In Chinese philosophical history, celebration of simple styles of life close to nature is typically attributed to the Daoists. Within the Dàodéjīng, sophistication is a main cause of a violent world that has ‘lost the Way’. Rituals and cleverness feed a superficiality and hypocrisy that was absent in the simpler societies that existed long ago in the past. Zhuāngzǐ, too, constantly calls our admiring attention to the unconstrained spontaneity natural to the creatures most of us we treat so dreadfully. Daoist texts also see nature as a model for authentic human conduct – rivers that symbolise constancy, say, and the night skies that intimate the mysterious Dào (‘Way’) holding sway over the world. The artificiality celebrated by the Confucians and other schools is contrasted with simple ways of life lived closer to nature praised by Daoists.
This tidy picture of Daoist praise of spontaneity and simplicity versus the overactive, corrupting artificiality of Confucianism is clearly too simplistic. There is clear variation within and between those rich philosophies. The Dàodéjīng is sympathetic to statecraft in a way that Zhuāngzǐ is clearly not. Confucius sees ‘rituals’ as vital to authentic moral practice but hated superficiality and hypocrisy. Daoists and Confucians would concur in the critique of the bureaucratism and harsh moral ethos of the Legalists. Moreover, we should always take care to avoid attractive but simplistic dualisms – nature/culture being a case in point.
A more interesting reason to demur before crediting Daoism as the Chinese philosophy focused on simpler, more natural life-styles is the availability of alternative candidates. Perhaps the best is the Nóngjiā, an agrarian philosophy inspired by the thought and example of the legendary sage-king, Shénnóng.
The ‘divine farmer’
According to Chinese tradition, the earliest humans had a dreadful life.
They were constantly vulnerable to wild animals, storms, and starvation and struggled to subsist – a precarious ‘state of nature’. Consistent with similar myths in other cultures, they were saved from this dire state by sages who introduced innovations like writing, technology, and organised forms of culture. Institutions arose which gradually transformed human life. Chinese tradition includes Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors – one of whom, Shénnóng, the ‘Divine Farmer’, taught people the arts of agriculture, such as crop planting and the domestication of animals.
Shénnóng is credited as a sage, a person of profound wisdom who helped transform human life and practice. According to legend, Shénnóng was not a unifier of the sort admired by Kǒngzı or the bureaucratic overseer the Legalists thought could enforce social order.
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