nifty Tao Te Ching discovery

One of my favorite chapters in the Tao Te Ching is chapter 57, which supports both US conservative and liberal points of view. The chapter says, for example, that the more laws there are, the more criminals there will be. This makes sense, and it's something that American law-enforcement officers have talked about: simply on your drive to and from work every day, you're likely to be in violation of several laws. We are all criminals now, given how many laws are on the books. It's a good thing that law enforcement doesn't enforce all the laws! While that sentiment might appeal to conservatives who prefer to minimize the intrusiveness of government, liberals can cheer another notion found in Chapter 57: the more weapons the people have, the more trouble there is in the land. While I personally support the Second Amendment despite never having fired a real gun, I think the ultimate knock-down argument that any anti-2A partisan can make is: in a nation with zero guns, gun crime is impossible. While that's a mathematical certainty, the real world doesn't actually work that way. In the real world, people with no intention of letting go of their guns tell the rest of us meager proles that we shouldn't own guns. This makes the citizenry docile and easy to manage. It also makes the country as a whole easier to invade and occupy. Remember: we are the well-regulated militia referred to in the Second Amendment. This is a point that Colion Noir, gun hobbyist/advocate and lawyer, hammers home again and again—to the point of having created an "I Am the Militia" tee shirt.

Anyway, politics aside, I just found a nifty resource that features a comparative, parallel-text Tao Te Ching that allows you to read different translations of the Chinese classic's chapters, side-by-side in column format. Click here and check it out. The translations range from dignified and scholarly to dangerously folksy, freewheeling, and liberty-taking. If you're like me, you'll wonder what some of the translators must have been smoking when they rendered the ancient Chinese into modern English.

PRONUNCIATION NOTE: the title Tao Te Ching is often mispronounced by Americans. The Te (which means "virtue") is the problem: many Yanks pronounce it "day," as if it were Spanish. It's actually much closer to the French "de," with the "e" sounding much like the "oo" in "wood" or "book." The "ch" in Ching is a "j" sound. IPA: \dao dœ dʒɪŋ\. Go to Google Translate, set the screen for English-to-Chinese (Traditional), then type "Tao Te Ching" in the left-hand field. When the Chinese characters pop up, click on the speaker icon to hear them pronounced by a native speaker, correct intonation and all. While you're there, work on another common mispronunciation: the word Beijing. The "j" in Beijing is not a French-sounding "zh," like the "s" in "measure." Instead, it's a simple English "j," like the "j" in "jump." Type "Beijing" into Google Translate, then listen to the correct Chinese pronunciation. It's not "bey-zhing" at all. Reserve your French phonemes for when you're speaking French.