When Everyone Knows Beauty

When you crown one “best,” what does that make everyone else?

Original

天下皆知美之為美，斯惡已；皆知善之為善，斯不善已。故有無相生，難易相成，長短相較，高下相傾，音聲相和，前後相隨。是以聖人處無為之事，行不言之教。

In plain words

When everyone knows what counts as beautiful, ugliness appears. When everyone knows what counts as good, the not-good appears. So being and non-being give rise to each other, hard and easy complete each other, long and short are measured against each other, high and low lean on each other, note and voice answer each other, front and back follow each other. That is why the sage handles things without forcing and teaches without preaching.

Key words

惡èHere “ugly,” the opposite of beautiful, not “evil.”
相傾xiāng qīngTo lean on each other: without low, there is no high.
不言之教bù yán zhī jiàoTeaching without lectures or labels: by how you live.

Reading it step by step

Yesterday we stood at the gate: names are useful, but they cut the world into pieces. Today Laozi gives an example right away. What happens once everyone agrees "this is what beauty looks like"?

First: set up "beautiful" and you have set up "ugly." A beauty contest begins by fixing a standard. Whoever fits it is beautiful; everyone else lands, without a word, on the other side. Labels also drag each other along. A Taiwanese pop hit once went, "I'm ugly, but I'm gentle." Everyone loved it, and afterwards hardly anyone would call themselves gentle any more, because it sounded like admitting you were ugly.

Gentleness belongs to everyone, but tie it to a beauty scale and it gets tangled. Goodness works the same way. Declare someone a good person because he gives a million a year to an orphanage, and what about everyone who has no million to give? Have they lost the right to be good? Once an outside standard is set, it pushes aside the choices people make inside.

Second: opposites always come in pairs. Being and non-being, hard and easy, long and short, high and low, note and voice, front and back: each needs the other to exist. Without short, long means nothing; without low, you can't see high. Laozi isn't saying beauty and goodness are unreal. He is saying that once they harden into a social standard, they bring comparison, comparison breeds wanting, and wanting breeds conflict. That is why the next chapter says, "Don't exalt the talented, and people won't compete." This is the first kind of knowing: drawing distinctions. To survive we must tell good from bad and gain from harm, yet distinction itself brings trouble with it.

name “beautiful”set a standard

“ugly” appearsborn as a pair

comparing, wantingthen conflict

teach without wordsthe sage labels less

Third: the sage "handles things without forcing and teaches without preaching." If labels create opposites, the sage uses fewer of them. He does things without a show and teaches without sermons. A child learns more from watching how her parents treat people than from hearing "be kind" a hundred times.

Think of daily life now: likes, rankings, trending lists, "the neighbour's kid who got into a top school." Every number quietly tells us who is beautiful and who is not, who is ahead and who is behind. We don't have to pretend these standards aren't there. We can simply remember that people made them, that they are relative, and that they are not the whole of you.

Hold off on scoring the world for a moment. The world will breathe easier, and so will you.

One line to carry

Standards are man-made. They are not the whole of you.

Today's question

Which recent “standard” (grades, looks, income, likes) made you feel not good enough? Who set it?

Quick check

In “ugliness appears,” what does the character 恶 mean here?

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I · Facing a World in Disorder — When values and meaning both wobble, what can we stand on?

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