Being Inclined to Resist.

As I understand it, one of the central tenets of Taoist philosophy is that you should take the line of least resistance in every situation. There’s even a Tao-inspired video on YouTube entitled Never Resist Anything. Well, this philosophy was coined a very long time ago, and I have to wonder whether it still applies in the modern developed world.

The problem is that the modern developed world is becoming increasingly obsessed with bureaucracy, accountability, legislation, material and pecuniary aspiration, educational achievement, erosion of privacy, objection to free speech, and risk avoidance in every aspect of life. If you never resisted any of these things, you’d end up becoming the sort of brainwashed automaton who thinks that having a new sofa is the true route to happiness, TV adverts are the height of good taste, and nothing counts unless it sells. So do the Taoists think this is a good thing?

(Oh, and as a side issue, the Nazis would be ruling Europe and probably lots of other places as well.)