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Summary:

It is concerned with the Dao or “Way” and how it finds expression in “virtue” (de), especially through what the text calls “naturalness” (ziran) and “nonaction” (wuwei). The meta-ethical reflections were by turns skeptical then relativist, here naturalist and there mystical. Daoism per se has no “constant dao .” However, it does have a common spirit. Dao-centered philosophical reflection engendered a distinctive ambivalence in advocacy—manifested in their indirect, non-argumentative style, their use of poetry and parable. In ancient China, the political implication of this Dao-ism was mainly an opposition to authority, government, coercion, and even to normal socialization in values. Daoist “spontaneity” was contrasted with subtle or overt indoctrination in any specific or social dao.

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RELEVANT QUESTIONS

NOTES

• Meantime, “Daoist” religious groups adopted the institutions of Buddhism (Nuns, monks, monasteries etc.) and became linked to martial-arts, to alchemy, and to popular movements (often rebellious or millenarian movements) that emerged in subsequent dynasties. Because of Daoism’s “naturalistic” and anti-authoritarian ethos, its inherent focus on “ways,” the term ‘Daoism’ could encompass virtually any such movement or “local” religion with its familiar natural “Gods.” ‘Daoist’ is a natural characterization of the ideology behind any non-Confucian or anti-conformist strains of thought.
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