Daoism and Confucianist Societies

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While the Way can be considered an intangible idea of how to live your life, others believe it is an omnipotent force that shapes all things and cannot be named. Confucianists believe the former, where they have a superior chance of achieving a better life through ritual. Daoists, however, trust in nonaction, in not interfering with nature, to have a better and longer life. Conversely, the Daoist idea can only hold true in an ideal society, since it would be hard to employ. I will argue that a Confucianist society is better, because it relies on action in a society, the use of virtue with rituals to learn, and the overall betterment of the self to create order in the community as a means of reaching Way.

Actions dictate the experiences in humans' lives, and Confucius and Laozi disagreed in their view of whether individuals should take action to achieve the Way. Confucius believed it was necessary and prevalent in society to act, since he lived during the period of the Warring States. He wanted to fix the leaders' problems, and he felt he could only achieve this through action, because "he who behaves with honor, and being sent on a mission to the four corners of the world does not bring disgrace to his lord, deserves to be called a gentleman". He felt a person had the best chance at acquiring the Way by being a gentleman. Laozi, however, trusted in nonaction, in things taking their pre-established course in life, with Daoism. Laozi thought that "when not acting then there is nothing not done // ". He felt that it was better for a person to live their life closer to the stillness of the Way, and only by shutting off from the world could they truly know all things. Unfortunately, for this to work, people would have to isolate th...

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... enact its practices in a short period of time. Since individuals would constantly attempt to achieve stillness like the Way, they could never move forward in knowledge, and society would stagnate. In working towards stillness, these individuals would have to remove themselves from the temptations of the world, and hold themselves back from others. Confucianism, however, actively works to better individuals to reach the Way in an imperfect world, as a means to better the community to reach a more ideal world. They accomplish this through virtues and a love of learning coupled with ritual to create a more harmonious order-filled life that brings people together.

Works Cited

Confucius. The Analects of Confucius. Trans. Simon Leys. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1997.

Laozi. Daodejing. Trans. Edmund Ryden. New York: Oxford World's Classics, 2008.

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