ABSTRACT
The gravest challenge to the central emphases of this book is materialism in its commonplace, non-philosophical connotation. Social Darwinism, whether under the name of monetarism, capitalism, market forces, or whatever euphemism may be introduced to replace any of these, is a wholehearted embrace of the Yang tendency. Some readers may view the author somewhat dismissive statement about Marxism as inapposite, to say the least, in respect to a philosophy which has arguably influenced more people’s lives than any other, certainly over the past century. The prime philosophical consideration for anyone stumbling along the labyrinthine path of the ‘brother’s keeper’ situation seems to the author to be the recognition that everyone is, at least potentially, a sharer in the Tao. The use of drugs to produce heightened perception has been a practice for millennia. Relax the people tummy muscles and direct the air deep down to the lower part of their lungs.
