Taoist feminism and political correctness

This atmosphere of systematic cultural censorship and sinophobia in Europe makes it often difficult for pro-China voices to speak their mind, let alone talk Taoism. In the West, there is a constant speech about the great competitor China; or about Chinese values being the enemy of the West. US rhetoric about a Clash with the “Sinic civilization”, a thesis proposed in 1993 by Harvard professor Samuel P. Huntington, has hijacked European scholarship. There’s a state of permanent anxiety over the possibility that Washington and its allies could mobilize against Chinese “religion” as it did against Islam and Orthodox Russia. This threat is very real. Careers are at stake.

Understandably, mediating Europeans will often try to defuse their research and downplay the role of politics in Taoism, despite the fact that Laozi discusses great power politics or even warfare.

For example, Laozi says: “Hence the large state can annex the small one” and “Only uses the force to win the war”. They downplay politics, despite the evidences that many rulers under the Tang, Song, Mongol, and Ming dynasties were enthusiastic supporters of Taoist doctrine. Moreover, the defendants of Taoism tend to emasculate their discipline and themselves along the way. That means they repackage it as an exercise for women with one eye on Europe’s radical feminism and the elderly the other eye on Europe’s aging population. Although Taoism should be remarkably gender °Æbalanced’, they’d rather stress the feminine °ÆYin’ side of it such as non-violence, mother earth, sustainable energy, and environmental protection.

That Laozi also advises women on their place in the world “Though knowing the masculine, you are ready to play the role of female” or instructs generals on war ethics “Only use the force to win the war°≠”. Those particulars are often conveniently dismissed. Here’s a paragraph from the United Nation Report of the Secretary-General, the General Assembly, explaining Taoism to the world.

It is entitled: °ÆHarmony with Nature’,

and reads: “Taoism, based on the Tao TeChing, written in the 6th century BC, began teaching people to follow the patterns of nature. Tao in fact means °Æthe way of nature’, and the 1995 Taoist Statement on Ecology declares that Taoism judges affluence by the number of species. Taoism believes that nature itself is divine and that we should live in harmony with nature’s cycles and systems.” Those are Big words ladies and gentlemen. As of today, to my knowledge, Europe with its 450 million people has not afforded a single professor chair of Taoism.