An Alternative Way to View Life, Society, and the World

[You-Sheng Li]

Taoist Philosophy For The 21st Century

An Alternative Way to View Life, Society, And The World

by You-Sheng Li

When people meet unexpectedly far from their hometown, they say, "It is a small world." People also say, our world has shrunk to a village, a globe village. Modern technology of communication has brought people unprecedentedly closer especially after the cold war was over. We are facing a new world humans have never faced before. Do you think we need a totally new way of life. Many scholars say YES, and they predict that different cultures will replace nations to compete each other on the upcoming stage of a new world. The show on this state will be around such a theme: What is the IDEAL way of life.

We believe that the ancient wisdom of Chinese Taoist philosophy provides a good choice, since it emphasizes the value of naturalness and simplicity, which are well complementary to the Western philosophy of materialism.

Chinese Taoist philosophy, is a philosophy, a religion, and also a way of life. Chinese Taoist philosophy was founded by Lao Tzu (?604-484 BC) and Chuang Tzu (?369-286 BC) between the sixth and third century BC and developed into a major religion of China in the second and the third century AD. This website is an introduction to this ancient wisdom in modern terms, a new interpretation. We believe that life is for us to enjoy, and joy resides in satisfaction with simple life. Life should turn away from highly oriented goals which are institutionalized into modern society. Ancient primary society was genetically coded society, and modern secondary society was created by man to solve problems.

We believe that the modern world with a powerless United Nations as a platform for countries to work out their difference at various levels is pretty much like the political situation of China from 2100 BC to 475 BC when human nature was highly respected in politics and in life, and it eventually gave birth to Chinese Taoist philosophy.

Modern Western culture, which has dominated the whole world today, was really a mutation or breakout from more traditional cultures like Chinese or Indian culture. Modern secondary society has its own purpose, and the whole society including ranking and rewarding/punishing systems is built to serve this purpose. The purpose of the so-called money-oriented modern society is building wealth. The wealth-building society is good at economy, science and technology, and it is also good at war. But it is not good at making its people happy. On contrary, such society puts tremendous pressure on people to work hard for money but in the expense of happiness.

Even what is happiness is also oriented toward wealth-building. We feel happy if we make more money and drive a better car than our neighbours. The frequencies of five major disorders, namely cancer, stroke, heart attack, psychosis, suicide are all related to unhappiness. If the high-rocketing accumulation of wealth has a little effect on our happiness, it would be enough to reduce those disorders significantly. The result is quite different, for example, the suicide rate was doubled in USA and Canada during the twentieth century.

The worse part of this wealth-building culture is its consumption of resource and production of waste. According to the recently released WWF (World Wildlife Fund for Nature) report, we are already moving forward at a speed the earth cannot cope. It will need two earths to support us by 2050, and it will need five earths if everyone of the world lives their lives as Americans do today. It is urgent to consider alternative way to live our life. Taoist philosophy often stresses the value of naturalness and simplicity, simple but joyful because it values human nature as a whole, not only parts of human nature which fit in the highly competitive society.

Please visit websit: http://taoism21cen.com

[Hero Doug]

I know this is just missionairy spam, but in case you're keeping tab's on this post can you explain the part where western culture blossomed from Chinese and Indian culture?

I really look forward to your answer, thanks.

[You-Sheng Li]

I am not sure if I fully understand your question, and I try my best to answer you. There was very little contact between China and the West before the so-called Axial era. The Axial era was between 770 BC and 221 BC in China, and the classic period in ancient Greece. The Axial period was the time a culture, for the first time, laid down its philosophical foundation or set up the frame of thinking for the future. The pathway along which a culture evolved was pretty much determined by this period. You talk about the part West benifited from Chinese culture, which happened after the Axial period.

By You-Sheng Li