The Useless Tree

The Dao of Wolverines

Just had to mention this article, which reports that Jon Horford, a forward on the University of Michigan basketball team, is a student of the Daodejing.  Fantastic.  And it seems that the young man has a good grasp on the text:

"You can't say it's about nothing, but that's one of the main things -- just do nothing," he said of the book. "It's about returning yourself to your original nature, how you were before you were affected by everything around you."

That "everything around you" includes all of those social expectations and demands that obstruct our openness to Way.  "Original nature" could be problematic - we should steer clear of essentialist assertions of "human nature" - but the sense of unadulterated spontaneity is quite apt.

I would recommend that Horford next read the classic Cook Ding passage in chapter three of Zhuangzi, which came up in my class today.  That strikes me as the best statement of how an athlete might experience Dao:

And now ‑ now I go at it by spirit and don't look with my eyes. Perception and understanding have come to a stop and spirit moves where it wants.

In other words, he is "in the zone," able to accomplish extraordinary physical feats without thinking, to be totally in the moment and react with utter finesse to the immediate context, rather like cutting to the rim in one explosive movement or making the no-look pass. Indeed, it is that sort of openness that inspires my own identity as a Daoist Yankee fan (and thus, I am not rattled by yesterday's poor showing from the Bronx Bombers....)

So, hooray for Mr. Horford, a man who is opening himself to Dao.  I am, first and foremost, a Badger, but I am happy to cheer for the Wolverines in the Final Four.  Maybe the Michigan cheerleaders can chant this from passage 22 of the DDJ (Hinton):

Give up self-relfection and you're soon enlightened.

Give up self-definition and you're soon apparent.

Give up self-promotion and you're soon proverbial.

Give up self-esteem and you're soon perennial.

Simply give up contention and soon nothing in all beneath heaven contents with you.

Do Nothing Blue -  and there is nothing that will be undone!

Baseball Yi Jing Wisdom

On Friday night I had the pleasure of talking with Jim Bouton, a former pitcher for the New York Yankees.  Regular readers will remember that I am a Yankees fan, a Daoist Yankees fan at that.  So, it was quite fun to be able to sit and talk with a guy who played with Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris and had some very successful years in his own right (he went 21-7 in 1963 and won two World Series games in 1964).  I should add that Bouton was in town for the Williamstown Film Festival, which screened the new movie, "Knuckleball," that Bouton discussed for the crowd afterward.  It was a fun night (thanks Sandra!).

I had to think a bit about what questions to ask Bouton.  Fawning queries about what it was like to play with Mantle seemed rather juvenile.  So I did a bit of research and, when the chance emerged, asked him: what happened to the Yankees in 1965?

Baseball fans know that the Yanks were a powerful team in the 1950s-early 1960s.  From 1950-1959 they played in eight of the ten World Series, winning six of them.  From 1960-1964, they played in all five World Series, winning two, in 1961 and 1962.  But then it all came to a crashing end in 1965.  That yes, their regular season record fell to 77-85 for a lowly sixth place in the American League.  A disaster.

Bouton joined the team in 1962, just in time for what would turn out to be their last World Series victory for fifteen years (1977 was the next).  For several years, he was a stalwart of the regular rotation.  He was arguably the best pitcher in the 1964 Series (his ERA was 1.56; Bob Gibson's was 3.00).  And then he was there for the 1965 meltdown.

His answer to my question - what happened to team in 1965; why did they fall so far? - was simple and direct:

We all got old at the same time.

There is an obvious truth there - both in general and in particular. In partiuclar, the 1965 Yankees were plagued by injuries.  Mantle and Maris and Howard were all out for prolonged periods.  Whitey Ford, and Bouton himself, had arm problems.  There were other issues as well.  After the 1964 season they fired the manager, Yogi Berra, and the team ownership changed hands. 

But Bouton did not explicitly raise these particulars, things he knows so well.  What he said, of course, is a much larger statement: we are all getting older simultaneously always.  That is what time and age are all about.  We often don't notice the gradual transformations that accompany the ineluctable movement of time.  Yet there are moments when the accumlated changes suddenly add up to a qualitative shift: we are not now what we were then.  It is at moments like those that it is also good to remember that what we are now is not what we will be.

1965 was one of those moments for the New York Yankees.  They had been a dominant team, a team for the ages, but then, all of a sudden, but not really, they were something else again.  It is reminiscent of the Yi Jing, hexagram 55, "Abundance," the Judgment of which is:

Abudnace has success. The King attains abudance.  Be not sad. Be like the sun at midday.

It is describing a moment of accomplishment and power, of fullness, rather like the 1964 Yankees.  But then is says: "Be not sad."  Why would one be sad at the very moment of maximum gain?  Because it cannot last.  It must decline, like the sun at midday.  One of the commentaries on this hexgram goes on:

When the sun stands at midday, it begins to set; when the moon is full, it begins to wane.  The fullness and emptiness of heaven and earth wane and wax in the course of time.  How much truer is this of men, or of spirits and gods!

Jonathan Spence quotes this passage in a discussion of the great Chinese emperor Qianlong (101-102).  And it seems to capture what Bouton experienced in 1965.  We all get old at the same time and, before you know it, the moment of our greatest triumph has slipped away. 

I wonder if Bouton has ever consulted the Yi Jing?

The Olympics and Selective Westernization

I think it is safe to say that the Olympics, as a concept and "movement," emerged in the modern era as a European project to universalize certain values of competition and character-building.  A Frenchman, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, revived a Greek ideal, a latter day version of the Hellenism that was so common to the consolidation of a modern "Western" identity.  It has proved to be successful beyond the wildest dreams of its inventors.  This year, 204 countries have sent athletes to London to compete.  And no country has been more successful than the PRC, sitting today atop the gold medal count.

The PRC government has obviously made Olympic victory a national priority.  It has spent extraordinary sums of money, and created a vast sports training system, to achieve very impressive results.   

It is odd, then, that certain strains of anger and resentment have emerged in the Chinese media.  Yes, some unfortunate things have happened to Chinese athletes.  I think the statements questioning Ye Shiwen went too far.  The badminton and bicycling complaints, however, are hardly the stuff of a global anti-China conspiracy.  Shit happens - just ask the 1972 US men's basketball team.  Get over it and move on.  Indeed, it should be easy to move on: China has been fabulously successful at this Olympics.  Why dwell on the negative, much of which seems just to be bad luck, when there are so many fantastic victories, like Feng Zhe on the parallel bars:

Feng’s routine was filled with intricate combinations, yet he did them with the precision of an artist and the rhythm of a musician. He held his handstands for what seemed like forever, looking like a statue, and there wasn’t even the slightest hesitation as he went from one skill straight into another. 

While I hesitate to make too much of the Olympics - I don't think they mean anything in terms of real global power and influence - I can't help but notice the irony in the PRC government, which regularly tells us that it resists "Westernization" and cherishes unique Chinese cultural accomplishments, expending of so much wealth and national energy to show the world just how well it can "Westernize" by succeeding in a European-inspired endeavor to recreate and romanticize an imagined Greek past.  Yes, yes, I am perfectly aware of postcolonial theory... but it's still ironic. (I'm using scare quotes for "Westernization" because most of what is refered to by this concept is about modernization)

Putting so much emphasis on athletic competition, and using the vast amount of resources to ensure victories, is certainly not a Confucian virtue.  Confucius himself thought that "gentlemen" - junzi: 君 子 - noble-minded persons who live morally upright lives, should not strive for winning sporting contests in archery:

The Master said: "The noble-minded never contend.  It's true that archery is a kind of contention.  But even then, they bow and yield to each other when stepping up to the range.  And when they step down, they toast each other.  Even in contention they retain their nobility." (3.7)

子曰：「君子無所爭，必也射乎！揖讓而升，下而飲，其爭也君子。」

The Master said: "People's strength differs.  So, in archery, shooting through the target-skin isn't the point.  That is the way of the ancient." (3.16)

子曰：「射不主皮，為力不同科，古之道也。」

Putting those two together sounds rather like the old saying: it's not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game. 

It's hard to imagine Confucius sitting in the stands, waving a flag and yelling "jiayou!"  And he would certainly see the cost to some athletes, in terms of the damage done to family relations, as in the case of Lin Qingfeng, as simply and completely unacceptable.  Most likely, he would rather the money spent on Olympic preparation go to the preservation of historical and cultural relics and to social programs to ease economic inequality.  

But, of course, the Olympics are hardly the only aspect of contemporary Chinese society that is un-Confucian...

Let me be clear: I think China's Olympic success is fine, though the excesses of training regimes and gold-medal obsessions are a bit much.  I have no problem with Chinese people engaging in any aspects of cultural modernization that they like.  Indeed, I think the development of sports in China has opened up new avenues for the cultural expression of Chinese-ness - and that's great.  I imagine beach volleyball would have been considered "spiritual pollution" in the early 1980s; now, it's just fun and exciting.

I don't expect modern Chinese society to be Confucian.

What bugs me, however, is when sanctimonious Party ideologues argue that "Westernization" is anathema to Chinese culture and unsuited to Chinese realities, when, in fact, the Party embraces those aspects of "Westernization" that serve its power interests (global capitalist trade and finance; Westphalian notions of sovereignty; Monroe Doctrine-like claims to the South China Sea; deals with Hollywood producers; Olympic victories) and reject those that would challenge its political hegemony ("Western" multi-party democracy).  The worries about "Westernization," on the part of CCP elites, is not about cultural authenticity, it's about a narrower concern with maintaining the political power of a one-party state, which itself is a rather "Western" idea.  

Let's be honest guys.  There's plenty about "Westernization" that you like; it's just that democracy thing you're trying to avoid.

Mao Zedong and the PRC's Olympic Gold Anxiety

First of all, let me send out congratulations to all the Chinese athletes at the London Olympics.  There have been many outstanding accomplishments, gold and non-gold, for a truly great team.

And much has been made about the gold rush.  Over at CDT is a roundup of various stories that look into the PRC's "Olympic fetish for first."  Take this op-ed from the Party-managed Global Times :

There are people who blame institutional problems for China's gold medal obsession.

They argue that the existing system purely pushes athletes to get the gold medals and the public should never worry about gold medals that much.

There are certainly problems here. But that's no excuse for giving up the pursuit of the top.

It identifies the problem - "gold medal obsession" - and begins to think through the reasons it exists.  The title of that same op-ed, "Historical weakness creates China's gold medal fixation," suggests a longer-term dynamic at work, as do these lines:

China was known as "the sick man of Asia," torn by war and poverty. Liu Changchun, who was the first Chinese to participate in the Olympic Games in 1932, was sponsored by the warlord Chang Hsueh-liang as the first representative of war-torn China.

Liu arrived only three days before the opening ceremony, after a nearly month-long journey from Shanghai to Los Angeles. Finally, he was eliminated in the preliminary round.

China didn't win its first Olympic medal until 1984. It is understandable that China puts such weight on gold medals.

But notice: there is a rather significant stretch of time between 1932 and 1984.  A lot happened in China then, including the revolutionary victory and political domination of Maoism.  The op-ed alludes only indirectly to the "Red sun that never sets:"

 During the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), China deliberately lost games or conceded points to other countries in international competitions as part of a diplomatic sports policy of "friendship first, competition second."

This approach actually showed no respect for athletes from other countries. It was a perverted notion of sportsmanship.

There is much more to be said here.  Indeed, an argument came be made that the destruction wrought by Maoism on China from 1958-1976 is the primary determinant in the PRC government's current obsession with winning Olympic gold now.

Mao actually supported sports and physical culture.  What might be the first article he published was on the importance of physical exercise in strengthening the nation.  So, it was not too surprising when the newly established PRC sent athletes to the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki.    But it seems that the division with Taiwan created a "two Chinas" problem that caused the PRC to stay away for the 1956 games in Melbourne and thereafter until 1980 Winter Games in Lake Placid.

In the interim Mao and Maoism had metastasized into a political movement hell-bent on destroying counter-revolutionaries and those taking the "capitalist road."  The Great Leap Forward devastated the country.  Millions died.  Administrative structures were destroyed.  While sport may have been the least of the losses, it, too, was fundamentally damaged.  How could an effective national sports system be maintained when people were starving?  In an article (pdf!), "Sport, Maoism and the Beijing Olympics," Dong-Jhy Hwang and Li-Ke Chang point out that the GLF was a "...considerable setback for sport
and physical education...".  And they go on to analyze the damage wrought by the Cultural Revolution:

Following on the heels of the Great Leap Forward, the developmentof sports in the early stage of the Cultural Revolutionwas affected by disruption of competitive sports, the dismantling of the training system, the closure of sports schools, the discontinued participation of Chinese teams in overseas competitions, and the condemnation and persecution of outstanding athletes as offspring of the bourgeoisie.

In short, Maoism devastated sports in China. 

Essentially, then, due to political decisions at the highest levels of power in the PRC, China was cut off from the Olympics for thirty years, a time period of significant improvement in sporting technologies and efforts around the world.   What had held China back was not that it had been, in the previous century, the "sick man of Asia," but that Mao and the Party leadership denied the country systematic development of sports infrastructure and competition.

The current PRC government is running to catch up and surpass the "West" in Olympic competition, not simply as pay-back for 19th century imperialism, but also to further bury the destruction of the Maoist period.  Indeed, my sense is that it really has more to do with the latter than the former, because the latter is the thing that animates so much of post-1979 PRC but is also the thing that cannot be fully confronted.

Every time a PRC athelete kisses a gold medal, he or she is proclaiming to the world that Mao Zedong was wrong.  They have succeed in something Mao rejected - not sport in and of itself, but "bourgeois, Western" sports competition.  They have rejected the old "friendship first, competition second" dictum, and embraced the competitive and materialist culture that Mao struggled against. 

But, of course, you can't say that in the PRC today, when Mao's mausoleum is being put forward for "World Heritage" status....

LeBron James, Daoist Sage

OK, not really.  But one aspect of the narrative of his NBA championship did bring Zhuangzi to mind (I'm reading Zhuangzi and the Daodejing closely just now,  so many things bring Daoism to mind...).

Last year, when he failed, James says that he was distracted by criticism of others, looking to get back at his detractors:

"I was playing to prove people wrong last year, and people would say I was selfish, and that got to me,'' said James. "That got to me a lot because I know that this is a team game. All last year I tried to prove people wrong, prove you guys wrong, and it wasn't me. At the end of the day, I was basically fighting against myself.

"The best thing that happened to me last year was us losing the Finals, and me playing the way I played -- it was the best thing to ever happen in my career because I got back to the basics. It humbled me. I knew what it was going to have to take, and I was going to have to change as a basketball player, and I was going to have to change as a person to get what I wanted. It happened, just one year later.''

And those are clearly bad motives that, in the end, kept him from playing his best when it mattered most.  This year, he cleared his mind:

I trusted my instincts, I trusted my habits that I built over the years and I just got back to being myself. And I didn’t care too much about what anyone said about me. I just kind of made my own path, but did it the right way.”

"Getting back to basics" - which in this case might mean focusing on the small immediate tasks and letting the larger issues unfold as they may - "being myself," "trusted my instincts,""made my own path:" all of these themes can be found in Zhuangzi.  The story of the butcher, which begins chapter 3, is always a good starting place for thinking about how athletes develop an inward-focused practice that allows them to move through and master the flow of circumstance (and it helps explain the phenonenon of the Daoist Yankee Fan).  But let me add a few lines from chapter 4, where Zhuangzi is putting words into the mouth of Confucius.  In giving advice to a minister on how to carry out a mission from the king:

If you serve your own mind, joy and sorrow rarely appear.  If you know what's beyond your control, if you know it follows its own inevitable nature and you live at peace - that is integrity perfected.  Children and ministers inevitably find much that is beyond them.  But if you forget about yourself and always do what circumstances require of you, there's no time to cherish life and despise death.  Then you do what you can, and whatever happens is fine.

That notion of "integrity perfected" - 德之至也 - also has the connotation of a higher degree of "power."  De - 德 - suggests a power, an efficacy in the world, emanating from the particular quality of a thing in context.  To realize that power, one has to be true to oneself, integral in and of oneself.  We should not try to be something we are not or act in ways that others might expect, if those lead us away from our innate qualities. 

And that seems to be what James has come around to.  Last year, he lost track of himself; this year, in trusting his instincts, he brought his de - 德 - power to its fullest potential.

Jeremy Lin and Chinese Soft Power

 

Let me add my voice to the chorus: Linsanity is Lintastic! By now, everyone knows Jeremy Lin and his marvelous emergence in the NBA.   Not only in the US, but in China as well, where he seems to be overshadowing the retired Yao Ming as a national basketball champion. 

And here's one of the interesting things about all this: rather like Gary Locke, Lin is an American who is creating a new symbol of Chinese cultural accomplishment.  And that, I think, is not good news for the culture warriors in China desperately in search of home-grown products that will boost the PRC's "soft power" abroad.

Let me put out a quick disclaimer: I personally am a cultural anti-nationalist in the sense that I recognize that cultural production and significance cannot be contained within national boundaries or categories.  Some Americans might comfortably identify with cultural products produced elsewhere - and that's fine.  Some Chinese might comfortably identify with cultural products produced elsewhere - and that's fine, too.  Nationalists - American or Chinese - who are hell-bent on denouncing cultural exchange and inter-mingling are not only unrealistic (cultures have always and everywhere flowed together) but they are impoverished in their imaginations....

That said, to Chinese nationalists who worry about "...international hostile forces [that] are intensifying the strategic plot of Westernizing and dividing China..." (I'm looking at you Hu Jintao), Jeremy Lin is a potential problem.  He is, after all, an American.  As some have noted, his story seems paradigmatic of the "American dream."  He is obviously proud of his Chinese-Taiwanese heritage, but his life has been shaped by his Chinese-Taiwanese-American context and experience.  The problem, then, for Chinese nationalists who would like to appropriate the Lin narrative as a symbol of some sort of purely Chinese cultural accomplishment is the impossibility of disaggregating the reality of his Chinese-Taiwanese-American-ness. 

This has not yet happened yet, as far as I know.  Lin has been embraced by the Chinese public but the cultural commissars, who pressed back against Gary Locke's popularity, have yet to weigh in on the rise of Lin.  Though I did notice this headline from China Daily: "Lin's good, but not as good as Yao - NBA boss."  Of course, no one would contend, at this point, that Lin's career, which is all but two weeks old, comes close to Yao's.  But why does this even need to be said now?

It might be that there is already an anxiety stirring in the minds of Chinese nationalists.  Here is yet another cultural sensation, drawing the adulation of Chinese youth, that is produced in the US.  It's another Kung Fu Panda.  The Lin story plays more to a US "soft power" narrative than a PRC one.   Indeed, Lin might be more dangerous than Lady Gaga (are her songs still banned?).  He is, at once "Chinese" but not, for PRC nationalist purposes, sufficiently "Chinese."

And things might be really interesting if cross-Strait politics enter the equation.  Will someone in the PRC require him to de-emphasize his Taiwanese-ness?  Will he play more to a KMT or DPP Taiwan narrative?  That could get a bit dicey...

Let me be clear: personally, I think Lin should be free to identify himself as he wants and to do what he wants, without social and cultural baggage.  But that is not the way cultural politics works, especially when nationalists get involved.  If Lin wants to play for a Chinese or Taiwanese national team in international competition, as has been suggested, that's fine with me.  If he plays on a US team, that's good, too.  Whatever.  I sense, however, that these issues, and the continuing question of his popularity and identity within the PRC will create some rather perilous politics for him in the not-too-distant future....

In the meantime: Go Knicks! Linsanity!...

UPDATE: Well, that didn't take long:

Is 'Linsanity' Driving the Chinese Government Crazy?

China, Taiwan Both Lay Claim to Jeremy Lin

Mariano Rivera: Daoist Sage

Baseball fans out there know that history was made yesterday: New York Yankee Mariano Rivera set the all time record for career saves.  I (and, remember, I am a Daoist Yankee fan...) was lucky enough to listen to the final inning on the radio.  A great day for New York. And for those Yankee aficionados out there: if I heard correctly, announcer John Sterling was so excited at Rivera's achievement that he forgot his signature "The Yankees Win!" send off...

In any event, Riveria is widely respected and is a humble man of few words.  He finds solace and meaning in his Christian faith, but his approach to life is consistent with certain Daoist values as well.  Take this passage from today's coverage in the NYT:

Afterward, the 41-year-old Rivera was as selfless as humanly possible. When one reporter — Sweeny Murti of WFAN — asked him a question about celebrating his achievement, Rivera responded by pointing out that Murti had just become the father of a baby daughter and should be congratulated himself.

It was that sort of gesture by Rivera that made Manager Joe Girardi so pleased that Posada and Rodriguez had steered him back to the mound to get his moment alone with the crowd.

“It was a great idea on their part to let Mo get his due,” Girardi said. “Mo doesn’t ever really want to talk about what he does.”

He never want to talk about what he does... now, where have I heard that before?...

Sincere words are never beautiful and beautiful words are never sincere.  The noble are never eloquent and the eloquent never noble.  The knowing are never learned and the learning never knowing.

A sage never hoards: the more you do for others the more plenty is yours, and the more you give to others the more abundance is yours.

The Way of heaven is to profit without causing harm, and the Way of a sage to act without contending. (DDJ, 81)

His lack of words reveals his Daoist nobility...

 

Friday Yi Jing Blogging: Predicting a Williams College Football Victory

It's been a long time since my last Friday Yi Jing blogging.  I return to it today with a local focus.  In my tutorial on ancient Chinese philosophy today I was referring to the Yi Jing and decided to consult it to demonstrate to the students how we might apprend a particular moment in Way.  To make it more relevant to the assembled students I asked the Yi if our college team, the Ephs, would win their first regular season game.  The response was generally positive.  

A bit of background: Williams College is a football powerhouse in the world of Division III athletics in the US.  Last year the team went undefeated.   Thus, there is every expectation that Williams should defeat Bowdoin in the opening game of the 2011 season.  The Yi concurs, with some reservations.

The oracle returned Hexagram 30, "Fire," with a moving line in the third position, thus tending in the direction of Hexagram 21, "Biting Through."

"Fire" or "The Clinging" (as fire clings to wood) is a doubled trigram, suggeting a certain significance in this reading:

The Judgment points to a positive outcome and offers an apt analogy:

The Clinging.  Perseverance furthers. It brings success.  Care of the cow brings good fortune.

In the context of a football team, perseverance would suggest that focused training and practice will bring victory.  But "care of the cow" tells us even more, especially when you know that the mascot of the Williams team is the Purple Cow:

Clearly, then, it would seem that "caring for the cow," in this regard, is a reminder to the players to focus on the team: if each member does his duty to the team and carries through conscientiously, a win will be secured.  The commentary on the Judgment makes this point more starkly:

Human life on earth is conditioned and unfree, and when man recognizes this limitation and makes himself dependent upon the harmonious and beneficent forces of the cosmos, he achieves success.

Not quite a stirring half-time pep talk, but the point is pretty much what football coaches have been saying from time immemorial: the whole is greater than any one part; the team must come before the individual; and when the individuals understand this and subordinate themselves to the needs and purposes of the team, victory can be achieved.

So, it looks good for th Ephs.  But wait... that moving line in the third place sounds a cautionary note:

In the light of the setting sun, men either beat the pot and sing or loudly bewail the approach of old age.  Misfortune.

The commentary explains that the "setting sun" implies mortality and people, as they contemplate death, can lose their focus and fall into excessive recklessness (live wildly until death comes) or depression.  

For our football players the "light of the setting sun" captures an image of their practices, down on Cole Field, ending in the evenings.  The warning not to "beat the pot and sing" warns against overconfidence.  They have defeated Bowdoin in nine out of the last ten meetings.  This should be an easy one.  And that is precisely the kind of attitude that can bring "misfortune."

The Yi is telling the team to take care of business.  Do the hard work of practice. Don't underestimate the adversary.  And then things will likely turn out for the better.

That message is echoed in Hexagram 21, "Biting Through:"

The description of the Hexagram reads:

This hexagram represents an open mouth with an obstruction (in the fourth place) between the teeth.  As a result the lips cannot meet.  To bring them together one must bite energetically through the obstacle.  Since the hexagram is made up of the trigrams for thunder and lightening, it indicates how obstacles are forcibly removed in nature.  Energetic biting through overcomes the obstacle that prevents joining of the lips; the storm with its thunder and lightening overcomes the disturbing tension in nature.

Sometimes, under certain circumstances, to prevail requires energetic activity, biting through.  If sufficient effort is expended in the proper manner, success will follow - the Judgment reads: "Biting Through has success."  So, if the football players do the hard work required of the task ahead of them, a Williams victory can be secured.

Go Ephs!

Confucius and Zhuangzi on the Georgetown-Bayi Basketball Fight

It was pretty ugly.  

One of the things that struck me was that this was a professional Chinese team.  And they were being schooled by a US college team.  You would think their professional pride would have led them to simply play better, but I guess not...   Could you imagine the US analogue: an NBA team playing Georgetown?  Clearly, the NBA is quite literally in another league and the Hoyas would be at a serious disadvantage.  But if the going go rough, what would, say, the Timberwolves do?  Raise their game, because, mostly likely, they could raise their game.  Bayi, lagging behind, even with the advantage of friendly referees, had nowhere to go.  They couldn't play their way out, so they rumbled.  Yes, I am laying it at the feet of Bayi - and I may not be alone in that opinon.  

But let me add something from the classics.  They kind of aggressive competitiveness on display on Thursday night runs counter to the sensibilities of Confucianism and Daoism.  Confucius, in particular, understood sports, such as archery, as simply another means through which a civilized person expressed his or her humanity:

The Master said: "The noble-minded never contend.  It's true that archery is a kind of contention.  But even then, they bow and yield to each other when stepping up to the range.  And when they step down, they toast each other.  Even in contention, they retain their nobility." (3.7)

Indeed, the Chinese embrace of competitive athletics, symbolized most aptly by the 2008 Olympics, could be taken as a sign of the concomitant lack or weakness of Confucian cultural practice.  "The noble-minded never contend"....  somehow I think the Bayi players are not regular readers of The Analets.

Zhuangzi, in a somewhat similar vein, sees competitiveness as an expression of something problematic in human nature:

Games of skill and cleverness begin in a light mood, but they always end up dark and serious.  And if things go far enough, it's nothing but guile.  Drinking at ceremonies begins orderly enough, but it always ends up wild and chaotic.  And if things go far enough, it's nothing but debauchery.  All our human affairs seem to work like this.  However, sincerely they begin, they grow enormously complex before they're over. (55)

He would not be surprised at the fight.  That's what people tend to do when put in such circumstances.  It is, however, the circumstances that he would question: does such aggressive competitiveness distract us from Way?  Is it a vain and self-absorbed folly that keeps us from seeing and respecting the natural unfolding of things in Way?  Yeah, it probably is.  Zhuangzi would not play the game; he would not even be in the arena or watching on TV.  He would likely be watching the stars and moon....

Thoughts on the Yankees' Loss

The New York Yankees lost the Americal League Championship series to the Texas Rangers last night.  An old high school friend (Hi Richard!) facebooked me and asked for any solace that might be gained from ancient Chinese philosophy.  As a Taoist Yankee fan, I turn immediately to Zhaungzi and the Daodejing.

Consider this passage from Zhuangzi:

This life we're given comes in its own season, and then follows its vanishing away.  If you're at ease in your own season, if you can dwell in its vanishing, joy and sorrow never touch you.  This is what the ancients called getting free. If you can't get free, you're tangled in things.  And things never overcome heaven...

He's discussing death, but his words can apply to the end of a baseball season as well.  We know that the Yankees cannot win the World Series every year, and this year, this season, they came up two games short of going to the big game.  But that outcome is not shameful.  It turns out the Yanks this season are the second best team in the American League.  It may hurt some to lose, but look at what was accomplished.  It was a good season, ultimately, but now follows its vanishing away.  Personally, I am at ease with that, especially since a certain other team in the American League East from a Northeastern city has been relegated to obscurity for weeks now.  It was a good season.  We have much to look forward to next year.

The Daodejing helps, too.  Here is passage 40:

Return is the movement of Way, and yielding the method of Way.

All beneath heaven, the ten thousand things: it's all born of being, and being is born of nonbeing.

 If we yield to the outcome of this season we can then look forward to "return."  And for the Yankees this means that in the future we will return to the World Series.  It is as natural as the passing of the seasons.  Will it be next year?  Hard to say.  But it is inevitable that the Yankees will return, and likely sooner than any other team.  That is simply how Way unfolds.