On The "self-adaptation" In Confucianism And Taoism Before Qin Dynasty

The word "self-adaptation" first appeared in the Taoist ideological document zhuangzi.The meaning of this word is to please oneself in the conflict between pleasing others and pleasing oneself.Because blindly pleasing others will only make you feel painful,in order to make yourself happy,we should advocate human nature and resist the restraint of external values on ourselves.Taoist thought attributed the problem to the political system of the society at that time,believing that the class nature and coercion of the social system violated human nature and caused universal human suffering.However,after analyzing the interpretation of this political system by Confucianism,it can be found that Confucianism also pays attention to people's subjective feelings and regards people's emotional identification with social system as an important criterion for the rationality of political system.Therefore,Confucianism and Taoism,in their different ways,jointly advocate the pursuit of happiness and comfort of the self by taking human nature as the standard.Their common purpose is to protect themselves while resisting the oppression of autocratic centralization on social individuals.The word "self-adaptation" has two basic connotations,one is to emphasize the category of self,the other is to take emotional adaptation as the spiritual goal.The establishment of self-category means the awakening of individual consciousness.And in the fight against authoritarian centralization,will protect oneself as an important principle.Taoist thought put forward the views of "nature" and "inaction",which effectively dispelled the discourse of the regime and established a reasonable standard for the development of human nature.At the same time,the thought of "Qi Wu" promotes the sense of equality in a broad sense.The moral of this view is that there can be no political repression without a privileged class.In addition,Confucius began to emphasize the sameness of people,and found the moral realm of "benevolence" in human nature.In the spirit of humanism,Confucianism relates the moral realm with human emotions.Finally,both Confucianism and Taoism have constructed a spiritual value system independent of politics through self-regulation.With the establishment of the spiritual value system,the spiritual realm aiming at the emotional pleasure has been carried forward.Because of the different values of Confucianism and Taoism,emotional pleasure is also manifested in different ways.The confucianists,who were keen on politics and wanted to realize their political ideals,realized their self-worth by remaining anxious about the future of their nation and country.At the same time,when they are immersed in the wonderful vision of realizing their ideal,they will reap the emotional pleasure.In the moral adherence to "benevolence",they gain spiritual stability and peace.With a more negative attitude,Taoism advocates conforming to the arrangement of fate,eliminating the fear of the unknown and the pain of reality,and finally achieving emotional peace.At the same time,in the spiritual world of the self,forget all bondage and pain,to achieve a true sense of complete freedom.