On Thu, 7 Jan 2010, Jay Lemke wrote:
I read Zhuang-zi, as Chuang-tse in the older spelling, when I was quite young, and I generally think that while he took up the critical spirit, he was a follower of Lao-zi and the Dao-ist tradition, in which the height of wisdom was getting drunk and writing poetry, letting go of convention, being silly, and in doing so finding the flow, the Way of being at one with the nature of things. They left earnestness to the Confucians. A society that could find the balance between Kung-zi and Lao-zi would be the one I'd like to live in. Maybe even the society that tried to do so. The Anglo-Saxon cultural tradition, I regret to say, does not have much of a sense of humor. JAY.
Zhuangzi is more complex than simply a follower of Laozi. Also, it must be remembered that he wrote in contention against contemporary Legalists (Fajia), Mohists, etc., so that the meaning of his work at the time would have to be considered in that context.
The Chinese literati did not need to choose between being a Confucian (Rujia) or a Taoist or a Buddhist, the way Europeans had to choose between Roman Catholicism or some sect of Protestantism. I expect that over the centuries there were civil scholars/administrators whose work and lives involved that kind of balancing. I can't give examples. It would be great to have biographies of those. I can't believe that they did not exist.
As for the West, a reconsideration of the Patristic Jesuit Ivan Illich (Deschooling Society, etc.) might be of interest. He attributed to the Church Fathers his ideal of "drunken sobriety." And he himself was nothing if not earnest.
I'm studying Brazilian Portuguese now, and Brasil maybe stands out for the kind of national culture that you're looking for. The work of poet Carlos Drummond de Andrade might be an example to start with, and there are many wonderful Brazilian cinema examples.
Not that they don't also have problems in Brazil ... _______________________________________________ xmca mailing list xmca@weber.ucsd.edu http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca