The Ancients Who Were Good at the Way
The Text
古之善为道者，非以明民，将以愚之。民之难治，以其智多。故以智治国，国之贼；不以智治国，国之福。知此两者，亦稽式。常知稽式，是谓玄德。玄德深矣，远矣，与物反矣，然后乃至大顺。
The ancients good at the way did not use it to enlighten the people — they used it to simplify them. The people are hard to govern because they are too clever. One who governs a state with cleverness is the state’s thief; one who governs it without is the state’s blessing. Know these two — they are also the standard. To know the standard always is called mysterious virtue. Mysterious virtue, deep and far-reaching — it runs counter to things, until great ease arrives.
Reading it
The chapter is routinely misread as anti-education. Its actual object is cleverness as a governing strategy — policy built on outsmarting the governed, which trains everyone into the game. Running counter to things is the direction: the way of accumulation reversed until simplicity, not advantage, is the default.
本章常被误读为反智。它真正针对的是作为统治术的「智」——建立在算计被治理者之上的政策，会把所有人训练进同一场博弈。「与物反」是方向：把积累的路倒过来走，直到素朴而非占便宜成为默认。
Find one place where you are outsmarting instead of simplifying. Delete the clever part this week.
找出一个你在算计对方而不是简化问题的地方。这周删掉那个聪明部分。