Clarity,
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Dobro, why do you like the argue so much?
Furthermore, when you make an argument, it's good practice to back up your claims with some solid facts and research, rather than just spouting off opinions to be contrary.
On your point about the concept of dysfunctional family not existing in ancient civilizations...
"Confucius, living in a time of failed families, said that virtue derives from the [setting in order of proper family roles]..."
One thing I noticed recently about the lines of #37 is that they are "almost" correct, but not quite. Replace one yan line with a yin and you have #63, Already Fording. This seems curious to me... Family is "not quite correct."
And which line is "incorrect?": The top line - the line of authority. And who are the authorities in the family: Mum & Dad, of course!
In short, the I Ching confirms what teenagers all implicit know: that all families possess at least some degree of dysfunctionality.
Whew! I was just beginning to worry that I'd never live up the the Ching's impossibly noble familial standards!
I don't think this necessarily implies that the Family - actually the hexagram is called "jiaren" meaning "family people" or "family members", which may not mean exactly "family" as a unit but more what we imply when we speak individually of "relatives" or "relations" - is a flawed institution. Quite the contrary, in China and other Asian cultures, the family is the foundation of society, the indispensible unit of human civilization. Practically speaking, I think very few traditional Asians would have viewed their extended family as dysfunctional, no matter how difficult or demanding or eccentric its individual members might be. This would be like us calling some institution we believe in - the business corporation or modern political party or board-of-directors model or democratically-elected local government or sports team - as inherently dysfunctional. Some specific examples may operate poorly, but this does not call the whole nature of the institution into question.
The Yi asks us to reason by analogy, not by deduction.
the mother of one's husband"
"Forget it, this line says that you will end up with a jewish mother in law! "
"Dear friends, I asked the Yi if I should marry him and received 37.6>63. What do you think?"
"Forget it, this line says that you will end up with a jewish mother in law! "
Is the sixth line the 'authority' position? I'd think of that as line 5. Line 6 might be more the position for grandparents. The ideal expressed in hexagram 37 is a space where everyone finds their own place and can be themselves within that role. (I think.) Ron Masa tells an interesting story of a reading he used to supplement therapy with a woman who came from a thoroughly messed-up family, but who was inclined to idealise it. He was horrified when Yi came up with 37.5, thinking this would just support her delusion. Instead, it was the catalyst that brought her to realise that her father hadn't been anything like that. Anyway... while I don't see any 'incorrectness' in 37, it does contain the idea of incompletion and flux in its nuclear hexagram. And some historian please correct me if I have this wrong, but I believe that Chinese homes were for the extended family, with internal walls moved around to re-define the space as needed.
there are no abstract principles in Yi divination, only individual concrete applications. The Yi asks us to reason by analogy, not by deduction.
Lindsay
I also agree with the precept of "dysfunctional families" being a Western concept and a quite modern at that too. I suppose there was a need to put a name to what was perceived as less than "ideal" for a family interaction, whatever the measure of that "ideal" is.
One of the best descriptions of a logical approach to the Yi I've read in eleven words... :bows:
I don't enjoy arguing actually....
dobro
...then proceeded into perhaps the single longest diatribe i've seen to present an argument of how you don't like arguing. hmm. You've just proven my point.
btw, I've watched your posts since I've been a member of this forum, and not once have I seen you just agree with someone else's ideas - or if you do, you then later pick some part of it apart.
This is just a plain non-sequitur. It doesn't follow, has no justification in actual academic research; and, if you think about, actually tacitly insults the yi philosophers by saying that they didn't have the conceptual vocabulary with which to speak about the most universal human experiences.
On the second point. If Lindsay's description of the yi was, in fact, "logical", then it also was deductive in nature; logic is not analogous reasoning; it is deductive reasoning, the very kind of reasoning Lindsay claims we're really not supposed to rely on when interpreting the Ching.
Sometimes I wonder if some people wouldn't be better off just affixing a pair of stag antlers, and bashing it out in a field somewhere...
The seventh hexagram of a set is the negative horizontal pole or x-axis extreme of this set about socially regulated and organized familial structure. This is in contrast to hexagram 38 which is the positive pole or other x-axis extreme--the two younger sisters caught in the house because of the rain fighting with each other since they are bored and the parents and elder siblings are otherwise engaged. 37-family is the static framework of family structure, in contrast to 38 which is the dynamics of children screaming or living family interaction.
Welcome to the field.
Somehow I'd missed your work on the sequence, Frank. I'm definitely going to study it - having noticed assorted patterns in 'decades' myself. Hm - have you heard of Scott Davies' work on this? And looked at Danny van den Berghe's 'landscape' in the sequence?
Sometimes I wonder if some people wouldn't be better off just affixing a pair of stag antlers, and bashing it out in a field somewhere...
Nancy
Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom
Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).