Governing with stillness

With 'govern the state through correctness,' Laozi speaks in concrete terms. The following 'employ troops through the exceptional' and 'take the world through absence of affairs' are remarkable writing. Correctness means uprightness, and governing the state is substantial wording. The exceptional does not mean deceptive warfare: it means spreading benevolence and virtue outside, fully extending them to the enemy, so they admire, submit, and return. Neither side then injures living beings. Skillfully pacifying calamity and disorder and settling the world is employing troops through the exceptional: exceptional in spreading virtue. Taking the world without affairs means without the affair of battle. When employing troops exceptionally is unavoidable, the exceptional lies in disciplined deployment: the other side is wrong and we are right. The king's army is exceptional in not killing living beings. The classic says: 'How do I know this is so?' This means that if one follows the great Way, the undertaking must flourish; hence 'this is so.' It further says that many people in the world are poor, blades and weapons are widespread among them, and thieves are numerous: all these are sources of incipient disorder. A benighted king values technical ingenuity, attends to emptiness instead of the state's correct substance, and receives strange objects every morning. Punishments and administration lack clarity while laws and commands stand prominently displayed: wrongs and grievances then produce upheaval. Therefore the sage ends strange applications, practices simplicity and uprightness, redresses injustice, and executes slanderers and flatterers. Once these matters are carried out, the common people are peaceful, the realm clear, and customs simple. Thus it further speaks of 'unobtrusiveness': simply preserving absence of affairs makes popular customs substantial, the ruler's good fortune. It also speaks of 'inquisitorial scrutiny,' meaning oppressive government: people have many deficiencies, the ruler's misfortune. Laozi teaches rulers not to exaggerate the earlier exceptional methods, lest people imagine literal trickery. If speaking of exceptionality, how could anyone without skill endure long in the world? Though called exceptional, it is really correctness's subtlety. People do not know endurance and take reckless talk as exceptional. Regarding this Way, is it truly exceptional or correct? Ancient and modern people have misnamed this word. Thus the sage guards correctness without changing and, though strong, does not rely on ability. The Way proceeds and is accomplished; people are peaceful and things abundant.