Tao and Democracy

I admit my understanding and interpretation of Taoist may not be standard, that is the best I could get. I try to be as faithful to the original meaning of the text in this blog as possible.

One of the Taoist classic has the name ‘The name of Change’, so Tao is about change occur in nature. Tao is about how change take place and how to adapt to the change and how to led the change. Therefore I concluded that Chinese Communist Party is acting against Tao when it is turning Republican system into dictatorship which is not structurally different than other Chinese dynasties. Thus it is destinate to have result as other dynasties as dictated by its internal logic.

The reason that I consider Chinese Communist Party is against Tao is due to its general altitude toward Democracy in China and in Hong Kong. As every Hong Kong citizen understand, it is not that we are not ready to have universal suffrage, since similar proposal was already in place as early as 1985; it is that Beijing is not ready to see fully democracy happened in its country. While it can’t turn the clock back, it is doing its best to slow down the process as much as possible.

Why Democracy is more compatible with Tao than Dictatorship? Because Democracy is an unchangeable system that allow change to happen in an orderly and efficient manner which minimize the social cost associated with it. The purpose of Democracy is keep the governorship updated according to the will of people and the current situation, thus ensure that the country as a whole could adapt to the change take place internally and externally. Democracy is a way to give change an unchangeable structure. Thus change and unchanged in harmony, the change(of government) is possible due to the unchanged(political system/culture/spirit/economic), and unchanged is maintained by the change. Instead of fighting the change in names of harmony and stability like Chinese Communist Party, Democracy absorb the change to better itself. It is unchangeable in the sense that it promote change, it live with change; it is anything other than fighting against change.

However, Chinese Communist Party can’t tolerate any change that outside its scope of its control. The idea that it can control everything, and everything must be under its control for the best of itself (forcible intentionality) is the exact opposite of the naturalism spirit contained in Taoism. As Democracy allow change, permit change or promote change; it understand change in the sense that it tolerate a sense of uncertainty (in which law is being adopted, the result of each election, demonstration/social movement, decision of court on interpretation of law). That scope of uncertainty is how the society as a whole could grow and develop. As Taoism asserts, Plants and animals are best developed without unnecessary hindrance from human being imposing their intention on them. Thus country as a whole is best developed when nobody/group on the top imposing his/her idea on the people, guiding every aspect of their lives; that corresponding to the idea of freedom. Thus Taoist text implicate the importance of Freedom and Democracy over five thousand years.