The role of human institutions according to Taoism

In Taoism, a distinction is made between the primary and secondary things in human institutions. In any given event, the primary thing is the inward essence of the event, and the secondary things are the outward accouterments.

Examples from society

In a Taoist society, the essence of any institution is more important than the physical trappings to mark that event. The Taoist text Zhuangzi says:

The primary things should stand at the top and secondary things stand at the bottom.

Zhuangzi gives several examples of institutions and their secondary things. When discussing the mourning of the dead:

Weeping and mourning and the wearing of hemp clothes and hemp hemming and the gradations in the length of mourning are secondary things in the expression of sorrow.

Though reflecting the ancient Chinese culture of the text’s origin, we can make clear parallels to the modern Western institution of mourning. Here, the wearing of black clothes, the funeral, the wake, all of these things are secondary when mourning the dead: the important, primary thing is the expression of sorrow.

Another example can be made of the institution of marriage. Ask yourselves, which is more important: that two people are committing their love to a stronger relationship, that two families are being brought together, or the cake, the registry, the party, the dancing, and the ceremony?

The difference

The difference is the thing and its representation. In a marriage, the primary things are the love and commitment: the rings are secondary because they only represent that love and commitment. The rings aren’t the thing itself.

While the primary things are usually culturally agnostic (like love), the secondary things are explained thus:

These … secondary things require the employment of the mind and conscious planning before they can be carried out.

When I asserted that Taoists value direct experience over formal education, I mentioned a broader Taoist thread against materialism. Their conception of primary and secondary things supports that thread because in human institutions the secondary things are often material.

Furthermore, I asserted in that post that as humans we depend on stories to encode and protect behavioral suggestions and values to pass on to others. This then, can be viewed as another human institution: the primary things are the behavioral suggestions and the secondary things are the stories.

Going through the motions

That isn’t to say that the secondary things can or should be done away with, simply not put at the forefront:

The ancients had this body of the unessential knowledge, but they did not put it first…

This “unessential knowledge” is a part of any human society, but problems arise when those secondary things are held as more than just representations of primary things.

We know this to be true, in mourning, love, and even telling stories: that when we only “go through the motions”, we’ve lost the primary things.

A marriage will not last that’s not based on a strong love and sense of commitment, no matter how lavish and perfect the ceremony was. Without true sorrow, going to a funeral and wearing black and acting somber is just that: acting.

We see this often in religious ceremony, and we know people who only go through the motions. Remember, the moral values (behavioral suggestions) of a religion are more important than any ceremony, the meaning behind the teachings are more important than the teachings themselves.

In conclusion, Taoism can’t and doesn’t recommend or require the elimination of secondary things, only that people understand that they are secondary, and to not elevate them beyond the primary things which they represent.

Check out Taoist texts online.