“Are You Really Right? Am I Really Wrong?”: Responding to Debates in Zhuāngzǐ 2

This essay examines the questions raised about debate in Zhuāngzǐ 莊子 2, the practical advice this chapter offers us for dealing with debates when they arise, and some of the questions that will predictably occur about how and why to apply that advice. On the present interpretation, Zhuāngzǐ 2 argues that joining any side in a verbal conflict promotes continued conflict, and that only appreciating and working along with each speaker’s distinct point of view affords us access to what is “really” or “conclusively” ( guǒ 果) the case. In contentious situations, the text advises that we pay close attention to speakers and their ways of life—rather than to what they are supposedly speaking about—and that we abandon any immediate goal beyond preserving our own health. Along the way, it foregrounds pleasure and comfort rather than rightness as what we are most attuned to when we listen and respond to one another’s words.