this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2023
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chapotraphouse
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Unironically great, I've been trying to integrate traditional Chinese philosophy and religion with my communist views for a long time now actually.
I've talked about this a bit on here but I think the metaphor of Taoism is correct even if the underlying explanation isn't. You can explain to children how gravity and shit works and how that causes the seasons but it's just fucking numbers. You tell them that Persephone is in Hades and Demeter is mourning her absence and they understand it perfectly. Now obviously the gods aren't literally real but meaning is often better explained by metaphor than science.
It's my sincere belief that there is lots of meaning in religion and philosophy that has yet to be discovered by science. Scientists discover universal principles, poets explain them.
Anything you recommend reading if I want to explore the intersection of Taoism and Marxism?
Best way would be to just read the Dao De Jing (essentially a short collection of poetic philosophical points), which is the core text, and then the Zhuangzi (a larger text created over centuries, expanding on the topic with various characters - quite humorous). With the latter, being the product of dozens of authors, in a few chapters you can feel the philosophy being bent towards "actually, political hierarchies and wealth disparity are natural law and therefore cool", but they rather stand out.
Ursula Le Guin's translation is my favorite, but the differences between translations are interesting - both texts have a lot of fun with the ambiguity of language.