How Daoist Philosophy Responds To The Ecological Crisis

This dissertation is an interdisciplinary study under the major of English Language and Literature,studying Daoism from an interdisciplinary perspective that combines literary,cultural,and philosophical angles,intended to highlight the parallels and differences between ecological thoughts in Daoism and other schools including modern Western ecocriticism.It is part of an ongoing academic conversation represented by Daoism and Ecology:Ways within a Cosmic Landscape,a collection of scholarly reflections on the relationship between Daoism and ecology published by Harvard University Press in 2001,James Miller's 2015 book China s Green Religion:Daoism and the Quest for a Sustainable Future,and Xu Jingcheng's PhD dissertation Early Daoism,Ecocriticism and the Anthropocene:The Case of Edward Thomas(2018).This dissertation will not argue that Daoists are environmentalists or ecocritics,or that Daoists texts are pre-modern ecocritical canon,but it will argue that Daoist texts can be studied from an ecocritical point of view,and more importantly that Daoist philosophy has great bearing on the pending ecological crisis in the Anthropocene,or that Daoist philosophy is an ecological philosophy.In existing studies of Daoism from an ecological perspective,Daoism has been portrayed as an environmentalist prophecy from a good old time when humans lived in harmony with nature.Despite abundant textual analyses,the historical contextual relevance of Daoism to the modern ecological crisis remains inadequately studied.If we take a step back and examine the historical context of Laozi,Liezi,Zhuangzi,and other early Daoists,however,it will be apparent that the early days when Daoism was born and spread were far from an ecological paradise.The Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period(770 BC-221 BC)were a time of human tragedies and ecological disasters,including wars,starvation and social turmoil;and rapid expansion of human settlements and vast invasion of nature.From a sociobiological point of view,the very fact of social chaos and human habitat expansion attests to the ecological tension.Humans fell into the Malthusian Trap,and the human population reached a threshold beyond the carrying capacity of the environment.It is in this sense that this dissertation will argue that Daoism emerged in "the minor Anthropocene," a period predating "the severe Anthropocene" of today,a time when humans have exerted already huge but still tolerable influence on the planet.The starting point of the Anthropocene is yet to be decided by the International Commission on Stratigraphy(ICS)and the International Union of Geological Sciences(IUGS),even though the International Anthropocene Working Group established by the ICS now favors the Trinity nuclear test in 1945.If we accept the Agricultural Revolution some 10,000 years ago as the starting point of the Anthropocene,Laozi's time was actually closer to today than to the beginning of the Anthropocene and should be labelled as "the minor Anthropocene." Even if we use the Industrial Revolution since the end of the 18th century or the Trinity nuclear test in 1945 as the starting point of the Anthropocene,"the minor Anthropocene" can still be rightly used to refer to this precursory period of the Anthropocene,given the already huge human impacts on the Earth ecology and geology.Roughly speaking,"the minor Anthropocene" extended from the Agricultural Revolution some 10,000 years ago to the currently favored starting point of the Anthropocene,the Trinity nuclear test in 1945.At any rate,the historical context of early Daoism was a period when humans have already exerted huge influence on the biosphere and geology,much less but categorically the same kind of human influence as that of today.Therefore,Daoism and the ecological crisis fall into similar historical context on the geological time scale,and it is this categorical similarity that makes the possibility of applying Daoism in the Anthropocene.This applicability is even more fundamentally based on what Daoism has reflected upon its historical context,what Daoism has taught on the human-nature relationship,and its"green" implications for today's ecological crisis.The term "green" is widely used in environmentalism to refer to anything that is environment-friendly or eco-friendly.Common uses include a green policy,a green building,and a green party,and in the same sense James Miller calls Daoism "green" in his China's Green Religion:Daoism and the Quest for a Sustainable Future.Like any other school of "the Hundred Schools of Thought," Daoism responded to the social chaos of the time.But different from any other school,Daoism did not promote hierarchical morality like Confucianism,universal love and pacifism like Mohism,or stringent laws like Legalism.It called for the abandonment of human ingenuity and the return to nature.From the perspective of environmental humanities,Daoism was a philosophical reaction against the emerging human impacts on ecology and the advocacy for the harmony between humans and nature that had already been lost.To that end,Daoism constructed an ecological philosophical framework,from ontology to methodology,from the world view to the value system,covering all the major aspects of philosophy.It was a philosophy with strong practicality,and later it evolved into a religion.By studying the historical context of Daoism and analyzing Daoist texts,primarily early Daoist texts like Dao De Jing,Liezi,and Zhuangzi,and also later Daoist canonical works,this dissertation will focus on five major Daoist concepts,Dao/de(?/?),ziran(??),wuwei(??),qi(?),and yin/yang(??),with the intention to reconstruct the ecological philosophical framework of Daoism,even though some of the ideas are not exclusively Daoist.These five concepts are chosen because they are widely regarded as central to Daoism as a philosophy and a religion,and from an ecological perspective they constitute an ecological philosophical framework that can be applied to the resolution of the ecological crisis today,as this dissertation proposes.The first five chapters will center around the five major ideas,each chapter focusing on one,with careful textual analyses and relevant contextual examination.The first three chapters will advance from ontology(Dao/de)to values(ziran)and then to methodology(wuwei),so as to build a self-contained ecological philosophical framework.The first chapter will argue that Dao is both an ontological entity in the Daoist cosmology and a prescriptive attribute that governs the way every being exists and behaves in the Daoist cosmos,and that de,as the embodiment of Dao,guides the running of the world.The de-human-centered quality of Dao and de makes possible an ontological turn from the anthropocentric ontology of the Judeo-Christian creationism to a non-anthropocentric ontology.The second chapter will argue that ziran refers to "naturalness" or "of one's own accord,"an ideal state of things that even Dao itself follows,but ziran in the modern context of the Anthropocene can also be rightly understood as the objective nature.The Daoist ziran sets an ecological ideal that works against the anthropocentric objectification of nature and reasserts the subjectivity of nature.The third chapter will argue that wuwei serves as the Daoist methodology to actualize the ideal of ziran,and wuwei refers to its literal sense of inaction or non-interference,but against the modern backdrop of the Anthropocene,it can also denote responsible action that preserves a holistic ecology.The first three chapters will have already covered the major aspects of philosophy,including ontology,values,and methodology.The fourth and fifth chapters will retrace greater details of ontology and discuss the Daoist concepts of qi and yin/yang,with an emphasis on the Daoist implications for cross-species ethics and social justice.The fourth chapter will argue that the nature of qi as the flow of life energy within and also beyond human bodies entails its more-than-human scope,which goes against anthropocentrism and makes possible egalitarian cross-species care of all species.The fifth chapter will argue that the Daoist worship of yin and its promotion of yin-yang harmony can facilitate gender equality and an intersectional approach to ecology and social issues.In general,this dissertation will argue that these Daoist concepts will prop up a non-anthropocentric philosophical structure that goes head-on against logocentrism,anthropocentrism,the culture/nature dichotomy,scientism and technicism,capitalism and consumerism,and all other social constructs that are to blame for the ecological crisis in the Anthropocene.The Daoist philosophical framework will also be intersectional between humans and non-human nature as well as between men and women,which will in practice rectify speciesism,patriarchy,and other ecological and social injustices.Of course,Daoism has other important ideas,but the five mentioned previously will suffice to show the gist of Daoism as a "green" philosophy and religion.This dissertation will not beautify Daoism as a shortcut to an ecological paradise,nor will it avoid discussing the wrongdoings of some Daoist practitioners in history.Therefore,the last chapter will offer explanations for some of the common misconceptions of Daoism and call for caution against some of the malpractices of Daoist practitioners,especially when such misconceptions and malpractices are relevant to the ecological reading of Daoism.The difference between daojia(??,Philosophical Daoism)and daojiao(??,Religious Daoism)is not the primary concern of this dissertation,which is written in English,so Daoism is ambiguously used to refer to both of the two,unless explicitly specified.This dissertation will ignore the debate on whether Laozi and other Daoist thinkers are real historical figures;instead,it will focus on the ecological wisdom in Dao De Jing and other Daoist texts.In the final analysis,Daoism offered some useful insights,philosophical and practical,into the ecological crisis of today.It emerged in "the minor Anthropocene" as a reflection on the increasing tension between humans and nature,and the inevitable effects of the deteriorating ecology on the human society.On a geological time scale,today's ecological crisis is a severer version of the situation in the days of early Daoism.Therefore,Daoism is applicable in the Anthropocene and will help us,the human kind,to respond to the pending ecological crisis.It will also shed much light on ecocriticism,ecofeminism,and environmental humanities in general.It will form a philosophical foundation that can rectify the human-centered way of thinking,the treatment of non-human nature as exploitable resources,and the over-reliance on human actions in nature preservation and protection.It will also promote gender quality and social justice in an all-encompassing and intersectional manner.