Managing change in a Confucian-Daoist order
The seminal classic in the Confucian-Daoist traditions of East Asia is the Yi Jing or Book of Changes.
One can identify in this classic many fundamental Confucian and Daoist values and perspectives, as well as an emphasis on care, caution, humility and responsibility that has characterised the peoples of East Asia over subsequent millennia.
Its basic commentaries are attributed to the men and events that led to the overthrow of the tyrannical Shang Dynasty and the establishment of a much more enlightened and benign Zhou Dynasty three thousand years ago. As such, these commentaries reflect the preoccupations and sensitivities of men engaged in mobilising revolutionary forces to overthrow a powerful ruler.
With its complex mathematical structures of 64 hexagrams and complex relationships, as well as constantly varying commentaries, the Yi Jing works to sensitise its user to both the inescapable fundamentals of human experience and the great diversity of human challenges.
Regular usage has played an important role in the tendency of East Asian thought to seek out correspondences, resonances and inter-relationships in human experience rather than, as in the West, emphasise clarity and deductive rigor.
The culture of change that this tradition of thought has nurtured over more than three millennia nourished the world’s most productive scientific and technological culture until the early 19th Century. This was, however, an organic and holistic culture and much less threatening to the environment than the mechanical and reduction approach of Anglo-American people over the past two centuries.