I wouldn't put too much stock in the wording of any particular English translation. The original is pretty spare; that's why it is so cryptic. It is said that scholars have gone over the hill when they begin work on new translations of the Tao Te Ching.
Here's mine!
道可道,非常道。
The way [that] can be walked, [is] not lasting way.
名可名,非常名。
The name [that] can be named, [is] not lasting name.
無名天地之始;
The nameless [is] the origin of heaven
有名萬物之母。
Names are the mother of all things.
And so on... Having done this little exercise, i'm surprised at how poetic some of the English translations are.
Anyway, the cultural context of Taoism is Confucianism. The target audience for the Tao Te Ching is an older, literate man who has studied and lived the straight and narrow. Obviously, in ancient China, this was an elite crowd.
The Beats and the hippies who seized on Taoism (often through Zen) positioned themselves more combatitively. I don't think it would be entirely fair to say they were in a symbiotic relationship with the man in the gray flannel suit or the other-directed drones in the lonely crowd.
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