Aeon presents an essay by Alexander Douglas titled “Essence is fluttering,” with byline:”As Zhuangzi saw, there is no immutably true self. Instead our identity is as dynamic and alive as a butterfly in flight.” Alternative title: “How to be yourself when you have no self — lessons from Zhuangzi.”
The article contrasts Confucius and Zhuangzi, the former representing the societal insistence on conformity and the latter opposing it. While the Western philosophical tendeny — from Romanticism to existentialism — has emphasized identity with the individual, fashioning the self subjectively and contrasted with societal authority, the tradition of Zhuangzi argues, in effect, that “The ethical ideal is not to replace a conformist identity with an individual one. It is to get rid of identity altogether.” The article does not explore the Taoism represented by Zhuangzi and the many built-in elements of eremitism that give substance and context to how Taoism shapes identity.
URL: https://aeon.co/essays/how-to-be-yourself-when-you-have-no-self-lessons-from-zhuangzi
