Confucianism & Taoism/ Andrew Yousef

With a few differences, Taoism and Confucianism are two of the religions found in China. Each religion views the world from its own perspective. Confucianism sees that the human problem lies within social dysfunction. Due to the time of war, Confucius—the founding father of Confucianism, had to live through, he saw that the problem is the social disorder the world is faced with. Smith writes, “As the clue to the power of Confucianism lies in its answer to this problem of social cohesion…Confucius lived at a time when social cohesion had deteriorated to a critical point.” The cause of this problem, Confucius thought, was the imbalance of relationships. If the relationships were balanced, the social dysfunction would disappear.

There are five order relationships set by Confucianism in order to solve this problem of social dysfunction. The relationships are between: husband and wife, parents and children, older sibling and younger sibling, older friend and younger friend, and finally the master and student. If everyone knows where he is in a relationship, the problems would be solved. Confucianism teaches that in order to move from the problem to the solution each individual must live out his own role in a relationship. For example, a wife must learn her role in the relationship to her husband and an older sibling must learn to care for the younger sibling.

To best live out this solution we must learn what our role is in relationship to our families, friends, and the community as a whole. The problem I see today in our society is that we are unable to live out the roles set for us. Each individual in the society must contribute in his field of expertise; the schoolteacher must stay at school and the judge must remain in court. The problem I see in our society is that we let unqualified individuals do jobs they are not trained to do. If this situation changes, and each individual starts playing his role in society, we will have a prosperous and productive community.

Taoism, on the other hand, sees that the human problem is the imbalance on the yin and the yang. These are the two forces that are found in the world. Taoists believe that humans are naturally good, but it is only due to this imbalance that we find this problem. The cause of this problem is humans’ incapability of submission to the Tao—or reality. The solution is to submit to the Tao and naturally things will be great. In order to move from the problem to the solution, Taoists believe that meditation, or tai-chi, is the best prescription. To live out the solution in our lives, we must learn how to face reality and be able to deal with it, without fighting it.

As I ponder upon these philosophical religious studies, I see that there is a clear relationship between Confucianism and Taoism. In Confucianism I see that the main idea is the imbalance on relationships; in Taoism, it is the imbalance of the two natural forces: good and evil. I do not agree completely that what controls this universe is a force. If humans are good by nature, like these religions claim, and that the forces controlling the world are good and evil, then it is logical to conclude that humans would choose to do the good and refrain from the evil. Obviously, when we look around, we find that this is not the case: people do evil things all the time. This reality raises a question: if humans are truly good by nature, why do they choose to do bad things? To complete this argument, it would be safe to conclude that either humans are not good by nature, or that they are really good but the evil force is the stronger force—even stronger than the will of humans.