Contempt, Withdrawal and Equanimity in the Zhuangzi

Abstract

The Zhuangzi, a 4th century BCE Daoist text, is sceptical about the political culture of its time. Those who debated conceptions of a good life were hostile to the views of others. They were intolerant and at times contemptuous of others who did not embody their values. In contrast to such negativity, the Zhuangzi promotes equanimity. The equanimity of the sagely person is grounded in a balance she maintains between engagement and withdrawal. Engaging critically, she problematises the lack of diversity in their options for a good life. By withdrawing, she refuses to be party to the squabbles that perpetuate intolerance. The paper aims to show how equanimity is possible, thereby articulating a new angle on emotions in the Zhuangzi.

Introduction: Contempt, Ancient and Modern

“…Although it is possible to distinguish between (on the one hand) contemptible persons and (on the other) contemptible actions or contemptible pursuits, both in contemporary English (e.g., Roseman, 2018, p. 111) and in the classical languages that are the focus of this issue, such as Latin (Junghanß, 2023;cf. Schulz, 2023) and Chinese (Lai, 2023;Virág, 2023), it is often claimed that contempt focuses on whole persons rather than actions (Bell, 2013(Bell, , 2018Mason 2003; the empirical data from contemporary US English collected in Malle et al, 2018, pp. 87-89, bear this out to some extent), denying them the recognition and respect that persons ordinarily deserve.…”