XII. "The Firm and the Yielding Rub Against One Another": Opposites Meet, and Change Is Born at the Boundary

"Rubbing" (mo) brings to mind two things touching and grinding against each other. If the firm and the yielding remain far apart, neither affects the other; once they touch, each changes its original state. Wood rubbing against stone can generate heat; bowstring rubbing can produce sound; only when the cartwheel rubs against the ground does the cart move forward. There is no need to confine "rubbing" to any single physical instance; what it points toward is this: different forces act upon one another in contact, and change so often arises precisely at the boundary.

Such mutual rubbing is even more common in human affairs. When two opinions meet, if they can question each other through righteousness, what was previously unseen comes to light; where two states share a border, there is trade and exchange, and also contention and defense; father and son, husband and wife, elder and younger brother, living together day and night with different temperaments, find that ritual propriety and righteousness become, through this friction, the order of daily life. A community with no friction at all is generally nothing but an idle fantasy. The key point lies not in eliminating all mutual rubbing, but in keeping mutual rubbing from turning into mutual destruction, so that difference can complete rather than consume itself.

Ritual propriety here functions like a boundary and a pattern of veins. It gives the firm something to be regulated by, and gives the yielding something to hold onto. The will of one who occupies the higher position cannot press down without limit; the desires and feelings of one who occupies the lower position cannot surge upward without limit either. A kind father and a filial son, a friendly elder brother and a respectful younger brother -- each takes the other as the condition for forming his own virtue. If only one side is required to perform, the relation snaps. Kindness without filial response is a bestowal with nothing answering it; filial devotion without kindness is compliance with nothing nourishing it. Righteousness in the ruler and loyalty in the minister are likewise so. If the mutual rubbing of those above and those below is guided by ritual propriety and righteousness, it can produce trust and order; if all that remains is coercion and resentment, disorder is born instead.

The Master said that the noble person is "harmonious yet not the same" -- this is precisely rubbing against one another without destroying one another. "Not the same" preserves each person's own view; "harmonious" allows those who differ to still work together. If harmony is understood as everyone speaking with one voice, there is no longer any need for mutual rubbing, and faults become hard to see. The way of friendship values loyal counsel and skillful guidance; straight speech may displease, and yet it grinds away one's blind spots. Conversely, to use "straightforwardness" as a pretext for constant insult and humiliation is firmness exceeding its proper measure; to use "harmony" as a pretext for mere yes-saying and compliance is yielding losing its hold.

The Mozi stresses "identifying upward" (shang tong), hoping that right and wrong throughout the world can be unified, so as to avoid everyone holding to their own righteousness and thereby harming one another. Its concern, rooted in the strife of a disordered age, has real grounds. Yet the meaning of mutual rubbing in the Yi also warns that sameness must not simply flatten difference. What a superior holds to be right is not necessarily always in accord with righteousness; if every level identifies upward without question, faults may only be magnified. Hence the Confucian tradition of the pre-Qin era, while valuing shared standards, also preserved the practice of remonstration and dispute. When the ruler errs, the minister ought to remonstrate; when the father errs, the son ought to remonstrate gently. If mutual rubbing is entirely abolished, what is called harmony and unity is in fact the loss of any chance to correct error.

What the Most High called "the myriad things carry yin on their backs and embrace yang, blending their qi to make harmony" is likewise not one side swallowing the other. "Carrying on the back" and "embracing" show both sides present at once, and harmony is born between them. Harmony does not first grind yin and yang into indistinguishability and then arrive at calm; rather, yin and yang each remain, flowing and assisting each other. The rubbing of the firm and the yielding is likewise so: the firm remains firm, the yielding remains yielding, and yet in their contact they adjust their strength, direction, and rhythm. True harmony has tension within it, just as a zither string produces no sound if too slack, and snaps if drawn too tight.

Personal cultivation likewise requires an inner rubbing of the firm and the yielding. Desire seeks speed; moral principle demands restraint. Feeling wants to burst forth; ritual propriety demands moderation. Ambition wants to reach far; reality demands a proper sequence. Cultivation does not utterly kill off one side, but arranges them fittingly within the heart. Master Meng said that nothing better nurtures the heart than having few desires -- he does not say to extinguish desire. Master Xun said that ritual propriety nourishes people's desires and supplies their demands -- he does not say to indulge desire either. "Having few" and "nourishing" each have their own emphasis, but both acknowledge that human desire must be weighed and regulated before it can complete itself together with communal life.