by Tom McGuire
During the USCCA Conference 29, many questions were raised. Answers were given in immediate responses, as was expected. Further reflection brings to mind other ways to answer questions asked. I was intrigued by this question asked by a participant:
How might an ethics of "Our Hope is in Christ" inform and shape our thinking about business ethics and social service outreach?
This profound question was answered in the context of hope in Christ. Afterwards I wondered if the short answer was adequate. While reading Parker Palmer’s book, In the Belly of a Paradox: A Celebration of Contradictions in the Thought of Thomas Merton, Palmer made observations about Chuang Tzu that could be part of a dialogue in response to the question.
Are there illusions in Christians about power in service and business goals? Palmer wrote, “The way in which our illusions about power defeat our best-intended actions is illustrated by Chuang Tzu’s poem.”
The Need to Win
When an archer is shooting for nothing
He has all his skill.
If he shoots for a brass buckle
He is already nervous.
If he shoots for a prize of gold
He goes blind
Or sees two targets –
He is out of his mind!
His skill has not changed.
But the prize Divides him.
He cares. He thinks more of winning
Than of shooting –
And the need to win
Drains him of power.”
Palmer commented, “Note that the poem does not counsel against winning. Instead, it is a paradoxical counsel on how to win! It says that the only way to victory is to forget about victory, to be indifferent to it. When Taoism tells us not to care, it does not mean that we should be indifferent to the many needs around us, but that we should not let our desire to meet these needs drain us of the power to do so.”
In the active way of doing business and providing services, the desire for success is the goal. The goal is to win. Palmer observes from a Chaung Tzu perspective:
Every thoughtful activist knows how the desire for success and the fear of failure can pervert social action, and even lead to fraud, with the activist settling for the mere appearance of victory rather than persisting for deep and lasting change. When we get caught in the dualism of winning and losing we become possessed by false and misleading powers. That paradox is acceptable within the Christian tradition, I think; it reminds us of Jesus’ counsel that one who seeks life will lose it, but one who loses life in God will find it. But Taoism pushes us even further by insisting that our actions must transcend not only the polarity of win and lose, but also the polarity of good and evil. And here Western sensibilities are offended.
Here is where the dialogue becomes more difficult:
We want to say that this paradox business has gone far enough! For surely if there is any motive force for right action, or any plumb line against which our actions can be judged, it is in ethics, in the distinction between right and wrong.
In this dialogue there is need to take time for silence and wonder before taking a position of opposition to Palmer’s inference from Chaung Tzu’s, “that our actions must transcend …the clarity of good and evil.” Is it possible to go beyond ethics to look deeper into the way of doing business and providing service? Is it possible that our need to ‘win’ ‘drains us of power? What are our illusions of power? What do we mean by power when we say, "Our Hope is in Christ”?
Responses from readers are welcome.
Tom McGuire is a Director Emeritus of the US-China Catholic Association.
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