Professor Ye's readings on seclusion and utopia totally correlates with the 'Hundred Schools' readings we've covered. The schools ventured out to rulers and leaders in hopes that they would adopt their ideology. Confucists wanted to stress moral duties and decorum, Mohists wanted universal love, Daoist stressed wu wei, and Legalists wanted a centralized and unified society based on laws. During a time of division, all four of these schools, among others, found their idea of utopia and wrote proses and books on how the ideal society should be like.
The readings on seclusion and especially the Peach Tree Blossom reading briefly showed how some people thought about the government and how they would be more at peace if they were to leave the secular world behind and live on their own. The letters and the Peach Tree Blossom reading portrays the reluctance of the people to go back to society--they would rather live as farmers or commoners, detaching themselves from the oppulance of the court or grand civilization. In the Peach Tree Blossom story, the entire community begged the fisherman not to tell of their existance to the world because they do not want to bring in values from the outside, lest they corrupt the community.
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