Chuang Tzu s Basic Writings Essay - 1558 Words

Chuang Tzu’s Basic Writings, with his idea of â€Å"the way† which is effortless and ineffable, seem to suggest a minimalist take on government. The Daoist philosophy present in the text has no room for organized hierarchy or unified morality in the understanding of the world. This leaves no room for government whose laws and bureaucracy are based on codified morality and hierarchy. The government must also allow its citizens to practice the wu-wei, which means the government would have to allow individual freedom. Thus the only suitable form of government following â€Å"the way† would be a limited structure emphasizing individual morality—essentially a libertarian form of government. There is a lack of hierarchy in Chuang Tzu’s Daoism due to the belief in the indistinguishable position of the individual to the rest of humanity and humanity to all the world. This is evident in â€Å"The Dream and The Butterfly† in which Chuang Tzu shows that the perspective of a human is no truer than the perspective of a butterfly. In the fable, Chuang Tzu’s questioning of which organism is the reality and which is the dream blurs the distinction between humanity and nature. This is consistent with Chuang Tzu’s belief that humanity is one with nature, meaning that human government should reflect the form of hierarchy present in the natural world. Such a belief in the most natural sense of hierarchy would at first suggest that â€Å"the way† is a path of egalitarianism; however, this belief that, in nature,Show MoreRelatedReligion Essay1759 Words   |  8 Pagesearly Taoist book, including the Chuang Tzu and the Lao Tzu, is in fact an anthology of work by many writers. That the Chuang Tzu is a compilation has long been generally agreed, but to deny that the Lao Tzu is homogeneous is still widely decried as heresy. 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