The real irony of the story is a historical context I think most readers these days miss: that when the real Plato paid court to a ‘king’ - Dionysius II, tyrant of Syracuse—it went very poorly. Plato was arrested, and barely managed to arrange his freedom & return to Athens.
Twice.
And supposedly Plato was sold into slavery by the previous tyrant.
“Once, Chuang Tzu was fishing the P’u River when the King of Ch’u sent two of his ministers to announce that he wished to entrust to Chuang Tzu the care of his entire domain.
Chuang Tzu held his fishing pole and, without turning his head, said: ‘I have heard that Ch’u possesses a sacred tortoise which has been dead for three thousand years and which the king keeps wrapped up in a box and stored in his ancestral temple. Is this tortoise better off dead and with its bones venerated, or would it be better off alive with its tail dragging in the mud?’
‘It would be better off alive and dragging its tail in the mud,’ the two ministers replied.
‘Then go away!’ said Chuang Tzu, ‘and I will drag my tail in the mud!’”
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The real irony of the story is a historical context I think most readers these days miss: that when the real Plato paid court to a ‘king’ - Dionysius II, tyrant of Syracuse—it went very poorly. Plato was arrested, and barely managed to arrange his freedom & return to Athens.
Twice.
And supposedly Plato was sold into slavery by the previous tyrant.
Another from the same site — on free will:
This works until the king sends armed men to confiscate your vegetables.
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Damn near every one of them through the systemical implementation of taxation?
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You can dynamite stones as an example to other would be stones.
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“Would be”. As in, “don’t become a stone; if I can’t get blood from you I’m liable to blow you up instead”.
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Which would be a problem if the dynamiter was trying to minimize the number of stones rather than maximizing the amount of blood, I suppose.
But you can destroy the stone, and put something you can get blood from in its place.
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Well, you might be bulldozing the whole area.
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Maybe you can destroy the stone, but you can’t explain moral arguments to it.
“Once, Chuang Tzu was fishing the P’u River when the King of Ch’u sent two of his ministers to announce that he wished to entrust to Chuang Tzu the care of his entire domain.
Chuang Tzu held his fishing pole and, without turning his head, said: ‘I have heard that Ch’u possesses a sacred tortoise which has been dead for three thousand years and which the king keeps wrapped up in a box and stored in his ancestral temple. Is this tortoise better off dead and with its bones venerated, or would it be better off alive with its tail dragging in the mud?’
‘It would be better off alive and dragging its tail in the mud,’ the two ministers replied.
‘Then go away!’ said Chuang Tzu, ‘and I will drag my tail in the mud!’”
Translation recommendation for Zhuangzi? (I’ve been reading Burton Watson’s.)
Maybe undignified, but my favorite translations are from Tsai Chih Chung’s series of manhua interpretations of the Chinese classics, specifically Zhuangzi Speaks: the Music of Nature and The Dao of Zhuangzi: the Harmony of Nature
The kind of formal distance one usually sees in academic translations distorts Zhuangzi’s message. The comic book form suits it very well.