Inspired by the following video:
Around 500 BC, Confucius was teaching an "order" based philosophy during a period of declining unity which erupted into the "Warring States" era.
As the "Warring States" era continued on for a couple centuries, Daoism evolved out of this period as an antithesis to Confucianism. Zhuangzi came into his prime around 350 BC and emphasized the value of "chaos" and vilified "order".
Only by understanding Confucianism can we understand its antithesis in Daoism.
The 3rd Confucian philosopher, named Xunzi, emphasized techniques for promoting order - "Music to unite, ritual to separate." "Separate" here probably means "stratify" as the rituals expose the layers of the social hierarchy, where a "bow to your leaders" ritual exposes the political separation between leader and subject.
Confucian invented "role ethics" that was built on top of a foundation of "virtue ethics." Confucianism promoted the virtue of 孝 xiao ("sheeaow") which is a principle of filial piety or honoring one's parents. Confucius applied this filial piety beyond the normal scope of parent and child in a broader sense of "respect/honor/service to those of higher rank." Confucius outlined 5 types of relationships where "xiao" should manifest - Husband/Wife; Parent/Child; Friend/Friend; Older/Younger; Superior/Inferior [political];
As you might see, there is a very "blue" element to Confucianism as a way to promote order in the face of instability. There is also a very patriarchal bourgeoisie element where the culture essentially emphasized submission to the upper-class at every level of analysis.
Daoism came into sharp criticisms of these aspects of Confucianism. Zhuangzi - flips Confucianism upside-down - chaos being a more righteous state of existence than order. A story of the wild carefree humans in a "garden of Eden-esque" state of nature is presented as "good". Outsiders who pursued a strategy of "artificial order" formed into an army and massacred the peaceful inhabitants of "natural chaos". Order-oriented conquerors are presented as evil as they slaughter and oppress the carefree people. They are bent on breaking the will of the carefree people to domesticate them into obedient tools of their order. Ritual becomes a tool to domesticate them.
The gangster character in the story concludes that perhaps the oppressive Confucius is the true gangster for promoting submission to evil order - flipping good and evil upside-down. This perspective seems to have a Marxist energy to it - aiming to reassess the morality of submitting to the upper-class. This deconstruction and subversion of traditional narratives seems like the development of a proto-green consciousness. This is made more evident by the fact that the story explains that even gagsters have their own "Dao" or morality. This evinces the beginnings of a moral relativism that appreciates the cultural perspectives of those that are vilified and oppressed by power and authority.
In the Daoist story of Hundun, the cautionary tale warns against the hubris of "orange" consciousness that thinks the material world must be molded in a way that humans like. This anthropocentric bias ends up killing that which they wanted to maintain. Just as "orange" modernism trying to mold the world into the image of modernist materialism, they might end up killing the world and its resources in the process. This also resembles a "green" postmodern take.
In the Daoist story "the Happiness of Fish", a debate plays out between two philosophers over the question of whether or not they can know if the fish are happy. The short-sighted perspective of materialism tends to only see objective facts in a deductive way. This dialogue acknowledges solipsistic problems of knowledge, but then hints at inductive reasoning as a solution to knowing about subjectivity. Green consciousness is often the phase where people start appreciating different types of subjectivity with more relativistic epistemology.
In the parable of the "Owls and Crows Crave Mice", skepticism of objective standards of morality and beauty are challenged. Each type of animal has instincts for different types of mates, different taste in food, different desires for shelter and way of life. The idea of a single standard of beauty, taste, morality, or way of life seems absurd in light of the innate variety found in nature.
Only a century after the development of Daoism, China finally ended its "Warring States" period and unified into one nation. From the perspective of an isolated China, this marks a powerful transition in their history - analogical to the idea of unifying the entire world under one global order.
Based on Integral Theory and Spiral Dynamics, green consciousness is supposed to be a precursor to the next stage of greater unity. I am curious if Daoism represented a cultural shift that was necessary for them to progress into this new state of unity, or if it was a mere coincidence that these events happened within 150 or so years of each other.
I hope to investigate further how Chinese philosophy impacted China's ability to transcend tribal conflict for universal order to see if there are any lessons that we can apply to our modern situation.
Daoism's Parallels with Green Postmodern Consciousness
Antithesis of Blue/Orange ethic in China
Marxist style overturning of classical hierarchical morality and promoting the moral superiority of the lower-class
Deconstruction and subversion of traditional narratives
Moral relativism
Emphasis on oppression vs oppressed
Environmentalism - Against hubris of humans to mold the world materialistically which will harm the environment
Emphasis on subjectivity and relativistic epistemology
Skepticism of objective standards