How to Enjoy a Tasty Snack of Minced Human Liver

• No background information is necessary for this meetup.

This is the second of two meetings which, together, will illuminate explicit differences and implicit similarities between two impressions of morality. The first impression (Morality as Necessary to Being) was Confucian and represented by Mencius.

This meeting will focus on the second impression, carried by Zhuangzi's flavor of Daoism, represented in the eponymous work Zhuangzi.

In Zhuangzi, ethics in the world of man amounts to post facto accounting for debts paid to nonexistent recipients. For all the accusations of absurdity levied against the work, Zhuangzi points out this is what is truly absurd.

We will discuss "Section 29 – Robber Chih" of the work Zhuangzi at our meeting. This section is one of the most controversial in the entire work and one of the most explicitly opposed to Confucianism. Indeed, it is here where Zhuangzi seemingly defends a warlord for living a life that inflicts chaos, death, and suffering. Yet, Zhuangzi's literary play perhaps suggests a less simplistic conclusion.

It is highly recommended but not required to read this section before we meet. We will read passages together at our meeting.

I use Burton Watson's translation. Links to this translation are below.
Zhuangzi - Burton Watson Online
Zhuangzi - Burton Watson Book PDF

The photo for this meetup exhibits a wild, unkempt Chinese fringetree (Chionanthus retusus). In extreme forms of Daoism, human imposition on nature's perfection can only serve to degrade. An act of willful "cultivation" in accordance with codified standards and norms is an act of mutilation.

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Links to some of my previous meetups are below.

Character as the Source of Virtue
A Defense of that which Requires None: Common Sense
Prolonging Disfigures, Exertion Deranges
Broken Paragon
The Blind Spot of Knowledge's Physiology
Are You Elsewhere?
What to morality, is proof to truth?
Back to the Roots – Man’s Search for Meaning