a dialectic approach certainly does help with understanding reality; as you’ve said, it’s a tool, albeit one that relies so heavily on distinction that it appears unattractive to the Daoist thinker.
by the same token, the Daoist thinker may be prone to inaction for the sake of inaction, rather than the “effortless action” of wuwei. they may be compelled to see and accept things as they are, leading to complacency.
in some sense, yes, we have to face reality and attempt to see its beauty, but on the other hand, we need to be aware of contradiction and conflict which are endemic to reality.
i see the opposites posed in the second verse as more or less related to the marxist dialectic or the master-slave relation, as laozi claims that those who see beauty as beautiful are engaging in ugliness. ugliness and beauty are subjective; they must simultaneously appear and self-reinforce. they do not exist in the One, and certainly not in that which spawns the One. there IS a contradiction, which the authors you cited seem to misplace.
i have been working (barely, lol) on a piece about the connections between anarchist thought and daoist thought. i have run into a similar situation; there is clear crossover, but it’s not possible to confidently proclaim anarchism as daoist, nor does daoism map onto anarchism neatly.
interestingly, there is a tendency of later daoists to appeal to the primitive times before heaven and earth were separated or lord and serf were installed into society. it seems they also believed we live in a post-harmony world.
well said my friend. Looking forward to that post about anarchism. I am certainly going to dive into that history when the time is right in my read-through. May even be the next post. Do you have any recommendations of reading about those later daoist thinkers you mentioned? That sounds intriguing to me, and also aligned with Marx and his appeal to "primitive communism" (anarchists may prefer to call this anarcho-primitivism)
the arguments they make are essentially primitivist. the main source i tap into is the Baopuzi, a post-lao-zhuang daoist text. there is a guy named Bao Jingyan who basically advocates for a primitivist society, but the way he describes it is almost dream-like and comes across as mystical. unfortunately, this one passage in the Baopuzi is the only remnant of his thought, the most preliminary example of anarchist-type thought in ancient china.
That was fun to read, thank you. What drew me to the Daodejing as a philosophical, even primitively scientific document, is its refusal to set anything outside of Tao - or Nature - and pass judgment on it. War, evil, oppression, this is part of Nature as well as the opposites, and Nature is indifferent to it all. My reading may differ from others.
re: the “in which direction are they moving” paragraph, i view this chapter as pointing out that beauty and wickedness are constructs. we create beauty by attaching it to things in our interpretation, and that can only happen in contrast with other things.
i really like the dialogue between dialectics and daoism, and i think you’re right that it puts conflict as fundamental and doesn’t branch out beyond material reality. it seems like daoism is bridging that gap, the turtle one layer down that points out that conflict is subjective and constructed.
a dialectic approach certainly does help with understanding reality; as you’ve said, it’s a tool, albeit one that relies so heavily on distinction that it appears unattractive to the Daoist thinker.
by the same token, the Daoist thinker may be prone to inaction for the sake of inaction, rather than the “effortless action” of wuwei. they may be compelled to see and accept things as they are, leading to complacency.
in some sense, yes, we have to face reality and attempt to see its beauty, but on the other hand, we need to be aware of contradiction and conflict which are endemic to reality.
i see the opposites posed in the second verse as more or less related to the marxist dialectic or the master-slave relation, as laozi claims that those who see beauty as beautiful are engaging in ugliness. ugliness and beauty are subjective; they must simultaneously appear and self-reinforce. they do not exist in the One, and certainly not in that which spawns the One. there IS a contradiction, which the authors you cited seem to misplace.
i have been working (barely, lol) on a piece about the connections between anarchist thought and daoist thought. i have run into a similar situation; there is clear crossover, but it’s not possible to confidently proclaim anarchism as daoist, nor does daoism map onto anarchism neatly.
interestingly, there is a tendency of later daoists to appeal to the primitive times before heaven and earth were separated or lord and serf were installed into society. it seems they also believed we live in a post-harmony world.
well said my friend. Looking forward to that post about anarchism. I am certainly going to dive into that history when the time is right in my read-through. May even be the next post. Do you have any recommendations of reading about those later daoist thinkers you mentioned? That sounds intriguing to me, and also aligned with Marx and his appeal to "primitive communism" (anarchists may prefer to call this anarcho-primitivism)
the arguments they make are essentially primitivist. the main source i tap into is the Baopuzi, a post-lao-zhuang daoist text. there is a guy named Bao Jingyan who basically advocates for a primitivist society, but the way he describes it is almost dream-like and comes across as mystical. unfortunately, this one passage in the Baopuzi is the only remnant of his thought, the most preliminary example of anarchist-type thought in ancient china.
That was fun to read, thank you. What drew me to the Daodejing as a philosophical, even primitively scientific document, is its refusal to set anything outside of Tao - or Nature - and pass judgment on it. War, evil, oppression, this is part of Nature as well as the opposites, and Nature is indifferent to it all. My reading may differ from others.
re: the “in which direction are they moving” paragraph, i view this chapter as pointing out that beauty and wickedness are constructs. we create beauty by attaching it to things in our interpretation, and that can only happen in contrast with other things.
i really like the dialogue between dialectics and daoism, and i think you’re right that it puts conflict as fundamental and doesn’t branch out beyond material reality. it seems like daoism is bridging that gap, the turtle one layer down that points out that conflict is subjective and constructed.
anyways, i’ll continue reading - great stuff!!