Worldly Philosophers Club

The Worldly Philosophers, Vol.1, Number 20	October 21, 2007
THE Worldly Philosophers Club For Individualists Who Seek Worldly Wisdom

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About the Editor

Lin Yutang
(1895-1976)

LIN YUTANG: THE PHILOSOPHER OF LEISURE
By Mark Skousen

In this issue . . . -

	Are you too busy to learn new ideas?
	The three American vices!
	The secret to a successful business.
	What is your glorious age? The virtues of getting old.

"O wise humanity, terribly wise humanity! How inscrutable is the civilization where men toil and work and worry their hair gray to get a living and forget to play!"
--Lin Yutang, The Importance of Living (1937)

Dear Worldly Philosophers,

Recently a subscriber to my newsletter approached me at FreedomFest and said, "You sure have a knack for picking winning stocks. How do you do it?"

"It’s very simple," I said. I then whispered in his ear, "Lin Yutang."

"Lin Yutang?" he asked. "Is that a new Chinese trading system?"

"No, I’m afraid not. It’s a philosophy of life."

He seemed intrigued. I went on to explain that Lin Yutang was a very unusual Chinese philosopher and writer who lived in both in both China and the United States, and understood both cultures. He is known as the philosopher of leisure and "letting go." I quoted his most famous line -- a line that usually angers Americans:

"The busy man is never wise, and the wise man is never busy."

I made the mistake of writing this statement on the blackboard on the first day of class at Columbia Business School. A third of the students left and dropped the class immediately. [But those who stayed said it was the best class they ever took at Columbia. As one student said, "We’ve never been taught anything like this before at Columbia!"]

Yet there is wisdom in Lin’s statement. If you too busy in your work, you don’t have time to learn new ideas, to discover new truths, to enjoy life’s little pleasures, to read a book, to learn a musical instrument, to take a vacation, or perhaps to pick a winning stock! Beating the market requires you to look in untroddened paths, and you need the free time to do it.

Lin Yutang criticized most Americans for being too busy, and therefore slaves to the business culture and the old ways. They worry themselves to death. In another startling statement, Lin states, "The three American vices seem to be efficiency, punctuality and the desire for achievement and success. They are the things that make the Americans so unhappy and so nervous." Gee, I thought they were American virtues!

Lin goes on to say, "O wise humanity, terribly wise humanity! How inscrutable is the civilization where men toil and work and worry their hair gray to get a living and forget to play!"

"Hustle about Nothing"

Lin offers the secret to success for the businessman [busy man?] in this following statement: "Actually, many business men who pride themselves on rushing about the in morning and afternoon and keeping three desk telephones busy all the time on their desk, never realize that they could make twice the amount of money, if they would give themselves one hour’s solitude awake in bed, at one o’clock in the morning or even at seven. There, comfortably free, the real business head can think, he can ponder over his achievements and his mistakes of yesterday and single out the important from the trivial in the day’s program ahead of him."

Lin Yutang is a champion of the individual-- "its unreasonableness, its inveterate prejudices, and its waywardness and unpredictability." But in today’s society the individual free thinker is being replaced by the soldier as the ideal. "Instead of wayward, incalculable, unpredictable free individuals, we are going to have rationalized, disciplined, regimented and uniformed, patriotic coolies, so efficiently controlled and organized that a nation of fifty or sixty millions can believe in the same creed, think the same thoughts, and like the same food." Lin goes on to warn, "Clearly two opposite views of human dignity are possible: the one believing that a person who retains his freedom and individuality is the noblest type, and the other believing that a person who has completely lost independent judgment and surrendered all rights to private beliefs and opinions to the ruler or the state is the best and noblest being."

Lin dislikes the popular trend of compartmentalizing people in groups and classes. "We no longer think of a man as a man, but as a cog in a wheel, a member of a union or a class, a ‘capitalist’ to be denounced, or a ‘worker’ to be regarded as a comrade….We are no longer individuals, no longer men, but only classes."

Low Opinion of Government -- and Stock Market Forecasters!

Lin Yutang experienced the brutality of Chinese communism and the heavy-handed bureaucracy of Washington during the New Deal era. Needless to say, he has a low opinion of government. "I hate censors and all agencies and forms of government that try to control our thoughts."

He also questioned the establishment economist and forecaster: "Perhaps I don’t understand economics, but economics does not understand me, either. The sad thing about economics is that it is no science if it stops at commodities and does not go beyond human motives….It remains true that the stock exchange cannot, with the best assemblage of world economic data, scientifically predict the rise and fall of gold or silver or commodities, as the weather bureau can forecast the weather. The reason clearly lies in the fact that there is a human element in it, and when too many people are selling out, some will start buying in…..This is merely an illustration of the incalculableness and waywardness of human behavior, which is true not only in the hard and matter-of-fact dealings of business, but also in the shape of the course of history."

Lin Yutang was probably unfamiliar with the one school of economics that does take into account human behavior: the Austrian school of Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek. That’s why Mises’s magnum opus is called Human Action!

Lin Yutang has many more things to say about our culture and how to live a happy and fulfilling life….about growing old gracefully ("The East and West take exactly opposite points of view. In China, the first question they ask is, ‘What is your glorious age?’")….the need for women in conversation….the evils of Western wear…..the only way to travel ("buy a one-way ticket!")….and his controversial views on smoking. I’ve only scratched the surface of this brilliant Chinese philosopher.

My friend at FreedomFest was intrigued enough to know more. I pointed to the bookstore there and encouraged him to buy Lin Yutang’s book, The Importance of Living. It was written in 1937, but is even more relevant in today’s hustle and bustle world.

Good living, AEIOU,

Marcus Aurelius

P. S. If Lin Yutang were alive today, his favorite conference would be FreedomFest, where "free minds" meet to learn new ideas, socialize, and celebrate liberty. Three full days of "great ideas, great books, and great thinkers," all in a relaxing libertarian city, Las Vegas. This year’s extravaganza is July 9-12, 2008, at Bally’s/Paris Resort. We are now taking "early bird" registrations: $100 off per person. Plus the first 100 to sign up get a free American Eagle Silver Dollar. It will give you luck!

To register or learn more, call Tami Holland, 1-866-266-5101, or go to www.freedomfest.com. See you on 7-11 in Las Vegas!