Week 1—Virtues woven through a single body
[N—15m—1st full par.] When Shun is assigning posts, he relays a particularly interesting significance to K'uei's post as head of music. When describing the qualities that should be taught in the field of music, Shun expresses a sentiment of balance and harmony. As though a proper musical education prevents people from stumbling onto the path of extremes, and helps them calibrate towards a balanced center. What is it about music in particular that has the potential to cultivate such a state of equilibrium? When speaking to the components of a musical education, Shun mentions poetry, song, melody, and sound—he speaks of them in a relational manner, as if one informs the other, and it is only as a whole that they can exert a meaningful educational impact. The study of music entails learning how to hear, create, and value harmony. Does this attunement to the harmony of poetry, song, melody, and sound then extend into the practice of tempering oneself; of hearing one’s own dissonances and accordingly adjusting them? Shun seems to suggest that it is through the understanding of music that one can tread the path of uprightness without segregating it from warmth; that one can avoid becoming so attached to the tenets of liberalism that the discipline of sternness is forgotten. Through practicing music one nurtures an ability to stave off becoming hyperbolic, and thus prevents virtues from becoming vices.
Each positive quality needs to be tempered by something in tension with it so that it can preserve its productive function. A single solitary note is not music; music happens when different notes, at times even opposing notes, stand in harmonious relation to one another. Thus Shun believes that a rigorous musical education will prevent firmness from becoming tyrannical, and simplicity from becoming presumptuous. In this manner, the relational hearing which music cultivates echoes the sort of relational practices necessary for society to function peacefully. For it is not just a practice of attuning oneself to a balanced state, but of doing so in the context of one’s surroundings, and thus becoming a better evaluator of reactions appropriate to given circumstances. Moreover, Shun suggests that this refinement isn’t confined to the communion of person-to-person, but that it extends into the realm of the spiritual. A musical education provides the material and the skill for building a bridge between the tangible and intangible, the celestial and the earthly; thus functioning as the common language between the will of the people and the power of the cosmos.
[Q—15b-16m] Duke Mu believes that the presence of the Odes and Documents supports the successful governance of a state. That rites, music, laws, and regulations buoy order, and that their deficit furthers disorder. A tension arises in his belief when he’s faced with China’s history of chaos despite its emphasis on the Odes and Documents, coupled with the barbarian Rong and Yi’s history of order despites its lack of the Odes and Documents. You Yu emphasizes that foisting the sentiments of the Odes and Documents onto the masses isn’t the key to order; rather having a sage ruler at the helm (such as the Yellow Emperor) who takes the lead in practicing the created rites, music, laws, and regulations needs to serve as the foundation. Leading by example prevents an empire of hypocrisy from arising, and hypocrisy—particularly of the kind where those in power demand of their underlings that which they would never demand of themselves—creates a distrust and animosity between ruler and ruled. It is when the name of a virtue loses touch with its purpose, i.e. becoming a tool for oppression rather than a tool for symbiosis, that the reason for its use becomes confused. You Yu suggests that implementing tools simply in name and not in spirit is detrimental to society; in this case the tools begin to lose their substance and become weapons, rather than shields, sowing distrust between superiors and inferiors. Consequently, societal tools become manipulated in ways that aim at destroying the opposing side(s) in order to preserve what is mistakenly considered to be virtuous. It's as though virtues become masked by self-serving pursuits, but the mask-as-mask has been forgotten.
Moreover, it is because of practices implemented blindly without an eye to their inherent function that hypocrisy and misunderstanding are heightened; people cease to notice their own abuse of the very tools they claim to value which makes having revered tools more dangerous than not having them at all. One has to stay appropriately flexible amidst a sea of rites, regulations, music, and law, but doing so requires a keen awareness. A true sage manages this by seeing himself as just one limb of a larger interconnected body. When he chooses to implement values, he does so with the understanding that his movement creates a ripple effect through the entire interconnected body—he cannot move an arm, without getting the head involved, etc. He thus implements practices based not on a static code of conduct, but rather rooted in an alive sort of cultivation. A practice that adjusts its positioning in relation to the state of its connected parts, almost in anticipation of what will happen next due to an extensively trained and educated sensitivity. This results in an order that appears to be quite mysterious to those without the capacity of holding such a bird's eye-view. And it is indeed a rarefied, sagelike skill to hold such capability. It often happens that the whole isn't prepared for such a keen ruler, and is threatened by his skill thus exiling it. Does Sima Qian believe that a society in which a true sage can consistently thrive is possible? Or has history shown otherwise?
Each positive quality needs to be tempered by something in tension with it so that it can preserve its productive function. A single solitary note is not music; music happens when different notes, at times even opposing notes, stand in harmonious relation to one another. Thus Shun believes that a rigorous musical education will prevent firmness from becoming tyrannical, and simplicity from becoming presumptuous. In this manner, the relational hearing which music cultivates echoes the sort of relational practices necessary for society to function peacefully. For it is not just a practice of attuning oneself to a balanced state, but of doing so in the context of one’s surroundings, and thus becoming a better evaluator of reactions appropriate to given circumstances. Moreover, Shun suggests that this refinement isn’t confined to the communion of person-to-person, but that it extends into the realm of the spiritual. A musical education provides the material and the skill for building a bridge between the tangible and intangible, the celestial and the earthly; thus functioning as the common language between the will of the people and the power of the cosmos.
[Q—15b-16m] Duke Mu believes that the presence of the Odes and Documents supports the successful governance of a state. That rites, music, laws, and regulations buoy order, and that their deficit furthers disorder. A tension arises in his belief when he’s faced with China’s history of chaos despite its emphasis on the Odes and Documents, coupled with the barbarian Rong and Yi’s history of order despites its lack of the Odes and Documents. You Yu emphasizes that foisting the sentiments of the Odes and Documents onto the masses isn’t the key to order; rather having a sage ruler at the helm (such as the Yellow Emperor) who takes the lead in practicing the created rites, music, laws, and regulations needs to serve as the foundation. Leading by example prevents an empire of hypocrisy from arising, and hypocrisy—particularly of the kind where those in power demand of their underlings that which they would never demand of themselves—creates a distrust and animosity between ruler and ruled. It is when the name of a virtue loses touch with its purpose, i.e. becoming a tool for oppression rather than a tool for symbiosis, that the reason for its use becomes confused. You Yu suggests that implementing tools simply in name and not in spirit is detrimental to society; in this case the tools begin to lose their substance and become weapons, rather than shields, sowing distrust between superiors and inferiors. Consequently, societal tools become manipulated in ways that aim at destroying the opposing side(s) in order to preserve what is mistakenly considered to be virtuous. It's as though virtues become masked by self-serving pursuits, but the mask-as-mask has been forgotten.
Moreover, it is because of practices implemented blindly without an eye to their inherent function that hypocrisy and misunderstanding are heightened; people cease to notice their own abuse of the very tools they claim to value which makes having revered tools more dangerous than not having them at all. One has to stay appropriately flexible amidst a sea of rites, regulations, music, and law, but doing so requires a keen awareness. A true sage manages this by seeing himself as just one limb of a larger interconnected body. When he chooses to implement values, he does so with the understanding that his movement creates a ripple effect through the entire interconnected body—he cannot move an arm, without getting the head involved, etc. He thus implements practices based not on a static code of conduct, but rather rooted in an alive sort of cultivation. A practice that adjusts its positioning in relation to the state of its connected parts, almost in anticipation of what will happen next due to an extensively trained and educated sensitivity. This results in an order that appears to be quite mysterious to those without the capacity of holding such a bird's eye-view. And it is indeed a rarefied, sagelike skill to hold such capability. It often happens that the whole isn't prepared for such a keen ruler, and is threatened by his skill thus exiling it. Does Sima Qian believe that a society in which a true sage can consistently thrive is possible? Or has history shown otherwise?
Comments
Post a Comment