Does Taoism presuppose a political viewpoint?

[Wayfarer64]

A Taoist treatise on politics is called "Wen Tzu". I highly recommend it. I think the word "presuppose" is a little too strong, but I also think it's false to claim that Taoism is utterly unpolitical. Taoist way of life does have some political implications, as discussed in Wen Tzu.

 

 

Taoism is a deeply political philosophy on some levels - Much of what the YiJing has to offer is often given as sage advice to rulers...

[Encephalon]

This post is written in a chinese way (explanation and conclusion in reverse).

 

It should be interesting to note that more car makers are designing more sporty diesel cars now.

It seems to me this is a step in the opposite direction.

I was doing some research on this this morning after looking at a car magazine that was covering sports car/ muscle car type vehicles with "sporty" specs.

The upside it seems is that diesel engines can be converted to burn a lpg-diesel blend to make the engines more efficient. The downside is that it increases dependancy on fossil fuels (petroleum).

 

What causes societies to change? The american beauty has for the most part been ignorance so to speak.

 

Unfortunately, out of ignorance one of our greatest sources of ignorance and possibly some of our libraries of ageless wisdom might be destroyed in the future. Humankind, dissatified with what religion has percievably caused could easily decide to abolish it for the reason of dissention and disunity resulting in a horrific mao tze tung like "cultural revolution" of horrific proportions.

 

One could easily point to religion as a problem, as in our age religious dogma tends to make our view of things very linear, black and white (dualism) and concieved notions that there is only one way of doing certain things when it comes to science, mathematics, art and music.

 

It seems that mankind needs to feel the need to "direct" things. The ant-like feelings of "thats all and good but that does not tell me what I need to do to get from point a to point b" line of thinking is completely void of the ability to be able to constantly look at waht is going on around oneself, or be aware of ones action upon all that currently exists.

 

When peoples are conquered the scribes and the intelligent people of the ones conquered are either reeducated or killed, which does not seem a very good end game. However seems unlikely as in recent decades it seems people have become more and more divided to subfactions and even more subfactions.

 

Since the problem is that the ignorance has run so deeply to the point that linear thinking, black and white (dualism) and desicions based upon preconcieved notions are so commonly used and only serve to create greater problems in the future...

 

However, for people to change it has to be no longer acceptable or even disasterous to hold to the current ways of doing things. This could happen through disasters be it natural, self-created or through management type strategies like ecological changes (creating an atmosphere more supportive of positive construtive ways of doing things) as well as projecting calmness deters restlessness or explosive behaviour.

 

Taoism tend to lend itself to acceptance of things that exist, because denying that some things exist only serve to add more stress to an organism and lends itself to a universal purpose that acceptance and letting go has a profound effect on people that is very contagious.

 

Purpose without attachment to an outcome is not easy to teach the masses (I mean teaching that the outcome of such behaviour can sometimes be more than an anxious attitude that an outcome might be achieved and with greater results than needing the outcome to take place) but could be done without putting oneself in harms way. It just takes some planning and work.

A good example would be people becommeing extremely sick and tired of extreme demands... caused by extreme demands. This is the result of an attempt of the current highrollers trying to maintain power and money.

 

Edit:

So, to more or less clarify what I am saying is that forcing an outcome, like many are currently doing, is their undoing. Even if the climate changes (a what if scenario), or the political order does become extreme it is only a matter of time before change ensues.

 

This is rough stuff, man. Reminds me of the rule in Creative Writing class - "One must learn the rules of good writing before breaking them." I thank you for taking the time to contribute, however.