Material fetters and spiritual transcendence : Zhuang Zi and environmental thought
Document Type
Book chapter
Source Publication
Environment, Modernization and Development in East Asia: Perspectives from Environmental History
Publication Date
1-1-2016
First Page
251
Last Page
269
Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan UK
Abstract
In basic earthly terms, the environmental question is a matter of maintaining Nature in a balanced state of health and harmony, of preserving the inherent integrity of the environment and its capacity to support all forms of life and matter emerging in a transformational process. From the early days of civilization, however, human beings have locked themselves in a spiral of deepening materialism, engendering and exacerbating environmental problems through ever-intensifying activities of overproduction and over-consumption. While animals also cause damage to the environment out of existential needs like grazing and loosening soil, few living things have gone beyond Nature’s capacity to heal and rebalance itself, and none has damaged Nature in the gratuitous manner of human acts of needless and pointless extravagance. It is obvious that the environmental crisis cannot be addressed on the material level alone, for mankind’s material overindulgence is itself rooted in a deeper spiritual disorder.
DOI
10.1007/978-1-137-57231-8_11
Publisher Statement
Copyright © Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited 2016. Access to external full text or publisher's version may require subscription.
Additional Information
ISBN of the source publication: 9781349848034
Full-text Version
Publisher’s Version
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Kwong, Y.-t. C. (2016). Material fetters and spiritual transcendence: Zhuang Zi and environmental thought. In T.-j. Liu, J. Beattie (Eds.), Environment, Modernization and Development in East Asia (pp. 251-269). doi: 10.1007/978-1-137-57231-8_11