Lmao good point.

Being good to help your fellow man as if he were you is a noble thing, because it’s focused on the person across from you. Being good for the sake of doing good or to feel nice or for the sake of appearing noble isn’t noble, because it’s focused on yourself. It’s the difference between a mother volunteering at a soup kitchen and saying hi to a regular visitor, and Jeff Bezos donating $100,000 on national TV. If you still disagree, fair enough.

That 'line' doesn't exist in Tao. They're the same thing, or two sides of the same coin, or something totally made up by people to make sense of the world. All opposites are just the same thing in Tao, and the synthesis of those opposites is what makes life.

Tao says you shouldn't be either extreme of apathy or burning yourself out, but it also doesn't give you a definition of what balance is on a case by case basis. That's something you need to learn yourself by going out and experiencing life, to discover it first hand (some might call this the difference between wisdom and knowledge, with morals and ethics being solidly in the domain of the former according to Tao). It's not something you can define, read in a book, and then implement with 100% perfect efficacy. If it was, surely someone would have created the perfect cohesive argument that nobody can disagree with in the thousands of years humans have been thinking about these issues.

In terms of your comment 'because of the world we live in', Tao actually came about during a very awful period of Chinese history. Ironically, it was actually made with the idea of being a very practical philosophy that doesn't concern itself with rules and regulations of what to do, what is good or bad, and what is or isn't acceptable. Another comment goes into the historical context better than I can so I suggest reading those so I won't repeat.

Regarding the superiority complex that comes with religion, Tao very clearly disapproves of this. That's why depictions of practicioners in old art are usually of old, fat men with terrible teeth laugh, joking, acting clumsy, dancing, etc. It's because Tao is about living life, not taking itself seriously, and flexing on people about how much more ‘moral' you are is actually a form of egotism. Tao is very much against the individual ego. See this very famous koan with a message to this effect https://www.zinzin.com/observations/2014/zen-in-action-no-tree-no-mirror-no-dust/

I guess I'll just leave you with this Alan Watt's quote, which I think is kinda central to your intellectual conflict of trying to figure out in your mind what is the 'good' or 'right' thing to do.

"Nothing is really more inhuman than human relations based on morals. When a man gives bread in order to be charitable, eats with a Negro in order to be unprejudiced, and refuses to kill in order to be peaceful, he is as cold as a clam. He does not actually see the other person. Only a little less chilly is the benevolence springing from pity, which acts to remove suffering because it finds the sight of it disgusting."

Nah just following the whole thread because it’s interesting and you’ve commented a lot.

I mean to be fair he did

The article is about Tao so going into the conversation with a mindset to be ‘right’, ‘wrong’ or ‘convinced’ just totally misses the mark. It’s about gaining new insight and understanding not flexing the strength of your mind or ideas (original or borrowed) against those of another.

Tao often describes itself as ‘A Void’, so against what are you disagreeing? If it’s the person in the comment section though then that’s kinda off topic.

Really good write up, historical context is so important to understanding these ideas.

https://www.theschooloflife.com/article/wu-wei-doing-nothing/

In Tao, being at peace with and accepting reality is not the same as being apathetic to it.

Yea we agree on that, but I disagree with how you characterise Tao that’s all. Yes overly subjective is bad, but no the Tao is not overly subjective.

So in my understanding, Tao is actually antithetical to the kind of intellectualising that you’re mentioning that it’s weak to. That’s not to say you’re not right in that it can be twisted to justify any point you want, because it can. But Tao at it’s core is about embracing life as an unquantifiable and undefinable personal experience. Living in the moment, doing what you feel is right in your heart, and all those other intuitive but intellectually empty cliches.

Eastern philosophy is thus extremely different to western philosophy. In this regard it can be pointless to point a western scientific/logical scrutiny at it. It’s literally designed to be paradoxical, empty, and impossible to analyse. Once you reach that peak of mental fatigue and frustration, you are forced to sacrifice a logical, objective or scientific approach for an intuitive one that ‘feels’ right. So anyone who analyses Tao and finds a flaw either doesn’t understand it or hasn’t embraced it the way it’s meant to be embraced. It therefore tries to guard itself against the intellect and ego using it as justification for evil by making its true and honest practice impossible to dissect. You can see this in their extensive use of analogy, metaphor and paradox (in the article, in zen koans, etc) instead of a western logic like A therefore B. Again this is why it’s described as the ‘middle path’, or the third option. Do I struggle to find an objective reality to do good? No that’s impossible. Do I become an amoral ass who does what he wants because everything’s subjective? No because that’s evil. Instead you choose the Tao, the middle path, the one that’s impossible to define but that followers insist is intuitive to all ‘life’.

A lot of zen koans have this moral, such as the goose in the bottle analogy, where the correct choice is some impossible but intuitive third option. “If a tree falls in the woods, does it make a sound?” Is another classic. Yes and no are both incorrect answers. How should you live your life, for yourself or others? Both are similarly wrong answers. The Tao says to stop thinking about it and just do.

No, you should do what you think is right, whatever that is. But when you can’t go by your own judgment then you need to rely on another’s. In my opinion still useless since if you’re not making decisions on your own judgment you have to necessarily be using another’s. Only pointing out your criticisms miss the actual ideas of Tao.

I think the point is that there isn’t a true ‘objectively’ good or evil since no individual can make that judgment call without an omniscient perspective. It goes on to say that when making a choice between two options, to consider your death and ensure your dying doesn’t bring the world pleasure. That says to me the best benchmark (even if it’s not perfect) that we have access to is a shared collective, if still subjective, experience. That the best course of action is the one that doesn’t give people reason to rejoice at your death, which matches with the Taos philosophy as a ‘middle path’. I would say people like Hitler and Stalin did plenty to make people happy about their deaths.

“Why would they care about the world if they didn’t before?” The Tao, not in this article however, also talks about the interdependence of all dualities; including that of good and evil. It’d be impossible to get every single person on the same side of this conflict so the argument doesn’t attempt to. Again this speaks to a subjective interpretation of reality. It’s compelling you to do what you think is right, and where you can’t tell what that is it suggests to consider how others might view your actions.