Why should we care about Confucius? Explore ancient Chinese philosophy, ethics, and political theory to challenge your assumptions of what it means to be happy, live a meaningful life, and change the world.
The Tao can also be our model for breaking out of ruts, Puett said. The path to a good life, according to Chinese philosophers, is one in which we strive to mimic the flexibility modeled by the Tao and transcend our habits of personality.
The Path: What Chinese Philosophers Can Teach Us About the Good Life download.zip
Every year Puett's students are tasked with putting this ancient philosophy into practice. They start doing things like taking classes or signing up for extracurriculars that break their own rules about who they are and what they're good at.
After all, what could Chinese philosophers who lived over two thousand years ago possibly have to teach us about the art of living? You probably think of them, if you think of them at all, as placid wise men who spouted benign platitudes about harmony and nature. Today, meanwhile, we lead dynamic, liberated, modern lives. Our values, mores, technology, and cultural assumptions are completely different from theirs.
What if we told you that each of these thinkers offers a profoundly counterintuitive perspective on how to become a better human being and how to create a better world? What if we told you that if you take them seriously, the ideas found in these extraordinary texts from classical China have the potential to transform how you live? That is the central theme of this book: that the teachings of these ancient Chinese philosophers, who were responding to problems very much like our own, offer radical new perspectives on how to live a good life.
Whether we realize it or not, this vision of how to build a good life is rooted in history, specifically sixteenth-century Calvinist ideas about predestination, a chosen elect, and a God who has laid out a plan for each individual to fulfill. The Calvinists rejected the following of ritual, which they saw as empty and formulaic, and instead emphasized sincere belief in this higher deity. Today we no longer think in terms of predestination, a chosen elect, or even, for some of us, God. But much of our current thinking is a legacy of these early Protestant views.
These astonishing teachings emerged two thousand years ago through the work of a succession of Chinese scholars exploring how humans can improve themselves and their society. The Path introduces its readers to these texts and these ideas, upending everything we are told about how to lead a good life. Sometimes voices from the past can offer possibilities for thinking afresh about the future.
So, midway through the first millennium BCE, Eurasia underwent a massive transformation. As the social hierarchies and forms of statecraft of the Bronze Age fell apart, one sees the emergence, for the first significant time in about two millennia, of social mobility (relatively speaking) and of new forms of political experimentation. And, with the breakdown of the religious systems of the Bronze Age, one also seesthe emergence of new religious and philosophical movements across Eurasia as well. This is when you get the Orphics, the Pythagoreans, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle in Greece; Jainism and the Buddha in India. And, in China, one of our first philosophers was Confucius. He was witnessing the same phenomenon and tried to make arguments about what one should do as a consequence.
Brett McKay: Interesting and what I found was curious is that all these different philosophers who were talking about how to achieve wu-wei, they all sort of came to rise during the same time period, which I guess is the Warring States period?
While writing my thesis I was also awarded my first fellowship via the American Political Science Association's Minority Fellowship Program. I also got the wonderful opportunity to present my thesis proposal at the Emerging Scholars Conference at the University of Michigan, which helped introduce me to more amazing scholars in my cohort and faculty across the discipline. As a first generation student who grew up poor and often was told by teachers that I was a disappointment (or that I had potential but didn't apply myself), my experiences at ARC with such kind and passionate faculty were incredibly healing and life-affirming. It was there that I learned not only that it was possible for me to love school, but that I might want to give back and teach or research myself one day. Now, I have the opportunity to do so, and I can definitely say that despite the turmoil I went through to get here, I wouldn't be at this point without ARC and I'm forever grateful for that experience. At the very least, I'd have a lot more debt and probably be more cynical about the prospect of higher education otherwise.
A few months in, I was able to secure a better job at a large school district. This allowed me to have the headspace to think a bit ahead. I learned about American River College. I went in and it was quite intimidating. I had never been to a learning institution that big ever. All my schools in El Salvador were so tiny in comparison to American schools. I had to ask strangers as to what to do to enroll or how things worked around here. I had no concept of a counselor. I had no idea what that meant. I would meet with them and leave still confused, simply because I had no context to what they were talking about. Finally, I took placement tests and proceeded to take ESL classes. I could have never guessed this would be a decisive moment in my life. Had I not taken the time to learn English well, I would not be where I am today. ARC served as a buffer to the shock of being a newcomer on so many levels. I was among peers who shared a similar experience. I was lucky to learn from dedicated professors. The student support service centers helped me navigate an otherwise intimidating situation.
As all this suggests, there are people trained in philosophy in just about every field. They have gone not only into such professions as teaching (at all levels), medicine, law, computer science, management, publishing, sales, criminal justice, public relations, and many other fields. Some professionally trained philosophers are also on legislative staffs; their work prompted one senior congressman to say,
Humankind talks about ethics for a noble purpose of improving and enhancing human relationships toward one another. No ethics would be mentioned if care and concern for others do not exist. Obviously, the foundation of ethics is mutual caring among people. This concern however has been expanded to include all life forms on earth therefore a new term bioethics is coined. As Fritz Jahr said that we must respect every living being. Thus, what is bioethics? it is a respect and love of life. 2ff7e9595c
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