The Vancouver Sun: modern china and ancient chinese philosophy
“Choking pollution. Grim competition. Education by rote. Authoritarian rule. Untrustworthy bureaucracy. Business cronyism. Rampant consumerism.
Mainland China — largely in light of waves of negative articles in the Western media — does not have the greatest international image.
But many people in the East and West believe ancient Chinese philosophy has the potential to lift not only the world’s most populous country, but the planet, out of a downward spiral.”
Douglas Todd, “China Searches for its Ecological Soul,” The Vancouver Sun, April 12th 2014.
The University of British Columbia: Taoism [Daoism] and pop culture
““I was always interested in Taoism,” Professor Edward Slingerland says, “and now that I’m a scholar of this stuff, I find a lot of the students who take classes from me have similar motivations to the ones I once had.”
Slingerland, parallel to many of his students, was motivated to study Taoism by its influence on pop culture icons, like the celebrated 1950s and 1960s American writers of the “Beat Generation” troupe. Having studied it formally, he’s found that his initial motivation was somewhat misdirected as these influences are basically mistaken about Taoism and Zen.”
“Meet Dr. Edward Slingerland: Taoism with a twist,” The University of British Columbia, November 4th 2010.