinking you know is a disease.
Only by recognizing that you have an illness
can you move to seek a cure.

The Master is whole because
she sees her illnesses and treats them,
and thus is able to remain whole.

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Wittgenstein once criticized Socrates for claiming to know nothing and suggested that this is not a proper attitude required of a philosopher. Judging from this chapter, we may reasonably speculate that Lao Tzu might have agreed with Socrates if he had known him.

I am not sure if you can proclaim yourself to be wise when you say you a knower of nothing. However, when one admits candidly that he does not know very much about something he is not really good at, we can at least say he is not suffering the “disease” mentioned in this chapter. However, the thing is there are too many people that pretend to know everything very well, and Socrates and Lao Tzu might have had them in mind when criticizing the so called “knowers.”

(Although Socrates might have been the wisest of all in Athens, he perhaps did not know how not to cause the wrath of Athenian citizens. It is unwise to fight against the public or admonish them to their anger. I partially agree with one Korean public servant in education who said that people in general are like “dogs and pigs”; that is, they are unwise and short-sighted like animals. Whether or not what he said was true, he did not foresee that he would get fired because of that expression. Whether the people in general are smarter than you or not, it is never wise to fight them head on. A group of people is always stronger than you.)

When my uncle was once too drunk and my grandmother scolded him, he said angrily that he was not drunk. It was obvious even to the eyes of a child (I was a primary school kid back then) that he was drunk. But he continued to shout and denied he was drunk. If he really thought he was not drunk then, I am sure this was an illness. If you cannot tell whether you are sober or drunk, you should probably stop drinking alcohol at all. Similarly, gambling addicts deny their problem as well. Or even drug addicts. They do not think they are addicted when they suffer a relapse and blame their wives or friends. They think they can escape whenever they choose to, but they are simply being delusional. They cannot help themselves and need professional treatments. They will not overcome their problems on their own.

Another point to note here is that even the sage can have an “illness.” This illness may not necessarily be a physical one. It may also refer to some flaws in personality or thinking habits. The sage is never a perfect human being and because of his recognition of this truth he is able to approach wholeness. In my own personal view, the Laozian sage is careful not to make the mistakes that a misguided Confucian sage often commits. Again, in my own view, the Confucian sage is prone to develop the personality disorder of looking down on non-sages because of his rigid adherence to rituals and literal meanings of the Confucian teachings, or the Analects. (Confucius is also in contrast with Laozi in terms of compassion. He does not seem to have had any compassion at all for those that were not “gentlemanly” enough.)

Then how can a sage know that he is in error or that something is wrong about him? Although legends say that Lao Tzu mostly taught his disciples through silence, I believe that the teacher himself occasionally needed feedback from his disciples or companions. Without engaging in this form of “dialectics” – or a dialogue, more precisely – it is difficult for the sage to get to truly know about himself. If you are closed off from others and think heavily only in solitude, it is difficult to maintain a healthy viewpoint of yourself and the world. Remember Friedrich Nietzsche. Even in the eyes of Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, this one of the most influential philosophers that ever lived was a brilliant psychologist. Freud was reluctant to further read the texts of Nietzsche, because the core content of his psychoanalysis was mostly anticipated by Nietzschean thoughts. Nevertheless, Nietzsche was not able to prevent himself from falling deeper into isolation and depression. His later books such as Ecce Homo were not certainly written when he was in his sane mind.

One Korean writer on Hegel, wrote in his book that a Hegelian “sage” (he never wrote this term; I invented it) is different from a Kantian or Stoic sage. Whereas the latter type of sage is solitary or all alone and maintains “Stoic” indifference to other people’s affairs, a sage in a Hegelian sense is able to see himself by discovering himself in the Other. You never exist alone. The Other is a kind of mirror; you can discover yourself by looking in the mirror. (If I am right, Zizek notes that Hegel is a Lacanian, and Lacan is a Hegelian; that is, Hegelianism anticipates Lacanianism.)

The disciples or less taoistic companions of a Laozian sage may not match his wisdom. Nevertheless, this does not indicate that he has nothing to learn from them. If the Laozian sage thought otherwise, he would be committing the error of a self-righteous Confucian sage. The Laozian sage is unafraid to get “muddied.” He is open to external influence and even wants to be influenced in one sense, but he is able to return to his “Laozian” composure and calmness. This is how the Laozian sage maintains a proper view of himself.