 The Daoist “primitivist” ideal as expressed mainly in the Laozi. It metaphorically represents the result of forgetting mingnames and desires (See  Wu-wei).  Translations include simplicity, “raw” wood, and D. C. Lau’s more elaborate “uncarved block.” The detailed translation more sensitively expresses Laozi’s point in using the metaphor in the context of a view of names as “cutting” things into types and Laozi’s distinctive theory that such socially constructed distinctions (institutions) control us by controlling our desires. When societies adopt names or terms, it does so in order to instill and regulate desires for one of the pair created by the name-induced distinction. Thus Daoist forgetting requires forgetting names and distinctions, but in doing so, frees itself from the socially induced, unnatural desires that cause strife and unhappiness in society (e.g. status, rare objects, fame, authority). Hence: “The Nameless uncarved block thus amounts to freedom from desire.” (Daode Jing 37)