ABSTRACT
In earlier times, as the old saw has it, a man might be 'a Confucianist in office and a Taoist outy-indulge with part of his being a Confucian passion for the ordering of social life, and with the other part seek, or affect to seek, the Taoist harmony of man immersed in nature, as distinct from the Confucian harmony of men among masses of men. Together, Confucianism and Taoism made the whole man, the one implying a testimonial to civilization and the values and goals of social life, the other, release from society and social concerns. The common thread of harmony tied them together, and a Taoist intuitive aesthetics made a precedent far Ch'an in the high art of Confucian ruling circles (as the Taoist spirit of detachment favoured the Confucianistamateur's coolness to professional commitment). But the opposing emphases on nature and society made Taoism poteiltially, especially at times of crack-up in the society's
bureaucratic structure, more of an alternative to Confucianism than a complement. As popular Taoism, it could mean peasant rebellion, like the late Han revolt of the Yellow Turbans against landlord-Confucianist-officialdom. As sophisticated Taoism, it could mean literati withdrawal from social action into third-century A.D. 'pure-talk' (ch'ing-t'an), or the euphoria of the 'Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove', or the T'ang poet's nostalgia for men
That is how, traditionally, the Confucian-official role would be disparaged.
