Jerress C. Askew
Professor Nicole Ennis
History of World Civilization 1
January 27, 2018
Compare and Contrast the Origins of Confucianism, Legalism, and Daoism With the birth of their civilization, the ancient Chinese wanted to know what role human beings played within society and the universe as a whole? This question and many others help develop the “hundred schools” of ancient philosophy. In the beginning of Chinese civilization, they believed that the universe comprised of two primary energies, good and evil, light and dark, male and female. In other words, everything had an opposite and finding the balance would lead to a prosperous life and ultimately a prosperous society. Three “schools of thought” were born to figure out this balance. Confucianism, Legalism, and Daoism. Although, each are different in their beliefs, they each had the common goal of wanting to achieve harmony in their society and the universe.
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Daoism believed it was impossible to figure out the universe, so in essence, going with the flow was ideal. Instead of focusing on one’s duty and action, it focused on letting nature take its course as a way of providing universal harmony. They This gave individualist more power to control their own realities, therefore creating universal harmony. Whereas, Legalism focused on the fact that strict laws that if broken, were punishable, would create proper behavior, Daoism’s belief is if one experiences good, it now has knowledge of what isn’t good or evil and again would act accordingly. Popular Daoism became more religious based with the practice of rituals to obtain heavenly rewards. Daoist sorcerers would even perform rituals to give an individual mind power to achieve power, long life, a good sex life, and ultimately heavenly