Ancient doctors of spin ???????

[django]

Hi all
Came across this rather diconcerting paragraph in the introduction to Researches on the I Ching by ShchutskiiPage xxxiv.It goes on to say...... Knowledge of the extensive literature on the I Ching allowed Shchutskii to avoid the usual path of European translators of the I Ching and even of Chinese classical literature in general.Translators of these classics appeared in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. the best of these translators prepared their translations in China. This was Ch'ing China, feudal China of the Manchu regime. We know what was the status of classical philology in China at that time. The Manchu goverment, especially during the K'ang-hsi and Ch'ien-lung reign periods had learned very well the significance of ideology and understood that traditional Confucianism could be a serious ideological support for an absolute regime if Confucian thought was assigned to corresponding channels and surrounded by explanatory literature. This was even more important, because within Confucianisim was "hidden also the ideological opposition" which operated with the same concepts, positions and idea's as that line which took place between these two lines and we know what measures were taken by the goverment so that the "protective" line of Confucianisim was always superior. Thus the the European Sinologues of the 18th and 19th centuries, working in China dealt mainly with the literature which offered an approach to the classics. <U>In this very way they fell under the influence of a certain, in any case limited, line of philosophical thought...</U>

Does that mean that the main train of thought in your translation springs from a cynical "cut and paste" artist, a spin doctor working for the the absolute regime? Personally for me , this gladdened my heart to find that, like all great culture heroes Confucius was "whole" [integrated] because his way contained also ambivalence.
certainly not the food for the masses.
Django.

 

[anon1]

Hi Django

Words, words and head stuff?. We might feel the truth better in our heart sometimes

Does this great and learned author go on to cite evidence?

From the tone I doubt it.

ah, me.

The truth is in eating the meal and tasting it, I think.

Tricky things, heads.

 

[django]

Hi Anon1
suggest, perhaps to read the tome, before judging an "out of context" paragraph as headstuff
Will require some concentration and afterthought, but I am sure you are up for it.
Django.

 

[bradford_h]

Hi Django-
I had the exact same fear when I first read this, because all of our best resources on the Zhouyi and Yijing texts are concentrated in this 1715 edition (called the Zhou Yi Zhezhong, prepared by Li Guangdi for the Emperor Kang Xi).
However, the more I read about this Emperor, the more my fears were put to rest. His respect for the Yi was close to absolute. He made major decisions in strict obedience to his readings. He punished diviners for putting spin on their interpretations. And above all, he commissioned the Imperial Edition.
I feel pretty good about using it.

 

[bradford_h]

oops-
I should probably add that I'm not a great fan of Confuse-Us or Confusion doctrine, esecially in the Wings. I think Kang Xi was a "hundred flowers" kind of guy and wanted lots of points of view represented in the many commentaries that were included in the Imperial Edition.
b

 

[anon1]

Django

I came back to post a grumpy retort.

Rereading it... Oh,s*** .

I did misread it, appologies.

Not sure your sarcasm was wholly necesary though.

 

[bradford_h]

Hi
What sarcasm?
Do you mean my Lao-Zhuang attitude towards ConfuseUs?
"The branches of benevolence and righteousness will continue to grow for ten thousand ages, and in ten thousand ages people will be eating each other raw."
b

 

[candid]

Brad, that's brutal! Interesting though. And probably true. But do you suppose it will be because of Confucian principles?

 

[bradford_h]

Hi Candid-
I could have sworn that was a quote from Zhuangzi, but if it is I can't remember the chapter or the translator.
Anyway, I think a big chunk of our problems grow out of the kind of unnatural social engineeering that Confucius championed (plus maybe that we've held natural selection at bay for a little too long). I don't see social engineering doing much against war, overpopulation, environmental degradation or inequality any time soon.
But sustainable is sustainable and unsustainable ain't, and to me sustained means for ten thousand years. Time of course will tell.
I think what I was trying to get at by stepping out of Confusion mode was that the Yijing is much broader than that, and looks for bigger pictures, and to me it makes any particular system of belief look parochial.
b

 

[candid]

Hi Brad,

I understand and agree with what you're saying. The same can be said, I think, for any moral codes that are established to meet the specific needs of the people within a given time and culture. They serve a purpose for a time. Then small changes in the society, then bigger changes, and usually revolution. The new order establishes a different (or modified) form of government, which serves the people of that time, etc. Of course, its not always the people that are served. Often its the government itself which the people serve.

In an ideal world, there would be no need for regulation of human freedoms. We could all live and breathe in Tao. But all it takes is one corrupt one to spoil the barrel. And there we go again; more laws, codes, ethics, traditions and dogmas.

At least Confucius had a plan for order, and that order at least strove for something better for the people, ideally. Then, the same could be said for Plato, and look where that got us!

C

 

[bradford_h]

Hi Candid-
I've often wondered if Confucius and Plato might not be the same spirit reincarnated, to cover both halves of the world.
Same with Laozi and Diogenes.
Who else? Zhou Gong and Tom Jefferson?
The Dalai Lama and the next Dalai Lama (well, duh).
All I know for sure is this has got to be Shirley Maclaine's first time.
b

 

[yellowblue]

What about those occidental masks brad???

Shirley at 4 or 25.... hmmmmm.... scary....

Deb

 

[bradford_h]

Hi Deb-
I can never be a true know it all if I don't confess ignorance when I need to learn -
I'm unfamiliar with the reference. Pray tell.
b

 

[yellowblue]

Nothing to teach here Brad : )

Just thoughts... wholes thoughts (ok, and half thoughts) and nothing but thoughts... so help me god.

every culture and time and element has it's masks...

do ya 'suppose shirley could be Buddah, Jesus or Mohammed ala mode ; ) ????

comedy or tragedy???

Deb

 

[django]

Hi all
Forgive me, but sadly I think the whole point has been missed, in that a narrow and selective Confucian ideology was "cut and pasted" and put in place by a much later epoch!!! and unfortunately,according to these recent posts we are still buying the spin!!! this is why Confucius is viewed by the west[and in China] as a "stickler" for crowd control not to mention good table manners....Carumba!!!
That was the whole point of the initial post. The quoted paragraph is admittedly coached in such dry terms, but surely the underlying meaning was quite clear.
Django.

 

[bradford_h]

Hi Django-
My response meant to say that I do not think the Kang Xi editors spun the Yi towards Confucian doctrine, at least not any more than the body of culturally important commentary already did. My opinion was that he was as fair to the (non-Confucian) Zhouyi as he was able to be.
Most of the Confucianizing of the Zhouyi had already been done by the end of the Early Han, just after the Yi was canonized.
My own approach has been to try to keep the Zhouyi and Wings as separate as possible while pointing out the flaws in the Wings (but without relying too heavily on the modernist movement).
b

 

[bradford_h]

Hi again Django
An afterthought. This here's a paragraph on this period, talking about why the Yi remained gummed up with Confucianism through this period. Again, the cutting and pasting had gone down 18 centuries earlier.
The 17th century, or the late Ming dynasty (1368-1643), marked yet another reversal of emphasis, which would continue throughout the Qing (1644-1911). This was a reaction to the homogenization of synthesis and to the threat of the individual learnings and teachings being lost in a general soup. This was a period of study of the individual classics, each according to its own merits. Because this meant a return to the texts of the Han dynasty and earlier, wherever possible, this trend was called the Hanxue, or the Han Learning. Even the works of Wang Bi and the Xuanxue or proto - Yi Li scholars, were considered too modern for this study. The Songxue, or the Song scholarship, was not of much help in this effort. The Hanxue Jia tried to get as close as possible to the original masters, prior to the influence of Buddhism and the Daoists who came after Laozi and Zhuangzi. This effort was comparable to that of the Guwen Jia, or the Old Text School., except that the convoluted writings of the Yiwei shu, or the HanÕs Yi Apocrypha, were resurrected in the process, much as Wang Bi had incorporated the Wings without question into his study of the Yi. While the effort was made to organize Yixue into its historical streams, and to separate the original from the commentary, there was an enormously greater amount of data written in and available from the Han dynasty. This proved to be something of a distraction, although it had its merits. There was still the inclination to view the Yijing in terms of Han ideas because there were so many Han ideas at hand. What this distracted the Hanxue scholars from was the need to separate the Zhouyi from the commentary in the Wings. And so the Hanxue Jia, while doing much to strip the Yi of post-Han perspectives, did not succeed nearly as well in stripping the Yi of its Confucian influence, or that of the Yinyang Jia and its tributaries, which included the Wu Xing, the calendars, and other extraneous dimensions.
The Hanxue effort is noted for its cataloguing and organization of the great mass of material available on the Yi, volumes still extant which numbered in the thousands. In the Kangxi period (1662-1722) this was to culminate, in 1715, in the publication of an official, Imperial Edition of the Yijing, making use of the best available sources, together with a body of important appended material. This effort was led by Li Guangdi (1642-1718). The text is the Zhouyi zhezhong.