The Taoism analogy is an interesting one. Underpinning much of it is the idea that there is a time to move and a time to stand still. iow it's useful to learn when to resist and when to yield.
Many times when people express opinions, they are given with the urgency of "this needs to be done, now!" e.g. we need to stop them from stoning women to death Right Now(!), we need to let gays marry, now.
But the belief that we can do these things right now is an illusion. That would be like me walking out of my office to the airport, buying a ticket in cash to Iran, finding someone who stoned a woman to death, and killing him with my bare hands. It's not strategic.
The Tao is a collection of wisdom of strategy that says, "Don't do everything that you feel right now, right now." Instead, "Find the right time to act." And you don't always act all of the way. You have to figure out how much when to act and how much.
So it seems to crass to sit still while listening to stories of gut-wrenching atrocities, but at least one school of ancient wisdom teaches us we have to be strategic and flow when the time is right, when others are moving at the same time and our force is multiplied, when the "bad guys" have their guard down, etc. And we need to learn to perceive these conditions.
And we need to tame this urge to railroad our opinions into other's actions and forced agreement. In the slavery and suffragist examples, their opinions were much more powerful as they gained domain knowledge and when they coordinated their efforts, becoming the smoothly flowing, powerful water, instead of a disparate cloud of angry electrons.
Many times when people express opinions, they are given with the urgency of "this needs to be done, now!" e.g. we need to stop them from stoning women to death Right Now(!), we need to let gays marry, now.
But the belief that we can do these things right now is an illusion. That would be like me walking out of my office to the airport, buying a ticket in cash to Iran, finding someone who stoned a woman to death, and killing him with my bare hands. It's not strategic.
The Tao is a collection of wisdom of strategy that says, "Don't do everything that you feel right now, right now." Instead, "Find the right time to act." And you don't always act all of the way. You have to figure out how much when to act and how much.
So it seems to crass to sit still while listening to stories of gut-wrenching atrocities, but at least one school of ancient wisdom teaches us we have to be strategic and flow when the time is right, when others are moving at the same time and our force is multiplied, when the "bad guys" have their guard down, etc. And we need to learn to perceive these conditions.
And we need to tame this urge to railroad our opinions into other's actions and forced agreement. In the slavery and suffragist examples, their opinions were much more powerful as they gained domain knowledge and when they coordinated their efforts, becoming the smoothly flowing, powerful water, instead of a disparate cloud of angry electrons.