What Chinese Philosophers Can Teach Us about the Good Life - Michael Puett

Preface

Confucius. Mencius. Laozi. Zhuangzi. Xunzi. Some of these thinkers might be familiar to you; others you have probably never heard of. One was a bureaucrat-turned-teacher who spent his life instructing a small coterie of disciples. Another roamed from region to region providing guidance to local rulers. Yet another was later thought to have been a god.  Their lives and their writings seem obscure to us now, far removed from our modern lives.

  After all, what could Chinese philosophers who lived over two thousand years ago possibly have to teach us about the art of living? You probably think of them, if you think of them at all, as placid wise men who spouted benign platitudes about harmony and nature. Today, meanwhile, we lead dynamic, liberated, modern lives. Our values, mores, technology, and cultural assumptions are completely different from theirs.

  What if we told you that each of these thinkers offers a profoundly counterintuitive perspective on how to become a better human being and how to create a better world? What if we told you that if you take them seriously, the ideas found in these extraordinary texts from classical China have the potential to transform how you live? That is the central theme of this book: that the teachings of these ancient Chinese philosophers, who were responding to problems very much like our own, offer radical new perspectives on how to live a good life.

  Most of us think we’re doing the right thing when we look within, find ourselves, and determine what our lives should become. We figure out what kind of career would fit best with our personality and proclivities.  We think about what sort of person would make a good match for us.  And we think that if we find these things—our true self, the career we were meant to have, and our soul mate—life will be fulfilling. We will be nurturing our true self and living out a plan for happiness, prosperity, and personal satisfaction.

  Whether we realize it or not, this vision of how to build a good life is rooted in history, specifically sixteenth-century Calvinist ideas about predestination, a chosen “elect,” and a God who has laid out a plan for each individual to fulfill. The Calvinists rejected the following of ritual, which they saw as empty and formulaic, and instead emphasized sincere belief in this higher deity. Today we no longer think in terms of predestination, a chosen elect, or even, for some of us, God. But much of our current thinking is a legacy of these early Protestant views.

  Many of us now believe that each of us should be a unique individual who knows himself. We believe we should be authentic, loyal to a truth we now tend to locate not in a higher deity but within ourselves. We aim to live up to the self we were meant to be.

  But what if these ideas that we believe enhance our lives are actually limiting us?

  We often associate philosophy with abstract, even unusable, ideas. But the strength of the thinkers in this book lies in the fact that they often illustrated their teachings through concrete, ordinary aspects of daily life.  They believed that it’s at that everyday level that larger change happens, and a fulfilling life begins.

  As we explore these thinkers, our hope is that you will allow them to challenge some of your most cherished notions. Some of their ideas may make intuitive sense; others won’t. We don’t necessarily expect that you will agree with everything you read. But the very encounter with ideas so different from our own allows us to recognize that our assumptions about a good way to live are just one set among many. And once you recognize that, you can’t return to your old life unchanged.