What are the teachings in this book?

neo-daoists > daoists

just b yourself

>>9887068

and there is a picture of a bee

>The Tao is eternal
>But also not really
>As the cherry blossoms in the spring
>So you too must blossom with the Tao
>The Tao is law,
>Just be yourself,
>Be with Tao

lmao wtf okk

Skepticism over Confucian approaches to virtue and politics, which are challenged by a "primitivist" politics and ethics of restrained effort in which you go with the flow rather than oppose it, a panentheistic metaphysics, and a mystical self-cultivation toolkit, in a difficult text that will never cease to challenge the readers ability to interpret it, originally meant for an upper class readership.

>>9887040
Everything said in this book is ironic in some way.

"Tao" means the material principle
"Te" means the moral principle

Chinks have it reversed - the tao takes the place of virtue, because if you can find a way to do it then it is justified, te takes the place of the tao, because if you can justify it that is just the way you can get away with it.

Makes sense?

>>9887107
The political philosophy is one important aspect that often missed by amateur readers looking for some mystic voodoo stuff.

I'd call it pre-primitivist. It says primitive life is better than life under lords, but also claims there was a perfect life before primitive society that worked according to the Tao. My pleb understanding of it is that it was a pure effortless way of living, a society with a society, nobody consciously driving it or thinking about it.

>>9887040
>Dao De Jing
>not the Tao Te Ching

How do the Chinese actually say it? Is it really that confusing to the English ear that they can't distinguish a "t" from a "d"?

>>9887231
It's between the two. But the way T is pronounced in English is probably closer.

D is from the pinyin system of chinese romanization, it represents the original chinese consonant not English "D"

>>9887040
Go fuck yourself.

>>9887231
>>9887244
In mandarin it's literally "dao de jing"

>>9887231
D is more true to the Chinese pronunciation, however given the way the phonetic structure of the two languages differ, T could be said to be the English analogue of the Chinese D.

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>>9887075
>mfw baka gaijins parody Chinese Daoism with Japenese Buddhist imagery near me

>>9887160
But why would I need to justify it?

>>9887231
In Mandarin it's pronounced like like the t in 'stuck', not like the t in 'tuck' nor the d in 'duck'. The j is harder to explain, but it's kinda like the previous description, between English ch and j (there's no s-ch clusters in English), but sorta with y in the middle. The e is like the u in 'tuck'.

/tau̯tɤt͡ɕiŋ/

>>9887678
>But why would I need to justify it?
So someone doesn't kill you for it.

>>9887040
On this view, the world of facts, without one trace of value, and the world of feelings without one trace of truth or falsehood, justice or injustice, confront one another, and no rapprochement is possible. . . . Hence the educational problem is wholly different according as you stand within or without the Tao. For those within, the task is to train in the pupil those responses which are in themselves appropriate, whether anyone is making them or not, and in making which the very nature of man consists. Those without, if they are logical, must regard all sentiments as equally non-rational, as mere mists between us and the real objects. As a result, they must either decide to remove all sentiments, as far as possible, from the pupil’s mind: or else to encourage some sentiments for reasons that have nothing to do with their intrinsic “justness” or “ordinacy.” The latter course involves them in the questionable process of creating in others by “suggestion” or incantation a mirage which their own reason has dissipated.” (32-33)

Lewis continues to show the objective legitimacy of the Tao, and finally the horrifying dehumanization that inevitable follows nihilism. There is, however, a crucial prior question which, if not answered, makes all these subsequent arguments and demonstrations moot. If there is no answer to it, then some nihilists—those who still pay lip service to what is reasonable and what is not—can still claim an intellectual foothold. The question is: Who is to say what emotional or passional responses are appropriate (or inappropriate) with respect to any given object, person, or event? Who is to say that the proper emotional response to the waterfall, for example, is awe or humility or veneration, and not just mild admiration or indifference? Lewis answers: “Someone within the Tao.” But a clever nihilist will point out that this answer simply begs the question. He will ask, “And who is within the Tao?” And herein lies an apparent logical difficulty. For if being “within the Tao” is to actually have the appropriate responses to things like the waterfall, then only those who actually have those appropriate responses would know what the appropriate responses are (or ought to be). Put like this, we have both a logical problem and a practical problem. Logically, the definition is circular: only those who know what “to be within the Tao” really means are those who really know what it means to be within the Tao. Practically, it is impossible for those not within the Tao to know who is or who is not within the Tao. Even if they think they know, they cannot; not even if someone within the Tao tells them, for they would not know whom to believe (in other words, they would be completely credulous).

http://www.cslewis.org/journal/lewiss-rejection-of-nihilism-the-tao-and-the-problem-of-moral-knowledge/

>>9887231
Note also that the first syllable has a falling tone (dào), the second a rising tone (dé), and the final syllable a high tone (jīng).

Native Mandarin pronunciation:
https://forvo.com/word/%E9%81%93%E5%BE%B7%E7%BB%8F/

>>9887386
>T could be said to be the English analogue of the Chinese D
Not really because in English t in the beginning of a word is always aspirated. The d sound in dao is an unaspirated t. And that's the whole point because the letter t in pinyin represents an aspirated t sound.

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>>9887072

>>9890483
Did you not fucking read what I said you stupid nigger.