Straw dog
Straw dogs (simplified Chinese: 刍狗; traditional Chinese: 芻狗; pinyin: chú gǒu), a figure of a dog made out of straw, were used as ceremonial objects in ancient China, but often thrown away after their usage.
In one translation Chapter 5 of the Tao Te Ching begins with the lines "Heaven and Earth are heartless / treating creatures like straw dogs".
Su Zhe's commentary on this verse explains: "Heaven and Earth are not partial. They do not kill living things out of cruelty or give them birth out of kindness. We do the same when we make straw dogs to use in sacrifices. We dress them up and put them on the altar, but not because we love them. And when the ceremony is over, we throw them into the street, but not because we hate them."[1]
Popular culture
- The 1971 film Straw Dogs draws its title from the Tao Te Ching.
- The 2011 remake Straw Dogs refers to straw dogs.
- The band Something Corporate has a song titled "Straw Dog" on their 2002 album Leaving Through the Window. It includes the line "Hey, now, the straw dog's out in the street."
- Professor John N. Gray's book of trenchant essays is titled Straw Dogs (John Gray, Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals, Granta Books 2002, ISBN 1-86207-512-3)
- Guided by Voices song "Strawdogs"
gollark: CGNAT is quite apioform, yes.
gollark: I wonder if some sort of dynamically-switchable channel content warning thing would be remotely doable.
gollark: Also this.
gollark: I mean, if I were being more consistent, which I probably should be, we should maybe... not have rule 4, in its current form? Probably the imagery bit due to things I already outlined, but better methods for handling "textual conversation which makes me uncomfortable" than just not having it which would generalize to other things.
gollark: Workplace-wise it is more visible from a distance, I think.
References
- Pine, Red (1996). Lao-tzu's Taoteching. San Francisco: Mercury House. ISBN 1-56279-085-4.
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