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The Daodejing

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"Classic of Way and Virtue"

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earliest transmitted text after the Analects

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and early Warring States text

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archeological versions of it have been found

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versions that are very different from the received text

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whole passages missing

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different wording

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the first of the Daoist texts

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there is no Daoist movement per se

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it's not a coherent group with a founder

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Daoist groups are very loose-knit

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have disagreements among themselves

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Daoism

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a suspicion of culture

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particularly of Confucian culture

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a faith in nature

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although this manifests itself differently for different Daoists

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attributed to a figure named Laozi

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name means "the old master"

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legendary figure, founder of philosophical Taoism

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usually dated to around the 6th century BCE and reckoned a contemporary of Confucius

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Laozi's work has been embraced by anti-authoritarian movements

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we have stories of him training Confucius

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Confucius comes to him to learn ritual

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Laozi turns him away because he doesn't quite get it

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Laozi is suspicious of language but yet this is being communicated in a book

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so there is a tension involved

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"He who speaks does not know."

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explained by

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Laozi was disgusted by how bad China was at the time

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attempted to leave to the West but border guard forced him to write a book, so Laozi reluctantly wrote it down

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some of these stories say that he was allowed to pass through to the West and became the Buddha Shakyamuni

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there were interesting parallels between Daoism and Buddhism

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and so it is explained that Buddhism is just watered down Daoism

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there was probably never a figure named Laozi

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this was common in China: a person or a group of people write a book of teachings and then attribute it to a mythical figure

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is a composite text

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probably put together by a group of primitivist writers

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attributed to Laozi to give it authority

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individual chapters of the Daodejing probably circulated in independent form

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general themes

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how your Daodejing that you put together depended on what you deemed important

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the primitivists who wrote Daodejing

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parallels with the counter culture movement in the 1960s which was fueled by the Vietnam war

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a strong backlash against the establishment and against science

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science was being used for horrible things such as Agent Orange and Napalm

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reaction against

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elders

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establishment

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civilization

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science

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the military

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clearly horrified by the warfare of their times

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political and military chaos of Warring States

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475-221 BC Warring States period

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states are constantly battling against each other, e.g.

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Yan

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Qi

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Jin

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Qin

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Chu

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the Qin eventually gained power over all of them

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a clear disillusionment with the ruling class, with the elites

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because these advocates were literate, they were probably from the elite themselves

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turning against their own class

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475-221 BC Warring States period

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a very dangerous time to be alive

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pre Warring States

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Western Zhou quite stable

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Eastern Zhou things started to break down

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when we get to the Warring States period, there is full warfare between these states

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states are constantly fighting with one another

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if you are a member of the elite, it is a dangerous time

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you're fighting

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you're in the army

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if your state gets taken over, you and all of your relatives are killed and all adherents to your state

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they eliminate any rebel forces that might later rise up

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for commoners, things are also getting bad

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the shift in warfare styles from limited warfare to total warfare

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originally warfare in the Zhou was an elite practice

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similar to Europe at this time: the elite of one state going to war against the elite of another state

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chariot-based warfare

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expensive

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states were evaluated by how many chariots they could field in a war, e.g. a 10,000 chariot state

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common people were not directly involved

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perhaps taking care of the horses and moving food around

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warfare then changed

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conscription of peasantry

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elites still go to war but they are in the back

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the people in the front are massive armies of peasants and most of the killing are among the peasants

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the first emperor of Qin's tomb

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massive army of the dead

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gives you a sense of what warfare was beginning to look like in the Warring States

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mass armies of peasants fighting against other mass armies of peasants

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full-scale warfare

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wipe out the other state

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burn their crops

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destroy villages

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Analects responded to this as well

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we need to be more civilized

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primitivists began to doubt the value of civilization itself

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believed that technology was being used more to kill people than to make them healthy and prosper

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both armor and armament is getting better

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crossbow is being invented around this time

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new, powerful ways to kill other people

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anti-Confucius strain

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Confucius: the enemy of the elite

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Confucius is associated with the elite and the elite are viewed as part of the problem

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the elite

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decide to go to war against another state

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call up troops

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the Ru class is associated with elite political circles