Taoism
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Why We Work
Barry Schwartz argues today in the NYT that work – and by that he means our career or employment or professional aspirations and accomplishments – is not simply a matter of money but also a matter of… Continue reading
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Blindsight
When I see things like this, a paragraph from a New Yorker story on how the brain works, I can’t help but think of Taoism: We assimilate information unconsciously all the time; at any given moment, we process… Continue reading
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Birthday Thoughts
Today is Aidan’s birthday. He would have been sixteen. As I think about his life, and what he gave to me, a passage from Chuang Tzu comes to mind. Without him, I would not… Continue reading
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Frog in a Well
A commenter, Joshua, on an earlier post was surprised to learn that the "frog in a well" story came from Chuang Tzu. Perhaps this is new to other readers out there; so, let me excerpt the relevant passage… Continue reading
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Taoism, Libertarianism and Markets
The headquarters of libertarianism in the US, the Cato Institute, has discovered Taoism – or, at least, its vice-president, James A. Dorn has (hat tip, Western Confucian). In a short article, he latches on to the obvious libertarian… Continue reading
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Treating Adults as Children
I am finishing up a chapter for my book, a chapter on childhood and how Confucianism and Taoism would respond to the contemporary legal question of whether children should be tried as adults. And, lo and behold, yesterday… Continue reading
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Are Taoists Optimistic?
Here’s a question that I have run up against in my writing. I am thinking about the Taoist rejection of general, deliberate, and conscious moral codes, as suggested, for example, in this passage in Chuang Tzu: “Can a… Continue reading
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A Reminder for Bush as He Continues to Deny the Reality of Iraq
To find glory in victory is to savor killing people, and if you savor killing people you’ll never guide all beneath heaven. Tao Te Ching, passage 31 Continue reading
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I Think They Were Smarter…
A nice post over at Granite Studio, riffing off some ideas from New Kid on the Hallway, about how we moderns might think people of the past were somehow less intelligent than us. Both historians bemoan the tendency… Continue reading
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Learning About Lin Yutang…
…that’s what I think I will have to do, after reading this piece in today’s NYT: Born in China at the end of the Qing dynasty, the son of a Presbyterian minister, Mr. Lin had a Western education… Continue reading
The Useless Tree 