[deleted] t1_ix73uzz wrote
Reply to comment by SoTastyWhales in The famous Butterfly Dream of Taoist Philosophy and how it recommends a radical openness to judging right from wrong by CaptainOfTheKeys
Thanks for taking the time to respond.
I whole heartedly agree with the concepts. My problem is (not to sound cliche here) that in a world of echo chambers and seclusion that this mentality is harmful. If everyone close to you is a yes person, then the opinions of those outside of that bubble are easy to write off.
I just take issue with the idea of “don’t worry about right or wrong, it’s about how others feel”. When your entire world is yes men, then you feel like a god among men and everyone else is a scrub.. no better than an ant.
Essentially the problem with the argument for me is that it can be twisted to further justify crappy behavior.
Yes, plenty of people are happy that Hitler/Stalin/Leopold etc.. are gone of course. I doubt any of them actually cared though, that is the real problem. Giving them philosophical reasons to support their behavior isn’t helpful.
We should be thoughtful of the world.. but if your perceived world is made up almost entirely from your own ego, how would you interpret this train of thinking? That’s all I’m trying to point out.
SoTastyWhales t1_ix7flzs wrote
So in my understanding, Tao is actually antithetical to the kind of intellectualising that you’re mentioning that it’s weak to. That’s not to say you’re not right in that it can be twisted to justify any point you want, because it can. But Tao at it’s core is about embracing life as an unquantifiable and undefinable personal experience. Living in the moment, doing what you feel is right in your heart, and all those other intuitive but intellectually empty cliches.
Eastern philosophy is thus extremely different to western philosophy. In this regard it can be pointless to point a western scientific/logical scrutiny at it. It’s literally designed to be paradoxical, empty, and impossible to analyse. Once you reach that peak of mental fatigue and frustration, you are forced to sacrifice a logical, objective or scientific approach for an intuitive one that ‘feels’ right. So anyone who analyses Tao and finds a flaw either doesn’t understand it or hasn’t embraced it the way it’s meant to be embraced. It therefore tries to guard itself against the intellect and ego using it as justification for evil by making its true and honest practice impossible to dissect. You can see this in their extensive use of analogy, metaphor and paradox (in the article, in zen koans, etc) instead of a western logic like A therefore B. Again this is why it’s described as the ‘middle path’, or the third option. Do I struggle to find an objective reality to do good? No that’s impossible. Do I become an amoral ass who does what he wants because everything’s subjective? No because that’s evil. Instead you choose the Tao, the middle path, the one that’s impossible to define but that followers insist is intuitive to all ‘life’.
A lot of zen koans have this moral, such as the goose in the bottle analogy, where the correct choice is some impossible but intuitive third option. “If a tree falls in the woods, does it make a sound?” Is another classic. Yes and no are both incorrect answers. How should you live your life, for yourself or others? Both are similarly wrong answers. The Tao says to stop thinking about it and just do.
[deleted] t1_ix7lpxz wrote
I’m being subjective here, but in my opinion “live and let live” is only going to work if everyone’s on board. Taoism is great at a personal level but on a whole I find apathy to be detrimental.
SoTastyWhales t1_ix7nzuk wrote
https://www.theschooloflife.com/article/wu-wei-doing-nothing/
In Tao, being at peace with and accepting reality is not the same as being apathetic to it.
NTGenericus t1_ix93fij wrote
Thanks for that article.
[deleted] t1_ixgcl6f wrote
I still suppose my question is, where’s the line?
If I feel terrible about homeless people for example. Should I be ok with “well that’s life”? Maybe I’m not apathetic… but am I really far from it?
I respect the viewpoint and again not trying to be an ass, but I personally have a lot of issues with these concepts given the actual world we are living in.
Always respected Tao of the organized religions but like anything a human touches, it comes with a superiority complex at the end of the day. The comments here with maybe the exception of yours kind of helped confirm that for me.
SoTastyWhales t1_ixgmjyq wrote
That 'line' doesn't exist in Tao. They're the same thing, or two sides of the same coin, or something totally made up by people to make sense of the world. All opposites are just the same thing in Tao, and the synthesis of those opposites is what makes life.
Tao says you shouldn't be either extreme of apathy or burning yourself out, but it also doesn't give you a definition of what balance is on a case by case basis. That's something you need to learn yourself by going out and experiencing life, to discover it first hand (some might call this the difference between wisdom and knowledge, with morals and ethics being solidly in the domain of the former according to Tao). It's not something you can define, read in a book, and then implement with 100% perfect efficacy. If it was, surely someone would have created the perfect cohesive argument that nobody can disagree with in the thousands of years humans have been thinking about these issues.
In terms of your comment 'because of the world we live in', Tao actually came about during a very awful period of Chinese history. Ironically, it was actually made with the idea of being a very practical philosophy that doesn't concern itself with rules and regulations of what to do, what is good or bad, and what is or isn't acceptable. Another comment goes into the historical context better than I can so I suggest reading those so I won't repeat.
Regarding the superiority complex that comes with religion, Tao very clearly disapproves of this. That's why depictions of practicioners in old art are usually of old, fat men with terrible teeth laugh, joking, acting clumsy, dancing, etc. It's because Tao is about living life, not taking itself seriously, and flexing on people about how much more ‘moral' you are is actually a form of egotism. Tao is very much against the individual ego. See this very famous koan with a message to this effect https://www.zinzin.com/observations/2014/zen-in-action-no-tree-no-mirror-no-dust/
I guess I'll just leave you with this Alan Watt's quote, which I think is kinda central to your intellectual conflict of trying to figure out in your mind what is the 'good' or 'right' thing to do.
"Nothing is really more inhuman than human relations based on morals. When a man gives bread in order to be charitable, eats with a Negro in order to be unprejudiced, and refuses to kill in order to be peaceful, he is as cold as a clam. He does not actually see the other person. Only a little less chilly is the benevolence springing from pity, which acts to remove suffering because it finds the sight of it disgusting."
[deleted] t1_ixgn8xd wrote
I think everything you defended was amazingly put until that Watts quote:
“When a man gives bread in order to be charitable, eats with a Negro in order to be unprejudiced, and refuses to kill in order to be peaceful, he is as cold as a clam. He does not actually see the other person.”
That is just a very daft and dumb take in my opinion.. and screw that guy if you asked me.
Your personal defense of Tao before busting that quote out was respectable though.
SoTastyWhales t1_ixgnycx wrote
Being good to help your fellow man as if he were you is a noble thing, because it’s focused on the person across from you. Being good for the sake of doing good or to feel nice or for the sake of appearing noble isn’t noble, because it’s focused on yourself. It’s the difference between a mother volunteering at a soup kitchen and saying hi to a regular visitor, and Jeff Bezos donating $100,000 on national TV. If you still disagree, fair enough.
[deleted] t1_ixgr03l wrote
Wholeheartedly agree actually. Doing good “to get into heaven” is another ridiculous example.
The quote to me.. personally just comes off as “if you’re helping someone it’s for personal gain only” which is what I take issue with, since that’s a pretty wild assumption on how people operate.
Again it’s more of a dig on that specific quote, it’s not really worth defending. Everything you personally said in these comments was much more respectable than that nonsense quote.
iiioiia t1_ix978pr wrote
>That’s not to say you’re not right in that it can be twisted to justify any point you want, because it can.
Can you give an example, preferably with a broadly considered negative point?
iiioiia t1_ix972dd wrote
>We should be thoughtful of the world.. but if your perceived world is made up almost entirely from your own ego, how would you interpret this train of thinking? That’s all I’m trying to point out.
The Tao te Ching doesn't exactly mince words in Chapter 1.
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