The Endpoint of Civil Evolution: Reading ＂Dao De Jing＂ v. 80 as Climate Philosophy

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Climate change is destabilizing the world's food supply and has potentially catastrophic consequences for the stability of the biosphere, the diversity of life, and the future of civilization. Climate change is accelerating; it is outpacing all predictions of the IPCC, and it has come into view as the greatest challenge ever faced by our species in its entire history. There has never been anything even remotely comparable in scope. This emerging reality has famously been described as ”the greatest market failure the world has ever seen” (cf. Summary of Conclusions, Stem Review on the Economics of Climate Change, Cambridge 2006). Because climate change is so perilous, and, furthermore, because it is the systematic outcome of the socio-economic structure of global civilization at present, it challenges fundamental assumptions of what a good life, progress, and civilization are actually supposed to mean. It appears we cannot avoid the conclusion anymore that civilization as we know it must change if it wishes to persist. The initial steps of the change are obvious because they are now necessary: mitigation of climate change, and adaptation to its effects; both of which will require a transformation of world civilization to a post-carbon, post-consumerist, and presumably post-capitalist structure. This transformation could be described as ”civil evolution”. The impetus of civil evolution is evident, and so are its first few steps. But apart from sheer defensive motivations, such as creating resilience, striving for sustainability, switching to renewables, and downscaling safely and fairly, the question arises of what can serve as a larger philosophical framework for the transformation. I argue that Daoism supplies this needed framework. The penultimate chapter of the ”Dao De Jing”, v. 80, discloses a vision of collective existence, which may well describe the endpoint of social development and consequently the telos of civil evolution. Before the age of climate change, this vision looked rather dreamlike and utopian. But as the age of climate change has begun, and as urgency mounts, this vision reveals a rational, realistic, and pragmatic destination.