Jag hittade en artikel, som delvis diskuterar taoismen ur ett politiskt perspektiv.
http://palisuttas.com/2014/10/25/the-wisdom-of-laozi/
Jag intresserade mig för det som är skrivet under rubriken "State" i denna artikel. Där står det bland annat:
The Tao-te ching’s view of the state speaks strongly to the problem of modern Western people, slaves to machines, oppressed by chaos, awash in their own poisons, dazzled by glamour, controlled and used for their labour, and ever more subject to the total rule of money as the whole system declines. Now, perhaps 2,500 years after the time of Lao-tzu, it appears that Lao-tzu’s warning is coming true—the growth of work and machines—what Buckminster Fuller calls the “acceleration of ephemeralization”— is about to reach its furthest limit. The question must be asked, then, how do the teachings of the Tao-te ching help us to get through the rough waters ahead? Using Lao-tzu as a guide, it seems that a Taoist plan for the present day would have to include this list:
• give up machines;
• return to the land;
• revive hand crafts and the arts;
• make the laws simple;
• give up urban life;
• scatter the people;
• reduce the number of people;
• each locale should produce for itself;
• give up “higher” teaching for all;
• reduce work;
• make the rulers account to the people;
• give up putting law breakers to death;
• relax legal quid pro quo;
• keep taxes low;
• reduce the armed forces;
• prescribe working together;
• maintain closed borders.
In his basic notion of an ideal culture based on giving up all forms of falseness, ruled by noble sages who are bound to the people, in a closed culture of the land, Lao-tzu is close to Plato’s Republic.
Personligen anser jag att det är en hel del som går att ifrågasätta i denna sammanställning, men jag tänker det kan funka som exempel att försöka sätta taoism i politisk kontext.
För den som vill läsa Tao Te Ching (har hört att detta ska va mest översatta texten efter Bibeln), finns den online här:
http://www.with.org/tao_te_ching_en.pdf