TAOISM Chp4

^AEarlier we distinguished ancient from scholastic, or medieval Chinese philosophy, on analogy with the historical periods in Western philosophy. In the ancient period the main ideas are laid down, but this leaves unanswered the question how to interpret these early germinal, seminal ideas, and this is the task of the “medieval” philosophers, to provide reasonable interpretations of the earlier ideas. As a result, philosophical Taoism was open to many different interpretations and therefore took many different forms, including, surprisingly perhaps, the egoistic hedonism of Yang Zhu. ^top

^BYang Zhu (whose theories survive only as a small part of the Taoist book Liehzi) carries responsibility to protect our selves to an egoist and hedonist extreme.

One hundred years is the limit of a long life. Not one in a thousand ever attains it.... Yet infancy and feeble old age take almost half of this time. Rest during sleep at night and what is wasted during waking hours...take almost half of that. Pain and sickness, sorrow and suffering, death of relatives, and worry and fear take almost half of the rest. In the ten and some years that is left...there is not one moment in which we can be happily at ease without worry. This being the case, what is life for? What pleasure is there? For beauty and abundance, that is all. For music and sex. That is all.... But we busily strive for the empty praise of others which is only temporary, and seek extra glory that would come after death... Thus we lose the great happiness of the present and cannot give ourselves free rein for a single moment. What is the difference between that and being in chains or in prison?....Let us hasten to enjoy our present life. Why bother about what comes after death?... If everyone refrains from sacrificing even a single hair of their body and if everyone refrains from benefitting the world, the world will be in order.

Once again, it is hard to know what to do with this text – if we think of Taoism as a high-minded, profound religious or philosophical refection, one we might ourselves want to identify with and incorporate into our own lives, then we are embarrassed to see what seems an extremely selfish and narrow-minded pleasure-seeking of Yang Zhu – just as many of us want to skip over as quickly as possible all the so-called Taoist talk of witchcraft, flying around on clouds, eating mercury, and so on. But if we think of different Chinese thinkers working out the logical implications of Laozi and Zhuangzi, some of these Taoist offshoots don’t seem so strange. There are actually several quite different interpretations of Yang Zhu’s theory, and since nothing remains of his own writing, it is difficult to tell which interpretation is correct. Mencius, the most important Confucianist after Confucius, said that “the doctrines of the world, if they do not approach those of Yang Zhu, approach those of Mozi....The principle of Yang Zhu is ’Each one for himself.’ Though he might have benefitted the whole world by plucking out a single hair, he would not have done it.” This makes Yang Zhu sound like an egoist – placing his own well being ahead of everyone else’s. But the great legalist philosopher, Han Feizi interprets Yang Zhu very differently. “For the great profit of the world he would not give one hair of his shank; he has slight regard for mere things and holds life as something fa r more important.” Han Fei interprets Yang Zhu as valuing his own life more than all the riches of the world – whereas Mengzi reads Yang Zhu as refusing to save the world by sacrificing a single hair of his body, Han Fei reads him as refusing to gain the whole world by such a sacrifice. The latter is not egoism, but simply having a lower estimate of the value of material things and of ambition, fame and fortune in comparison with the supreme value of protecting and preserving one’s own life. Nonetheless, on either interpretation Yang Zhu does seem to advocate doing the best one can for oneself and avoiding any social interaction which might hurt oneself – whether that social interaction is to gain fame and fortune or to serve others – in neither case it is not worth the risk to one’s self. ^top

^CCertainly a central notion in Taoism is the idea that it is better to follow our own human nature than to strive for wealth or fame, and it is only a step beyond this to argue that our natural primary responsibility is to protect our own bodies – leading in one direction to the kind of hedonist egoism we find in Yang Zhu and in another direction to the search for long life -- ultimately physical immortality. Raising once more the question what is “natural” for human beings. Is it “natural” for human beings to seek a safe, quiet, simple life over one in the pursuit of fame and fortune? An ambitious search for wealth and fame seems very “natural” to many people; on the other hand one might argue, as Yang Zhu does, that pleasure is undoubtedly more real than the empty and often fickle perceptions and opinions of other people. And seeking political high office can certainly be dangerous, especially in turbulent times. But what if one wants to seek high office to serve the people? That is still dangerous and should be avoided. Is it natural or unnatural to inhibit our desires for pleasure? Or pursuing the idea in Laozi and Zhuangzi that conventional morality is valid only from a limited human point of view (that is, what we ordinary call good and bad are only things that are considered good or bad for human beings and not absolutely good or bad from the “standpoint of eternity”), it is only a natural or logical step to conclude that we have no obligation to follow ordinary conventional morality. ^top

^DIn the Han dynasty (roughly 200 BC to 200 AD) Confucianism was made the official state philosophy, although Taoism survived as an unofficial rival, especially popular with an educated elite as a more personal, aesthetic, spiritual philosophy for private moments or with close friends, and especially as a consolation in times of political crisis. When the Confucian civil servant came home in the evening, joining close friends for drinks and discussion, or when he had been removed from office and forced into exile, literate Chinese turned to Taoism, especially the work of Zhuangzi. As noted earlier, in the history of China, generally speaking, Confucianism gains the upper hand during periods of political unity (Han, Tang, Song and Ming dynasties), while Taoism dominates during the intervening periods of political disunity. As Buddhism entered China also in the Han period, it found a close ally in late, or neo-Taoism, and many of the early Chinese Buddhists (e.g., Seng Zhao) had first been Taoists. ^top

^EDuring this period many of the “neo-Taoists” knew of and combined several schools of thought, though in many ways they favored Taoism. Many of them had taken the official state Confucian exams to qualify for a job in the civil service bureaucracy, though they preferred Taoism in their more private lives. They were well aware of, and tried to defend Taoism against the Confucian criticism that Taoist notions of spontaneity and wu wei were socially useless or even socially destructive. There are many ways to interpret wu wei, and Taoist followers sought to offer more positive interpretations to offset Confucian negative interpretations. The Neo-Taoists tried to make clear that these notions did not mean simply sitting idly by, refusing to participate in the running of the state (which the Confucianists insisted was our primary responsibility). ^top

^FWang Chung (27-100 CE), an early neo-Taoist, developed the more rationalist, scientific side of Taoism, arguing against all anthropomorphic (human centered) explanations (for example, that the floods occurred because the gods are angry with us). Wang Chung opposed all teleological explanations for natural phenomena. Earlier we discussed the idea of purposeful “action.” Only human beings act purposefully, doing one thing for a purposeful reason, to accomplish some end or purpose. Nature, on the other hand, acts spontaneously, with no particular concern for the outcome, and certainly without regard for the outcome for human beings. This is one reason some contemporary scholars see Taoism as more “scientific” than “religious.” A necessary condition for the development of science is the separation of the natural and the supernatural, assigning naturalistic explanations for physical phenomena, reserving supernatural explanations, if any, for nonphysical phenomena (gods, souls, ghosts, etc.). This is an important step for any culture to take towards rational or scientific inquiry. Because purposeful, teleological explanations are so natural for us (because this is the way we human beings tend to think and act), it is hard to get away from the idea that Nature operates in the same purposeful, teleological way that we do. But so long as we continue to think of Nature as doing things to reward or punish us, we can never develop rational, scientific thought (and enjoy its technological benefits). ^top

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