The Useless Tree

Her life is not a tragedy: Zhuangzi understands this

A nice piece in yesterday's Boston Globe by Beverly Beckham about her grandaughter, who has Down Syndrome, and how she and her family came to see the beauty in this girl's life.  It is a familiar tale, to those of us who have lived this sort of story, of the initial time of fear and dread, not knowing what the meaning of disability might be.  And then the gradual realization that, as Zhuangzi reminds us, all things move as one in Dao (道通為一). 

Beckham comes to the same understanding I came to with Aidan:

Everybody’s life has challenges. Lucy’s has a few more. But what Lucy’s life is is not a tragedy. What Lucy’s life is is not a burden. What Lucy’s life is is not what we were led to believe it would be: sad and joyless and not worth living.

Her life is full of joy. Lucy is a happy child. She makes our lives worth living.

She is not the child we imagined. Nine years ago we cried over this. Sometime we still cry. But not because Lucy isn’t who we want. She is exactly who we want.

We cry because Lucy is sweet and good and imaginative and kind and funny and caring, and the world doesn’t see any of this. The world sees only a little girl with Down syndrome.

We cry now, not because of Lucy, but because of the world.

If we look at people simply as they are, not in comparison to some nonexistent ideal or some set of preexisting expectations, then we see them in their individual fullness and completeness.  Each person has their place in Dao and, in that, they are all the same, of equal presence and value.  And if we fail to see each person in their individual fullness and completeness, then we fail to apprehend the world.  Zhuangzi tells us:

If you see the world in terms of difference...there are liver and gall bladder, there are Ch'u lands and Yueh lands.  But seen in terms of sameness, the ten thousand things are all one.  If you understand this, you forget how eye and ear could love this and hate that.  Then the mind wanders the accord of Integrity.  And if you see the identity of things there can be no loss.

There can be no loss.  That was an understanding that helped me learn from Aidan.   We can choose to see the world in terms of difference or in terms of sameness, and when we choose the latter we open ourselves to seeing the value of all things.

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.

Why We Need Chinese Philosophy

I want to recognize, and expand upon, Justin H. Smith's piece in the NYT, "Philosophy's Western Bias."  He makes a case for why academic philosophy departments should incorporate more "non-Western" schools of thought in their curriculum.  I am all for it.  But I must say, right up front, that I am not an academic philosopher, but a political scientist who has drifted into ancient Chinese thought.  And it is from that perspective that I have a somewhat different take on this issue than Smith.

He points out that concerns for diversity, in and of themselves, are not a sound basis for the inclusion of "non-Western" thought into our on-going discussions of "philosophy" (Lots of scare quotes, I know.  But Smith is questioning the definitions of all of these terms...).  He is direct in his critique:

The goal of reflecting the diversity of our own society by expanding the curriculum to include non-European traditions has so far been a tremendous failure. And it has failed for at least two reasons. One is that non-Western philosophy is typically represented in philosophy curricula in a merely token way. Western philosophy is always the unmarked category, the standard in relation to which non-Western philosophy provides a useful contrast. Non-Western philosophy is not approached on its own terms, and thus philosophy remains, implicitly and by default, Western. Second, non-Western philosophy, when it does appear in curricula, is treated in a methodologically and philosophically unsound way: it is crudely supposed to be wholly indigenous to the cultures that produce it and to be fundamentally different than Western philosophy in areas like its valuation of reason or its dependence on myth and religion. In this way, non-Western philosophy remains fundamentally “other.”

He then goes on to provide a starting point for a more effective argument for the relevance of non-Western philosophy:

An alternative approach to the history of philosophy — one that takes the aim of opening up the discipline seriously — would treat both Western and non-Western philosophy as the regional inflections of a global phenomenon.... Now it is of course very difficult to define “philosophy,” but if we think of it broadly as systematic reflection on the nature of reality and on humanity’s place in that reality, then it is clear that Europe can make no special claim to be the home of philosophy.

Yes.  And let me add my own, rather simplistic, point here: Chinese philosophy is valuable to us here and now because it concerns itself, deeply and directly, with large questions of  "the nature of reality and... humanity's place in that reality."

I tend to focus on politics, and in that realm it is clear that Chinese philosophy has much to contribute to any discussion of issues such as: Who should rule?  How should they rule?  How should we understand political legitimacy?  What role does violence play in politics?  etc. This is not really a matter of "Western" v. "non-Western" to me. They are large questions that have been contemplated is many diverse places and times, and the broad history of that extensive conservation remains relevant, in all its facets, to us today.  

We seem to assume automatically that the ancient Greeks - so far removed in time and culture from the contemporary US - are relevant to today's political world.  Well, ancient Chinese thinkers are similarly pertinent.  Some might reject that assertion, and argue that the Greeks invented democracy, and that our politics is rooted in that democratic tradition; thus, since the ancient Chinese lacked a notion of democracy, they are not as germane to contemporary American political debates.  

Politics, however, is about more than democracy v. authoritarianism.  It is true that in their own times ancient Chinese thinkers did not think in terms of "rule of the people."  However, their focus on humane public policy and ethical standard of leadership are certainly relevant in a contemporary democratic context.  And they are equally relevant in a contemporary authoritarian context - as I have argued regularly here, the leaders of the CCP have much to fear in a strong and consistent application of Mencian political principles...

Here's an example. When thinking about sound government, and political strategies that might produce sound government,  Analects 12.7 offers this (Ames/Rosemont translation):

Zigong asked about governing effectively.  The master said to him, "Make sure there is sufficient food to eat, sufficient arms for defense, and that the common people have confidence in their leaders."

"If you have to give up one of these three things," he said, "which should be given up first?"

"Give up the arms," he replied.

"If you had to give up one of the remaining two," he said," which should be given up first?"

"Give up food," he replied. "Death has been with us from ancient times, but if the common people do not have confidence in their leaders, community will not endure."

子貢問政。子曰：「足食。足兵。民信之矣。」子貢曰：「必不得已而去，於斯三者何先？」曰：「去兵。」子貢曰：「必不得已而去，於斯二者何先？」曰：「去食。自古皆有死，民無信不立。」

There's a lot in there. Effective government requires something like a Weberian state, insofar as that suggests a coercive apparatus (兵). It also requires that the state provide a certain basic sustenance to the people within its territory: a kind of performance legitimacy.  But, ultimately, legitimacy is not simply a matter of providing material sustenance.  The "confidence of the people" (民信) is more than bread alone.  It is a matter of consistent sincerity on the part of political leaders in attending to the well-being of society at large.  A government that rewards the rich at the expense of the poor, or concerns itself more with the maintenance of a particular ruling group while ignoring growing social inequalities, will lose the confidence of the people.  Leaders in both China and the US could learn from that now.

I don't want to ignore Daoism here.  It, too, is certainly of relevance to contemporary political and philosophical debates.  Its political significance lies largely in its critique of power and greed and, yes, injustice.  While the Daodejing and Zhuangzi do not put forth much in the way of positive political principles (i.e. ideas that might be used to build an effective government), its perspective from outside of power is certainly valuable in terms of political analysis.

Personally, I find Daoism's insights into broader questions of ontology and epistemology to be more alluring than its politics.  Zhuangzi, in particular, seems to prefigure 20th century debates about knowledge and language and reality.  While not a postmodern (Zhuangzi would resist the notion that language constitutes reality; rather he would contend that language is inadequate in capturing the fullness and complexity and dynamism of reality), his thinking is certainly relevant to conservations about Derrida and Saussure.

We could go on, but will leave it there.  Or, better, let's leave it with Zhuangzi (Hinton translation):

The spoken isn't just bits of wind.  In the spoken, something is spoken.  But what it is never stays fixed and constant.  So is something spoken, or has nothing ever been spoken?  People think we're different from baby birds cheeping, but are we saying any more than they are?

夫言非吹也。言者有言，其所言者特未定也。果有言邪？其未嘗有言邪？其以為異於鷇音，亦有辯乎，其無辯乎?

Chinese Intellectuals Need Freedom: Zhuangzi Anticipated This...

Louisa Lim has a report on NPR this morning that reminds us that Chinese intellectuals and artists continue to press for freedom of expression, speech, and thought.  She presents the work of artist Yang Weidong:

A deceptively simple question has become an obsession for Chinese artist Yang Weidong.

"What do you need?"

For the last four years, Yang has posed the question to more than 300 Chinese intellectuals, and the results illustrate a startling level of discontent among China's thinkers.

As for the answer, one word pops up time and time again.

"I need freedom," says writer Chang Ping.

"I need freedom of speech," says economist Mao Yushi.

"I need freedom of expression," says poet Ye Kuangzheng.

John Garnaut reported on Yang's work last year, when he had interviewed about 150 people and was coming up with the same responses.  Seems like the results have held over time...

When I heard Lim's report this morning, I immediately thought of this passage from Zhuangzi, 3.4 (Watson translation):

The swamp pheasant has to walk ten paces for one peck and a hundred paces for one drink, but it doesn't want to be kept in a cage.  Though you treat it like a king, it's spirit won't be content.

澤雉十步一啄，百步一飲，不蘄畜乎樊中。神雖王，不善也。

That last line is pretty much the legitimation strategy of the PRC party-state: we will give you material comfort, but you have to accept limitations on your freedom.  And this is central to maintaining the support of thinkers and writers, who traditionally in Chinese history have been an important political constituency.  This strategy has worked for the past twenty years or so, at least insofar as diffusing intellectual leadership for mass style protest in the manner of May 4th or June 4th.  But, as Zhuangzi suggests, this may not be effective in the longer term.  The pheasant will resist the cage...

The Porosity of Culture

Just want to add my voice to those others (on Twitter) who have called out the nice little piece in the NYRB on translator Red Pine (aka Bill Porter).  For me, it demonstrates some of what I have been blogging about of late: the ways in which "culture" is open and intelligible and learnable.  

Porter lived for a long time in Taiwan, practicing Buddhism and translating Chinese texts into English. He has now found somewhat greater publishing success (not that that was what he sought) in China.  A couple of his more recent books, observational travel writing, have been translated into Chinese and sold fairly well there.  He is, therefore, someone who has moved between cultures and, I suspect, melded apparently disparate cultural practices into his own life.

His Chinese publisher makes an interesting comment in the NYRB story:

“Our culture is really broad but how does it affect our daily life? Today we’re very westernized—our food, clothing and so on—but here is someone from the West who finds value in China,” Tang said in his short introdutction. “Why does he do this? What does it say to us Chinese?” 

This point - the modern transformation of Chinese culture - is noted again in these lines about the popularity of his travel writing:

His [Porter's] goal is to tell interested foreigners about revealing byways of Chinese culture. Unexpectedly, this approach also works for Chinese, many of whom are about as removed from their culture as Porter’s target audience is in the West. But this means that what is a niche market in western countries—the Chinese culture enthusiast—is a mass market in China. It also helps that Porter is a foreigner. Many wonder how foreigners see this complex culture, which during the 20th century Chinese writers, thinkers, and politicians blamed for their country’s demise.

I suspect this is true: Many Chinese do not make a study of the ancient texts, largely because the old books are seen as not particularly useful for a modern, competitive life.  However, the novelty of someone who is putatively "outside" the culture, but who then enters into it, or at least enters into some facets of it, provides a new window for seeing the culture for those who are putatively inside it.  His "Western" perspective on "Chinese culture" illuminates and shapes the "Chinese" perspective on "Chinese culture."

But at what point do the "Western" perspective and the "Chinese" perspective spill into one another, dissolving clear distinctions?

Daodejing 20 takes up these themes.  And here is the Red Pine translation (which seems to ignore the first line; something like: "give up learning and troubles end"):

Yes and no aren't so far apart lovely and ugly aren't so unalike
what others fear we too must fear
before the moon wanes everyone is gay as if they were at the Great Sacrifice or climbing a tower in spring I sit here and make no sign like a child that doesn't smile lost with no one to turn to
while others enjoy more I alone seem forgotten my mind is so foolish so simple
others look bright I alone seem dim others are certain I alone am confused receding like the ocean waxing without cease
everyone has a goal I alone am dumb and backward for I alone choose to differ preferring still my mother's breast

絕學無憂，唯之與阿，相去幾何？善之與惡，相去若何？人之所畏，不可不畏。荒兮其未央哉！衆人熙熙，如享太牢，如春登臺。我獨怕兮其未兆；如嬰兒之未孩； 儽儽兮若無所歸。衆人皆有餘，而我獨若遺。我愚人之心也哉！沌沌兮，俗人昭昭，我獨若昏。俗人察察，我獨悶悶。澹兮其若海，飂兮若無止，衆人皆有以，而我 獨頑似鄙。我獨異於人，而貴食母。

Of course, the apparent confusion that comes with the erasure of cultural boundaries and certainties ("I alone am confused receding like the ocean waxing without cease...") is, for a Daoist, a good thing....

The Dao of Inter-Cultural Commensurability

I've been thinking more about the possibilities of inter-cultural commensurability since my last post on the topic.  A thought has come to me that I want to posit and explore here:

The entire topic of commensurability/incommensurability is, essentially, a Western problematique.  It is generally not an issue in pre-Qin Chinese thought and is premised on a kind of oppositional thinking that is largely alien to classical Chinese thinking.  If this is true - and I look forward to comments and critiqes from readers - a certain irony would follow, at least for those who want to argue that "Chinese culture" and "Western culture" are basically incommensurable, insofar as the very assertion, by using a Western concept, would undermine the claim.  But let's dig into the argument...

The first, best place to start is Zhuangzi.  I tend to read chapter one as a discourse on incommensurability - but one that ultimately sets up a further claim of a kind of commensurability within incommensurability (a classic Daoist reversal thing...).  At the opening of the chapter, the author draws a mental picture of fantastic creatures - a giant fish, an immense bird - beyond our comprehension.  And then a few passages later has a brief exchange of words between two more mundane creatures (Graham translation):

A cicada and a turtle-dove laughed at it, saying, 'We keep flying till we're bursting, stop when we get to an elm or sandalwood, and sometimes are dragged back to the ground before we're there.  What's all this about being ninety thousand miles up when he travels south'?

蜩與學鳩笑之曰：「我決起而飛，槍 榆、枋，時則不至而控於地而已矣，奚以之九萬里而南為？」

The cicada and the turtle-dove can simply not comprehend the vast and mysterious super-creatures.  The latter are outside the knowledge of the former.  And, to make this point plain, the author has a quail make the same kind of statement a bit further along, and then states (Hinton translation):

Such is the dispute between large and small.

此小大之辯也

It is not just that the small cannot understand the big, but that we cannot use the experience of the small to come to know the experience of the big.  A kind of incommensurability.  And this, as we will see in a moment, presumably runs in the other direction well: we cannot use the experience big to come to know the experience of the small.

Each thing has its own unique position in, and movement through, the totality of all things (which we will call dao - way).  That, at least, is how I have tended to read this passage from chapter two (Watson translation):

Things all must have that which is so; things all must have that which is acceptable.  There is nothing that is not so, nothing that is not acceptable.  For this reason, whether you point to a little stalk or a great pillar, a leper or the beautiful Xishi, things ribald and shady or things grotesque and strange, the Way makes them all into one.

物固有所然，物固有所可。無物不然，無物不可。故為是舉莛與楹，厲與西施，恢恑憰怪，道通為一。

All things in Way have their own unique presence and reality and sufficiency in Way.  We cannot use the quality of one thing as a standard to measure other things.  This could be taken as a radical incommensurability, operating not at the level of culture, but at the level of each individual thing in Way.  Gotta love that Zhuangzi: always tossing out some truly radical ideas...

But....but...notice that last line above.  "The Way makes them all into one."  There is a commonality to all things.  They are the same in their radical uniqueness.  And also in their coincidence in Way.  What is important for understanding is not hierarchical standards of certain qualities (i.e. "more" or "less" beautiful) but, rather, the synchronicity of of things in Way.  Indeed, it is the presence of each thing in and of itself, and all together, that defines any particular moment of Way.  Each thing has an equal importance in that definitional work.  No one thing can simply define the others.

And that is a kind of commensurability, to the extent that it suggests that, while we cannot use the quality or experience of one thing to judge another, we must be open to including each and everything in any understanding of our Way-context.  I am defined by all of the things around me right now: the computer screen in front of me; the tree outside my window; the student center off to the west; etc.  I can't really know my moment in Way without opening my perception to all of these other things.  They are, or should be, constitutive of my understanding.  They all relate to me in the moment. 

Or maybe not.  I am fairly confident in arguing that Zhuagzi puts forward a notion of radical incommensurability that operates at the level of each indiviudal thing in and of itself, and is not, obviously, limited in any meaningful way by something called "culture."  I think, but am somewhat less confident, that this could suggest a kind of commensurability within incommensurability.  But I will wait for comments and critiques before I try to make more of that contention....

Long story short: there is no reason to believe that "culture" is a meaningful concept for Zhuangzi.  He is arguing on an intra-cultural level, denying, in a sense, that the behavior and activities of individuals can meaningfully add up into a consistent and  replicable "culture."  "Culture" is, at once, too big - in that it suggests meaningful coincident relationships well beyond the lived experience of ziran: 自然 - the natural occurence of things; and too small, in that if fails to capture the fullness and complexity of Way. 

As to the too-bigness of "culture," we can think abou this line from Zhuangzi chapter 6, one of those great moments where Confucius is counselling Yan Hui to move in a most un-Confucian direction.  When Yan Hui tells him that has given up on the Confucian virues and is now just sitting and forgetting, Confucius "says" (Graham translation):

If you go along with it [i.e. just sitting and forgetting], you have no preferences; if you let yourself transform, you have no norms.  Has it really turned out that you are the better of us?  Oblige me by accepting me as your disciple.

同則無好也，化則無常也。而果其賢乎！丘也請從而後也。

It's that line: "if you let yourself transform, you have no norms" (化則無常也) that suggests a renunciation of "culture," which we might understand as a consistent articulation and reproduction of norms.  Zhuangzi does not want such things, such humanly-created concepts of "culture," to obstruct us from opening ourselves to, and following, Way.

As to the "too-littleness" of culture, we can think about these lines, from chapter 2 (Watson translation): 

The Way has never known boundaries; speech has no constancy.  But because of [the recognition of a] "this," there came to be boundaries.  Let me tell you what the boundaries are. There is left, there is right, there are theories, there are debates, there are divisions, there are discriminations, there are emulations, and there are contentions.  These are called the Eight Virtues.  As to what is beyond the Six Realms [i.e. the cosmos], the sage admits its existence but does not theorize.  As to what is within the Six Realms, he theorizes but does not debate.  In the case of the Spring and Autumn [Classic], the record of the former kings of the past age, the sage debates but does not discriminate.  So [I say,] those who divide fail to divide; those who discriminate fail to discriminate.  What does this mean, you ask?  The sage embraces all things.  Ordinary men discriminate among them and parade their discriminations before others.  So I say, those who discriminate fail to see.

夫道未始有封，言未始有常，為是而有畛也。請言其畛：有左，有右，有倫，有義，有分，有辯，有競，有爭，此之謂八德。六合之外，聖人存而不論；六合之內， 聖人論而不議。春秋經世，先王之志，聖人議而不辯。故分也者，有不分也；辯也者，有不辯也。曰：何也？聖人懷之，眾人辯之以相示也。故曰：辯也者，有不見 也

For our purposes the message here is: those who divide the world into "cultures," and put forth discriminations and debates based on those divisions, fail to see. They fail to see the fullness of Way.  And there is no reason here to believe that the possibilities and constraints of human understanding advanced in Zhuangzi should be limited only to people in one "culture" and not others.

Bottom line: an assertion that "cultures" are a meaningful category of incommensurability makes no sense from a Zhuangzi-ian point of view.

I could go on but will stop there for now.  Perhaps later this week I will continue with some ideas about how Confucianism, in its early guises, would also, though from rather different perspective, press against the idea of inter-cultural incommensurability. 

 辯也者，有不見 也

Daoism is not a Strategy

A rather odd blog post over at Huffington Post College, by Keith Weigelt, a Professor at the Wharton School, gets off to an incongruous start:

I am a strategist in the Daoist tradition. One tenet of Daoism is that individuals are responsible for their reality.

I am not sure what it means to be a "strategist in the Daoist tradition," since Daoism, generally - or, at least the Daoist principles I find in the Daodejing and Zhuangzi - are not really "strategic" in the common sense of that term.  And for that common sense meaning, I would turn to the OED: "....a plan for successful action based on the rationality and interdependence of the moves of the opposing participants."

On the face of it, Daoism urges us to eschew planning precisely because we cannot really control the complex reality that surrounds us (which we might take as dao - way).  Let's go to passage 24 of the DDJ:

Stretch on tiptoes and you never stand firm.  Hurry long strides and you never travel far.

Keep up self-reflection and you'll never be enlightened.

Keep up self-definition and you'll never be apparent.

Keep up self-promotion and you'll never be proverbial.

Keep up self-esteem and you'll never be perennial.

Travelers of the Way call such striving 'too much food and useless baggage.'  Things may not all despise such striving, but a master of the Way stays clear of it.

I take this as a rejection of self-conscious definition of interests and preferences and, thus, an undermining of the first stage of any sort of planning.  

And I am completely aware that this could also be seen as a king of meta-strategy; that is, by avoiding "strategy" in the first instance, you actually come out in a better place.  A sort of anti-strategic strategy.  Very Daoist that.

But that sort of anti-strategy strategy is not what Weigelt seems to have in mind.  He is a game theorist:

We all have the power to change our reality because of what game theorists call interactive payoffs. When you interact with others, the consequence of your decision depends on the behavior of others. One's world is not filled with solitude. Because consequences depend on one's actions and those of others, you must consider their actions in choosing yours.

This is a good starting point for understanding game theory but, again, it has virtually nothing to do with Daoism.  Of course a Daoist would agree that the consequences of our actions depend on the behavior of others.  But a Daoist would also assert that we cannot know what the actions of others might be and that there are myriad other unforeseen factors that can disrupt any expectation of the behavior of others.   Zhuangzi is the antithesis of a game theoretic strategist:

Birth and death, living and dead, failure and success, poverty and wealth, honor and dishonor, slander and praise, hunger and thirst, hot and cold - such are the transformations of this world, the movements of its inevitable nature.  They keep vanishing into one another before our very eyes, day in and day out, but we'll never calibrate what drives them. (5.4)

死生存亡，窮達貧富，賢與不肖，毀譽、饑渴、寒暑，是事之變，命之行也；日夜相代乎前，而知不能規乎其始者也.

Instead of Hinton's "we'll never calibrate what drives them," Graham gives us: "knowledge cannot measure back to where they began."  We cannot know the origin or development of the most basic human forces: life, death, failure success, poverty wealth....  That last pair - poverty and wealth - is especially telling for Weigelt, who is ultimately interested in understanding and reversing economic inequality in the US.  That is a noble cause, one that I certainly support.  But it is not at all clear how his game theoretic approach to that problem has anything to do with Daoism.

Weigelt also states:

Daoists believe since interactions define the future, they must be actively managed.

To which we have to reply: No. Daoists do not believe that our interactions with others must be actively managed.  Quite the contrary, we have to let go of conscious management and let relationships emerge and unfold in context as they will, without our purposive effort to steer them in certain directions.  

We'll let Zhuangzi (5.5) have the last word:

聖人不謀，惡用知?

The Sage never makes plans, so what good is understanding?

Thinking about Nothing

In a punchy book review in Sunday's NYT, philosopher David Albert takes down physicist Lawrence Krauss:

Lawrence M. Krauss, a well-known cosmologist and prolific popular-science writer, apparently means to announce to the world, in this new book, that the laws of quantum mechanics have in them the makings of a thoroughly scientific and adamantly secular explanation of why there is something rather than nothing. Period. Case closed. End of story....

Albert is having none of it, rejecting the very idea that physics can explain nothing, or how the universe arose from nothing (which for me, and for Daoists, is an odd question: why assume the universe had to come from nothing?):

...It happens that ever since the scientific revolution of the 17th century, what physics has given us in the way of candidates for the fundamental laws of nature have as a general rule simply taken it for granted that there is, at the bottom of everything, some basic, elementary, eternally persisting, concrete, physical stuff. Newton, for example, took that elementary stuff to consist of material particles. And physicists at the end of the 19th century took that elementary stuff to consist of both material particles and electro­magnetic fields. And so on. And what the fundamental laws of nature are about, and all the fundamental laws of nature are about, and all there is for the fundamental laws of nature to be about, insofar as physics has ever been able to imagine, is how that elementary stuff is arranged. The fundamental laws of nature generally take the form of rules concerning which arrangements of that stuff are physically possible and which aren’t, or rules connecting the arrangements of that elementary stuff at later times to its arrangement at earlier times, or something like that. But the laws have no bearing whatsoever on questions of where the elementary stuff came from, or of why the world should have consisted of the particular elementary stuff it does, as opposed to something else, or to nothing at all.

He is aware that quantum physics poses a somewhat different understanding of the "elementary stuff," describing it in terms of relativistic quantum fields.  But, Albert argues, the same problem applies:

...Relativistic-quantum-field-theoretical vacuum states — no less than giraffes or refrigerators or solar systems — are particular arrangements of elementary physical stuff. The true relativistic-quantum-field-­theoretical equivalent to there not being any physical stuff at all isn’t this or that particular arrangement of the fields — what it is (obviously, and ineluctably, and on the contrary) is the simple absence of the fields! The fact that some arrangements of fields happen to correspond to the existence of particles and some don’t is not a whit more mysterious than the fact that some of the possible arrangements of my fingers happen to correspond to the existence of a fist and some don’t. And the fact that particles can pop in and out of existence, over time, as those fields rearrange themselves, is not a whit more mysterious than the fact that fists can pop in and out of existence, over time, as my fingers rearrange themselves. And none of these poppings — if you look at them aright — amount to anything even remotely in the neighborhood of a creation from nothing.

Thus, Albert contends, we cannot explain nothing using relativistic quantum field theory.  

To press a bit further, it seems like he is saying we cannot explain nothing in reference to something.  That is, the purported nothing cannot exist without reference to something.  Nothing, then, cannot really exist independent of something and, therefore, the scientist's quest for explanation is rendered impossible, since the thing to be explained (the explanandum - in this case "nothing") cannot be analytically and temporally separated from the thing used to explain (the explanans - in this case "something").

I haven't studied that far into the philosophy of science to know if the explanation of "nothing" poses a fundamental problem.  From Albert I surmise that physics is inadequate to the task and that leaves room for religious and metaphysical speculations regarding nothing.  Nothing, perhaps, is the limit of science.

But it is territory where Daoism dares to tread, at least the Daodejing.  Think of this excerpt from passage 2:

All heaven knows beauty is beauty only because there's ugliness, and knows good is good only because there's evil.

Being and nonbeing give birth to one another, difficult and easy complete one another, long and short measure one another, high and low fill one another, music and noise harmonize one another, before and after follow one another....

That line - "being and nonbeing give birth to one another" - seems to get at Albert's point.  If we want to understand nothing, we can only do so by reference to something.  Passage 11 also suggests this sort of mutually constitutive relationship of something and nothing:

Thirty spokes gathered at each hub: absence makes the cart work.  A storage jar fashioned out of clay: absence makes the jar work.  Doors and windows cut in a house: absence makes the house work.

Presence gives things their value, but absences makes them work.

What is not there - the hole in the middle of the wheel; the emptiness in the center of the jar; the space within the house - gives definition to what is there.

And maybe that is the difference: scientists seek to explain, they want to analytically isolate things, declare one an antecedent and the other a consequent, and that's perhaps where a limit is reached when encountering nothing.  X might logically yield -X but -X is still framed in terms of X.  It is not really absence or nothing, which by definition would seem to be unrepresentable.  It is a negation.  Nothing is more than (less than?) negation. 

But this is a problem only if explanation is the goal.  If we are simply looking to describe, which is more in keeping with the correlative sensibilities of Daoism (and most classical Chinese thought) then there is less to sweat.  We can't explain nothing.  We can't really understand it.  We can only get a general sense of it in relation to something.  There is no certainty in our understanding of it.  And physics really can't explain it to us....

Breaking News! Zhuangzi is right: there is no human nature

Over at the NPR blog (ht Sullivan), Cosmos and Culture, Barbara J. King, biological anthropologist, tells us:

...I would assert that there is no set-in-stone human nature.

Anthropological studies show that humans respond with incredible plasticity to the social and environmental forces around us. As biological anthropologist and blogger Patrick Clarkin aptly puts it, our abilities for cooperation and conflict, love and hate are "triggered under given circumstances, facilitated or hampered by social conditions and structures."

For me, this immediately brought to mind a passage from chapter 5 of Zhuangzi:

"Can a person really have no nature, asked Hui Tzu of Chuang Tzu.

"Yes," replied Chuang Tzu.

"But if you have no nature, how can you be called human?"

"Tao gives you shape and heaven gives you form, so why can't you be called human?"

"But if you're called human, how can you have no nature?"

"'Yes this' and 'no that' - that's what I call human nature," replied Chuang Tzu. "Not mangling yourself with 'good' and 'bad' - that's what I call no nature.  Instead of struggling to improve on life, you simply abide in occurrence appearing of itself."

....

As usual, the above in the Hinton translation and there are some word choices that could be challenged, but I don't think those choices disrupt the general idea here.

Hinton uses the words "nature" and "human nature" for the character 情, qing, as in Hui Tzu's opening question: 人故無情乎.  More common translations are: "feeling;" "emotion;" "passion."  Thus, Legge goes with: "Can a man indeed be without desires and passions?"  And Graham settles on: "Can a man really be without the essentials of man?"  Although "human nature" is usually reserved for translations of xing - 性; or ren xing - 人 性;  I think Hinton's use of it here for qing is not off the mark. 

My sense of what Zhuangzi is talking about here is that he is rejecting the idea of an essentialist, continual, settled quality to human behavior, a human nature of sorts.  Our lives need not be determined by some a priori quality of goodness or badness, or passions or desires.  Rather we can and should simply respond to circumstances as they arise: "appearance occurring of itself" - ziran - 自然.

Or, as King says: "...humans respond with incredible plasticity to the social and environmental forces around us." 

Of course, Mencius and Xunxi would have something different to say on the topic....

How to lose a culture war

In a speech given last October, and published in a Party theoretical journal on January 1st (Happy New Year!), China's President, Hu Jintao, throws down the cultural gauntlet:

“We must clearly see that international hostile forces are intensifying the strategic plot of Westernizing and dividing China, and ideological and cultural fields are the focal areas of their long-term infiltration....  We should deeply understand the seriousness and complexity of the ideological struggle, always sound the alarms and remain vigilant, and take forceful measures to be on guard and respond....”

I guess he really didn't like that last Lady Gaga song...

But seriously, it is obvious what is going on here, and it is not really anything new for China or for anywhere else in the (post)modern world for that manner.

Hu is expressing a certain anxiety regarding the instability and fluidity of national cultural identity.  Rick Santorum is pretty much with him on this, except, of course, Santorum blames "liberalism" and "hedonism," instead of "Westernization," and also would find the primary source of the problem in domestic politics as opposed to "international hostile forces" (although those European socialists are pretty dangerous....).  But the rest of it - the fear of some sort of cultural corruption; the need for vigilance in protecting the most essential aspects of cultural identity; the cultural division of the nation; the nostalgia for a purer cultural past - it's all pretty standard culture warrior talk.  Wonder what Santorum would say if he realized he was down with the CCP party line....

The quesiton, then, for Hu and Santorum and anyone who thinks he or she can somehow stop cultural change is: what is to be done? 

For Hu the answer is top-down, state control of cultural production and exchange.  That is why they are banning inane TV shows and working hard to gain "soft power" for the PRC (big PDF!).  But this strategy will certainly fail, and it will fail because it misunderstands how "culture" is produced and disseminated.

First, let's just note that the term "culture" is problematic.  What are we including in it?  I think most uses of the term tend to idealize certain practices and ideas and traditions as being essential to certain cultural identities.  In China, "Confucianism" invariably is invoked when talking about "Chinese culture."  But we need to be careful. Culture is always and everywhere larger and more dynamic than any one referent (like "Confucianism") or time period.  Culture changes; indeed, culture is always and constantly changing.  What Chinese culture is now is not what it was in the time of Confucius, much less the time of Mao, or even the time of Zhao Ziyang.  We must be open to a definition of "culture" as what people are actually doing now.  And by that definition the Carsick Cars - a popular Chinese rock band - are as much of Chinese culture as Confucius.

With that understanding of "culture" in mind, we should realize that many, many cultural products and productions are created not by the state but within civil society.  Joseph Nye, the great guru of "soft power" reminded of this last year:

After my lecture at Beijing University, a student asked how China could increase its soft power. I suggested that he ask himself why India’s Bollywood films command far greater international audiences than do Chinese films. Does India have better directors and actors? When Zhang Yimou, the acclaimed Chinese director, was asked a similar question, he replied that films about contemporary China are neutered by the censors. I told the student that much of a country’s soft power is generated by its civil society and that China had to lighten up on its censorship and controls if it wished to succeed. But I also admitted that he would probably not find my answer very helpful.

Culture, and especially cultural change, is driven by creativity, and creativity is not simply planned and executed by bureaucrats, whether state or corporate.  It emerges from workshops and theaters and garages, from within the minds of small groups of creative individuals.  

Hu Jintao does not get that.  He also does not get that a lot of what is created culturally will be bad, at least as judged by the standards of "high cultural" elite intellectuals and impresarios.  Rock and Roll, when it was first created, was seen as degenerate, even dangerous (I remember my father reacting to the Beatles when they first appeared on the Ed Sullivan show, shouting: "Apes, apes.") .  Now, of course, rock and roll is a completely mainstream cultural medium, an element of global popular culture.  

Culture can also be produced from the top-down.  States can sponsor artistic and academic work that spawns significant and popular cultural products.  But that is, I suspect, a lesser element of the broader phenomenon than "popular culture" or "low culture." 

Long story short: Hu wants to try to control culture, but in doing that he stifles it.  Yes, passage 29 of the Daodejing comes to mind here: "try to improve it and you ruin it.  Try to hold it and you lose it."  He wants to censor and manage from the top down, a move that will stifle the wider and more dynamic potential for cultural creativity within civil society.  He wants to blame the "West" for the inevitability of cultural change.  He wants to instill fear in Chinese people, fear of cultural change, in order to bolster the political power of the authoritarian regime.  He wants to deny that what many Chinese people are actually doing now is legitimately a part of "Chinese culture."  

And he will lose.  Because you can't stop cultural change.  You can't blame it on foreign bogey men.  You can't deny people their cultural expressions, even if they don't align with some ossified definition of "culture."  For example, here is a video of the Carsick Cars doing their now classic tune "Zhongnanhai" on this past New Year's Eve in Beijing (i.e. just as Hu's speed was about to be published).  A person who was there reported: "The doors to the club closed at 10:30 when there was a line of at least 200 people still waiting in the frigid weather to get in.  They had been in line for nearly two hours and many had said on various websites that they were taking time away from studying for final exams just to catch them." 

I would argue that this now counts as "Chinese culture:"