Reconstructing Taoism’s Transformation in China

Today in class we read an article about how Taoism can help us to understand ancient Chinese history. Taoist texts can help us to deepen our understanding on ancient China because we can understand the political system and the controversy over it. In ancient China, there was one leader called an emperor that ruled over everyone. A group of people called confucianists believed in this political structure. However, taoists believed in everyone being equal and treated equally. This shows that there was some controversy in ancient China. Also, we know that Taoism reflects on how each person should follow there own path and do whatever they want to do in order to be truly successful and happy. This contradicts the ancient government because the government controlled everything and what people did, so people couldn't follow their own path.