Lao-Tzu wrote:
Living people are soft and tender
Corpses are hard and stiff
The living grass, the trees, are soft and pliant
Dead they’re dry and brittleSo hardness and stiffness go with death
Tenderness, softness go with lifeAnd the hard sword fails
The stiff tree is felled
The hard and great go under
The soft and weak stay up.Tao Te Ching Chapter 76
Is this strange idea the way the world really works? Though it’s a comforting thought for those of us who aren’t “hard and great,” it often seems the hardest of people are ruling, while the soft are ground underfoot. But lately, I’ve seen that people who seem beaten down and hopeless can indeed prevail if they are flexible and resilient. They may suffer for years or generations, but they stay up, even triumph.
A few months back, I went to the Bali exhibit at San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum. The small island of Bali has been conquered over and over. But they keep incorporating their invaders’ strengths while maintaining their unique culture. As a result, their traditional and modern dance, sculpture, painting, leather, metalworking, and music draw visitors and purchasers from all over the world.
The words translated (by Ursula LeGuin) as “soft” and “weak” in Lao-Tzu’s poem might be better read as “flexible” and “adaptable.” The Balinese have always been supremely adaptable. About 90% of Balinese are officially Hindu, but it’s their own kind of Hinduism. It was brought to them from India, and they mixed it with Buddhism and nature-based traditional belief systems.
Starting in the 1840s, Dutch armies and navies arrived to take over the island. In the early 1900s, thousands of Balinese came out to oppose the Dutch, unarmed, and were massacred. Before World War II, the Japanese conquered the island; the Dutch returned after the war. In the 60s, the U.S.-sponsored Suharto dictatorship in Indonesia killed an estimated 80,000 Balinese opponents.
Somehow, the Balinese have made the best of horrible situations. In their art, they incorporated ideas from Western painters like the Mexican Miguel Covarrubias and expanded their range of subject matter to create one of the richest artistic cultures in the world.
At the SF exhibition, organizers had brought puppeteers from Bali who explained their art and performed. I heard snatches of several languages (e.g. French, Mandarin) from the performers, who apparently play all over the world. Their ancient art spoke to me as if they were talking about modern life, which I guess they were in a poetic way.
Indigenous survival
In spite of their suffering, the people of Bali have prevailed, more by including their conquerors’ ways than by fighting them. Other conquered people accomplish similar feats. A few weeks after Bali, I attended the annual Indigenous People’s Day intertribal powwow in Berkeley. The sun shone, the air was warm. Alternating groups of men, women, children, and then everyone together danced in a one-block grassy space, with drumming, chanting, and occasional short speeches of welcome. Some wore elaborate traditional costumes; others were in jeans.
Craftspeople sold art, clothes, and food in booths around the outside of the dance. Most people displayed vibrant energy and beautiful smiles. It was a lovely day.
What struck me most was how many of the Native Americans looked African. Teen-aged black girls danced Native steps in flowing orange dresses. These weren’t people playing at being Indians. They had been absorbed into the Native nations, who integrated people and positive aspects of other cultures into their own and kept going.
Their lives are difficult; money is a constant struggle, but they stayed up. Listening to people’s conversations, I heard men talking about enjoying their granddaughters’ soccer games, and women discussing the exercises they were doing to keep healthy. Young adults talked about their college plans. They had somehow incorporated European and African cultures to create something that is undeniably their own. The inspiring scene reminded me of hip-hop culture, which unites youth all over the world by reclaiming pieces of the dominant culture and creating something new with it.
Lao-Tzu says the soft and weak prevail over the hard and strong. Now, in ordinary terms, the Native Americans are anything but “weak.” Just to keep living in their situation takes tremendous personal strength, and not all of them make it. Keeping the culture alive must take constant effort. Collectively, the conquering cultures are much bigger and have more power than the Indians do. It’s like huge blocks of rock have been dropped around them and over them. But the Native Americans, like the Balinese, prevail by flowing around these obstacles, instead of fighting against them. Being like water, embracing whatever is dropped on it, nourishing anyone who thirsts.
Be like water
What could I, not having gone through anything comparable to the Natives or the Balinese (although my ancestors may have), learn from their heroic example? What should we do when confronted with the power of hardness? When troops of hard men in helmets, armed with batons and guns try to sweep people off the street, or planes drop missiles on communities, should people not resist?
Perhaps the answer is different for each person. Charles Darwin wrote, “It is not the strongest of the species who survive, or the most intelligent. It is the one who is most adaptable to change.” How different that is from the way Darwin’s work is always summed up to us: “the survival of the fittest.” It seems that adaptation, survival, and resistance may be different aspects of the same thing.
So perhaps the key thing is to be adaptable, be alive. Stay flexible, keep flowing. Even though we die as individuals, things will change. It may take generations, but the hard and stiff will go under. The soft and weak will stay up, and we will hopefully create something beautiful in the process, as the Native Americans and Balinese have.
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I always enjoy your perspective, thanks for your work