On The Relationship Of Daoism And Politics

Daoism, as an important part of traditional Chinese culture implies abundant political ideas which have exerted profound influence. From the very beginning, Daoism is a sword of two blades,one serves the rulers while the other serves the ruled. All the rulers in the history, on one hand, take Daoism as a tool to serve its rule and at the same time strictly control Daoism, on the other hand, Daoism, with its political ideas and strategies, directly serves the rulers and the ruled as well. It exerts influence on the social environment by alchemy and seclusion. It curries favor with the emperors and intellectuals with the skill of making pills of immortality, it earns trust from the ordinary people with talisman. For maintaining its rule and seeing that the rebellers will not take advantage of Daoism, the rulers always make use of Daoism and take a lookout on it as well. This is the essential of religious policy the rulers carried out ever since Cao Cao .This paper holds that the basic contents of the relationship of Daoism and politics are included in the four aspects: Firstly, the ruled take advantage of Daoism to unite people, to look for consolation and to fight against the current policy. Secondly, Daoism serves the power transfer between different rulers. Thirdly, Daoism seeks connections with politics theoretically, trying to be admitted by the ruler and the society by interpreting the current politics from theological angle. Fourthly, Daoism practitioners exert influence on the individual rulers to achieve their own political ambition.Some previous study of the relationship between Daoism and politics has been done, but the previous study mostly concentrates on micro fragmental analysis of the relationship between the two fields from concrete problems or a certain historical period. The fresh ideas and perspectives provided in the dissertation are: Firstly, macro-view of point. The paper takes a bird's view and studies the relationshipbetween Daoism and politics systematically, looking at the working system of mutual influence, mutual reliance and mutual interaction. Secondly, historical viewpoint. The paper, from a historical viewpoint, studies the relationship of Daoism and politics and looks at their relationship in concrete historical contexts. The paper, through systematic analysis, reaches a conclusion which is concrete rather than abstract, complete rather than isolated, integrated rather than fragmental. Thirdly, scientific viewpoint. Based on Marxist historical-materialism and rich historical documents, the paper sets up its thesis. It tries to avoid subjective deduction. And with rich historical documents and historical facts, the paper gets clear viewpoints and abundant evidence. Fourthly, the paper is a rather integrated and comprehensive study of the relationship between Daoism and politics, but it focuses on the important points, and special attention are given to the discussions of some important theoretical topics and some representative historical events and figures.