The Zhuangzi rejects Confucian cultivation as likely to disrupt children

Evidence

Russell Kirkland, in Taoism: The Enduring Tradition (Routledge, 2004), identifies the tension between zìrán and Confucian cultivation as the central intellectual fault line of early Chinese philosophy. The Confucian tradition assumes that children require cultivation — that they need to be taught, shaped, and formed through sustained contact with moral exemplars and ritual practice. The Zhuangzi’s response is that this assumption, however well-intentioned, misunderstands what children are. Children are not raw material to be formed. They are already in a state of zìrán — of natural alignment with the way things are — that the cultivation process is at least as likely to disrupt as to improve. — , The Rod and the Child, 4110

Categorization

• XREF: Directly contrasts with the Confucian cultivation chapters examined earlier in the series.