“Taoist” is an earlier way of spelling “Daoist.” It derives from the Wade-Giles romanization
system, whereas Daoist comes from the more recent Pinyin romanization system. Both
approximate various Daoist terms that contain dao 道 (tao) in them. As an adjective,
“Taoist” refers to persons, communities, places, and so forth related to the Daoist
religious tradition. As a noun designating religious affiliation, “Taoist” refers
to Daoist adherents, or members of the Daoist religious tradition. A distinction
must be made between members of the Daoist religious tradition (“Daoists”) and individuals
appropriating, exploiting and marketing certain aspects of that tradition for their
own personal gain. The latter employ and perpetuate various popular Western misrepresentations
and constructions of “Daoism.” Such activities involve questionable ethical and political
dimensions, acceptance of which makes one complicit.
“Tao-ist” is thus sometimes used as a form of identity construction and maintenance
by members of New Age hybrid spiritualism, with its assorted appropriative and colonialist
agendas. In that context, “Tao” refers to some supposed “trans-religious” and primordial
reality that can be anything for anyone. Although the term derives from traditional
Chinese culture and from the Daoist religious tradition, “Tao-ists” prefer to use
it as a philosophical category that justifies their own desires, including systematic
misreadings of classical Daoist texts. In popular Western discourse, “Tao” could
and probably should be replaced by “God,” “Mind,” “Ego,” and/or “Nature.” In contrast
to Daoist views, it becomes an atheological or anti-theological category. One might,
in turn, modify the famous opening line of the Daode jing 道德經 (Scripture on the Dao
and Inner Power) as a response to such appropriation and commodification: “The dao
that can be sold is not the constant Dao.”
Further Reading: Daoism: A Short Introduction/James Miller; Daoism and Chinese Culture/Livia
Kohn; Daoism Handbook/Livia Kohn (ed.); Daoist Identity/Livia Kohn and Harold Roth
(eds.); Daoism in China/Wang Yi’e; Taoism: The Enduring Tradition/Russell Kirkland;
“The Dao of America”/Elijah Siegler; “The Taoism of the Western Imagination and the
Taoism of China”/Russell Kirkland; “Tracing the Contours of Daoism in North America”/Louis
Komjathy.
See also Adherent, American Daoism, Americanization, Dao, Daoist (Historical), Daoist
(Normative), Popular Western Taoism, Sympathizer, Theology, and the entries on Daoism.
