Jeremy Lent and Song Dynasty Taoists
If you have not read or heard of Jeremy Lent, not to be concerned. He does not have a Wikipedia entry, but he self-publishes much.
Who is Jeremy Lent?
Jeremy Lent, described by Guardian journalist George Monbiot as “one of the greatest thinkers of our age,” is an author and speaker whose work investigates the underlying causes of our civilization’s existential crisis, and explores pathways toward a life-affirming future.
Born in London, England, Lent received a BA in English Literature from Cambridge University, an MBA from the University of Chicago, and was a former internet company CEO.
JeremyLent.com
His two recent books as his website describes were received with glory and praise.
His award-winning book, The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity’s Search for Meaning, explores the way humans have made meaning from the cosmos from hunter-gatherer times to the present day.
His new book, The Web of Meaning: Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our Place in the Universe, offers a coherent and intellectually solid foundation for a worldview based on connectedness that could lead humanity to a sustainable, flourishing future.
JeremyLent.com
Integrator and fabricator
Both books, I think, are worth the read – if from library. Not sure I’d buy them. The ideas presented between them are connected but not required reading together. He is able to scan large swaths of science, religion and philosophy and bring together interesting parallels, connections and intreating metaphors. In fact, he labels himself “Author and Integrator”.
While he integrates much from differing studies and cultures, his fabrication of theory into fact or certainties is what trips him up. I’ve never been a fan of certainty. One criticism article clearly articulates this point.
assembles a fascinating collection of ideas that scientists have proposed to explain the big mysteries in neuroscience, cognitive psychology and biology, drawing parallels with the Tao Te Ching. The mistake Lent makes, however, is to present speculative ideas from the frontiers of multiple disciplines as established knowledge, rather than the untested or untestable hypotheses they are.
https://www.skeptic.org.uk/2023/03/the-tao-of-magical-thinking-pseudoscience-in-jeremy-lents-the-web-of-meaning/
A dear friend of mine (and stoic-like thinker) also read Lent and we both had a similar summarization. “He’s great at pulling different ideas into a coherent narrative, but as he tries to make it actionable and current, his work falls flat”.
He published a breakdown of last book chapter by chapter. This is sufficient to grasp his thinking: https://www.jeremylent.com/explore-web-of-meaning.html.
Song Dynasty Taoists
One reoccurring theme through both books is reference to Taoist thinking and especially the work, ideas from the Song Dynasty.
Chinese sage Zhu Xi once said that if you wish to know the Tao, you must seek it in your own nature. Recognizing the Tao as the set of nature’s self-organizing principles, this chapter shows the wisdom of his statement based on modern scientific findings.
Web of Meaning, Jeremy Lent
Zhu XI (or formally Chu Hsi) is one of the key figures in Taoist / Neo-Confucianism and in his time was considered unorthodox.
During the Song Dynasty, Zhu Xi’s teachings were considered to be unorthodox. Rather than focusing on the I Ching like other Neo-Confucians, he chose to emphasize the Four Books: the Great Learning, the Doctrine of the Mean, the Analects of Confucius, and the Mencius as the core curriculum for aspiring scholar officials.
Wikipedia
While Zhu Xi’s work and its influence lasted centuries within official education and civil servant testing, his metaphysics that Lent focuses on is much more interesting. In some ways, I infer that Zhu Xi’s thinking forms the foundation of Lent’s “Pattern” and “Web of Meaning”.
Zhu Xi maintained that all things are brought into being by the union of two universal aspects of reality: qi (氣, sometimes translated as vital – or physical, material – force); and li (理, sometimes translated as rational principle or law). The source and sum of li is the taiji, meaning the Supreme Ultimate.
Qi and li operate together in mutual dependence. They are mutually aspective in all creatures in the universe. These two aspects are manifested in the creation of substantial entities. When their activity is waxing (rapid or expansive), that is the yang energy mode. When their activity is waning (slow or contractive), that is the yinenergy mode. The yang and yin phases constantly interact, each gaining and losing dominance over the other. In the process of the waxing and waning, the alternation of these fundamental vibrations, the so-called five elements evolve (fire, water, wood, metal, and earth). Zhu Xi argues that li existed even before Heaven and Earth.[19]
In terms of li and qi, Zhu Xi’s system strongly resembles Buddhist ideas of li (principle) and shi (affairs, matters), though Zhu Xi and his followers strongly argued that they were not copying Buddhist ideas. Instead, they held, they were using concepts already present long before in the I Ching.
Wikipedia
For me, the best part of Lent’s two books were his reference and pointer to Zhu Xi and the Song Dynasty thinkers. This area of Chinese thought, while perhaps self-evident to Chinese scholars, is a mystery of great interest and importance to me. Lent opened a door to a new set of research for 2024 – Song Dynasty Taoists.