East Asian Pedagogies: Education as Formation and Transformation Across Cultures and Borders [1st ed.] 9783030456726, 9783030456733

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Contemporary Philosophies and Theories in Education 15

David Lewin Karsten Kenklies  Editors

East Asian Pedagogies Education as Formation and Transformation Across Cultures and Borders

Contemporary Philosophies and Theories in Education Volume 15

Series Editors Jan Masschelein, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium Lynda Stone, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA Editorial Board Gert Biesta, Arts & Social Sci, Halsbury Bldg, Brunel University London, Uxbridge, UK David Hansen, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA Jorge Larrosa, Barcelona University, Barcelona, Spain Nel Noddings, Stanford University, Ocean Grove, NJ, USA Roland Reichenbach, Erziehungswissenschaft, University of Zurich,  Zurich, Switzerland Naoko Saito, Graduate School of Education, Kyoto University, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, Japan Paul Smeyers, Psychology and Educational Sciences, Ghent University and KU Leuven, Ghent, Belgium Paul Standish, UCL Institute of Education, London, UK Sharon Todd, Professor of Education, Maynooth University, Maynooth, Ireland

Scope of the Series Contemporary Philosophies and Theories in Education signifies new directions and possibilities out of a traditional field of philosophy and education. Around the globe, exciting scholarship that breaks down and reformulates traditions in the humanities and social sciences is being created in the field of education scholarship. This series provides a venue for publication by education scholars whose work reflect the dynamic and experimental qualities that characterize today’s academy. The series associates philosophy and theory not exclusively with a cognitive interest (to know, to define, to order) or an evaluative interest (to judge, to impose criteria of validity) but also with an experimental and attentive attitude which is characteristic for exercises in thought that try to find out how to move in the present and how to deal with the actual spaces and times, the different languages and practices of education and its transformations around the globe. It addresses the need to draw on thought across all sorts of borders and counts amongst its elements the following: the valuing of diverse processes of inquiry; an openness to various forms of communication, knowledge, and understanding; a willingness to always continue experimentation that incorporates debate and critique; and an application of this spirit, as implied above, to the institutions and issues of education. Authors for the series come not only from philosophy of education but also from curriculum studies and critical theory, social sciences theory, and humanities theory in education. The series incorporates volumes that are trans- and inner-disciplinary. The audience for the series includes academics, professionals and students in the fields of educational thought and theory, philosophy and social theory, and critical scholarship. More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/8638

David Lewin  •  Karsten Kenklies Editors

East Asian Pedagogies Education as Formation and Transformation Across Cultures and Borders

Editors David Lewin University of Strathclyde Glasgow, UK

Karsten Kenklies University of Strathclyde Glasgow, UK

ISSN 2214-9759     ISSN 2214-9767 (electronic) Contemporary Philosophies and Theories in Education ISBN 978-3-030-45672-6    ISBN 978-3-030-45673-3 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45673-3 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Contents

Part I Introduction 1 Introduction: Positioning, Encountering, Translating, Reflecting����������������������������������������������������������������������������    3 Karsten Kenklies and David Lewin Part II Positions 2 Filial Piety, Zhixing, and The Water Margin������������������������������������������   11 William Sin 3 Western Image of the Teacher and the Confucian Jūnzǐ����������������������   25 Qasir Shah 4 Being-in-the-World: to Love or to Tolerate. Rethinking the Self-Other Relation in Light of the Mahāyāna Buddhist Idea of Interbeing��������������������������������������   51 Chien-Ya Sun 5 Cultivation Through Asian Form-Based Martial Arts Pedagogy��������   63 George Jennings, Simon Dodd, and David Brown Part III Encounters 6 Tu Weiming, Liberal Education, and the Dialogue of the Humanities ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   81 Paul Standish 7 Quiet Minding and Investing in Loss: An Essay on Chu Hsi, Kierkegaard, and Indirect Pedagogy in Chinese Martial Arts������������  103 Viktor Johansson

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8 Alienation and In-Habitation: The Educating Journey in West and East��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  121 Karsten Kenklies 9 Western and Eastern Practices of Literacy Initiation: Thinking About the Gesture of Writing with and Beyond Flusser ������������������������������������������������������������������������  135 Joris Vlieghe 10 Education in and Through Ikiru: From Mu to MacIntyre������������������  149 James MacAllister 11 Freedom in Security or by Recognition? Educational Considerations on Emotional Dependence by Takeo Doi and Axel Honneth����������������������������������������  163 Sandra Töpper Part IV Translations 12 From Comparison to Translation: Mutual Learning Between East and West����������������������������������������������������������������������������  179 Naoko Saito 13 Sumie Kobayashi and Petersen’s Jena-­Plan: A Typical Case of the Acceptance of Western Pedagogy in Japan����������������������������������������������������������������  191 Hiroyuki Sakuma Part V Reflections 14 The Tradition of Invention: On Authenticity in Traditional Asian Martial Arts ����������������������������������������������������������  205 Paul Bowman

Part I

Introduction

Chapter 1

Introduction: Positioning, Encountering, Translating, Reflecting Karsten Kenklies and David Lewin

Conceptions of culture are bound to conceptions of human being and human becoming. Cultures endure through the processes of formation that they, consciously or unconsciously, initiate. But the ideas that underpin educational formation are diverse, complex, and often inexplicit. In general, a conception of human being is at stake, i.e. an anthropology which includes ideas of what a good life or educated person looks like. In particular, the relations between those educating, those undergoing education, and the subject matter of education, are thereby shaped by distinctive normative considerations reflecting the diverse cultural circumstances of their origin. This, of course, is also true for those who discuss educational concepts and practices originating in contexts other than the author’s contexts: those presentations are usually done for formative, i.e. educational reasons, and those educational aspirations also need to be reflected upon with regard to the normative anthropologies which underlie, enable and restrict the way those presentations are shaped. A book such as this, which intends to raise questions of international and intercultural comparative education must, therefore, reflect on the ways it attempts to achieve its goal, which is to participate in the dialogue between different educational cultures, or, more specifically: between our (i.e. the editors’) own cultures and those we might in a preliminary (and maybe overly hasty) step call East-Asian cultures. This collection of essays seeks to explore the Anglo-American traditions of educational trans−/formation and Germanic constructions of Bildung, alongside East Asian traditions of trans−/formation and development. Whether such juxtapositions are legitimate or worthwhile must itself be explored. Juxtaposition, dialogue, comparison … how are we to begin? Immediately envisioning certain difficulties with even beginning (language capacities or, more precisely, the lack thereof, and the lack of cultural insights that result from being K. Kenklies · D. Lewin (*) University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 D. Lewin, K. Kenklies (eds.), East Asian Pedagogies, Contemporary Philosophies and Theories in Education 15, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45673-3_1

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immersed in a culture for a long time come to mind), the question arises why one should embark on such a journey at all? Given the constructive exercise of writing a text like this, we should ask about what our constructions are founded upon. Why build an edifice on foundations that might not be fit for purpose or that are established on prejudices, stereotypes, and banalities? Is it only the promise of entering a quarry where we may discover a rich seam of new concepts to be explored freely in developing theoretical and practical ideas, extracting them from their natural environment to build our own houses, or cathedrals of education? Are we simply looking for inspiration to expand the catalogue of our own educational theorems and activities? Are we looking for material to be plundered or transplanted from ‘there’ to ‘here’ as so often seems to be the case with regard to the international comparative studies (like PISA)? These studies are seemingly used as an answer to the question: What can we do to become equally or more successful in subject XY (of course, usually in complete oblivion of the different cultural contexts that not only provide the conditions which make those concepts and practices possible in the first place, but also offer the normative framework within which something like ‘success’ is defined in a very specific and not so easily translatable way)? It cannot be denied that pragmatic thoughts like this are initially part of most decisions to present and engage with concepts and practices that are not one’s own: one wants to learn something new that might be enriching, maybe even useful for oneself. However, whereas this might actually happen sometimes – within the boundaries hinted at above – to see this as the main reason for subjecting oneself to the efforts related to encountering the other might be misleading. It would, at least, be misleading to take it as the only reason for us here to be interested in East Asian pedagogy. It might have been serendipity that brought both of us into contact with East Asian culture in general, and East Asian pedagogy in particular, and yes, we did learn something new, i.e. new ideas, new practices, new ways to see the world, but actually, more happened: we experienced what in continental traditions of educational thinking is often called Bildung; through the encounter with the other, i.e. through a crisis-inducing self-alienation that is inevitably part of this encounter, we became (or so we believe) more ourselves in the sense that we became more aware of ourselves. As Gadamer has described: it is in the encounter with the other that we become more aware of our own prejudices, of our prejudgements, of our fundamental expectations and therefore of all that we think of as normal; and it is only through this awareness that one becomes able to critically engage with those otherwise hidden foundations of thought and action. Indeed, it is this process of raising the awareness of others, but equally of ourselves, which drives us to engage with a project like the one in hand. Despite these difficulties, as editors we still affirm the basic idea that it is only the encounter with something or someone very different which enables us to understand both ourselves and others – as individuals and as cultures. But we must continue to ask ourselves: how far do we really allow the genuine encounter with difference? Relatively little work in this area has been undertaken and many questions about the commensurability of North American, European and East Asian pedagogy remain. It is not obvious that educational formation as Bildung is generalizable at

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all. Nor is it obvious that the lifeworlds of these different traditions are mutually illuminating or at all commensurable. What is striking, though, is the continued interest in the varied ways of (self-)formation through various East Asian practices, from varied martial arts to health and spiritual practices and religious paths (e.g. Aikido, Tai Chi, Yoga, mindfulness, Buddhism, etc.), suggesting that ‘traditional East-Asian’ practices, their underlying anthropologies, their ideas about pedagogical relationships, about teaching methods and curricula, have something important to contribute to modern educational life despite the marginal place they seem to occupy (for different reasons) within educational discourses. Of course, dialogues as the one suggested pose certain difficulties, and an introduction to such a book as presented here has to begin with qualifications and caveats acknowledging these difficulties, in order to establish the proper scope and limits of the project being undertaken. The key task of our introduction is just this: acknowledging proper scope and limits. This entails: sketching borders in terms of what will and will not be relevant, and why; acknowledging the dangers of a supposed universalism from which the other can be imagined; in short: becoming self-aware. It will therefore be a helpful first step to reflect on the structure of what is presented here.

1.1  Positions The emergence of an inter-cultural dialogue might be characterised by different aspects: firstly, positions need to be presented as stances in their own right; they need to be allowed to speak for themselves without an immediate positioning in a comparative framework – as if they would have significance only in relation to other concepts. It is the individual chapters in the first part of the book which represent such endeavours: here, authors introduce specifically East-Asian concepts of formation, of education and cultivation; here, different aspects of the East-Asian educational culture become visible. Readers are introduced to specific Confucian ways of thinking education: with the chapters of Wai Lam William Sin and Qasir Shah, we look into more traditional Confucian thinking; Chien-Ya Sun explores the relational anthropology of Mahāyāna Buddhism through the concept of ‘interbeing’; and with the chapter of David Brown/Simon Dodd/ George Jennings, characteristics of (especially East Asian) Martial Arts pedagogy are introduced.

1.2  Encounters Paul Standish introduces the reader to one of the most eminent contemporary Confucian scholars, Tu Weiming, and brings him in conversation with positions of the classic Western tradition of Liberal Education. Thus, we move from presenting concepts and practices to a second step: relating positions, and it is in the second part of the book – Encounters – in which the individual chapters present the reader

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with comparisons, through discussions about educational concepts and practices from both sides of the cultural divide. Viktor Johansson also addresses characteristics of Martial Arts pedagogy though in relation to something rather different: the pedagogical ideas of Søren Kierkegaard. Whereas Karsten Kenklies explores the different theories and practices of educational journeys, the chapter of Joris Vlieghe is dedicated to investigating the different practices with which people are initiated in different literacies; with the chapter of James MacAllister, readers are confronted with culturally different readings of an aesthetic experience through an interpretation of Kurosawa’s film Ikuru; Sandra Töpper presents us with different accounts of what we can call the ‘pedagogical relationship’ with reference to Axel Honneth’s concept of recognition and Takeo Doi’s notion of Amae.

1.3  Translations The third part, then, goes one step further: in discussing attempts to translate pedagogies from one context into the other, the authors reflect on the specific opportunities, but also difficulties of such attempts. Acknowledging the paradoxical condition of translating what is ‘untranslatable’, Naoko Saito debates the general approach for translations from one culture into another, whereas Hiroyuki Sakuma discusses a more concrete example of such a translation by showing what actually happens when someone tries to transplant one concept into another culture.

1.4  Reflections However, those different steps that hopefully lead us into a more general dialogue about education, might lead to more complexity but they are not yet resulting in self-awareness. To achieve this, the book must also reflect on itself, and it is the last section, and the chapter of Paul Bowman, that aspires to put a question mark against the very distinction that is at the foundation of the book – the distinction between what we called our ‘own cultures’ and ‘East-Asian culture(s)’. What do we think we are doing when we juxtapose, compare and put in dialogue? We cannot repeat all the discussions around Orientalism and Reverse Orientalism, around Colonialism and Post-Colonialism, about cultural essences, about trans- and inter-culturality. However, in including this last chapter, we at least wanted to acknowledge the need for such an awareness, and we would like to leave it to the reader to take the insights of this last chapter and read again all the preceding chapters to see how they might be affected, how they might change in the light of those kind of questions. The book might end with that chapter – the reflections, however, do not. So where do we stand with respect to the question of East Asian pedagogy? How is it that the concerns raised in this book are concerns at all? In view of the possible problems of Orientalism and Colonialism just mentioned, what in our circumstances

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leads us to imagine that an encounter with other cultures will help us to catch sight of the self? Does this mean that the other culture serves only the project of self-­ understanding and self-formation? Are we restoring a universalist assumption of the priority of the subject and its inalienable right to interpret the other for the self? As editors we take the project of self-understanding and understanding the other to be mutually related, even dialectical. The metaphorical educational journey, or Bildungsreise of this book concerns the relations between knowing the other and knowing the self. This capacity for mutual illumination between self and other provides justification for making the effort to learn about the other. Through alienation from the familiar, the self may be understood. Paul Ricoeur has described this path to self-understanding as involving a ‘long route’ by way of a mediated opening to and interpretation of the other (Ricoeur 1992). Taking further this image of a long detour, interpreted through the concepts of the ‘way’ from East-Asian thinking (e.g. 道; Chinese: dao, Japanese: dō) towards self-understanding and self-cultivation, the path has often been understood as hard, rough, narrow, and often steep. There is an admitted mutuality between understanding the self and the other, and we resist prioritising the one over the other, despite the obvious risks of appropriating the other into the self, which may, indeed, never actually entail leaving the self. It would be remiss of us not to acknowledge some of the other conditions that have made the pathway (the Bildungreise) and the product of this book possible. In 2012, Naoko Saito and Paul Standish published Education and the Kyoto School of Philosophy: Pedagogy for Human Transformation (Springer), a text which set the stage for intercultural encounter and dialogue. In November 2017 some of the authors from this text were invited to a conference generously supported by the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain (PESGB) and the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow at which some of the initial ideas for projects around international comparative education and intercultural dialogue were developed. Some of those papers formed drafts for chapters for this book and we are grateful to participants for their enthusiasm for, and commitment to, this ongoing project. We are also grateful to Jan Masschelein and Lynda Stone, editors of the ‘Contemporary Philosophies and Theories in Education’ series of which this book is a part, and the editorial team at Springer for their support.

Reference Ricoeur, P. (1992) Oneself as another (K. Blamey trans) Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Part II

Positions

Chapter 2

Filial Piety, Zhixing, and The Water Margin William Sin

What are the demands of Confucian filial piety (or xiao 孝)? How stringent are they in comparison to the demands of impersonal morality1? Between the demands of filial piety and those of impartial justice (which is a prominent instance of impersonal morality), how should individuals find a place for their personal interests within the confines of Confucian doctrines? In this paper, I attempt to answer these questions with reference to the virtue of zhi直 or zhixing 直性. Zhixing refers to an agent’s ability to act ‘straightly’ in accordance with his beliefs.2 An agent with such a character will be inclined to act from self-honesty, courage, and determination in situations where moral dilemmas arise. 1  ‘Impersonal morality’ here refers to the demands of morality from a neutral perspective; that is, a morality that gives everybody reason to obey it. Standard cases of impersonal morality involve the demands of justice, the impartial operation of legal rules, as well as humanistic concerns to improve the lives of those affected by extreme poverty, disease, or starvation in the world. Both Kantian ethics and Utilitarianism tend to generate impersonal moral demands – such demands are also called the demands of impartiality. The nature of such demands differs from those which stem from special relations between people. For instance, the reasons that we must care about our parents’ or friends’ interests are uniquely applicable to us, but not to anyone else (see Scheffler 1982, p. 123; Sen 1983; Nagel 1986, pp. 152–3, 171–175; Parfit 1984, p. 104). 2  Strictly speaking, zhixing is not a concept found before the Han period, whereas the concept of zhi is prevalent in the Analects. However, as the literal meaning of zhixing is ‘the nature of zhi,’ in the context of this paper I will regard them as two expressions of the same kind. In the rest of this paper, I will express zhi as a character trait and zhixing a virtue. Here, the concept of zhixing is taken to be a thematic extension of zhi, as we see that in The Water Margin, the major heroes are often described to have the virtue of zhixing, and their characteristic traits demonstrate to a large extent Confucius’s idea of zhi (on the Confucian idea of zhi, see Feng (2001, pp. 311–319); on an elaboration of zhixing as a moral virtue, see Sin (2018, pp. 238–241).

W. Sin (*) Education University of Hong Kong, Tai Po, Hong Kong e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 D. Lewin, K. Kenklies (eds.), East Asian Pedagogies, Contemporary Philosophies and Theories in Education 15, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45673-3_2

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The virtue of zhixing is worthy of our attention because when an ordinary person is faced with a moral dilemma and cannot fulfill both the demands of filial piety and those of impersonal morality, he may be confused and overwhelmed by emotion. Even if this person eventually complies with the demands of impersonal morality, he might only do this because it is viewed as acceptable in the public eye. In contrast, the person with zhixing has a different motivational source. For him, it is more important to be committed to his principle than to live safely, or to live free from reprimand or the moral disapproval of others. In the early part of this paper, I will engage with the debates between Liu Qingping and his critics on the priority of filial piety against the values of other virtues and those of impersonal morality (Liu 2003, pp. 234–250, 2007, pp. 1–19, 2009, pp. 173–188). Liu argues that Confucianism attaches overriding importance to the spirit of “consanguineous affection”, and that as such Confucianism has contributed to the spread of corruption in Chinese society. Liu’s arguments germinate in his discussion of the cases in Analects 論語13.18 and Mencius 孟子7A35, which will be introduced in section one.3 In sections two and three, I offer an alternative reading of the demands of filial piety with reference to the two cases in Analects 13.18 and Mencius 7A35. I argue that in these cases, Confucian teachers have deliberately created moral dilemmas to train their students’ reactions. I believe that the criteria of an appropriate response to the dilemmas is not necessarily determined by the position the agent takes, but by the way he handles the normative concerns in the scenario. The character trait of zhi is pertinent here as it enables the agent to perform well in difficult situations. I will explain this point by analyzing the case with regards to Analects 13.18. Finally, in section four, I will use the narratives of The Water Margin 水滸傳 to demonstrate the myriad ways filial piety can be expressed.4 I will focus on the case of Zhu Tong 朱仝and that of Song Jiang 宋江. Zhu is a person with zhixing, who can respond to moral dilemmas with authenticity, even though he protects his friend’s interests over the demands of impartial justice. In contrast, in Song’s case, because of his lack of sincerity, he seldom performs well in moral dilemmas, despite how often he proclaims the importance of the demands of impartial justice or that of filial piety to him.

3  Liu also discusses the case in Mencius 5A3, which is about an agent’s obligation towards his elder brother. I will put it aside, as my primary focus here is on the conflict between the demands of filial obligation (or filial piety) and of justice. 4  In regard to the classical novel The Water Margin, there are various translations. Even the title of the novel in the different translations are not the same. For example, Shapiro uses ‘Outlaw of the Marsh’ whereas John and Alex Dent Young use ‘The Marshes of Mount Liang’ and a different subtitle for different volumes. For the sake of consistency, I use The Water Margin as a reference for the novel in this paper, regardless of its various editions.

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2.1  Xiao: The Supreme Principle? In Analects 13.18, Confucius 孔子makes a brief reply to the Duke of She regarding his opinion on the idea of uprightness. Confucius states that an ‘upright’ son should not report his father’s theft (of a sheep) to the authorities; he should conceal his father’s wrongdoing and an upright father would do likewise to conceal his son’s act of theft too. The Case of Concealment: The Duke of She said to Confucius, “In our village we have one Straight Body [Zhigong直躬]. If a father steals a sheep, his son will give evidence against him.” Confucius answered, “In our village those who are straight are quite different. Fathers cover-up for their sons, and sons cover-up for their fathers. In such behavior is straightness to be found as a matter of course” (Analects 13.18, in Lau 1979, with my modification).

The second case is from Mencius 7A35. Mencius 孟子’s disciple Tao Ying桃應 asks him a hypothetical question. If Shun舜’s father (Gu Sou瞽瞍, who is a blind man) commits a murder, should Shun, being the emperor, excuse him for the crime or allow the authorities to apprehend him? After an initial exchange, Tao Ying presses Mencius for a more precise response. Mencius affirms that Shun would abdicate the throne and carry his father away, living outside the bounds of civil society. The Case of Evasion: Tao Ying asked: “If Shun was Emperor and Gao Yao 臯陶 the judge, what should have been done if the Blind Man killed a man?” “The only thing to do is to apprehend him.” “In that case, would Shun not try to stop it?” “How could Shun stop it? Gao Yao had authority for what he did.” “Then what would Shun have done?” “Shun thought of casting aside the Empire as no more than discarding a worn shoe. He would have secretly carried the old man on his back and fled to the edge of the Sea and lived there happily, never giving a thought to the Empire” (Mencius 7A35, in Lau 1970, with my modification).

Liu Qingping believes that the above two cases support the view that Confucianism places filial piety above the value of the principle of justice, and even the Confucian ideal of humane government (Liu 2004, p. 859, 2007, pp. 4–5). Liu calls it the spirit of “consanguineous affection,” representing an integral feature of the Confucian theory. There are general statements in both the Analects and Mencius attributing a prime position to the value of filial piety or xiao: You Zi 有子, a disciple of Confucius, states that being filial and having brotherly respect is the root of a person’s character (Analects 1.2). Mencius also says that the substance of benevolence is serving one’s parents and that the substance of righteousness is obedience to one’s elder brothers (Mencius 4A27). And the greatest achievement a filial son can make is to serve his parents and honor them (Mencius 4A19; 5A4). Critics of Liu have provided useful reminders on how we should understand the circumstances of the Cases of Concealment and Evasion. They point out that even if a value is outweighed by another in a circumstance, it does not follow that this value is unimportant or will lose its normative force in other circumstances. In fact,

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even in these controversial cases, the agent must still make an effort to respect the overridden values. I shall sum up these observations in terms of three points. First, in the Case of Concealment, Van Norden notes that when the conversation took place, the punishment for the theft of sheep was likely to be harsh, such as the amputation of a limb, or tattooing “thief” on the criminal’s face.5 As such, the adult child’s violation of the demands of justice (or those of honesty) is performed to protect his father’s core interests, such as his physical integrity. If the punishment for the crime was more lenient, or if the father had committed a more serious crime, the balance of considerations would tilt towards the son reporting the event to the authorities. Second, in the Case of Evasion, Shun’s father Gu Sou has committed murder. Shun evades justice by escaping with him. However, Shun did not interfere with the process of prosecution (even if he could have done so); on the contrary, he withdrew from the throne and secretly carried his father away. In this case, though Shun did not fulfill his official duties as an emperor, Shun did no positive harm to its legal authority (Li 2008, p. 76). Third, both Huang, and Rosemont and Ames, draw attention to the fact that remonstration plays a prominent role in Confucianism when an adult child’s parents have performed morally problematic actions (Huang 2013, p. 134; Rosemont and Ames 2008, p. 11). In other words, in either the Case of Concealment or that of Evasion, the adult children may be acting to create a favorable environment in which they can remonstrate with their parents (Huang 2013, pp. 142–144). In the two cases, evading justice or concealing wrongdoing may not in themselves represent the overarching goal of the adult children’s actions. They may be instrumental conditions for the creation of a moral remedial exercise in the future (Chen 2011, p. 455).

2.2  T  he Pedagogical Intention and the Use of Moral Dilemmas In this section, I will explain Confucius’s and Mencius’s pedagogical considerations behind their remarks in the two cases. On the face of it, both teachers seem to value filial piety over impartial justice. However, this is not the only judgement we can obtain from studying the conversations. I believe that one of the aims of these Confucian teachers is to set out moral dilemmas for their students. In the Confucian tradition of education, students are not regarded as mere ‘vessels,’ blindly receiving orders to do things; they are educated to become junzi 君子, and to use creativity

5  Van Norden (2008, p. 126). On the severity of the penal code in regard to theft during the Chunqiu 春秋period and early Han 漢, see also Wang (2011, p. 415) and Shen (1985, p. 1398).

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and courage to find their way out of difficult situations.6 The setting of cases with moral dilemmas is a means to achieve these educational goals. Why do I think the two cases represent moral dilemmas rather than simple cases in which one consideration overrides another? With regard to the Case of Evasion, if filial piety were taken to be the supreme principle of human life in Confucianism, Shun would have a greater range of options as to how to best protect his father’s interests. He could simply give his father immunity from prosecution, forbidding Gao Yao from investigating the murder.7 In that case Shun would not have to escape with his father from the administration in secret. That Mencius offers such an indirect strategy for Shun to protect his father’s interests indicates the serious concern Mencius has for considerations of justice and the public interest. With regard to the Case of Concealment, despite the brevity of Confucius’s remarks, two points are worth noting. The first is the confident tone the Duke of She uses to inform Confucius of the moral achievement of people in his village: that Zhigong will report even his own father’s misconduct. This background allows Confucius to overturn the Duke of She’s beliefs about the meaning of uprightness. If the Duke had told a more modest story about the moral performance of people in his village, then it is probable that Confucius would have responded differently. The second point concerns the use of the keyword: yin 隱. In Huang’s translation, he prefers ‘not disclosing’ to ‘concealing’ (Huang 2013, pp. 144–145). The former, as an omission, involves an agent’s more passive participation in the situation than the act of concealment. However, if filial piety absolutely outweighs the considerations of public justice, it would be appropriate for Confucius to recommend a more active course of action (than non-disclosure) to the agent. Why not, for instance, just openly lie to the investigators? The fact that Confucius uses an indirect expression to describe the upright person’s behavior shows the concerns Confucius has when proposing behavior that conflicts with the value of justice and public morality.8 Finally, a more serious problem with Liu’s interpretation is that he has ruined the tension in the scenarios. If we accept his view, then it would be a moral requirement to honor the demands of filial morality at the expense of public morality. Yet this is inconceivable in both scenarios (Van Norden 2008, pp. 126–7). It seems that under the doctrine of Confucianism, agents are at least morally permitted to act for the

6  Tan (2017, para. 23): “[A] junzi is conceived by Confucius as a creative person who ‘does not insist on certainty [and] is not inflexible’ (Analects 9.4, also see 15.37). Instructively, Analects stresses that a junzi is not ‘a vessel’ (Analects 2.12).” See also Analects 7.8 and 11.4. 7  Liu himself has mentioned the possibility of Shun making this move in Liu (2002, p. 46, 2007, p. 6). But he only mentions it to show that Shun does not intend to abuse his power. He has not mentioned it as a logical consequence if favoring kinship bonds over the value of justice should be conceived as a moral requirement. See also Li (2008, p. 76) and Angle (2008, p. 36). 8  I acknowledge here the existence of a subtle difference between the concept of non-disclosure and that of concealment. However, for consistency’s sake, as both are plausible translations of the idea of yin, I will continue using ‘concealment’ to refer to this particular action in the rest of this paper.

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sake of social justice and public morality at the expense of their own parents’ or other family members’ interests. Now, let us turn to the idea of moral dilemmas. In a genuine moral dilemma, neither of the incompatible requirements can be overridden (Sinnott-Armstrong 1988, Chapter 1; see also Nagel 1979, pp. 134–5). So no matter which option the agents take, they will be doing something wrong and, if the consequences are sufficiently grave, they would appropriately feel distraught with remorse or guilt for their decision (McConnell 2018). The rise of these feelings is not unimportant because they signify the presence of a desire in the person to act according to the respective commitment in life (see also Smart and Williams 1973, p.  116, 1981, p. 74). There are pedagogical benefits to using moral dilemmas in teaching. Because of their challenging nature, dilemmas can motivate students and foster learning (Berlyne 1960). Confucius has emphasized that students should do their own inferential thinking and contemplation as he provides the initial points of stimulation.9 In addition, by using moral dilemmas, Confucian teachers can enable students to understand the practical limits of ethical principles. Because of the non-ideal circumstance of ordinary lives, agents must often use practical wisdom (zhi 智) and discretion (quan 權) to decide how to balance the conflicting concerns of different moral principles (Analects 9: 30; Mencius 4A17, 6B1, 7A26; Van Norden 2008, p. 128). This involves a process in which people sacrifice and negotiate principles as well as experience guilt and regret. It is also a process through which people develop their own virtues. Finally, with regard to the Cases of Concealment and Evasion, though Confucius and Mencius demonstrate their ways of responding to the situations, this does not preclude the possibility that other virtuous persons under the same circumstances may do things differently: they may choose to affirm the values of impartial ethics and justice and still act in a way which matches the Confucian ideal of the Mean. In other words, there may be different ways for an agent to respond to a moral dilemma in an appropriate manner. It matters not only which side the agent has ended up defending, but how he handles the situation, juggling between competing concerns. In an alternative case, even if a certain agent may choose to honor the value of social justice at the expense of his parents’ interests, he may be acting poorly when he lacks in courage or moral integrity.

9  Analects 7.8; 9.8; 2.15: 15.31. See also Augustine: “Lest the obvious should cause disgust, the hidden truths arouse longing; longing brings on certain renewal; renewal brings sweet inner knowledge” (1953, p. 34). Nietzsche: “The misfortune suffered by clear-minded and easily understood writers is that they are taken for shallow and thus little effort is expended on reading them: and the good fortune that attends the obscure is that the reader toils at them and ascribes to them the pleasure he has in fact gained from his own zeal” (1986, p. 92).

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2.3  On Uprightness and the Character Trait of Zhi In this section, I will explain the important role which the character trait of zhi plays as agents deal with moral dilemmas. Using the Case of Concealment, I will explain how Confucius elaborates the demands of xiao through the diverse meanings of the concept of zhi.10 With this elaboration, I will make sense of the prudential dimension which underlies the Confucian conception of filial virtue. Sometimes being aware of a wide array of reasons is not a blessing; the reasons may support opposing sides of an issue. An agent aware of this can become stuck, rather than be enlightened, by his cognitive understanding. It is unclear if this is what the Duke of She goes through after hearing that for Confucius, ‘uprightness’ means something contrary to his view. The dialogue ends at the point when the suspense heightens.11 But the writer of the Analects has not left us without a hint. When Confucius says that he can find zhi in the adult child’s act of concealment (or non-disclosure) on behalf of his father, he may not have contradicted the Duke of She’s ‘ethical’ approach to the case; for Confucius is talking about something else: in Analects 13.18, the two occasions in which zhi appears represent a pair of homonyms (see also Huang 2013, p. 140; Meng 2004, p. 460; Guo 2011, p. 6). The Duke of She uses the concept of zhi in a moralized way: it is morally right for someone to comply with the demands of justice even at the expense of his father’s interests. However, in Confucius’s expression, zhi is taken as a notable feature of a person’s character. Using the Duke of She’s sense of the word, we cannot ask further why Zhigong should report his father’s wrongdoing to the authorities; that such an upright action is morally right is analytically true. Confucius offers a substantive answer: the act of concealment is something that the (upright) person will do because this action springs from a deep attachment of his life. In the Case of Concealment, although the adult child conceals his father’s wrongdoing and thus contravenes the ethical expectations of society, the adult child has a clear idea of how to live for the rest of his life. This presents a distinctive prudential dimension in the Confucian understanding of the demands of filial piety. From the adult child’s perspective, even though there is a garden-variety of ethical reasoning, partial and impartial, which he should consult in the scenario, a more basic question is how he will want to shape his life from a whole-life’s perspective. Zhi is a  Note an interpretive issue with regard to the meaning of ‘Zhigong.’ There are three possible readings. First, it may refer to a straightforward person whose name is Gong (直人名躬) (Brooks and Brooks 1998, p. 102; Lu 1983, p. 352). Second, it may refer to a person who has the character of zhi (直身而行) (Huang 1937, p. 138). Third, ‘Zhigong’ as a whole may be a proper name, with ‘Zhi’ a surname and ‘Gong’ the given name (姓直名躬) (Xiong 2008, p. 727; Huang 1900, p. 323). I am grateful for Wong Sun Tik who reminded me of the importance of these distinctions. In this paper, I combine both the second and the third readings. I assume that the person in the passage acquires the nickname ‘Zhigong’ because he has the virtue of zhixing. 11  A more elaborate version of the story can be found in Lushi Chunqiu 呂氏春秋. See Wang L. (2002, p. 1106). 10

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pertinent character trait in this context. It does not provide the person with an additional reason to do things, but represents, at a more basic level, a disposition to act according to the person’s deepest commitments. The agent who does not have such a disposition in his character will either lack the ability to act well in the critical moment, or may fail to cognize the meaning of his fundamental principle in life. The antonym of zhi is qu 曲or xiequ邪曲, which refers to a calculating and insincere character.12 Confucius has stated that a calculating person may cheat his way through life, gaining power and fortune, yet his downfall is inevitable (Analects 6.19). By contrast, a straightforward person (zhi) may sometimes act stubbornly and imprudently from a practical point of view (Mencius 2A2). Yet when a person acts truly in a critical moment, whatever takes place consequently may hardly affect the completeness of his life. Thus, Confucius says, “He has not lived in vain who dies in the evening, having been told about the Way in the morning” (Analects 4.8.; see also Sin 2018, pp. 238–240). The Analects has various descriptions concerning the role of zhi in relation to other virtues: zhi alone is not sufficient for someone to be a junzi, who must acquire both a refinement as well as a truthful native substance in his character (wenzhibinbin文質彬彬) (Analects 6.18); a person acting straightly but without propriety could appear to be rude (Analects 8.2); a person should also learn the intricacies of social relationships, otherwise he will be blunt and impatient.13 However, Confucius also says that those who are resolute, simple, and speak little are close to being benevolent, and if one cannot have moderate persons around oneself for associates, one must turn to the ardent and the over-scrupulous (Analects 13.27; 13.24).

2.4  Zhixing and Filial Piety in The Water Margin There are a variety of ways to respond to moral dilemmas. The Confucian teachers’ suggestions in the Case of Evasion and that of Concealment are just two instances of ways in which a dilemma can be deftly handled. Yet, the brevity of the two cases may prevent readers from appreciating the deeper meanings of the responses in these scenarios. The addition of context, such as the remark concerning the adult  The person with a mentality of qu can be a person with ressentiment in the context of modern society. Nietzsche: “The man of ressentiment […] loves hiding places, secret paths and back doors, everything covert entices him as his world, his security, his refreshment; he understands how to keep silent, how not to forget, how to wait, how to be provisionally self-deprecating and humble. A race of such men of ressentiment is bound to become eventually cleverer than any noble race” (Nietzsche 2007, p. 21). 13  Analects 17.8. In The Water Margin, both Li Kui李逵and Lu Zhishen 魯智深cause trouble when they feel indignant. Lu attacks the monks of Mount Wutai 五台山, whereas Li indiscriminately butchers the ordinary people in Jiangzhou 江州 (Shi and Luo 1999, pp. 110–149, 1206–1211). They are vivid representations of how someone can have zhixing but without knowledge about the intricacies of social relationships.

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children’s potential remonstration with their parents, allows a more comprehensive perspective from which we think about the ethical meaning of the agents’ actions.14 In this section, I shall use the stories in The Water Margin to illustrate the relationship between zhixing and fulfillment of the virtue of filial piety, and how people’s lack of zhixing contributes to poor ethical performance, despite the fact that they may aspire to be a loyal and filial person. Written in the sixteenth century, The Water Margin was adapted from a series of vernacular stories about legendary characters.15 The novel describes how people from different walks of life are driven to become bandits by corruptions and the poor governance of the Song imperial court. Despite their rough background, the virtue of xiao is generally respected among the outlaws and different characters have practiced this virtue in different ways. Song Jiang is prominent in this regard. He bears the nicknames ‘Filial and Righteous Dark Third Son’ as well as ‘Protector of Justice.’ However, commentators do not generally regard Song as a trustworthy person; Li Zhi 李贄 (1527–1602) calls Song a fake ethicist on the outside and a real bandit at heart; Jin Shengtan 金聖嘆 (1608–1661) thought Song pretended to be a junzi, despite actually being an inferior person (Shi and Luo 1998, p. 825; Jin 2007, p. 727). Various passages in The Water Margin point to Song’s character flaws. I will focus on the passages related to filial virtue, and will consider what Liangshan outlaws typically went through as they resisted invitations to join the gang whilst they were citizens. In Song Jiang’s case, in chapter 35 of the novel, his father (Squire Song) is seen to worry about his son’s acquaintance with the bandits. Eventually Squire Song fakes his own death to lure Song Jiang home so that he can persuade his son face-to-face against his bandit tendencies. However, Song Jiang is captured by the authorities for having killed his concubine Yan Poxi 閻婆惜, and is ordered into exile in Jiangzhou江州. On the journey, his friends from Liangshan come to meet him (Shi and Luo 1998, pp. 511–521). Song first meets his good friends Wu Yong 吳用 (Professor Wu) and Hua Rong 花榮 (Colonel Hua). Both have joined the Liangshan outlaws. During the gathering, Song insists on carrying the cangue16 in front of them:  Cullity: “In making judgements about a person’s character, it is clear that we are often generalizing about the sorts of attitudes he forms and actions he performs in different situations. … If we take a snapshot of action, attitudes, and circumstances at a particular moment, we may find that the relations between them are distinctive of impatience (say), even if the agent is not an impatient person” (1995, pp. 292–293). 15  According to Børdahl, the earliest fragments of extant editions of The Water Margin are dated no later than 1540 (Børdahl 2007). Earlier versions of the stories of some characters can be found in Some Stories of Song during the Xuanhe Years (Da Song Xuanhe Yishi 大宋宣和遺事) (Li 1939). 16  Author’s note: a cangue is a wooden flat board which offenders would wear around their necks (sometimes also constraining their hands), used as a form of corporeal punishment in ancient China and certain parts of Asia. It usually weighed 9–15 kg; duration of the punishment is between a fortnight and a month (Chisholm 1911). Often the more serious the crime was, the heavier (and bigger) the cangue would be. It is a similar device to the pillory, used in England, but a cangue would usually be mobile, instead of fixed to the ground. Readers of The Water Margin would be 14

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W. Sin Soldiers were sent on to report and in no time at all the Professor Wu and Colonel Hua were seen galloping towards them, followed by a dozen riders. They dismounted, courtesies were exchanged, and then Colonel Hua said: “Why have they not removed the cangue?” “Dear brother,” Song Jiang said, “what are you saying? This is a penalty imposed by our national law, how can you dare to touch it?” “I understand your meaning,” Professor Wu laughed. “It’s quite all right, we won’t make any attempt to keep you on the mountain. …” (Shi and Luo 1997, p. 276; with modification of Young’s translation)

Song’s mentioning of the need to comply with the national law seems to reflect an ethical truth. Yet it is ironic that he is putting it to his bandit friends (Jin 2007, p. 512). Wu Yong even laughs in response to it. If we consider what Song had done previously, we see that it contradicts his words and attitude: Song himself has secretively informed the Liangshan chief bandit Chao Gai and Wu Yong of the authorities’ order to apprehend them (Shi and Luo 1998, pp. 246–254), reminding them to escape as soon as possible; he also arranges Qin Ming, Hua Rong and others, together with 300–500 soldiers, to join the Liangshan Marsh (Shi and Luo 1998, pp. 500–501). In another case, Song Jiang is greeted by the gang master Chao Gai, who again invites Song to join them. Song replies: “I won’t hear of it. You’re not honoring me, you’re ruining me. I haven’t been filial to my old father at home for a single day. How can I go against his instructions and get him into trouble? … When I was ordered into exile, he exhorted me to shun personal happiness if it would hurt the family and bring distress to his declining years. He put it to me very plainly: ‘Don’t take the easy way. That would go against Heaven’s principles and your father’s teachings.’ What’s the point of my life if I become disloyal and unfilial? If you won’t permit me to go down the mountain, I prefer to die at your hands!” When he finished speaking, the tears flooded down and he flung himself on the ground. Chao Gai, Wu Yong and Gongsun Sheng lifted him (Shi and Luo 1999, p. 1067; with modification of Shapiro’s translation).

This shows how pretentious and manipulative Song can be.17 His tears, his suicidal threats, and his vows are often tools to control others. Despite his reiteration of the high value of filial piety and faithfulness, people who deal with him must guess at his real intentions.18 In fact, the ‘secret paths’ and ‘back doors’ in Song’s character render his filial actions void of moral worth and his ethical language void of

familiar with this device as it was used on many of the Liangshan outlaws (such as Wu Song, Lin Chong, Lei Heng, and Song Jiang) when they were being sent into exile. 17  Jin Shengtan remarks that Song Jiang is the most difficult character to read in The Water Margin. This is because the author of the novel reveals Song’s character from an indirect angle; readers must read between the lines to comprehend the true nature of this person. In his initial reading, Jin thought Song was a good man; but the more he reread the novel, the worse his judgement of Song’s moral quality. Ultimately, he found nothing good in Song for having a fake and hypocritical character (2007, p. 509). 18  Jin (2007, p. 733): “The more Song emphasizes the importance of being respectful to the impartial court, maintaining piety to his father’s teachings, caring for his own ethical reputation, the more it shows that he intends to spend his life living as a bandit” (my translation).

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substance. It is ironic that such a hypocrite will become the leader of the zhixing heroes in the mountain.19 Aside from Song Jiang, The Water Margin describes many characters who act with determination and honesty, fulfilling the demands of filial piety in different ways: despite suffering adversity, both Yang Zhi 楊志and Shi Jin 史進 initially resist the temptation to become bandits because they do not want to ‘sully the family name’ (Shi and Luo 1998, p. 164 & pp. 38–39); Li Kui wants to share his affluence in Liangshan with his mother, but as he travels with her to the mountain, she is eaten by tigers. Li kills them in revenge (Shi and Luo 1998, pp. 630–634); Wu Song武松 is faithful to his brother Wu Dalang武大郎. He exacts ritual revenge upon his brother’s murderers, including Pan Jinlian 潘金蓮, Ximen Qing 西門慶 and Mrs. Wang 王婆 (Shi and Luo 1998, pp. 379–384). The tale of Wu and Pan has become one of the most popular episodes in The Water Margin and has been rewritten in various genres over the centuries. Zhu Tong is a minor character in the novel. He comes from a wealthy family, grows a luxuriant beard, and is a cavalry constable. Zhu’s colleague and best friend Lei Heng 雷橫is imprisoned for killing the head magistrate’s mistress. Lei’s aging mother begs Zhu to save Lei. Zhu secretly releases him. For this Zhu is exiled to Cangzhou滄州. Cangzhou’s Governor is impressed by Zhu’s ability and amicable disposition, and assigns him to look after his young child. While Zhu rebuilds his life in Cangzhou, Lei Heng and Wu Yong pay him a surprise visit, and invite him to join the bandits: For some time Zhu Tong was unable to speak a word. Eventually he said: I’m afraid you’ve misjudged me, sir. Please don’t say any more about this. I’m afraid if someone should overhear, it could have serious consequences. Brother Lei Heng committed a death-penalty crime. I let him escape for the sake of friendship and loyalty. He can’t show his face now, so he went to join the outlaws on the mountain. I got sent here on account of him, but heaven may relent. In another year or so I may manage to return home, and become a respectable citizen again. How can you imagine I would join you? Please go back now, and don’t come here stirring up trouble.” “But, brother, you’re only an attendant, here,” Lei Heng argued. “That’s no job for a real man. …” “What are you talking about, brother? Have you forgotten that I let you escape because of your old mother and your difficult family circumstances? Now you have come to trap me in unrighteousness!” (Shi and Luo 2001, pp.  160–161, with modification of Young’s translation).

Here we see Zhu as determined, clear-cut and forthright. His motivation for releasing Lei – that Lei has an aging mother and poor family (mulaojiahan母老家 寒) – shows that he is a benevolent and filial person (Jin 2007, p. 743). He states his principles plainly; he is not concerned with his friends’ opinions.20 Zhu’s action – his tone, choice of words, his body language – stands in stark contrast with that of Song. Though both try to refuse the bandits’ invitations, Zhu’s attitude is crystal clear and leaves no room for bargaining. In Song Jiang’s case, even though he has  It is worth noting again Nietzsche’s quote in fn. 12 of this paper.  Zhu’s reaction here is criticized by Li Zhi (Shi and Luo 1998, p. 765). Li thinks that Zhu, being engaged with the task as a babysitter, does not have the ambition of a real man (dazhangfu 大丈夫).

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emphasized filial piety and weeps to comply with it, the real meaning of his words is more complicated than that. This reflects the difference between the way that a zhixing person acts to fulfill the demands of filial obligation, and the way a calculating person acts. In this paper, I have argued that there is an alternative way to make sense of the controversial remarks made by Confucius and Mencius regarding the priority of filial piety over that of impartial justice. I believe that what the Confucian teachers have in mind is more than affirming the lexical ordering of different values. They want their students to be able to handle normative concerns with sensitivity and authenticity. I propose that we pay attention to the character trait of zhi or the virtue of zhixing, which is about an agent’s disposition to be truthful to himself and to act with determination in the critical moment. Using the cases of Song Jiang and Zhu Tong in The Water Margin, I demonstrate how the virtue enables its possessor to act well in difficult situations, and how a lack of zhixing will contribute to poor ethical performance, whether the agent himself tries to comply with the demands of filial piety or justice.

References Angle, S.  C. (2008). No supreme principle: Confucianism’s harmonization of multiple values. Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy, 7, 35–40. Augustine. (1953). Letters (L.  Schopp & R.  J. Deferrari Eds., W.  Parsons, Trans.) New  York: Fathers of the Church. Berlyne, D. E. (1960). Conflict, arousal, and curiosity. New York: McGraw-Hill. Børdahl, V. (2007). The man-hunting tiger: from ‘WU Song fights the tiger’ in Chinese traditions. Asian Folklore Studies, 66(1/2), 141–163. Brooks, E. B., & Brooks, A. T. (1998). The original analects: Saying of Confucius and its successors. Columbia: Columbia University Press. Chen, Q. 陳喬見. (2011). The private and the public: Self rule and rule by law 私與公: 自治與法 治. In Q. Guo (Ed.), Collected Works of Confucians: The Criticism of Criticism of Confucian Ethics 《儒家倫理新批判》之批判 (pp. 447–492). Hubei: Wuhan Daxue Chubanshe. Chisholm, H. (Ed.) (1911). Cangue. In Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Confucius. (1979). The analects (D. C. Lau, Trans.). New York: Penguin Books. Cullity, G. (1995). Moral character and the iteration problem. Utilitas, 7, 289–299. Feng, Y. L. 馮友蘭. (2001). Sansongtang Quanji 三松堂全集 (Vol. 2). Zhengzhou: Henanrenmin Chubanshe. Guo, Q. 郭齊勇. (2011). On mutual disclosure of wrongdoings among family members, legal allowance for nondisclosure, and their implications on legal reform today ‘親親相隱’ ‘容隱 制’及其對當今法治建設的啟廸. In Q. Guo (Ed.), Collected works of Confucians: The criticism of criticism of Confucian ethics 《儒家倫理新批判》之批判 (pp. 1–23). Hubei: Wuhan Daxue Chubanshe. Huang, Y. (2013). Confucius: A guide for the perplexed. London: Bloomsbury. Huang, J. 黃錦鋐. (1900). Xinyi Zhuangzi Duben新譯莊子讀本. Taiwan: Sanmin. Huang, K. 皇侃. (1937). Lunyu Jijie Yishu 論語集解義疏 (4 Vols). Shanghai: Shangwu Yinshuguan. Jin, S. 金聖嘆. (2007). Diwu Caizishu Shi Naian Shuihuchuan第五才子書施耐庵水滸傳 [The fifth talented scholar’s work: Shi Naian’s the water margin]. Beijing: Dangdai Shijie Chubanshe.

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Li, L. 黎烈文. (1939). Dasong Xuanhe Yishi 大宋宣和遺事 [Some stories of the song during the Xuanhe years]. Changsha: Shangwu Yinshuguan. Li, C. (2008). Does Confucian ethics integrate care ethics and justice ethics? The case of Mencius. Asian Philosophy, 18(1), 69–82. Liu, Q. 劉清平. (2002). Is it virtue or corruption? Analyzing two cases about Shun in Mencius 美德還是腐敗?  – 析《孟子》中有關舜的兩個案例. Philosophical Investigation哲學研究, 2, 43–47. Liu, Q. 劉清平. (2003). Filiality versus sociality and individuality: On Confucianism as ‘Consanguinitism’. Philosophy East & West, 53(2), 234–250. Liu, Q. 劉清平. (2004). On the Confucian Consanguinism in Confucius and Mencius 論孔孟儒學 的血親團體性特徵. In Q. Guo (Ed.), A collection of essays in the debate on Confucius ethics 儒家倫理爭鳴集 (pp. 853–887). Wuhan: Hubei Jiaoyu Chubanshe. Liu, Q. 劉清平. (2007). Special topic: Filial Piety: The root of morality or the source of corruption? Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy, 6(1), 1–19. Liu, Q. 劉清平. (2009). To become a filial son, a loyal subject, or a humane person? On the Confucian ideas about humanity. Asian Philosophy, 19(2), 173–188. Lu, D. 陸德明. (1983). Jingdian Shiwen 經典釋文. Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju. McConnell, T. (2018). Moral dilemmas. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2018/entries/moral-dilemmas/ Mencius. (1970). Mencius (D. C. Lau, Trans.). New York: Penguin Books. Meng, P. 蒙培元. (2004). Human beings as emotional Beings人是情感的存在. In Q. Guo (Ed.), A collection of essays in the debate on Confucius ethics 儒家倫理爭鳴集 (pp. 455–472). Wuhan: Hubei Jiaoyu Chubanshe. Nagel, T. (1979). Mortal questions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nagel, T. (1986). The view from nowhere. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nietzsche, F. (1986). Human all too human (R. J. Hollingdale, Trans.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nietzsche, F. (2007). On the genealogy of morality (C. Diethe, Trans.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Norden, V., & Bryan, W. (2008). On ‘Humane Love’ and ‘Kinship Love’. Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy, 7, 125–129. Parfit, D. (1984). Reasons and persons. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Rosemont, H., Jr., & Ames, R. (2008). Family reverence (xiao孝) as the source of Consummatory conduct (ren 仁). Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy, 7, 9–19. Scheffler, S. (1982). The rejection of consequentialism. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Sen, A. (1983). Evaluator relativity and consequential evaluation. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 12, 113–132. Shen, J. 沈家本. (1985). Lidai Xingfa Kao 歷代刑法考 [Investigations into the punishments and laws of the historical dynasties] (4 Vols.). Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju. Shi, N. 施耐庵, & Luo, G. 羅貫中. (1997). The Tiger killers: Part two of the marshes of mount Liang (John & A. Dent-Young, Trans.). Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press. Shi, N. 施耐庵, & Luo, G. 羅貫中. (1998). The water margin: The Rongyutang edition容與堂本 水滸傳 (Commented and with a preface by Li, Zhi 李贄). Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Chubanshe. Shi, N. 施耐庵, & Luo, G. 羅貫中. (1999). Chinese-English: Outlaws of the Marsh I-V (S. Shapiro, Trans.). Hunan: Hunan People’s Publishing House. Shi, N. 施耐庵, & Luo, G. 羅貫中. (2001). The gathering company: Part three of the marshes of mount Liang (John & A. Dent-Young, Trans.). Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press. Sin, W. (2018). Wu Song’s killing his sister-in-law: An ethical analysis. Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy, 17, 231–246. Sinnott-Armstrong, W. (1988). Moral dilemmas. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Smart, J. J. C., & Williams, B. (1973). Utilitarianism: For and against. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Tan, C. (2017, November 20). Confucianism and education. In Oxford research encyclopedia of education. Retrieved July 3, 2019, from https://oxfordre.com/education/view/10.1093/ acrefore/9780190264093.001.0001/acrefore-9780190264093-e-226 Wang, H. (2011). Piety and individuality through a convoluted path of rightness: Exploring the Confucian art of moral discretion via analects 13.18. Asian Philosophy, 21(4), 395–418. Wang, L. 王利器. (2002). Lushi Chunqiu Zhushu 呂氏春秋注疏 (4 Vols.). Chengdu: Bashu Shushe. Xiong, L. 熊禮匯. (2008). Xinyi Huainanzi 新譯淮南子 (2 Vols.). Taiwan: Sanmin.

Chapter 3

Western Image of the Teacher and the Confucian Jūnzǐ Qasir Shah

3.1  Introduction The jūnzǐ (君子), the moral exemplar presented by Confucius, is the ideal individual human to be aspired to via self-cultivation through her own moral effort. She is a person of irreproachable character embodying the Confucian Wǔ cháng (五常): The Five Constant Virtues of Humanity. These are: rén 仁 (humanity); lǐ 禮 (propriety or rites); yì 義 (appropriateness); zhì 智 (wisdom); and xìn 信 (faithfulness). The five virtues have at their heart the propagation of humanity rather than individuality; these virtues find their application in the jūnzǐ.1 However, of particular significance in terms of the character of a jūnzǐ, is the overarching virtue rén, which can be stated as: “Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire.” (Lau 12:2)2, and is embodied in the Confucian saying “The man of rén, wishing to establish his own character, also seeks to establish the character of others. Wishing to succeed, he also seeks to help others succeed” (Legge 6:30). What though does this have to do with teaching and the teacher? Teaching is a profession unlike any other; it involves the education of the young and those seeking to further their knowledge and skill in particular fields. Teachers are in a privileged position of authority, and can influence the views, beliefs, and behaviour of their students. For me the aforementioned virtues ought to form an important element of a teacher’s character. As Carr noted

 These virtues shall be described in more detail later in this chapter.  The principal translations of Confucius’ Analects used in this chapter are those by D.C.  Lau (1979) and James Legge (2005). When cited, the numbering refers to the book number within the Analects, followed by the chapter. 1 2

Q. Shah (*) University College London, London, UK e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 D. Lewin, K. Kenklies (eds.), East Asian Pedagogies, Contemporary Philosophies and Theories in Education 15, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45673-3_3

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Q. Shah it cannot be a matter of total indifference either to professional educationalists or to parents what a teacher is like as a private person in the sense that it is a matter of (relative) indifference what a surgeon or lawyer is like – precisely because educational goals cannot be disentangled from wider considerations and ideals pertaining to personal moral development (Carr 1993, p. 195).

Viewing the teacher as a moral exemplar raises suspicion in secular Western societies as, since the Enlightenment, Western societies have sought to unshackle themselves from the oppressive paternalistic influence of the church. They found their liberation in the liberal conceptualization of the free autonomous individual. However, it is the decline of moral exemplars that for me is a worrying aspect of modern life, which partly explains the normalizing of the egocentric individual and perpetuates (amongst some) a lack of compassion and care for our fellow humans. This has resulted in great structural inequalities and selfishness, justified ‘morally’ on the grounds of personal autonomy. The Confucian jūnzǐ represents an alternative conceptualization of what it is to be a teacher/human, and helps us understand that the autonomous individual is not the only way to conceptualize either a teacher or a human. Confucian ethics, with the jūnzǐ as its embodiment and exemplar, has the potential to make us more compassionate and caring, by emphasizing our inter-­ relatedness. For me, as for Confucius, laws alone are insufficient to curb wrongdoing, or instill compassionate behaviour; instead what is needed is the creation of a moral environment which would not only appeal to our latent goodness, but also operate by way of example, whereby people would be ashamed to engage in wrongdoing, and “reform themselves” (Lau 2:3). This can only come about if people’s will is set on virtue; only then will there “be no practice of wickedness” (Legge 4:4). One should rightly be wary of people ‘moralizing’ and using ‘shame’ to silence the voice of others. But one must not forget that we are social beings; we live according to certain established social norms which do not come about arbitrarily. These are not, nor should they be immutable; they do change to represent the society of the day. These norms are important in smoothing our manifold relations and make life bearable. But how did we get to our current situation? I begin by offering a summary of the Western image of the teacher from the seventeenth century with particular reference to England – how the teacher has been divested of her (moral) authority, wisdom and knowledge, and is increasingly becoming a mere deliverer of curricula. Then, I discuss authority in general, and that of the teacher-as-master, addressing legitimate concerns associated with the curbing of individual autonomy. Next, I explore the types of knowledge needed to flourish, and then proceed to explain the deep-rooted nature of the concept of the autonomous individual in Western thought, and how its prioritization of individual over society, is for me at the heart of the current moral malaise. I then make a case for the teacher as an ethical individual to rectify this situation. Next, I offer an outline of Confucius’ ethics, followed by an explication of the jūnzǐ figure; how she becomes jūnzǐ, and why the jūnzǐ-as-teacher. The purpose of the chapter is to offer an entry-point to Confucian ethics; consequently, it is not meant to offer a deep exploration of Confucian thought.

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3.2  Western Image of the Teacher From the seventeenth century the Western image of the teacher has gone through various transformations. Initially he (and he was invariably a man) was the master: fount of all knowledge  – representing a powerful source of wisdom and moral authority  – responsible for transmitting the social values of his culture. With the advent of the Enlightenment and the rise of science, liberalism and concomitantly the rational autonomous individual, the master – now arguably divested of wisdom and authority – became the traditional-authoritarian teacher who viewed the child as a tabula rasa, whose mind was to be formed through a process of imitation, repetition and memorization.3 This pedagogy continued until the mid-twentieth century when, even at universities, some lecturers simply lectured expecting students to assimilate content without discussion. This authoritarian teacher eventually gave way to the progressive student-centred teacher with an emphasis on a learning that developed the child’s imagination and creativity  – learning that was fun, based around the child’s interests, and where the teacher was to be a friend.4 In secondary schools this extended to developing freedom and democratic participation.5 The progressive teacher was in turn criticized by inter alia R.  S. Peters, Paul Hirst and Robert Dearden, who reformulated the concept of a liberal education with a return to its ancient roots. Peters argued that progressivism was too concerned with the manner and insufficiently with the matter of education.6 Progressivism’s emphasis on the student’s interests, happiness, and avoidance of boredom etc. was perceived to undermine learning itself. Rather than enhancing her freedom, catering only to the child’s interest could have the opposite effect, for if she is not inducted into the norms of her culture, her development may be hindered; in fact not to do so would be a privation – a partial denial of freedom if she is not initiated into certain forms of knowledge.7 The liberal form of teaching then came under attack for being traditional, highbrow and academic, shoring up the power relations and class distinctions that were responsible for many of society’s injustices.8 It was argued to be sexist, privileging the works of dead white males, and so alienated many students.9  A methodology whose roots can be traced to the ancient Greek and Roman grammar schools  See Primary Education in Scotland (SED 1965) and for England the Plowden Report (1967). 5  With examples such as A.S. Neill at Summerhill School, and T. O’Neil at Prestolee, A. L. Stone in Birmingham, and Alex Bloom in Stepney, London. For a more rounded advocacy of progressivism see Fielding (2005) on Alex Bloom. Bloom from 1945–1955 initiated greater student democracy in his school in addition to being against punishment, regimentation and competition. 6  See Peters (1966). 7  See Hirst’s (1974) forms of knowledge thesis, and Peter’s (1966) worthwhile activities. 8  For more see Young 1971. 9  However, see Standish (2007) who believes this is a distortion of Peters and colleagues’ views as: “it was never their intention that the curriculum should be a mere passing on of received ideas” (p. 46). Nonetheless, the liberal position could be criticized for its overemphasis on developing rational autonomy and intellectual pursuit, which for Standish is a narrow conceptualization of human life and morality (ibid.). 3 4

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The liberal position could also be criticized for its overemphasis on developing rational autonomy and intellectual pursuits. And this for Standish (2007) is based on a narrow conceptualization of human life and morality, in that “an academic curriculum does not suit everyone and may even ‘stifle’ their voice” (p.  46). In the 1990s progressivism under the influence of constructivism in the USA and England,10 sought to ‘free’ the mind of the child/student and allow her to fully realise her potential. But arguably with the rise of constructivism and its language of learning, together with the commodification of education, students and parents alike have been encouraged to view education in instrumental terms  – becoming customers who seek value-for-money. The student increasingly sees the teacher as a ‘resource’ for the learner; one can choose to learn from her or not, and to request certain learning that the learner believes she needs,11 rather than what she may actually need. This may be considered equivalent to a return to the ‘Sophists for hire’ of the ancient world.12 This renders the teacher passive, and has contributed to the undermining of the teacher as master of her vocation, someone vested with wisdom, knowledge and authority. Under this instrumentalist narrative the relationship between parents, students and the teacher has transformed. The teacher, no longer being a master, is assailed on the one hand by the parent- or student-cum-customer with demands of value for money,13 and on the other by the panopticon techno-managerial14 gaze. The ‘ideology’ of audit and accountability15 is leading to the homogenization of teachers through prescriptive content and approaches to teaching, under the pretence of ‘professionalization’16; this is no more than the ‘deprofessionalization’ of the profession in order to be ‘reprofessionalized’ (Seddon 1997, in Ball 2003, p. 218) in the ethics of competition and performance: “expanding [the] ranks of the executors of quality” away from “the older ethics of professional judgement and co-operation” (Ball 2003, p. 218), and thereby diminishing a teacher’s dignity and creativity. Thus, although today there are teachers aplenty,17 I argue that the teacher as representing a figure of  For more see Barr and Tagg (1995).  For more see Biesta (2013). 12  Teaching children of nobles the useful art of rhetoric. 13  For more on how the market agenda has affected education, see Connell (2013). 14  I will not focus on the influence of the ideology of audit and accountability transposed from the business world to education, apart from saying that these have been important in undermining the authority of the teacher as the master-figure. For more on technical-managerial accountability see Gewirtz (2001) who sees this approach to accountability as being different to that which predated the 1988 Education Act in England and Wales. Prior to 1988 welfarism was characterized by a public-service ethos of equity, and social justice in the spirit of cooperation, whereas post-welfarism (‘new managerialism’) is centred around customer-orientated philosophy premised upon: efficiency, cost-effectiveness focused on free- market competition. 15  For more in general on audit and accountability, see Biesta (2004, 2017). 16  See Louise Poulson (1996, 1998), on the differing interpretation of accountability: that of being integral part of educational professionalism, rather than an external demand. 17  According to UNESCO Institute for Statistics, in 2014 there were 84.2 million teachers from pre-primary school to tertiary education (Roser 2017). 10 11

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authority due to her specialist knowledge, experience and wisdom is increasingly rare to find. This has serious consequences for the kind of society that we wish to foster. With the current rise in populism and the post-truth era, it is important that we educate individuals to be critical thinkers, who not only will not be easily swayed by charlatans, but will actually care for the flourishing of their fellow human beings. To address this I make a case for the return of the teacher-as-­master, and further for the Confucian jūnzǐ to provide the moral exemplar for such a teacher.

3.3  Authority and the Teacher-as-Master Teaching and learning should be student-centred. However, it is altogether different to view the novice as an expert in the scholarship of teaching and learning. In the context of educational institutions a student is ‘a person formally engaged in learning’ to acquire/enhance her knowledge in a particular subject: learning from someone who has more knowledge than she does. Thus to cast the student alongside the teacher on an equal footing in the teaching-learning process is wrong, and would be for Hans-Georg Gadamer (1996) to confuse authority as authoritarian, as opposed to authoritative. And for Confucians (as we shall see later), such confusion would neglect the importance of the phasal aspect of human existence. Authority is only authoritarian when its basis is institutional power or hierarchical position. One may argue: is this not exactly what is established when people are distinguished by saying one has superior knowledge and greater understanding? Isn’t the assertion that something is superior and wiser a classic exercise of power (as are all introductions of values and standards)? All that can indeed be true, but one can equally argue that all forms of human activity refer to some established way for its conduct; and this presupposes the idea that certain people’s practices and pronouncements will be considered authoritative with regards to the activity in question (Winch, in Peters et al. 1958, pp. 228–29).18 Consequently, to be subject to authority does not necessarily mean one is in someone else’s power. “To maintain that there can be no valid knowledge of values is to deny that there is any proper difference between wisdom and stupidity” (Macmurray 1965, p. 10). Although that which is regarded as superior knowledge and greater understanding can be open to question, it usually is not arbitrary and depends on some form of training, competence and past success.19 This explains why people in authority can lose authority if they lack the requisite knowledge, skills, success etc., for a particular office; and  This arises because each person, in a manner ‘authorizes’ the actions of a representative. For more, see Hobbes’ Leviathan, Ed. Oakshott (1962, pp. 105-6).  105–6. See also Bertrand de Jouvenel (, p. 29–31), who contrary to Hobbes thought society came into being not because of fear of external domination but by voluntary association in order to get one’s proposals accepted. 19  See Peters’ (1959, Part I) gradation of authority which relies heavily on Max Weber’s tripartite conceptualization of authority: (1) traditional and legal-rational authority (to a particular status or an office); (2) the authority associated with ‘credentials of a personal sort’, namely a history of 18

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why a teacher who may be an authority, and in authority can nevertheless not have authority, if students do not respect her. However, one may argue that: (1) in some cases there may not be a general agreement as to the right way to proceed; (2) consent is not always “accepted or rejected at will because it is not a matter of choice for us to participate or not to participate in the form of activity within which it is exercised” (Winch in Peters et al. 1958, p. 232). However, it is precisely when there is no general agreement to the right way of doing something that it is necessary to have someone in authority. “[W]here we have no agreement about what is to be done, we must, unless we are to lapse into chaos, have some agreement about who is to decide what is to be done” (Winch in ibid., p.  235). The acceptance of authority is a precondition of living in a rule-­ governed society, participating in rule-governed activities. Having established ways of doing things does not mean that one is bound to them in perpetuity, therefore it is vital that these right and wrong ways of doing things are open to critical evaluation and change. All authority “is essentially bound up with systems of ideas, and systems of ideas essentially involve the possibility of discussion and criticism” (Winch in ibid., p. 236). Without this, authority indeed becomes synonymous with authoritarian compliance, and empty formalism.

3.3.1  A  uthority & Consent: The Role of the Teacher and Parents Few would argue that children are in a position to exercise freedom in its fullest sense, not having been “sufficiently educated in modes of social life to be able to deliberate. The exercise of authority over them, therefore, cannot be an encroachment on their freedom” (Winch, in ibid., p. 233). Notwithstanding this, a true master: must both be an authority and teach in such a way that pupils become capable of showing him where he is wrong. The teacher is an agent of change and challenge as well as of cultural conservation (Peters 1966, p. 9).

Without this his teaching simply becomes indoctrination. For true freedom to arise, the paradox of being led into freedom has to be entertained. In order to as Standish (2007) says, “free the mind of an individual to function in as rich [a] way as possible” the student has to be initiated into the “practices of [her particular] culture … a child’s upbringing cannot simply be a natural process of growth, or of unfolding from within, or even of unaided discovery learning” (p. 43).20 I’m not harking back to some nostalgic view of the seventeenth century Master-Apprentice relationship success in a given field; (3) the de facto watered-down version of Weber’s ‘charismatic’ authority attached to a figure exhibiting certain personal qualities. 20  Even Rousseau’s teacher, although in the background, nonetheless creates the ‘natural’ environment in which the child is to explore herself; as such the progressive teacher remains in control of the ‘curriculum content’ and methodology.

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in England, where the master had absolute power and authority. The apprentice, in awe of his master, bowed unquestioningly to his master’s authority, and was “not expected to develop freedom of expression or any meaningful degree of independence” (Smith 1981, p. 450). However, with the disappearance of the master-figure the idea of wisdom and respect for people with knowledge has declined in importance.21 There is a danger of the technicization of the profession, to a point where knowledge-and-content is subordinated to process-and-delivery, where anyone would be able to deliver from a bank of prescribed lesson plans, in prescriptive ways.22 Moreover, putting the novice alongside the Master not only undermines the authority of the teacher as an expert, but points to what Staddon and Standish call an “education that lacks confidence in what it is doing” (2012, p. 639). Good teachers create new wants and open students’ minds to ideas that they were previously unaware of, ideas that they would not “have been able to ask for in advance”, may not have seen the point of, or even as Basil Bernstein put it “to think the unthinkable and the not yet thought” (in Young 2014, p. 7), helping students go beyond what they know (Hart 1997) to set them free from the limited confines of their experience. You may say that such a view makes it even more questionable to renounce the idea of authoritarian power exercised by the teacher. One should however be wary of: unwarranted assumptions about equality [which] can rob relationships of their dynamics and complexity, and can lead us to overlook an emerging parity between senior and junior that is established over time when we factor into the equation the phasal nature of the human narrative (Rosemont and Ames 2009, p. 6).23

This is not to deny that the young cannot be ‘wiser’ or more knowledgeable than their elders, but it is meant to highlight the importance of a teacher-parent-figure passing on the social, ethical, and aesthetic norms of a particular society, which allow us to make value judgments – these need to be learnt and understood before they can be critiqued effectively. The idea of the teacher-as-facilitator, providing the students with the ability to learn how to learn, is arguably “an abnegation of what the teacher should be about” (Standish 2004, p. 498). It devalues the knowledge of the teacher, and the guidance and wisdom that could be imparted by this person to the student.

 This is not to deny the existence of progressively minded, child-centred teachers who continue to gain respect from their students, nor that one has to possess mastery of a body of knowledge – as in the case of primary school teacher – for this to be the case. 22  This scenario is not far-fetched: in England, academies (state funded schools run by private individuals and organizations) are exempt from employing teachers with the Qualified Teacher Status qualification. There is also a move toward the standardization of teaching practice in some multiacademy trusts, seeking consistency of application to ‘save’ time and make it ‘easy’ for teachers to be ‘successful’. 23  As Aristotle warned in his Nicomachean Ethics (2009, I:3), one should not in principle give equal weight to the value judgements of the young as to the old. To fully understand the value of a particular virtue, work of art or religious ritual etc., one has to have examined and experienced its potential to deepen or enrich one’s life – and this takes time and effort. 21

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3.4  Types of Knowledge and Why They Are Needed Not everyone agrees that the purpose of formal education is about humanization, but of the acquisition of knowledge/skills for instrumental purposes. However, to view education in such terms is to ignore the fact that to flourish we require several kinds of knowledge. I highlight three kinds put forward by John Macmurray (1965), which for him were essential to “possess and to develop if we are to live satisfactorily”: • Technological knowledge (how): the acquisition of a particular skill in order to achieve a desired intention • Valuational knowledge (why), by which we choose to do one thing rather than another. This requires training in emotional objectivity and a refinement of sensibility • Knowledge of community (of people and their relations), which is fundamental for human existence; it concerns the mutuality of intersubjective experience, and requires knowledge of the other(s) in so far as they reveal themselves to you – it is reciprocal Technical knowledge is important in terms of acquiring and retaining one’s employability, but to flourish we also need the other two types of knowledge. Valuational knowledge for example is important given the massification of information that has permitted the dissemination and democratization of ‘knowledge’ at an unprecedented scale. Given this one may legitimately argue, why do we need teachers, or schools anymore, when one can google for an answer?24 This may be true, but If […], in our society, scientific knowledge is increasing prodigiously while our knowledge of values declines, then the growth of our power to do what we want to do, goes hand in hand with the steady decrease in our ability to decide what to do with it (Macmurray 1965, p. 10).

In order to distinguish between the expert and the charlatan, between fact and opinion, it is imperative to have the ability to discern and make value-judgments; this requires a teacher-as-master who can help develop our powers of criticality.25 Failure to teach the second and third kind of knowledge would be a privation, and seriously limit an individual’s flourishing. An education that is instrumental/skills-based, is important in preparing students for work; but skills “should be approached through other aspects of education and as part of the whole task of learning to be human in its richest and most fulfilling sense” (Macmurray 2012, p. 662).

 Although the question arises: Can one simply come to know-how to do something simply for example watching a Youtube video? And can one have certainty that the information (know-that) that one is reading/watching is ‘true’, or ‘complete’? 25  Recently, OpenAI an AI company has come up with a GPT2 text generator that when fed text, anything from a few words to a whole page, is able to write the next new few sentences based on predictions of what should come next. Advances in technology means that we will become more susceptible to those who control technology. 24

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3.5  Justification for the Teacher as Moral Exemplar Teaching is unlike any other profession. Children spend a sizeable part of their formative years with teachers, and given their relationship, teachers potentially have the greatest influence on their character, attitude and conduct, and thereby to their flourishing.26 Being in loco parentis, the teacher is not only responsible for the teaching of a particular subject, but also acts by virtue of her relationship as a moral role model. To be a moral role model is not an intrinsic characteristic of say being a surgeon but it would make a difference if a teacher were morally corrupt or indifferent. If a teacher exhibits values deemed undesirable for children to acquire, then a teacher’s personal character would be of concern because “values are inherent in, if not actually qualities of, character and conduct” (Carr 1993, p. 196).27 One cannot envisage someone communicating right values successfully, which she did not possess or exhibit. Consequently teachers’ responsibilities should be “conceived not merely in terms of providing an efficient service which is well tailored to what the client or consumer antecedently wants” (Carr 1993, p. 195). To view a professional teacher as someone who should impart only technical knowledge would be to ignore the classical conceptualization of education for enlightenment stressed by people such as Confucius, Buddha, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, or that of liberal teaching with its aim of forming an educated (man) person – a rounded individual.28 In a similar vein Standish (2004) holds that everything we do affects in some way the ethical character of our life and world. “[Then] the point of education as a whole cannot be considered in isolation from these matters” (p. 498) – there is no escape from the ethical. But you may argue that this would put the teacher just in the same position as everyone else – neither more nor less, and this demand would not be connected to being a teacher but to being a human which is the domain of someone else. It is true, as Confucius said, anyone can act as one’s teacher; all you have to do is “select their good qualities and follow them” and avoid their bad ones (Lau 7.21), but this requires abilities of discrimination, and application, and these abilities have to be learnt – a teacher acts as a critical voice to help students learn the Way (how to live a moral life) – she develops their skills of inquiry. Educational policy in England has come to recognise the importance of developing good character in schools, and considers it a constitutive part of flourishing (Walker et al. 2015, pp. 85–86).29 But this recognition of the importance of the ethical dimension is undermined by the privileging of skills driven by an economic

 With the decline of the influence of the clergy who catered for the ethical aspect of a child’s character formation, and the reduction in parental oversight with parents having to work long hours to meet basic needs the teacher’s ethical role is becoming more prominent now. 27  This admittedly is true for every other person as well, not only the teacher, but it matters particularly for teachers because of their position in loco parentis. 28  See Peters’ (1970). 29  See also Character and Resilience Manifesto (Paterson et  al. 2014); and Arthur et  al. (2015) Character Education in UK schools. 26

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imperative, and the reduction of teacher autonomy. This has serious consequences for freedom and the kind of society which may come about; namely one where individuals are hermeneutically sealed in their specialised silos keeping them in their Platonic Cave, perhaps even blissfully ‘happy’ as in the case of the hyper-­ hierarchical society engineered by the elite in Huxley’s A Brave New World.30 Not possessing valuational and community knowledge is a privation which can and does affect one’s flourishing. The current emasculation of the teacher, for me like Tubbs (2005) is resulting in teaching losing “its sense of purpose, its telos, indeed, its own soul. It has lost any sense of virtue and nobility as an activity in the world. Bluntly, teaching has lost all meaning about its contribution to humanity” (p. 62). The reason for this can, for me, be traced to the importance placed in the West on the autonomous individual as we will see in the next section.

3.6  The Individual Regnant Few would argue that the moral, social, economic, philosophical and political foundations of Western civilization are premised on two mutually inclusive concepts: the autonomous individual, and the individual possessed of certain inalienable rights.31 The rational autonomous person since at least the Enlightenment era, has come to be its foundational character  – succinctly defined by Kant in his definition of Enlightenment: Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one’s own understanding without another’s guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one’s own mind without another’s guidance. (Kant 1784).

This conceptualization of what it is to be human is so deeply rooted in contemporary Western moral and political psyche that even those “philosophers who do not give it pride of place in their moral and political theories” take it as a given (Rosemont, in Rosemont and Ames 2016 p. 40). This thinking is now spreading to other cultures as a result of the West’s economic and cultural dominance over the last three centuries.32 When one compares the great freedoms that citizens of Western nations now share compared to the rest of the world, one cannot but laud the Western rights-bearing individuals for having acquired universal suffrage, human rights, freedom of conscience and tolerance that many of us enjoy, and some even take for granted.  Is it not morally appropriate to teach students for example about the far-reaching consequences of structural inequality and how that can determine their life chances, even before they are born? 31  As inscribed in the Virginia Declaration of Rights, the American Declaration of Independence, and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man, the European Convention on Human Rights, and the 1948 U.N. Declaration of Human Rights. 32  The rights-based individual is not a uniquely Western concept, the Persian emperor Cyrus the Great first inscribed human rights in 539 BCE (see the Cyrus cylinder at the British Museum). 30

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However, the very foundation of liberalism (and its greatest strength) is also its inherent weakness. The notion of the individual regnant has been responsible for the rapacious narcissistic neoliberalism of today, and has seen the concurrent demise of the teacher as an authoritative figure. The Anglo-American tradition since Hobbes has emphasised the natural state of human life as “nasty, brutish and short”33; that violence can only be allayed by engaging in a social contract with others. Underlying this contract therefore is a selfish desire to protect oneself and one’s property, rather than a sense of ‘mutuality’. There is mutuality in that the protection of property can be argued to encompass a fundamental recognition of others. This ‘mutuality’ however, remains self-centred and hampers our moral development and communal solidarity: that is at the heart of what it is to be human. There is no positive recognition here of the importance of the inter-relational nature of our existence: the dependence on others for our flourishing. This is not to ignore that liberal thinkers in the twentieth century such as C. B. MacPherson have critiqued liberalism from within and sought to articulate the possessive individualism inherent in the theories of liberalism’s principle proponents such as Hobbes, Harrington and Locke.34 Nonetheless, Macpherson did not disavow the ontological primacy of the individual. Using Confucius, I will highlight an equally compelling conceptualization of the individual – as a relational being. Thus I hope to demonstrate that the autonomous individual is not as natural as she may first appear. This is important because the way we define individual selves has great bearing on the way we rank values. If we define human beings as free, autonomous individuals who can be described and analysed strictly as agents, we will tend to prioritize personal over social responsibility, as explanatory of behaviour (Rosemont 2015, p. 12).

3.7  The Confucian Person in Relations Confucianism is a holistic vision of moral life firmly grounded in our daily life experiences and relationships, acknowledging the intersubjective nature of our existence. The consummate character of our relationships arises through a ritualization process (li)35 in the spirit of mutuality which “requires a continuous interchange between the self” (Tu 1999 p. 29) and our differing relationships. Through relationships with others and the wider world, we learn to realize ourselves not as abstract concepts but as concrete persons: mothers, fathers, wives, husbands, daughters, sons, friends, colleagues, teachers, students, patrons, clients, benefactors, and beneficiaries. The self, embedded in social relations, realizes its centeredness in dynamic interaction with other selves (Tu 1999 p. 29).

 Hobbes’ Leviathan, 1962: Chapter XII.  See Macpherson (1962, 1973). 35  Li is discussed in detail in the next section. 33 34

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However, self-realization through self-cultivation (learning to be consummate in our myriad relationships) is for the sake of the self, for its intrinsic value “rather than a means to end, no matter how noble and lofty the end purports to be” therefore “the dignity of the person should not be subsumed under social utility” (Tu 1999 p.  29). The way we encounter others and interact with them in our lives is what makes us the unique individuals that we are. The different relations that constitute our lives are descriptive of our associations and once stipulated become prescriptive in the normative sense of established ways of performing any activity, which guide us in appropriate conduct. One is a good or bad father, son, spouse, teacher and so forth. And though there are a cluster of terms such as The Five Constant Virtues36 that can help in our critical reflection, what is of critical importance is to be inspired by example, by cultural and moral role models. How does the Confucian relationally constituted individual apply to the teacher-­ student relationship? “A good teacher and a good student can only emerge together” – the relationship is “coterminous and mutually entailing” (Rosemont and Ames 2016, p. 12). Reciprocity, love and respect are at the heart of this relationship; it is a dynamic relationship mutually enhanced by the other. Teachers should engage in a genuine dialogue with their students, in a way that is free of condescending manner, and imbued with a love and concern of one’s students. It is for this reason that it is important that teachers be ethical role-models, rather than Weberian charismatic characters acting like pied pipers feeding their self-aggrandizement. Confucius for example held the young in the utmost regard, for “how do we know that they will not be the equal of the present [generation of adults]” (Lau 9:23). The next section on Confucian ethics will provide a better understanding as to the character of the jūnzǐ, my moral-exemplar who I will later argue can act as a good role model for all teachers.37

3.8  C  onfucius’ Ethics: The Five Constant Virtues of Humanity Confucius lived during a period afflicted by wars, violence and the near total breakdown of moral standards. To reverse this state of affairs Confucius sought to develop individual moral character through education. He wanted jūnzǐs, his moral exemplars, to serve as beacons of virtue – an ideal for all to aspire to, and thus bring about  See next section.  However, it is worth highlighting that when one enters the realm of comparative philosophy, one is hampered not only by the hermeneutics of temporo-spatial considerations, but also by the difficulty of translation. Translation often relies on using approximative concepts which often do not make for neat fits. As such, I will begin by offering English approximations of the various Confucian concepts, but thereafter will use the original Chinese word. Moreover, Confucianism should be seen as being sui generis, and Western concepts should not readily be imputed as a way of comparison.

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a caring ‘harmonious’ society. For me a parallel can be made with today’s world, torn with religious and cultural conflicts/wars, in which people of dubious moral credentials rise to positions of power and prominence. It is little coincidence that the rise of such exemplars has seen a concurrent rise in extreme-isms of every hue coming to be normalized under the guise of freedom of speech. Exemplarity has great influence, both for the good as well as the bad. As highlighted by Confucius’ advice to Chi K’ang Tzu38 for whom the prevalence of thieves was a source of trouble. Confucius answered, “If you yourself were not a man of desires,39 no one would steal even if stealing carried a reward” (Lau 12:18). Exemplarity comes about by way of self-examination and self-cultivation through education: in the Confucian text The Great Learning, all are exhorted – from the emperor to the commoner – to build their character (Legge 2005, p. 122), for though we are born human, we have to learn to become human. Confucius was concerned with cultivating our human nature, as it was the means of cultivating the Way (the road to living a moral life). His ethics are particularly appealing because they are practical and premised upon the art of living: they are particularly this-worldly and do not emphasise reward or punishment in an afterlife as a motivating factor. Confucius’ ethics are predicated upon the Five Virtues, which find their embodiment in the jūnzǐ. I describe these with respect to their educative import and then move on to say why the jūnzǐ is a good model for a teacher. Rén is the supreme virtue. It “gives ‘meaning’ to all the other ethical norms which perform integrative functions in a Confucian society” (Tu 1968, p. 31). Given its allembracing nature, Confucius never defined rén but highlighted aspects of it in context. Rén itself is not a Confucian term but originates from the Book of Poetry and Tso Chuan – a major historical document and an influential literary model. Rén in these texts signified the benevolent love of the ruler toward his subjects  – toward their wellbeing. Confucius enlarged its meaning to encompass “the manifestation of the genuine nature of man, virtue in its entirety, the moral qualities governing human relations, a basis for self cultivation, and a measure for personality development” (Wan 1980, p. 129). Rén needs in most people to be brought forth through education to make us conscious of our being human, and to perfect the goodness within. This requires loving one’s fellow man (Lau 12:22). This can be elucidated from the construction of its glyph 仁: the left side of the character (亻) represents a ‘person’, while the right side (二) stands for the number ‘two’. Morality thus begins with two persons; to be rén one needs actively to help others (Lau 6:30); this requires the sublimation of one’s selfish and harmful impulses, channelling them instead toward virtuous actions – for the benefit of all humankind. This way of thinking of a human as relationally constituted can be contrasted with the Western emphasis on the Hobbesian individual fundamentally isolated in quasi-contractual relationship with others. Lǐ – ritual propriety – is of central importance to the ethical cultivation of character; as Wei-Ming Tu says, it “can be conceived as an externalization of jen[rén] in

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 Head of the three families that ruled Confucius’ state Lu.  That is to say, if you did not set an example by stealing from the people.

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a specific social context” (1968, p. 34). The power of lǐ lies in example: humans are given to being influenced by others and emulation, therefore positive role-models are an educative essential, and conditions have to be created for this. Lǐ amounts to abiding by culturally established norms, which as argued above in our discussion on authority, do not arise in a vacuum, nor are they arbitrarily conceived. Confucius did not envisage these norms as binding us to some rigid set of rules in perpetuity. This could not have been Confucius’ intent as he prized freedom of thought highly. He encouraged his students to think for themselves (Lau 7:8). He was not a stickler for custom, when he deemed it to be outmoded and no longer made sense.40 Thus, lǐ is more than simply following rules of propriety, it must conform to rén or otherwise it becomes staid, leading to empty formalism, and “easily degenerat[ing] into social coercion incapable of conscious improvement and liable to destroy any true human feelings” (Tu 1968, p. 37). Lǐ is therefore unlike social conventions (right or wrong ways of saying and doing things; a deceitful vein of politeness) that Rousseau would warn against. Confucius imbued lǐ with an ethical aspect that took it beyond mere ritual ceremony, social conventions, and proper etiquette (that would be required in taking up administrative positions) to providing a social framework for the ordering of life, conforming to social norms of rén. Although lǐ has similarities to Aristotelian habituation, unlike Aristotle, Confucius places emphasis on the role of propriety in developing one’s character. Yì is typically translated as ‘righteousness’, however it is better translated as ‘appropriateness’, as righteousness has associations with a divinity, and this has little to do with yì (Ames 2011, p. 203). Yì stems from our motive for doing something. If you undertake an action which is done for reasons of expediency or self-­ interest, then your action lacks moral worth – it lacks yì. In terms of education, the main justification for learning is for its own sake, not to gain the approbation of others (Legge 14:25), nor for the economic gain that a good education could bring. Confucius discouraged materialistic motives, and instilled an ethical dimension, learning for its intrinsic value (Legge 15:31), i.e. of cultivating one’s character – of learning to be human in its broadest sense. One thus learns in order to understand the related nature of humans, and our duty to our fellow humans (Legge 8:8). And in this regard, yì can be broken down into shù and zhōng. “Shù is an ‘other-­regarding’ generosity” and should be seen as “a thoughtful and heartfelt deference to others in what we do” (Ames 2011, p. 195) ergo the importance Confucius placed on reciprocity. This other-regarding generosity imbued with rén means persevering until one has helped another. Zhōng as D. C. Lau put it “is the doing of one’s best and it is through chung [zhong] that one puts into effect what one has found out by the method of shu” (in ibid., p. 200).41 Kant’s ethics of duty, undertaking an action for its intrinsic moral worth, rather than a means to an end – is akin to yì. Having said this, the ideas of deference and of doing one’s best for the other have the potential  As in the case of preferring to wear a ceremonial silk cap, rather than a linen one prescribed by ritual on the grounds that it was frugal to do so (Lau, 9:3). 41  Shù and zhōng are also rén-dependent which is why when one considers helping others, it has to be for a right reason; it cannot be used to justify a blind loyalty to one’s superiors or kin. 40

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in a hierarchical relation to lead to blind loyalty or duress, which is why Confucius emphasized that even a ruler’s conduct is subject to remonstrance by subordinates (Lau 13:15; 13:23). Xìn is usually translated as ‘trust’ and ‘faithfulness’, or as Ames puts it “making good one’s word” (2011, p. 205). This is ascertained from Confucius’ saying “If in word you are conscientious and trustworthy ... then even in the lands of the barbarians you will go forward without obstruction” (Lau 15:6). Xìn is more than being sincere in what one says or does; it requires having the resources to make good on what one has proposed. Xìn thus promotes the credibility of the person proposing an action in a manifestly concrete way, as one who will not promise something she is unable to deliver. Zhì (wisdom) the character zhì is composed of two radicals xue (learning) and si (thinking). Zhì is not a passive activity but must involve critical reflection; which is why Confucius stated that “If one learns from others but does not think, one will be bewildered. If, on the other hand, one thinks but does not learn from others, one will be in peril” (Lau 2:15). The road to human perfection is a lifelong journey requiring self-examination and self-cultivation, as gauged by Confucius’ autobiographical saying: At fifteen I set my heart on learning; at thirty I took my stand; at forty I came to be free from doubts; at fifty I understood the Decree of Heaven; at sixty my ear was attuned; at seventy I followed my heart’s desire without overstepping the line (Lau 2:4).

3.9  The Jūnzǐ Jūnzǐ has been translated variously as: ‘superior man’, ‘gentleman’, ‘virtuous man’, ‘profound person’, ‘princely man’, ‘exemplary person’ etc. All these attributions indicate aspects of the jūnzǐ but none are sufficient. Another point to consider is the gendered nature of these approximations. There is no compelling evidence from the Analects to say that the Confucian jūnzǐ applies only to males, with the original meaning of jūnzǐ being any offspring (male and female) of aristocrats (Li, 2009, in Tan 2014, p. 104). For these reasons I will retain the Chinese term henceforth and use it as a gender-neutral term.42 The jūnzǐ as the “paradigmatic individual sets the tone and quality of the life of ordinary moral agents”, and is the embodiment of the virtues of lǐ, yì and rén (Cua 2007, p. 125). This ethical ideal was the goal to strive for through self-cultivation. The importance of this figure can be gauged by the fact that she is mentioned more than 70 times in the Analects. Whenever Confucius discusses morality, it is in relation to the moral virtues that a jūnzǐ should possess. Though the Analects never provides a clear definition of the jūnzǐ, according to Kaizuka (2002 p. 96–97) two

 This is not to ignore the fact that this appellation has been exclusively used for men, but there is no reason for this to remain so in the twenty-first century.

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fundamental nuanced conceptions can be ascertained. The first usage is that of someone having acquired an education, thus distinguishing him from the uneducated country yokel – he has a gentleman’s wide-ranging education, thus he can serve in government or in the services of noble families: he is skilled not just in one particular thing but adept in a variety: “the gentleman [jūnzǐ] is no vessel” (Lau 2:12). The second, and more prevalent conception, can be summed up by the saying: The gentleman seeks neither a full belly nor a comfortable home. He is quick in action but cautious in speech. He goes to men possessed of the Way to have himself put right. Such a man can be described as eager to learn (Lau 1:14).

The second occurrence sees the jūnzǐ as an “incomplete personality, possessed of some goal, and in search of education” (Kaizuka 2002, p. 98). Confucius gave jūnzǐ ethical significance whilst retaining its connotation of noble refinement, so that any individual, through self-cultivation, could become jūnzǐ. Thus becoming jūnzǐ was not the specific reserve of the aristocracy: for Confucius all humans were equal, but it was their practice that made them different (Lau 17:2). The jūnzǐ was to reverse the moral decline of Confucius’ time and serve as an example in pursuance of ‘harmony’ (13:12).43 Harmony comes about by following Confucian virtues, and is strung together by way of filial reverence (xiào) in the context of the five human relations (wuxing) between (1) husband and wife, (2) parent and child, (3) older and younger sibling, (4) friend and friend, and (5) ruler and subject. These will be discussed in the next section.

3.10  How Does One Become Junzi? How does the jūnzǐ come to possess the abovementioned exemplary moral traits? The answer is to be found in 1) filial reverence (xiào) in the context of the five human relations, whose purpose is the creation of social order; 2) in a formal education that seeks to achieve ethical, social and political ends that promote good governance, individuals, and society. I will first explore filial reverence, and then touch on the Confucian curriculum.

43  However, this harmony (he 和) should not be confused with seeking sameness, perfect agreement, or ‘stagnant concordance, [because] ‘harmony is sustained by energy generated through the interaction of different elements in creative tension. ...[F]riendliness or love is not a necessary condition for harmony (Li 2014: 386). Achieving he is akin to an orchestra coming together with its various ‘discordant’ instruments to create a much richer sound.

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3.10.1  Filial Reverence (Xiào) Few people would deny the significance of one’s home environment on the formation of one’s moral character and values. The family is the very first place where one learns to interact socially with others, where the ‘I’ gains consciousness of the ‘Other’. “The root of love and moral maturity can be correctly claimed to originate in family love and respect” (Callahan 2008, p.  146). The infant knows no other world, it is only when she begins to encounter other people that she may come under the influence of significant others such as a teacher. For Confucius and his disciples xiào is the root of moral excellence and from where moral education emanates; thus it is important in forming the jūnzǐ (Lau 1:2). Xiào is the root of all relations – it is grounded in our personal experience, from our immediate relations; it is the means by which we develop a sense of who we are, and how we relationally live with others in ‘harmony’. To this effect to embody rén for example one needs to have ‘a profound care for the practical affairs of the world’; this historically has been expressed in terms of the five human relations. Underlying these relationships is reciprocity; “[relating] to others in a meaningful way […] in the spirit of filiality, brotherhood, or friendship [, which reflects] one’s level of self-cultivation (Tu 1972, p. 188). This is not too dissimilar to Cicero’s definition of pietas (piety) as the virtue “which admonishes us to do our duty to our country or our parents or other blood relations” (Cicero, in Wagenvoort 1980, p. 7). Pietas however, was not a one-sided obligation to obey one’s family and country but was founded on absolute reciprocity.44

3.10.2  Some Hard Questions Regarding Xiào Notwithstanding xiào’s strengths, there are concerns that it is given more prominence than the other Confucian virtues such as rén, and has been used to justify such ills as: nepotism and consanguinity; the stifling of individualism; the promotion of passivity and conformity; and the perpetuation of patriarchy. Qingping Liu (2003) points to the nepotistic tendencies of the Confucian tradition, with respect to ‘consanguineous affection’ where the primacy of family ties, or blood relatives are prioritized at the expense of greater public good. He uses several examples from the Analects and Mencius, two of which are discussed below. The first relates to a father stealing a sheep, and the Confucian saying that it is proper for the son to conceal the crime of his father (Lau 13:18). The second example involves the sage king Shun renowned for his humanity (rén) but who installed his murderous brother Xiang as prince of a vassal state (Mencius 5A: 3), which Mencius deems praiseworthy on the basis of xiào. Does not such filial devotion lead to the  Pietas is also found in Erasmus as ‘the moral conscience governing the proper relationship between individual and God as well as the individual and society’ (in Rummel 2017).

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undermining of the other Confucian virtues such as justice, humanity, truthfulness etc.? Liu (2003) believes that prioritizing ‘consanguineous affection’ invariably leads to the distortion of the jūnzǐ. This is because the individual and social dimensions have to be subordinated to xiào, thus restricting the former relations “to the point where human existence starts to become fragmented” (p.  244). Such ideas may predispose people to secure advantage for their kith and kin, appoint on the basis of favouritism, and the subversion of law to benefit one’s blood and other interpersonal relations leading to corrupt practices. This clearly can be the case, but Confucianism does not have a monopoly on nepotism. Moreover, Confucians are not Kantians bonded to categorical imperatives45; they take into account the particularities of the situation, and its repercussions. Thus for example in the case of the stolen sheep, there may be extenuating circumstances: perhaps the father was poor and hungry and wanted to feed his family, and stole from a rich landlord. Moreover, given that punishments were severe and disproportionate, shouldn’t this also be taken into consideration on whether to inform or not.46 And, though Confucius may be said to require that the son conceal his father’s ‘wrongdoing’, he does not say that the son should join in his father’s wrongdoing. The case of Xiang, however, is problematic, and is suggestive of xiào’s precedence over other virtues. Thus one could say that whether or not to inform should depend on the gravity of the crime committed, and the remorse expressed, which is why Xiang’s case appears difficult to defend, and perhaps should not be. Xiang’s case also highlights how an over zealous importance may be attached to xiào in preference even to rén. Regarding the stifling of individualism, and promoting of passivity and conformity, this quote by Yu Tzu (one of Confucius’ disciples) is concerning: It is rare for a man whose character is such that he is good as a son and obedient as a young man to have the inclination to transgress against his superiors; it is unheard of for one who has no such inclination to be inclined to start a rebellion. (Lau, 1:2).

To Western liberal ears Confucianism is akin to knowing your place in a supremely hierarchical societal structure: something of which to be suspicious given how such structures engender a passive obedient populace deferring to the will of one’s ‘superiors’ and elders, regardless of merit. Confucius’ perfect society like Plato’s in the Republic is open to the criticism of being elitist, and open to dictatorial rule whether at the level of the family, or the state. Undeniably xiào has been abused by governments, and people in positions of power; it has been used to justify authoritarian rule, curbing individuality, and freedom. Xiào has also been used to perpetuate male hegemony, particularly when one considers the following quote in the Classic of Xiaojing47 (the main text concerned with family reverence); In human conduct there is nothing more important than family reverence; in family reverence there is nothing more important than venerating one’s father; in venerating one’s father there is nothing more important than placing him on a par with [Heaven] tian (Ch. 9).  See further Ni (2008).  On this point see Van Norden (2008). 47  Rosemont and Ames (2009). 45 46

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The patriarchal sentiments of the quote are unacceptable in today’s society. Having said that, human history is littered with similar and worse examples – one need only read Aristotle to realize this. Confucianism is not the only system that prompts some hard questions, but these examples are of their time. Qingping Liu’s two examples and the two quotes above appear to make Confucian relations deeply hierarchical and patriarchal. But this is far from the truth, for in Confucianism great import is placed on remonstrance with reverence (Lau 4:18) for example when faced with the wrongdoing of your parents. Obedience and loyalty are not unconditional: in the Classic of Xiaojing (chapter 15), Confucius exhorts the son and the minister to remonstrate when confronted with reprehensible behaviour.

3.10.3  Family Relationship as Benefactor and Beneficiary Though Confucian relationships are hierarchical, they need not be viewed as elitist; elitism logically entails hierarchy, but the converse is not true. Hierarchical relationships are not fixed for all time: many a student has come to surpass their Master. For Rosemont and Ames (2009), xiào should be viewed in terms of a benefactor-­ beneficiary relationship, rather than that of creditor-debtor. Children initially are the beneficiaries of their parents’ benefaction, but as they grow older that relationship begins to transform, whereby they come to be the benefactors of their parents. But this relationship is built upon love and respect. Parents do not care for their children because they will one day look after them, but out of unconditional love and respect. The child owes a ‘debt’ of gratitude to her parents not only for her existence, but also for how she was brought up, with love, care and sacrifice on her parents’ part. This debt of gratitude is unpayable. This is important from an ethical point of view: without love and respect, the relationship would be that of a creditor and debtor that the debtor is obliged to discharge, as in a contract. Love and respect underpin xiào. Through xiào one develops one’s moral character, and comes to realise how to interact with others in society. It helps us understand the Confucian precept to put oneself in the other’s place (shù), which in turn helps us to think of a specific other: this mother, father, friend and so forth. Let me illustrate this with a dilemma presented by Rosemont and Ames. They imagine a child who was faced with the choice whether to rub her grandmother’s sore shoulder, or to go out and play with friends. The child who would go out and play obviously cannot be commended, nor the child who helps begrudgingly. “Rather you must want to ease your grandmother’s pains, be happy to do so, and prefer doing it to joining your playmates. This is consummatory conduct” (ren) (Rosemont and Ames 2009, p. 28). Confucius says Nowadays for a man to be filial means no more than that he is able to provide his parents with food. Even hounds and horses are, in some way, provided with food. If a man shows no reverence, where is the difference? (Lau 2:7).

Thus at the heart of xiào, is the desire to do the right thing: in performing our duties, we must want to do them. Motivation is an important aspect in classical Confucianism.

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Inherent in xiào is the idea that it is only through loving interactions with those whom we love, do we learn to act appropriately towards others. By loving one’s grandmother, we learn to act appropriately to all those with the role of grandmother and so on. This is very different from say Kantian ethics premised upon one’s duty, or that of Bentham and Mills’ utilitarian considerations of the consequences of one’s actions. Kant’s categorical imperative is underpinned upon choosing actions that can be held to be universal “devoid of our particularities as unique persons living in a particular time and place” (Rosemont and Ames 2009, p. 37), whilst for Utilitarians, the maximization of happiness, or utility to the greatest number of people is the prime consideration. However, for the Confucian the particularities of the situation are important. “‘[T]hey do not see abstract autonomous individuals, but rather concrete persons standing in a multiplicity of role relations with another” (Rosemont and Ames 2009, p. 38).

3.10.4  The Confucian Curriculum Before Confucius, the conventional curriculum for aristocrats was composed of the Six Arts (liù yì): Rites, Music, Archery, Charioteering, Calligraphy, and Mathematics. This would be in line with the demands of the life of nobles at the time: requiring a certain level of intellectual and physical development. Confucius understood that without training in the Six Arts, a coarser individual would emerge. However, although knowledge of the Six Arts would produce a ‘gentleman’, this knowledge may simply serve as an adornment and refinement of a person in terms of politesse. The moral character of a person is of greater importance because it is difficult to perfect; after all, what is the point of knowledge of the good, if one could not live by it (Lau 15:32). Consequently, the moral significance of the Six Arts was limited. Confucius changed completely the concept of schooling; his curriculum additionally emphasized the following: History, Poetry, Music, Lǐ, Language, and the I Ching.48 This curriculum would now be seen as the equivalent of a liberal arts curriculum for his time. His teaching materials were chosen “from a body of existing knowledge which represented an accumulation of wisdom and traditions from antiquity” (Wan 1980, p. 184). This was needed as Confucius sought not merely to train students to assume position in administration of government or noble families, but also to develop a rounded, educated individual in its full sense. The formal Confucian curriculum was meant to equip an individual to not only be an effective citizen in administrative posts at the local, national or international

 An ancient Chinese divination text, associated with mysticism and superstition. Confucius however, gave it pedagogical value by emphasizing its humanistic qualities and highlighting its philosophical tenets (Wan 1980, p. 197–8).

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level,49 but also to promote an ethical individual.50 And if one is not ethical, then such gifts could be put toward self-furtherance, rather than for the benefit and well-­ being of people at large. Thus it is the ethical dimension that separates the jūnzǐ from the selfish and ‘educated’ person in its Western conceptualization.

3.11  Why the Jūnzǐ as Master/Teacher Should we wish to create a harmonious and caring society then the ethical dimension of the teacher as jūnzǐ cannot be underestimated. But why should the ethical dimension of a teacher be a matter of concern, when it is perfectly possible to have inspirational teachers imbued with a love for their subject. Why should the teaching profession be held to a higher ethical standard than any other profession? Such arguments neglect the teacher’s position in loco parentis; consciously or unconsciously she is an exemplar to her students. Consequently in the school environment it is imperative that the teacher be also an ethical exemplar. Character is malleable (especially when young); a person can be good when surrounded by good people in a supportive environment and conversely be corrupted when exposed to bad influences. Hence Confucius advised his students to befriend the upright, the sincere and the learned, while avoiding those who are crafty, two-faced and glib-tongued (Legge, 16:4). Thus the importance placed on exemplarity. This should be more relevant to the teacher given her position vis-à-vis her students, and consequently it is important that the teacher’s private behaviour and beliefs should reflect in large part the values she seeks to develop in herself and her students. Of course there are dangers that over-zealous authorities may go down the path of a ‘moralizing’ witch-hunt, and seek to impose ethical norms which few could live up to. But this would be to misunderstand the character of the jūnzǐ: she is not perfect, nor does she set herself out to be. The jūnzǐ should be placed on a continuum of goodness and its practice must be seen as lifelong journey, as highlighted by Confucius’ autobiographical statement (Lau, 2:4). To be jūnzǐ is a process of becoming; the jūnzǐ is not a sage, far removed from us, she can be someone to aspire to, because she acknowledges her fallibility and vulnerability; this is why she is cautious in her speech lest her actions do not match her words. Expecting higher standards of moral conduct without seeking infallibility is possible, but what is really required is a disposition to seek to correct oneself, with an unflagging thirst for learning and teaching (Lau, 7:34). These qualities are worthy of emulation and admiration, being instrumental in character formation. However, to simply learn is insufficient, for what makes a jūnzǐ is not how much knowledge she possesses but what she actually does with it– doing is extremely important.

 It was instrumental in promoting social mobility.  A well-rounded education can help broaden one’s mind to possibilities one may never have contemplated. Nonetheless, possessing such knowledge does not make one an ethical individual.

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The relationship of Confucius toward his students could be described as that of a father, older brother, or friend (Creel 1960, p. 80), but unlike the master-figure, he did not fill the student with awe, which would make the relationship overly deferential limiting the scope of criticality. Like Confucius the jūnzǐ is happy to be corrected; Confucius’ disciples openly questioned his conduct (Lau 6:28), and corrected his actions (Lau 7.31; 17:3.) without Confucius showing any anger or resentment. Such behaviour was expected and encouraged, and its omission was akin to stupidity (Lau 2:9). In order to engender critical minds, the jūnzǐ herself has to be openminded and flexible with “no foregone conclusions, no arbitrary predeterminations, no obstinacy, and no egoism” (Legge 9:4), she suspends judgement. In her dealings with her students she is not invariably for or against anything but is on the side of what is moral (Lau 5:10), that which accords with yi – that which is appropriate and fitting given the particularities of the context. Consequently the jūnzǐ, like Confucius, encourages and gives students time to reflect (Legge, 7.8). Her teaching is individualised; as each student has different needs, knowledge, and level of understanding, she teaches the person rather than the subject (Legge, 19:12). And although she is exacting, she is willing to help those who make the effort (Legge 9:18). Consequently the jūnzǐ, like Confucius, is not willing to spoon-feed knowledge; if students are to be more than simple reciters of facts, they have to learn to think for themselves (Lau 7:8). This is not possible if they hold the teacher’s word as final. However, what the jūnzǐ does is to fulfil: a critical, perhaps irreplaceable, role in helping students learn the Way, but, according to the Analects, he need not be able always to instantiate the Way in his own conduct to be an effective role model and master (Elstein 2009, p. 162).

3.12  Conclusion The current trends toward the teacher-as-facilitator, and the undermining of teacher autonomy, are symptomatic of the increasing commodification and instrumentalization of education in England, at all levels. These narrow conceptualizations of the purpose of education and of the teacher will do nothing to remedy the fissures that now exist in a society of individuals, each in competition with the other. Confucian ethics help us to understand that there is another equally compelling way to conceive humans: as socially embedded in myriad relations. Furthermore, an education and teaching profession that becomes technicised will lose its telos: that of initiating and nurturing new generations into the values of their cultures, helping them learn to become human in its most capacious sense – with a concern for the ethical demand: of social justice and inclusion. Real and lasting transformation only takes place from the bottom up, rather than enforced from above; in this the teacher is of pivotal importance, given her status in loco parentis,

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and the influence she can wield by virtue of this position. It is critical therefore for the teacher not only to be master of her subject but also to have moral integrity.51 The jūnzǐ, as the embodiment of Confucian virtues, serves as a beacon for others to emulate not just in the context of the teacher-student relationship but in general. The jūnzǐ is held in high regard by her students and in high repute by society because of her knowledge, wisdom and experience, particularly with respect to her ethical character. She does not force change of character through coercion or punishment, but by persuasion and example, recognising the more durable effect of either of these in promoting the lasting desire for right-doing. The consummate character of our intersubjective interactions with others is more than a merely civilizing form of etiquette. It is premised upon empathy with others – a willingness to see the other flourish, and to treat others as we would wish ourselves to be treated. At its best this is underpinned by a love for the other, whose roots are developed in xiào, and which extends beyond the family to the community, to society and to the world at large. The jūnzǐ is additionally appealing as an ethical role model by virtue of not being perfect; like Socrates she knows that she does not know everything, and like Confucius, she understands the difficulty of becoming an ethical person, knowing this to be true of herself; it is these very qualities that distinguish her from the ordinary individual, as well as her desire to be consummate in her relations with others. The jūnzǐ helps all to realize the peak of their humanity: to flourish, and in turn to serve as ethical role models and teachers to others.

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Peters, R. S. (1959). Authority, responsibility and education. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd.. Peters, R. S. (1966). Ethics and education. London: Allen and Unwin. Peters, R. S. (1970). Education and the educated man. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 4(1), 5–20. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9752.1970.tb00424.x. Peters, R. S., Winch, P. G., & Duncan-Jones, A. E. (1958). Symposium: authority. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, supplementary volumes. Oxford University Press on behalf of The Aristotelian Society. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4106701 Poulson, L. (1996). Accountability: A key-word in the discourse of educational reform. Journal of Education Policy, 11(5), 579–592. https://doi.org/10.1080/0268093960110505. Poulson, L. (1998). Accountability, teacher professionalism and education reform in England. Teacher Development, 2(3), 419–432. https://doi.org/10.1080/13664539800200062. Rosemont, H. (2015). Against individualism: A confucian rethinking of the foundations of morality, politics, family, and religion. Lanham: Lexington Books. Rosemont, H., & Ames, R. T. (2009). The Chinese classic of family reverence: A philosophical translation of the Xiaojing. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Rosemont, H., & Ames, R. T. (2016). Confucian role ethics: A moral vision for the 21st century? Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Roser, M. (2017). Teachers and professors. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/ teachers-and-professors#teacher-quantity Rummel, E. (2017). Desiderius Erasmus. In Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Winter 2017). Stanford University. Scottish Education Department. (1965). Primary education in Scotland. Edinburgh, H. M. S. O. Smith, S. R. (1981). The ideal and reality: Apprentice-master relationships in seventeenth century London. History of Education Quarterly, 21(4), 449. https://doi.org/10.2307/367925. Staddon, E., & Standish, P. (2012). Improving the student experience. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 46(4), 631–648. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9752.2012.00885.x. Standish, P. (2004). Europe, continental philosophy and the philosophy of education. Comparative Education, 40(4), 485–501. https://doi.org/10.1080/0305006042000284493. Standish, P. (2007). Moral education, liberal education and the voice of the individual. In K. Roth & I. Gur-Ze’ev (Eds.), Education in the era of globalization (pp. 33–50). Dordrecht: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-5945-2_2. Tan, C. (2014). Confucius (Vol. 20). London: Bloomsbury. Tu, W.-M. (1968). The creative tension between Jen and Li. Philosophy East and West, 18(1/2), 29. https://doi.org/10.2307/1398034. Tu, W.-M. (1972). Li as process of humanization. Philosophy East and West, 22(2), 187–201. https://doi.org/10.2307/1398124. Tu, W.-M. (1999). Self-cultivation as education embodying humanity. The Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy, 3, 27–39. Tubbs, N. (2005). Philosophy of the teacher. Oxford: Wiley. Van Norden, B. W. (2008). On “humane love” and “kinship love”. Dao, 7(2), 125–129. Wagenvoort, H. (1980). Pietas: Selected studies in Roman religion. Brill. https://doi. org/10.1163/9789004296688. Walker, D. I., Roberts, M. P., & Kristjánsson, K. (2015). Towards a new era of character education in theory and in practice. Educational Review, 67(1), 79–96. https://doi.org/10.1080/0013191 1.2013.827631. Wan, H. (1980). The educational thought of Confucius. Loyola University Chicago. Young, M. F. D. (1971). Knowledge and control: New directions for the sociology of education. London: Collier-Macmillan. Young, M. (2014, March 25). The curriculum and the entitlement to knowledge. Retrieved February 14, 2018, from http://www.cambridgeassessment.org.uk/Images/166279-the-curriculum-andthe-entitlement-to-knowledge-prof-michael-young.pdf

Chapter 4

Being-in-the-World: to Love or to Tolerate. Rethinking the Self-Other Relation in Light of the Mahāyāna Buddhist Idea of Interbeing Chien-Ya Sun

Nothing in the world can rob us of the power to say ‘I’. Nothing except extreme affliction. Simone Weil There is nothing personal in anything. Pico Iyer

4.1  Introduction This paper explores the relation between the self and the  other, and the issues concerning how to live with others. It first examines a contemporary educational context in which tolerance is seen as a virtue in self-other encountering, before continuing to consider critiques of such approaches. It then draws on the works of Nina Asher and bell hooks to reveal the different concerns of members of minority groups in self-other encountering, and both hooks’ and Asher’s advocacy for the approach of genuine engagement. A similar appeal is articulated by Richard Smith when he calls for both a suspension of judgement in self-other encountering, as well as a resultant need to engage in closer attention. The paper then explores the Buddhist idea of interbeing, and suggests that interbeing provides a ground on which genuine engagement and attention can be realized. The idea of interbeing was introduced to the contemporary Western world by the Vietnamese Buddhist Master Thích Nhất Hạnh. It is based on the ancient Buddhist idea of pratītyasamutpāda (dependent arising), and relates to other Buddhist

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concepts such as non-self and emptiness. Nhất Hạnh’s teaching of interbeing points towards a compassion approach, or love approach, in self-other encountering, which goes beyond mere tolerance of differences.

4.2  Toleration and Others “How to live?” is a question that has been at the heart of many philosophical traditions. Due to the social nature of human beings, the question is closely related to another question: “How to live with others?” These ancient questions are facing new challenges in the contemporary world, and require new responses. In her article Education for tolerance: cultural difference and family values, Brenda Almond (2010) raised doubts about an attitude that has often unquestionably been seen as a virtue; namely, tolerance. Almond argued that two major developments had arisen in the Western world over the preceding decade, which – today – continue to make the problem of tolerance increasingly prominent. One development was an expansion in “large-scale movements of population groups whose religious and cultural patterns mark them out from the community they are seeking to join” (p. 132). The second was “the rise of a militant form of secularism, which places itself in deliberate confrontation with all mainstream religions” (p. 132). The first, is responsible for the increasing conflict between immigrants and members of established communities, especially in relation to their different religious beliefs and ways of life, which include “views about sex, relationships, marriage, family and the role of women” (p. 136). The second is indicative of a growing tension between religious people and those who are firmly opposed to “religion in all its forms” (p. 140). These developments that Almond casts light on contribute to the growing heterogeneity in communities. The gap among individuals who live in the same community, in terms of their beliefs, values and ways of life, is increasing. One result is the rising conflict amongst individuals, or within an individual (as we will discuss later), due to differences. The expanding difference, as Almond believes, forces us to re-evaluate the meaning of tolerance – the attitude that is considered to be intrinsically good or instrumentally necessary for a stable and harmonious society. Almond explains: Tolerance is good, discrimination is bad and children should be brought up by their parents and teachers to respect others, especially those who differ from them in religion, race or culture and, also, perhaps more controversially, those whose way of life at a more personal level differs from that of the majority […] Must we approve as well as permit? Must we refrain from judgment? Can we not condemn what we ourselves think is bad? Or is it wrong even to think in terms of bad and good? Is moral neutrality the new virtue? (Almond 2010, pp. 131–2)

Almond’s concern is the space for a critical opinion regarding the values of others in the practice of toleration. Almond shows that the practice of toleration raises problems and these are revealed in her questions: one is about what is included in

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the practice of toleration – is merely permitting tolerance enough, or is approval needed in tolerance – and if so, who are the salient parties whose approval is deemed necessary? Another is the exercising of one’s critical faculty – to what extent should we hold our opinions back, especially the disapproving ones, for example? Samuel Scheffler (2010) gives a detailed account on the different definitions adopted in the enormous literature of tolerance. One main difference is that some thinkers, such as Bernard Wiliams and Thomas Scanlon, argue that disapproval is required in the practice of tolerance, while others adopt a broader definition of it. According to Scheffler, some of the difficulties of toleration can be solved if we take a broader definition of tolerance. A broader definition might allow that a person can be tolerant even when she does not disapprove of a different set of values or way of doing things. And tolerance in this broader sense can also include behaviors such as acceptance, compromise and accommodation. Scheffler is more open to a broader approach to tolerance than Almond. They, however, share the doubt on the refraining space of judgment. Scheffler suggests that toleration does have a limit. And even for people who commit to toleration, it seems to be an unsolvable problem – how can a person be tolerant and, at the same time, remain being critical?

4.3  Toleration for the Minority Group At this point, it is worth noting that tolerance  - when framed within discussions about race, class, gender and religion – is often discussed as an attitude that involves some form of choice; namely, we choose to be tolerant of those who might be different from us. However, it seems that for members of marginalized or non-­ dominant groups, there often exists little choice as to whether to tolerate the rights or behaviors of dominant groups: dominant groups have the kind of privileged status that allows them to exert their identity rather than rely on tolerance from less privileged groups. In Western societies, dominant positions are usually occupied by white, middle-class, males. It is odd to think of people from a minority group as being tolerant; or rather, that such a group has the choice to be tolerant or nontolerant. The task for members from minority groups is usually something else, namely, working out how to be recognized as equal to others; working out how to live within conflicting identities; working out how to deal with discrimination and so forth. This asymmetrical character of toleration was marked by many thinkers, as Scheffler notes. Goethe, for example, said that “to tolerate is to insult” (quoted from Scheffler 2010, p.  315). Goethe concedes a power of authority at work in the practice of toleration. Rainer Forst in 20071 proposes to replace the “permission conception” of toleration with the “respect conception” because of the inequality between those who tolerate and those who are tolerated that is contained in the regime of toleration” (ibid.).

 See Scheffler (2010).

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For the minority groups, instead of the inextricable problem of toleration in relation to morality when the different set of values is encountered, the focus is often somewhere else. It seems that, when facing a conflicting set of values, the minority groups are more likely to experience changes in their ways of being, willingly or unwillingly. There is little room for them to stay merely the way they are, without any challenges, because of their outstanding differences. The reflection on values, beliefs, even self-identity seems to be almost inevitable. Nina Asher (2003) reveals this self-reflexivity when she recalls her experience at university as a member of a minority group: As a woman academic of color and a Third World woman situated in the US academy, I have struggled with the shock, pain, and sense of split-ness of being “academic Self-woman of color Other”. As a new international graduate student in New York City, I first encountered my-Self (or should I say Others encountering me) as a racial minority and learned to recognize myself as a “person of color”. More recently… I have arrived at the construal of my-Self as a [post]colonial hybrid. (pp. 240–1)

Asher sees herself in other people’s eyes, which in turn makes her change the way she sees herself. This, to some extent, happens to each of us. But it seems to be fair to say that the stereotype, when it comes to a minority group, tends to create more challenges for those onto whom it is projected, than when the same happens to a member of the dominant group. Asher describes her experience as being one of changing according to the challenges, however, and as a liberating one (this will be discussed later). The change she makes, Asher describes, is to maintain her own integrity – healing the split within herself. Asher understands the experience as a process of finding her locations, or finding her own voices, when living among the dominant others. The effort, which Asher recognizes in bell hooks’ work, is “to change the way I speak and write, to incorporate in the manner of telling a sense of place, of not just who I am in the present but where I am coming from, the multiple voices within me” (hooks 1990, p. 146; Asher 2003, p. 241). These voices, coming from places including living in the dominant culture, being a part of it, as well as being a cultural/racial other in it, need to be found in order to “maintain integrity” for the self of a member of a minority group. This process of recognizing one’s locations and voices is described by Asher as liberating. It is also described as a process of healing “from the wounds of oppression” (Asher 2003, p. 240). These experiences, we should note, do not represent all of the experiences of members of the minority group. What they do reveal, though, is a kind of circumstance that the marginalized group often find themselves in – the need to change oneself in order to be with others. Asher sees the change she went through as a healing, or a liberating process. It is a process that leads not merely to a state of feeling better about herself, but to a better self. In other words, in encountering others, Asher is forced to reflect and change herself, in the face of different others. This change, then, is taken to be extremely valuable in her becoming a better person. hooks also interprets the unique situation that the marginalized group faces in a positive way. She sees it as a drive for self-improvement.

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There is such perfect union between the spiritual quest for awareness, enlightenment, self-­ realization, and the struggle for oppressed people, colonized people to change our circumstance, to resist—to move from object to subject; much of what has to be restored in us before we can make meaningful organized protest is an integrity of being. (hooks 1990, p. 219; Asher 2003, p. 245)

The struggle of finding integrity in the marginalized self coincides with the pursuits of self-realization. hooks understands her experience of finding integrity through finding voices, with Paolo Freire’s idea conscientização (conscientization). The challenges that the self encounters spur a process of learning. And, according to hooks, this is needed not merely for the marginalized self, but for everyone. What seems to be shown here is an imbalanced degree of willing or unwilling openness (in the sense that there is a change in beliefs, values or ways of life) for members of majority and minority groups, in encountering others. While it is often not a choice for the marginalized self to make, if integrity is to be found, it seems in most occasions to be a less pressing need for the dominant self. The openness, however, is essential for a meaningful transformation, as is being argued for by hooks and Asher. It should be noted, however, that the remark on different degrees of openness for members of different sub-groups in society is not intended to suggest that all marginalized members are open to change, or more so; and all dominant members are not or less so. Rather, by casting light on the asymmetrical challenge to change for the members of different groups, I would like to highlight that the significant element openness in the discourse of tolerance, both in relation to being-­ with-­others and to self-realization, tends to be overlooked.

4.4  Attention As outlined above, the sceptics of the limits of tolerance raise an important moral issue; that is, that an individual should not entirely forego her ability to think critically in order to adhere to principles of respect for diversity. Despite this, it should also be considered that if one holds on to one’s power of critical thinking too tightly, and if one considers such thinking as one’s enacting being-a-human proper, it may be the case that our critical modes of thinking leave little space to genuinely see or encounter difference. As Richard Smith (2013) puts it: “we are quick to identify and demonize what we call relativism, which is often nothing worse than the willingness to suspend judgement, while attending carefully to particular contexts and situations.” (p.  149). As mentioned earlier, this “attending” to contexts which are culturally different from familiar ones, is work that is already often done by members of marginalized groups, willingly or unwillingly. However, this open-­ mindedness, or the willingness to suspend judgement (particularly when we seek to adhere strongly to the practice of critical thinking) is what is often lacking in processes of self-other encountering when carried out by dominant groups. In another passage, Smith further problematizes questions regarding the ways in which we understand the self and others, as well as how this understanding affects

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our formulations of the ethics of such encounters. Smith suggests that we are often mistaken in our presumptions about the possibility of truly knowing other people; each of us – he posits – are not as ready to be known, understood or categorized as we imagine. Smith writes that even though “human beings are creatures who have the capacity for open-mindedness” we instead, too often, rely on defensive modes of thinking and being which too readily follow a “tendency to think of other people as readily understandable” (p. 149). Following on from this, he suggests, is the further possibility that when we merely focus on easily recognizable “external differences […] we repress the disturbing thought that it is not just understanding other people that is a problem  – we are obscure, perhaps unknowable, to ourselves” (p. 149). Therefore, when we are quick to arrive at (critical) judgements, we may be enacting a defensive gesture. The certainty with which we operate when we utilize the language of such external differences, means that we not only fix our other, but also fix ourselves. This is not only in the sense – I would argue – of our rooting our own identity firmly within the language and practices of our chosen critical stance, but also relates to another, more fundamental issue with the possibility for our openness. In fixing our different interlocutors, we limit their opportunities to genuinely speak, and therefore we limit their possibilities to offer us the material to think beyond our fixed current selves. The experience of non-fixedness and, as Smith terms it, obscureness, is itself disturbing, and, as a result, our being genuinely open minded is both difficult and uncomfortable. Not dissimilar from the example of the openness to difference inherent in the position of minority groups that was mentioned above, Smith invites us to consider that “if I, being unfathomable by myself, encounter you, who are equally a mystery to yourself, then the notion of responsibility, or perhaps even of ethics more broadly, needs to be recast”(ibid). To see the characteristic of others as being mysterious is to acknowledge that others are not necessarily persons that we have already known, nor should they be made to fit into our own, current, views of the world. Furthermore, to respond to such a mysterious other requires genuine attention, which can only be achieved within a non-critical attitude; namely, the suspension of judgement. Smith’s discussion casts light on the unintentional closed-mindedness which may often be found in people who consider themselves liberal, and who adopt an approach of tolerance towards the cultural others. Tolerance does not necessarily demand the genuine attention that Smith appeals to. In fact, as discussed above, the tolerance approach often discourages genuine attention to cultural others, especially when it is associated with notions of anti-relativism. The open-mindedness and genuine attention towards others that Smith outlines resonates with the engagement that both Asher and hooks appeal to in contemporary education, especially within multicultural contexts. Asher and hooks  – who both share life experiences which involve being a member of a minority group working as a university teacher in a dominant culture – similarly point toward a lack of genuine engagement in multicultural education. The kind of engagement they want to promote is multifaceted: it includes engagements with emotion, self-reflection, and

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transformation, when learning about cultural others. The engagement that is called for, therefore, applies to members of the dominant cultures as well as those of the marginalized ones. It should lead to changes in one’s responding to the question: “How to live with others?” I acknowledge that the idea of attention that Smith articulates, and engagement in works of Asher and hooks, offer divergent perspectives in self-other encountering, and may even – at first – appear to contradict each other: critical thinking is explicitly called for in hooks’ ideas about engaged pedagogy, in that hooks’ ideas may draw on - and therefore strengthen – modes of thinking that focus on first identifying and differentiating race, class and gender as a means of locating the sources of one’s multifaceted identities and standpoints. However, this location-finding has the ultimate aim of working towards a later – and liberatory – remaking of those categories in order to develop a synthetic perspective that is beyond the binaries of black and white, self and other. Despite the appearance of divergence, then, there is a common appeal emanating from both; that is, that within the loosened and non-­ fixed nature of a mysterious self in flux, resides a disposition of mind that is equally open to not seeing others as fixed, contingent, or limited by our own thinking. Namely, a genuine seeing of others. Both Asher and hooks acknowledge the Vietnamese Buddhist Master Thích Nhất Hạnh as their teacher in developing an engaged pedagogy; among many of Nhất Hạnh’s ideas, interbeing is considered to be particularly influential. In the next section, I will examine the implications of interbeing in self-other encountering, and the ways it points towards a compassion approach, or love approach, in self-other encountering.

4.5  Interbeing The term interbeing was introduced into the contemporary English speaking world by the Zen Master Thích Nhất Hạnh (pronounced as Tik N′yat Hawn). Nhất Hạnh started the teaching of interbeing during the Vietnam War when he was a Buddhist monk living amidst the carnage of everyday conflict. His teaching, therefore, is inseparable from his reflections on his role as a Buddhist monk in unsettled surroundings, and the action that he discerned should be taken. Nhất Hạnh (2008a, b) reflects on this time as follows: The Order of Interbeing was born as a spiritual resistance movement. It’s based completely on the teachings of the Buddha. The First Mindfulness Training  — non-attachment to views, freedom from all ideologies — was a direct answer to the war. Everyone was ready to die and to kill for their beliefs. (p. 34)

Nhất Hạnh’s teaching and thinking fits within the Mahāyāna tradition, and for Nhất Hạnh, Buddhism offers practical wisdom for life: it is as important to take action against social injustice, as it is to search for personal enlightenment. In the Mahāyāna tradition, enlightenment or Buddhahood is sought via the path of the Bodhisattva, whose primary goal is to “end the suffering […] of all sentient beings”

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(Jones 2004, p. 194). The specific context of Nhất Hạnh’s life and practice helps elucidate his emphasis on engaged Buddhism: his life experience in the Vietnamese war called for direct action, and therefore his practice is – perhaps understandably more rooted in action than other more esoteric forms of Buddhist practice. Nhất Hạnh’s teaching is renowned for illustrating the Buddha’s sayings in modern and easily accessible language (Scheid 2016); interbeing is emphasized as a key idea in Nhất Hạnh’s teaching, although – according to Nhất Hạnh – the idea might also be thought of as being a central aspect of the Buddha’s teaching. One of the very first things the Buddha said after attaining enlightenment, Nhất Hạnh (1998) tells us, was: “I have seen deeply that nothing can be by itself alone, that everything has to inter-be with everything else” (p. 6). The Buddha, upon enlightenment, saw the characteristic of the existence of all things as inter-being. Nhất Hạnh (1998) demonstrates what interbeing is with the following example: “if we look into this sheet of paper deeply, we can see the sunshine in it” (p. 3). A piece of paper has sunshine in it, in the sense that the sunshine is essential for the growth of the tree from which the paper is made. In the same way, the rain, soil, air, and the tree-cutter are all a part of the paper too. To say that these elements are all a part of the paper is to say that their existence is constitutive of the existence of the paper. Without their singular existence, there would be no existence for the paper: the elements make the existence of the paper possible. Therefore, these elements are part of the paper, even though they all – tree, rain, and soil etc., and the paper – could otherwise be thought of and analyzed as being separate, and – as a result – allocated into different categories. The various objects – paper, tree, and rain – in this sense, inter-are: their beings come to exist, only in so far as there is the existence of other objects. Nhất Hạnh (1991) further explains this with the example of a flower and garbage. A flower, Nhất Hạnh says, turns into garbage in a few days or weeks. The same item manifests as a “flower” at one time, and as “garbage” at another time. Similar to the paper example, the connectedness between two seemingly different items is pointed out, with the perspective of interbeing. What is also revealed in this example is the associated reactions to these items. The flower smells good and fresh. A feeling of joy may be associated when we are in touch with the flower; garbage smells rotten and horrible. A feeling of disgust may be associated with it. Nhất Hạnh’s (1998) teaching of interbeing is meant to point out the connectedness between things that is mostly not seen, especially for most of us in the contemporary world who have the tendency to divide reality into components. In ancient Buddhism, the connectedness between things is elaborated largely in terms of the idea of pratītyasamutpāda (Sanskrit: pratītyasamutpāda; Pali: paṭiccasamuppāda), which means dependent arising, or dependent origination. Pratītyasamutpāda is also known as the principle of cause and effect. “In the Visuddhimagga (Path of Purification) of the Theravada School”, for example, “Buddhaghosa listed twenty-­ four kinds of ‘conditions’” for something to arise - the conditions that are “necessary and sufficient” for the arising of the thing. The Buddha explained pratītyasamutpāda in terms of the Twelve Links of Dependent Origination. Twelve elements, each in turn giving rise to the next, form a cycle that elucidates the rise of all phenomena. Each element is both an effect and a cause and each link entails all other links.

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Causes and conditions give rise to the existence of all things and phenomena. The existence of the paper, in Nhất Hạnh’s example, relies on the existence of tree, sunshine, rain and lots of other things. These things are the causes and conditions of the paper’s existence. The flower also relies on causes and conditions for it to grow. The sunshine, water and soil make it possible for the seed to grow into a flower. As the growth continues, the flower withers, and the flower gradually ceases to be the flower and turns into something else. One of the earliest texts of record of the Buddha’s expressions pratītyasamutpāda is (Saṃyukta Āgama): When this is, that is; This arising, that arises. When this is not, that is not; This ceasing, that ceases.

The principle of Cause and Effect provides an account of reality in which the arising, or birth, of everything depends on other things. Things come to manifest when the conditions allow; and their manifestation changes in form when conditions change. Nhất Hạnh (1998) says: “nothing has a separate existence or a separate self.” (p. 133) In this sense, the link between pratītyasamutpāda, and one of the Three Dharma Seals – non-self (anātman) – becomes apparent. Non-self, as well as another related principle emptiness, are both illustrated with the idea of interbeing by Nhất Hạnh. Emptiness, Nhất Hạnh (1998) explains, “always means empty of something. A cup is empty of water. A bowl is empty of soup. We are empty of a separate, independent self. We cannot be by ourselves alone. We can only inter-be.” (p.  146) Nhất Hạnh’s teaching on non-self and emptiness is mostly affirmative. It comes from a different perspective from those with an emphasis on negation, which is also found in many Buddhist teachings. One example is as following: According to the teaching of the Buddha, the idea of self is an imaginary, false belief which has no corresponding reality, and it produces harmful thoughts of ‘me’ and ‘mine’, selfish desire, craving, attachment, hatred, ill-will, conceit, pride, egotism, and other defilements, impurities and problems. It is the source of all the troubles in the world from personal conflicts to wars between nations. In short, to this false view can be traced all the evil in the world. (Rahula 1974, p. 51)

Teaching of this kind can be found numerously. Jay Garfield (2015) explains, “this denial of existence [of the self] does not amount to a denial that persons exist at some level of description. It permits us to say that a person exists conventionally, even if a self […] does not exist in any sense” (p. 102). This is affirmed by the two kinds of truth in Buddhism. As Nhất Hạnh (2009) writes: According to Buddhism, there are two kinds of truth, relative or worldly truth (samvriti satya) and absolute truth (paramartha satya). We enter the door of practice through relative truth. We recognize the presence of happiness and the presence of suffering, and we try to go in the direction of increased happiness. Every day we go a little further in that direction, and one day we realize that suffering and happiness are “not two.” (p. 121)

On the level of worldly truth, happiness and suffering are different emotional states; however, at the level of absolute truth, it instead becomes clear that these two

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elements are one, and not different. They probably cease to exist altogether as there are no selves left to feel pain or happiness. In other words, Nhất Hạnh’s teaching of non-self and emptiness, resides mostly within the realm of being (existence). On the level of worldly truth, the existence of the person, and the articulation of existence (for example, in terms of self-identity) are not all-together to be denied. The notion of self is not avoided or negated, but, rather, it is to be challenged. From different perspectives, what both the self and others means, and consequently the boundaries between these two, may seem very different. This is the door of relative truth through which we initiate our practice. Therefore, we should not discern our way towards nihilistic views of the person’s existence if the Buddha’s teaching is genuinely to be followed. A lot of Nhất Hạnh’s teaching focuses on the level of worldly truth. That is, the main aim for Nhất Hạnh’s expressions of interbeing, non-self, and emptiness, is not to deny the existence of the individual self and others, but is instead to focus on the connectedness between them. Don’t get caught in theories or ideas, such as saying that suffering is an illusion or that we have to “transcend” both suffering and joy. Just stay in touch with what is actually going on, and you will touch the true nature of suffering and the true nature of joy. When you have a headache, it would not be correct to call your headache illusory. To help it go away, you have to acknowledge its existence and understand its causes (Nhất Hạnh 1998, p. 121-2).

In the contemporary Western world, where Nhất Hạnh’s teaching mostly takes place, to deal with the firm sense of self and the problems it brings is not to deny it right away, but to examine the reality in which it arises. Nhất Hạnh (1998) tells us that the teaching of emptiness leads to the first door of liberation. Nhất Hạnh (1992) illustrates: We are imprisoned in our small selves, thinking only of some comfortable conditions for this small self, while we destroy our large self. If we want to change the situation, we must begin by being our true selves. (p. 164)

To hold a view of a self leads to the prison – what the self is, what the self wants, what are the comfortable conditions for the self to be in. The teaching allows us to see the restrictions, which are often so embedded in our thinking and whose existence is something we are often not aware of. To acknowledge these restrictions is to begin to break free from these restrictions. The restrictions that come with the sense of ego and the freedom that comes from realizing its existence is also recognized by Richard Smith (2013), when he expresses: “resisting the demands of our selfish, nagging egos leads to an altogether different and heightened sense of reality, and the more we achieve that, the more our egoism dwindles and ceases to haunt us” (p. 153). Nhất Hạnh inherits the teaching of emptiness of the second century Master Nāgārjuna (c.150 – c.250). Ewing Chinn (2001), in the similar sense, suggests that “the idea of ‘emptiness’”, in the context of Nāgārjuna’s teaching, to some extent, should be understood “as a tool to free us from a picture that has held us captive (to borrow a phrase from Wittgenstein), to release us from the entrapment of a deviant and perverse theory of meaning” (p. 67).

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To free ourselves from conceptualization – the conceptualization of self and others  – is, we can assume, the main aim of Nhất Hạnh’s teaching of interbeing. Liberation, through breaking free from conceptualization, leads a person towards an open disposition, and to be in touch with things in a genuine way. The liberating experience is described by the Japanese Zen Master Dōgen Zenji 道元禪師 (1200–1253), in a paradoxical form of expression: To study the Buddha Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away. No trace of enlightenment remains, and this no-trace continues endlessly. (Dōgen 2000, p. 35)

4.6  Being-in-the-World Nhất Hạnh’s teaching of interbeing aims at liberation – to release a restricted idea of the self. The releasing does not lead to a nihilist view that nothing exists, or nothing matters; but rather, it leads to a state of mind (or disposition), in which one is ready to see what is in one’s surroundings. Being in this state of mind causes a genuine attention to things, and therefore makes meaningful engagements with them possible. In the Mahāyāna tradition, pratītyasamutpāda brings wisdom, and wisdom brings compassion. Nhất Hạnh (1991) displays an example of seeing with wisdom: “when you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don’t blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or less sun” (p. 78). When encountering others, if you can see the problematic way an other behaves as a result of myriad causes and conditions, you will not blame the other for it, even if you think they were wrong. And if you see them suffer because of their problematic ways of behaving, you would want to help them. Here, the question of what is morally acceptable or not in one’s own value system comes secondary; the concern, when the contexts and suffering are brought into view, is instead, how do I ease the suffering? The advocates for the end of tolerance may worry that morality would collapse if we do not exercise our rationality, and therefore, social justice would be in danger. However, the compassionate acts and exercises with wisdom are capable of bringing changes. hooks (1996), who developed an engaged pedagogy following Thích Nhất Hạnh’s teaching, believes that “love transforms” (p. 287). hooks recognizes love as the important element in whether the movements towards social justice are successful. Compassion arises with prolonged contact with sufferings of others (Nhất Hạnh 2001). But to be able to see the sufferings of others, requires wisdom. Patricia Whang (2012) points out that “one is unlikely to develop empathy or compassion towards those who remain little more than embodiments of stereotypes or members of groups that are consistently portrayed negatively” (p.  47). Most of us hold unconscious prejudices. Learning about, and learning to see, engage with and pay

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attention to different others, therefore, is a crucial step if we are to increase our ability to genuinely encounter difference. It is important, nevertheless, to heed the concern of Vaishali Mamgain (2010), when she rehearses the words of G. Grewal, a teacher of postcolonial literature: “it is good to empower people about differences in ways of being and interpretation, but if at the end of the day students still leave with a strong sense of ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ then it may not be so helpful” (pp. 32–33).

References Almond, B. (2010). Education for tolerance: Cultural difference and family values. Journal of Moral Education, 39(2), 131–143. Asher, N. (2003). Engaging difference: Towards a pedagogy of interbeing. Teaching Education, 14(3), 235–247. Chinn, E. (2001). Nāgārjuna’s fundamental doctrine of pratītyasamutpāda. Philosophy East and West, 51(1), 54–72. Dōgen. (2000). Enlightenment Unfolds: the Essential Teachings of Zen Master Dōgen (K. Tanahashi, Ed.). Boston: Shambhala Publications. Garfield, J. (2015). Engaging Buddhism: Why it matters to philosophy. New  York: Oxford University Press. hooks, B. (1996). Contemplation and transformation. In M.  DRESSER (Ed.), Buddhist women on the edge: Contemporary perspectives from the Western frontier (pp. 287–292). Berkeley: North Atlantic. Jones, R.  H. (2004). Mysticism and morality: A new look at old questions. Maryland: Lexington Books. Mamgain, V. (2010). Ethical consciousness in the classroom: How Buddhist practices can help develop empathy and compassion. Journal of Transformative Education, 8(1), 22–41. Rahula, W. (1974). What the Buddha taught. New York: Grove Press. Scheffler, S. (2010). Equality and tradition: Questions of value in moral and political theory. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press. Scheid, D. P. (2016). The cosmic common good: Religious grounds for ecological ethics. Oxford/ New York: Oxford University Press. Smith, R. (2013). The theology of education to come. In P.  Smeyers & M.  Depaepe (Eds.), Educational research: The attraction of psychology (pp. 147–157). Dordrecht: Springer. Thích Nhất Hạnh. (1991). Peace is every step: The path of mindfulness in everyday life. New York: Bantam. Thích Nhất Hạnh. (1992). The sun, my heart. London: Rider. Thích Nhất Hạnh. (1998). The heart of the Buddha’s teaching. London: Rider. Thích Nhất Hạnh. (2001). Anger: Wisdom for cooling the flames. London: Rider. Thích Nhất Hạnh. (2008a). The world we have: A Buddhist approach to peace and ecology. Berkeley: Parallax Press. Thích Nhất Hạnh. (2008b). The miracle of mindfulness: An introduction to the practice of meditation. London: Rider. Thích Nhất Hạnh. (2009). The heart of understanding: Commentaries on the Prajnaparamita heart sutra. Berkeley: Parallax Press. Whang, P.  A. (2012). Section 2: Introduction  – The personal is political. In L.  G. Denti & P. A. Whang (Eds.), Rattling chains – Exploring social justice in education. Rotterdam: Sense Publishes.

Chapter 5

Cultivation Through Asian Form-Based Martial Arts Pedagogy George Jennings, Simon Dodd, and David Brown

5.1  Introduction In this chapter, we argue that ‘forms’ (variously known as poomse, hyeong (형, 품 새 (pre 1987) 품새 (post 1987), 틀), patterns, kata (型 or 形), formas or tàolù (套 路)), constitute a particular and important type of pedagogy common among the traditional Asian martial arts (and their global derivatives), which are used as powerful body ‘pedagogics’ (Shilling 2017) for self- and cultural cultivation. Drawing on the work of Yuasa (1987, 1993), we provide an intercultural illustration of this pedagogic and philosophical practice with reference to three martial art settings: Japanese budō (武道) -based arts, Chinese tàijíquán (太極拳) and Mexican xilam. Despite their differences in technique, language and culture, they all focus a great deal of class and personal training time to the learning, practice and refinement of forms (in Japanese as kata, in Mandarin as tàolù and in Spanish as formas). While mindful of oversimplifying potentially deeper meanings when translating the East Asian terms, for the purposes of clarity, we use the generic English word ‘forms’ as an umbrella term to focus on the shared body pedagogic strategy used in these arts: the form-­based martial arts pedagogy as a unique way to develop bodymind dispositions, personal and cultural development. The examples are based on our respective research and practice of: Japanese budō (Dodd and Brown 2016), Chinese tàijíquán (Brown 2016; Brown et al. 2009, 2014) and Mexican xilam (Jennings 2015, 2016, 2018). Each art makes extensive use of form-based training and draws on the key idea of the efficacy of using form as pedagogy, and, as a consequence, each are included to illustrate different things. Japanese budō based arts are exemplars of this G. Jennings (*) · D. Brown Cardiff Metropolitan University, Cardiff, UK e-mail: [email protected] S. Dodd Independent Researcher, Cardiff, UK © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 D. Lewin, K. Kenklies (eds.), East Asian Pedagogies, Contemporary Philosophies and Theories in Education 15, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45673-3_5

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kind of pedagogy in a highly evolved state, tàijíquán predates budō -based arts and serves as an archetype of the use of forms as a self-cultivating body pedagogic, while xilam is a late twentieth-century art that has imported this pedagogy for its own cultivation purposes. In what follows, we firstly identify key elements of Asian form-based martial arts pedagogy through the ideas of the contemporary philosopher Yuasa, who framed ideas of self-cultivation with recent scholarship applied to specific traditional formulaic pedagogies. We also align this with Mellor and Shilling’s (2007) notion of ‘body pedagogics’. With this framework in mind, next, we examine three specific but different approaches to the martial arts that value the use of systematically taught, formulaic sequences in their curricula: Japanese budō, Chinese tàijíquán and Mexican xilam. As principally lifelong, non-sporting and philosophically inclined martial arts systems (and schools), these three exemplars enable us to focus on how each art utilises forms for the purposes of self and cultural cultivation. In order to maintain the focus of this discussion we avoid detailed historical analyses of these arts and instead focus on their typical use of forms. We conclude with some brief reflections on the utility of forms as pedagogy and highlight some possible future directions for research in this area.

5.2  Self-Cultivation, Form and Creativity Shilling and Mellor (2007, p. 533) developed the notion of body pedagogics, which they argue: refers to the central means through which a culture seeks to transmit its main corporeal techniques, skills, dispositions and beliefs, the experiences typically associated with acquiring these attributes, and the actual embodied changes resulting from this process.

The idea of body pedagogics challenges classical Western binaries of mind/body, physicality and intellectuality. For us, the use of forms in Asian martial arts provides an exemplar of a body pedagogic (see also Farrer and Whalen-Bridge 2011) and its emergence as a learning tool goes beyond the martial arts and is something scholars of educational processes might learn from. As Ozawa-de Silva (2002) points out, contemporary Japanese thinkers such as Yasuo Yuasa provide very useful models in order to understand the body in education and society through a sustained interdisciplinary approach. In The Body: Towards an Eastern Mind-Body Theory (1987), Yuasa provides an introduction to general Eastern models of the mind-body relationship. Contrasting this with the common hierarchical relationships between the mind and body in many Western philosophical approaches, Yuasa drew on the meditations from Asian sages, monks and also from phenomenology and depth psychology in an interdisciplinary effort to understand not what the relationship between the mind and body is (as a fixed, universal connection) but what it can be (as an achievable relationship). As Nagatomo (2016) notes, this is a theory of embodiment seen in recent advancements in interdisciplinary fields interested in embodied

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knowledge that focuses on what bodies can do in exceptional ways through training and practice (e.g. Spatz 2015). From this perspective, the mind is not seen as superior or innately separate to the body. Rather, Yuasa’s work reveals a process of bodymind unification, enacted and realised through specific pedagogical practices such as seated meditation and meditation-in-motion. He postulated these include the traditionalist Asian martial arts that follow a certain path or way (the -dō in Aikidō (合 気道), Jūdō (柔道), Karate-dō (空手) in the Japanese arts), and in particular, Chinese tàijíquán (太極拳). However, the exact pedagogical dimensions of these arts are not explored by Yuasa in detail. Later, Yuasa (1993) continued this interdisciplinary exploration to focus on bodymind unification practices and their relationship to the development of ki/qi energy. He extended his analysis of masters of seated meditation to qigong practices and the work of exceptional individuals who had devoted decades of their lives to such practices. This can be connected to the theme of lifelong learning and potential mastery of a self-cultivating art in to the concept of shugyō (修行): life struggle, in which there is a constant striving towards excellence despite material hardship. The examples of ascetic practices of noted Zen monks like Kukai and the seemingly ‘paranormal’ activities of qigong masters all are intended to exemplify not what the body or mind is, but what the bodymind – the unification of these elements of a human life – can be. Many Asian form-based martial arts are commonly practised into deep old age, which further highlights how these martial arts can act as vehicles for self-­cultivation by constantly addressing the basics of one’s art through its stances, steps and strikes that unify consciousness and movement through breath, emotion, metaphor and visualization with somatic feeling. Some Japanese philosophers such as D.T. Suzuki (1959) explicitly emphasised this potential for the budō-focused martial arts. This shifts focus onto one end goal of self-actualisation, but it might deter some people who pursue martial arts for other reasons such as self-defence, aesthetics, community and strength. Yuasa’s conception of bodymind unification connects strongly with notions of shu-ha-ri (守破離) (Minamoto 1992) (more on this below). Taken together, these ideas enable us to turn our attention to how the basic steps and stances of a martial art that constitute the building blocks of form-based martial arts pedagogies are assembled to enhance self and cultural cultivation (character, values, emotions, reactions, mind-body dispositions and approach to somatic spirituality) as well as the fundamental principles of self-defence, healthy body mechanics and lifelong fitness. Each of these are of course also cultural as self-cultivation never takes place in a cultural vacuum. As Rosenbaum’s (2004) work on kata, highlights, “the circumstances, cultural values and ethics that give rise to a combative system reach to its very core” (p. xiv) and that “the practice of combative techniques in pre-arranged forms is a methodology that has been used by many cultures throughout history” (p. xvi). He highlights this use in ancient Roman and Greek civilisations and questions why the Roman soldier, endlessly drilling and honing form with scutum and gladius, should be considered any different to modern Eastern martial artists with their explicitly named and codified kata. Following Bertrand Russell, Rosenbaum interprets that “by

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creating form man [sic] is not giving birth to something new, for the elements already exist; he [sic] instead is merely giving substance and shape to an experience where there was none” (p. 147) and as a result, form-based pedagogy “gave form to the chaos of combat by bringing its various elements of both physical and non-­ physical nature together” (p. 148). However, despite the global prevalence of form-based learning in martial arts history, a notable distinction with Eastern form pedagogy emerges around the focus on creativity and mastery which are interpreted differently in traditional Eastern cultures, as Dodd and Brown (2016) explain: In Western societies and education, creativity is typically discussed in terms of novelty, invention, individual accomplishment, and emphasises future direction (Rudowicz 2004). Conversely, Eastern society values reinterpretation, renovation, adaptation, modification, harmony with nature, and a healthy respect for the past (Matsunobu 2011, p. 40).

We next turn to address these elements with reference to how forms are used in specific arts.

5.3  Teaching Budō Arts Through Kata The form-based pedagogy conveyed through the idea of kata is pervasive throughout Japanese culture, most commonly recognised in the modern budō martial arts, but also seen in cultural practices and arts such as the tea ceremony (sadō 茶道), kabuki (歌舞伎) and noh (能) theatre, and the Shinichi Suzuki violin method (Peak 1998). Where we previously drew attention to Yuasa’s exploration of meditation as a pedagogy for self-cultivation, Noguchi (2004, p.  20) went so far as to suggest seiza (正座 or 正坐), Japanese formal sitting, could be considered a “kata for receiving”, permitting an individual to enter “a true state of receptivity.” This concept of reaching a state to truly receive and internalise understanding becomes common place within kata, no matter the individual discipline, suggesting kata is indicative of a societal and culturally valued strategy of learning, evidenced by the prominent place it occupies in Japanese history and the emphasis often placed upon it for learning of an art form (Rafolt 2014). In common parlance, kata is simply translated as ‘form’. It is sometimes viewed as mere tradition and unnecessarily ritualistic, and with these perceptions kata’s deeper meaning becomes lost in translation. Kata represents a meaningful form, or a form with purpose, as opposed to the alternative, katachi, an empty form. As part of a pedagogy, kata is a somatic method of embodied learning based on imitation, repetition and mastery of a given form of artistry (Matsunobu 2011) that Yuasa (1987, p. 105) referred to as a “discipline for shaping one’s body into a form”; the form being the “structures of art, patterns of artistic and social behaviours, and moral and ethical values” (Matsunobu 2007, pp. 47–48). This reflects the assertions of the founder of shōtōkan (松濤館) karatedō, Gichin Funakoshi 船越 義珍, who considered kata as the principle method of learning, even proclaiming “the purpose

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of learning kata is not just for the sake of learning them but for the tempering and disciplining of oneself” (Funakoshi 1973, p. 9). With this interpretation, kata can be identified as a pedagogy designed to embody the philosophies of a given art form through repetitive practice, analysis (bunkai分解) and application (ōyō 応用) of individual components of the kata; a pedagogy of self- and cultural cultivation. Kata practice is wedded to the concept of shu-ha-ri (Minamoto 1992) which, in simple terms, represents a do-think-create approach to learning; ‘do’ the kata as is and respect the past, ‘think’ about why we do what is in the kata, ‘create’ the kata in the way your understanding has shaped it. This relates back to the concept of shoshin (初心), the ‘beginners mind’ (Rosch 2008), where a practitioner should always return to shu (do) with an open mind. Where a Roman soldier or a modern soldier may hone their skills to a high standard and seek to keep them at that level, a kata practitioner will, with repetition and using shu-ha-ri, enter a continual cycle of rediscovery of the entire basis of a form and its components and adapt, or create anew, the form. This is known in Japanese as hanare-waza (exceeding artistry). Due to the pervasiveness of kata across a broad range of Japanese disciplines, and owing to the individuality of experience kata fosters, empirical research on the subject has covered a range of topics, from the martial arts to music, with views on kata expressed “in intercultural contexts from such perspectives as embodiment theory (Powell 2012), spirit bonding and liberation (Kato 2004; Matsunobu 2011), the source of authenticity (Keister 2004), non-verbal pedagogy (Ikuta 1987), and the form-content dualism (Yano 2002)” (see Matsunobu 2016, p.  139) and as a culturally-valued, spiritual pedagogy (Dodd and Brown 2016). The popular modern Japanese form-based martial arts created in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century BCE are collectively known as budō, or ‘martial ways’, while ‘martial arts’ is in fact the translation of bujutsu (武​術). Significantly, this is also reflected by the martial schools themselves where each modern system is a reinvention or reimagining of a warrior society. Nomenclature reflects this with daitō-ryū aiki-jūjutsu (大東流 合気柔術), jūjutsu (柔術), kenjutsu (剣術) and kyūjutsu (弓術) becoming aikidō (合気道), jūdō (柔道), kendō (剣道) and kyūdō (弓道) respectively (jūjutsu still exists, but is considerably different from its original mould). This transformation is important for the understanding of the use of modern kata as a teaching method, as the philosophy of the budō arts differs somewhat from their older counterparts and is reflected in the kata practice. The historical socio-­cultural and socio-political development that took place to change from jutsu to dō emerged from necessity to keep these systems relevant and acceptable to the changing values of modern societies; for more detail, see Dodd and Brown (2016). In short, bujutsu could be considered the art of fighting for battlefield survival, a ‘kill or be killed’ mentality, where budō is a practice for life long selfcultivation, peace, and mastery of the self (Deshimaru 1982; Molle 2010; Yokota 2010). Draeger (1973–1974, cited in Green and Svinth 2010, p. 390) acknowledges the philosophical shift of jutsu to dō where they state “the –jutsu systems primarily emphasize combat, followed by discipline, and lastly, morals, whereas the dō systems are chiefly concerned with morals, followed by discipline and aesthetic form”.

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Kata should, therefore, reflect this altered purpose. Today, karatedō consists of between 8 and 80 solo performance kata (depending on school of karatedō). Bolelli (2008) refers to these as ‘oracular messages’ to enable an embodied performance and an internalization of spirit. These kata have names that indicate the type of energy or mindset a practitioner should have when performing, such as bassai-dai (to storm a fortress) or enpi (flying swallow); trying to storm a castle with the mindset of swallow in flight should both look and feel wrong. The central tenants for a karateka (exponent of karate) to aspire to in an almost classical, romanticised version of the chivalric warrior as was becoming common with the reinvented concept of bushidō (武士道) during the early twentieth century (Benesch 2014). Accompanying this clear transformation of philosophy, the founder of modern shōtōkan karatedō, Funakoshi, placed increased importance on learning more kata to first gain a breadth of knowledge. In comparison to his own experience under his teacher, Azato: I would practice a kata (“formal exercise”) time and again week after week, sometimes month after month, until I had mastered it to my teacher’s satisfaction. This constant repetition of a single kata was gruelling, often exasperating and on occasion humiliating. More than once I had to lick the dust on the floor of the dojo or in the Azato backyard. But practice was strict, and I was never permitted to move onto another kata until Azato was convinced that I had satisfactorily understood the one I had been working on. (Funakoshi 1975, p. 6)

Secondly, he would consistently extol the virtues of kata training over sparring practice throughout his life (Funakoshi 1973, 1975, 1988). Finally, many techniques and even kata names were altered from the original Okinawan roots as he introduced karatedō to mainland Japan to be more appealing and fit a long-term healthy lifestyle model. What we observe from this is how kata influenced Funakoshi’s philosophy and development, and how in reshaping the kata throughout his lifetime, he came to use it as pedagogy to pass on his own philosophy to new generations. The significance of this cycle cannot be understated as it continues in the budō martial arts today. By learning through kata we imitate and honour the past masters (shu); through repetition and disassembly we come to appreciate the purpose for which they were created and learn more about the creator and perhaps embody some of their characteristics (ha); by changing the kata to suit us we introduce our individual philosophies to the mix (ri). This process should occur frequently over a lifetime until kata becomes reflective of the person performing at that moment in time, and their students take the development forward for future generations as they continue to acknowledge their predecessors and ‘break the mould’ (katayaburi) in an evolving legacy: white belts and black belts practicing the same kata together within the dōjō to develop themselves, and possibly even the art in question, through an internal ideal of creativity. The above can be considered an ‘ideal’ concept of form-based martial arts pedagogy, and while many still follow this approach (often unknowingly) a decline in kata practice, or a loss of kata meaning, as a consequence of the increased sportification of many of these budō martial arts is a common topic among martial artists and academics. This sportification has led to a greater focus on competitive and point-based combat focused on measurable results rather than the internal process

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of bodymind development. A further, and not unrelated, area of concern is in the loss that occurs with globalisation of budō martial arts where the concept of kata does not fit, or is not common, in alternative socio-cultural settings.

5.4  Tàijíquán tàolù as Meditative Movement Practice There is no one tàijíquán (太極拳) (pinyin spelling)/tai chi chuan (Wage-Giles spelling) (in Mandarin dialect, literally pronounced tie jee tchwanne), but rather many styles each derived from five initial ‘families’ whose family name is adopted as the style name. These are commonly acknowledged as Chen (Chen Wangting 陳 王廷/陈王廷 1580–1660), Yang (Yang Luchan 楊露禪/杨露禅 1799–1872), Wu Hao (Wu Yuxiang 武禹襄 1812–1880), Wu (Wu Quanyou 吳全佑/吴全佑 1834–1902) and Sun (Sun Lutang 孫祿堂/孙禄堂 1861–1932). Today, these styles have proliferated widely and there are many more sub-styles, although each of these tend to follow a lineage back to one of these core five styles or indeed a blend of them. However, what all styles of tàijíquán have in common is the central presence of tàolù (套路) forms  – incorporating nèigōng (內功) (breathing exercises) and qìgōng (氣功) (qi development exercises and martial techniques). Moreover, and in contrast to many other martial arts, it is fair to claim that tàolù have become the centrepiece of tàijíquán practice with the other core practices such as tuī shǒu (推 手 – a partnered exercise referred to as pushing hands) and sànshǒu (散手 – sparring) increasingly less extensively, frequently and expertly practiced in Western contexts (Ryan 2008). Indeed, for many practitioners and observers, tàijíquán is a collection of forms. There are many tàolù in tàijíquán, at least 100 solo unarmed forms and over 35 weapons forms across the different mainstream styles alone. Nevertheless, while these forms range from being subtly to radically distinctive in terms of choreography and content across the styles, they share some important common principles. In order to better explain these forms, and the pedagogy that informs them, it is important to develop a little the meanings of the term tàijíquán and how these meanings are reconstructed in the practice of tàolù. Taiji (太極) is adopted into Taoist religio-spiritual philosophy and tàijíquán is seen as a Taoist martial art. The similarities in name are not coincidental. Tai ji/t’ai chi is often literally translated as supreme ultimate (literally translated and used alone, the word tai (太) means supreme and Chinese character ji (極 means ultimate), the character quan (拳) translates as fist or boxing – giving the idea of supreme/grand/ beginning ultimate fist/boxing. However, this fails to convey the figurative meaning embedded in the term taiji which significantly predates tàijíquán and even Taoism. Taiji as ‘supreme ultimate’ is referred to in the ninth century BCE text I Ching (易經). Here the idea of ‘supreme ultimate’ or ‘supreme polarity’ is a cosmological concept referring to the idea of a cosmological state of universal unity or oneness out of which duality arises – a duality articulated through the concepts of yīnyáng, better known in the West as yin and yang (陰陽). This cosmology is represented by the globally known

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symbol of the taijitu (太極圖, the “yīnyáng” symbol) which is purposefully incorporated into the symbolism of most tàijíquán schools. Taoism is, as Schipper (1993, p. 139) interpreted, a “‘cosmologization’ of the individual,” a pursuit of the restoration of this oneness with the universe. Therefore, as Brown (2016, p. 320) notes, “Taoism’s cosmology and explanatory framework via the concepts of void, balance, qi energy and the yin-yang interplay are not retrospective interpretations of tàijíquán, rather, they are foundational principles around which this system of movement, was, and still is, interpreted and practiced.” This connection with taiji philosophy is apparent from Master Wong Chu Yua’s description of tàijíquán’s appropriation of the universal taiji: T’ai Chi is born out of infinity. It is the origin of the positive and the negative. When T’ai Chi is in motion, the positive and the negative separate; when T’ai Chi stops the positive and the negative integrate. (Wong Chu Yua, cited in Liao 2011, p. 116).

Tàijíquán’s tàolù are seen as meditative movement practices (Liao 2011, p. 65) (as well as martial practices); these transformative practices aim at re-balancing yīnyáng through movement forms via which a non-dualistic void or emptiness (wu) may be returned to: The Void, the state of empty, clear mindedness, remains both the goal and the source of practice. We don’t achieve the Void. We “return” to it. The Void is your original mind. An inner purity that has never been clouded by concepts and images. (Cohen 1997, p. 46).

This notion of wu stresses that in all intended learning in this martial art, self and ego are forgotten as complete immersion into the unification of the body’s energies of the movements in the form is experientially foregrounded. The heart of Chan/Zen Buddhist and Taoist belief practices regarding the significance of aligning with a cosmic reality give rise to the non-dualistic pedagogies at the heart of contemporary karatedō kata and tàijíquán taolu. In tàijíquán, these meditative movement practices are akin to sensual pedagogies that are subjected to holistic natural metaphors which aid practitioner de-­ identification and intensify the sensitivity towards unifying mind and body experience, as Liao (2011, p. 93) exemplifies: “In long form your body should move like the rhythmic flow of water on a river or like the rolling waves of the ocean.” Taoism has made consistent use of flowing water metaphors since Lao Tze’s Dàodé Jīng (道德經) (also often referred to as Dao De Jing or Tao Te Ching). In tàijíquán, such metaphors are used as pedagogic devices to enhance the movement experience; there are also many others from the natural and spiritual worlds. For example, in the Chen style tàijíquán ‘old frame’ form lǎo jià yī lù (老架一路), all techniques carry names, some of which are descriptive of the movement such ‘moving diagonally/ diagonal flying’ or ‘brush knee’ while others are figurative such as ‘white crane spreads its wings’ or ‘green dragon out of water’, ‘embrace head and push mountain’ and ‘cloud hands.’ Finally, others carry spiritual metaphors such as the first sequence which is often known as ‘stepping to wújí’ and ‘Buddha warrior pounds mortar.’ Each of these image- and metaphor-based terms depict aspects of the mind-­ body quality of the movement. This encourages practitioners to unify body and

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mind in a mimetic appropriation of moving like cranes, tigers, dragons or water and clouds. Of course, the movement ‘stepping to wújí’ carries special meaning in this classic meditative form as it makes direct reference to a cosmological act of ‘stepping out to the limitless/the ultimate of Nothingness (無極 - wújí)’. These metaphors are combined with other principles such as song (松  - loosening), jing (靜 - mental quietness); the idea of balancing concepts of mind through such as xīn (信 - “feelings” or heart-mind) yi (意 - intentional/wise mind); and finally, but not exhaustively, ideas like the much cited extraction from Yang Cheng Fu’s (see Weiming, [1925] 2012) adage: Let the yi (意 intention) lead the qi (氣 energy) (or as is often cited: where the yi goes, the qi will flow). The example of Taoism and tàijíquán is highlighted in Mellor and Shilling’s (2007, p.  539) notion of body pedagogics and their words offer a fitting way to close this section: Taoist exercises related to posture, breathing and movement exert on physiological processes (there is growing scientific evidence that tai chi chuan, for example, can have significant effects on blood pressure, respiration, balance and affect control); processes that can shape the somatic dispositions with which one relates to the social and natural environment. There is a stilling of disruptive passions in the Taoist experience of being, as well as an absence of the egoism that Durkheim (1952 [1897], 1984 [1893]) viewed as an increasing problem in fast growing rationalised economies bereft of appropriate moral structures. There is also a redirection of existential focus away from an efficient and productive doing and towards achieving an alignment with one’s surroundings. […] The result or outcome of this experience of being associated with Taoist body pedagogics is that the embodied subject is turned not into an instrumental object, a standing reserve for efficiency, but exists in a state of immanence with respect to the environment.

The idea of the body pedagogics of movement forms is further exemplified in the Mexican art of xilam which is included here to illustrate the influence of Asian martial arts’ use of forms on emerging western martial arts. We turn to this next.

5.5  Learning Xilam with Animal formas The inclusion of a Mexican martial art in a book on Asian philosophy and pedagogy might puzzle some readers. However, it is important to point out that Asian martial arts were used as a body pedagogic template for the creation of new Mexican martial arts. Such martial arts attempt to harness a nationalist warrior identity as based on pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican ideals in line with emerging forms of mexicanidad – the unique quality of being Mexican (Jennings 2017). Xilam is one case of these recently created Mexican martial arts that uses some elements common to contemporary Asian martial arts pedagogy – forms in particular, but also coloured belts and the grading examinations to achieve them. It has the structure and hierarchy of a Chinese or a Japanese martial art, with a founder, seniors, black belts and uniforms. As a peacetime martial art (rather than a military training system), xilam has a holistic philosophy of self- and cultural cultivation aimed at developing different aspects of the human being and a revitalised vision of Mexican society through this. With its Mesoamerican philosophy based around the Aztec (Nahua) worldview

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(see Leon Portilla 1990; Maffie 2014), xilam aims to ‘remove the skin’ of the outer sense of self (based on social constructions of ‘race’, etc.) and discover one’s true potential bodymind. Furthermore, its holistic, process-based philosophy parallels anti-dualist Japanese philosophy. The process of self-cultivation can be sustained until one’s death. Like budō and tàijíquán, xilam is an activity for sustained adult learning (with its founder and leader Marisela Ugalde still training and teaching in her late 60s). It is not a combat sport, and although a recently invented martial art, or invented tradition (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983), it remains a traditionalist martial art that might be orientated towards self-defense and street fighting, oral, technical and cultural tradition as well as spiritual and intellectual curiosity (Jennings 2010). Xilam is less concerned with self-defense than collective human development for a healthier and more holistic society that deals with the challenges of Mexico today. As a form of self and cultural cultivation, xilam is said to unify the mind and body to create a unified bodymind via willpower, emotions, awareness and intellect, which all humans possess. All four mind-body attributes are continually cultivated across the seven developmental levels that are represented by seven indigenous Mesoamerican animals (snake, eagle, ocelotl, monkey, deer, iguana and armadillo) and corresponding belt levels (from white to black). The seven levels, taught strictly in that order, are in turn structured across four forms (known as formas in Spanish): 1) the four-directional forma in the specific stance (laquite); 2) the linear forma (chuyita); 3) the multi-directional forma (chuya); 4) the applications of the techniques for self-defense scenarios with a training partner. There are therefore three set ‘solo’ forms for each level, resulting in 21 unarmed formas in total. Although performed alone (with physical adjustment and testing from the teacher), they are typically practiced together in rows, with the seniors in front and beginners watching and copying from behind. Progress is not forced to applications or sparring, and competition, but deliberate attention is paid to the basic ways of standing, turning, moving and defending in different directions. To begin, the four-directional form uses the basic stance of each animal, and it is the form most practised and repeated over the years of training in class and at home. Without this firm foundation, techniques would be rushed and weaker, but also, the person would not develop the virtues of patience and humility expected of a xilam practitioner – virtues that are supposedly developed by the long-term training of forms. It is important to consider criticism from other martial artists on platforms such as YouTube that the actual techniques appear similar to many movements in the Asian martial arts  – a possible appropriation of culturally specific technique. However, the students are expected to be open-minded and not to judge them with preconceptions of other systems. New students often come from other martial arts disciplines and are interested in yoga, pre-Hispanic dance and a range of ‘holistic’ physical cultures. These newcomers alongside the advanced practitioners all follow the same warm up in unison, and the beginner’s mind is encouraged with their enthusiasm for the basics. Within their collective rows, lines and circles, the students all perform the forms at the same time, speed and intensity (Jennings 2018). The first form of the snake (laquite venda in the Zapotec language) is drilled again

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and again before more advanced techniques, which are seen as less important than the foundational ones. Humility and openness are required to develop the four attributes of awareness, emotion, intellect and willpower. Willpower and emotional control are harnessed through the prolonged holding and moving through wide and low stances (especially the snake akin to the horse stance in some East Asian martial arts) and repetitive training. The intellect and awareness, as further elements of the human character, are more obviously developed in later animal stages through the forms, related exercises and homework activities. The fundamental form, the laquite venda, is a pertinent illustration, as it is the form that is more trained and repeated in training. Just as in other (Asian) martial arts, like most styles of wing chun and its siu lim tao form (see Jennings et al. 2010) emphasizing bodily awareness (McFarlane 1989), a substantial period of class and personal training time is devoted to the first snake sequence. Jennings (2018) describes this within a typical xilam class, in which students move in along the four compass points (North, East, South and West) in clockwise and anticlockwise steps with the same leg within a low, wide stance akin to a horse stance in Asian styles. Both hands perform four unnamed blocks: down to the earth, in front of each other, to one’s surroundings and ready to work (double lateral block to the side of the body). This mantra in Spanish is as follows: Saludo y respeto a la Tierra Saludo y respeto al entorno Saludo y respeto al prójimo Disposición para trabajar (Regards and respect to the Earth Regards and respect to the environment Regards and respect to one another Ready to work) The mantra is often repeated out loud in the Spanish language, or the 20 corresponding movements are counted from one to 20  in Spanish or one of the chief indigenous languages utilised in the system: Nahuatl, Mayan and Zapotec. As such, many things can be learned within the basic movements of one step and double block: self-defense, applications, but also linguistic terms, and the mind-body dispositions trained again and again in class and out of it for the devotees of this art. Moreover, despite the apparent monotony, there are many creative ways to train and teach the forms, such as in slow motion, with the eyes closed, with a sensation of dizziness, under conditions of stress and fatigue, etc. Novelty accompanies repetition with the beginner’s mind, as one progresses to discover the applications and ways of transitioning from one stance to the next. In sum, xilam is a philosophically-inspired martial art that can be understood in equally philosophical terms. Its own cosmological worldview encourages lifelong learning and active practice as a self-cultivation martial art. Meanwhile, its repeated use of forms – especially the fundamental ones – stimulates a bodymind that is open to new applications, understandings and bodily sensations. This leads us to consider

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the body pedagogics as a key link between philosophy, practice and pedagogy in the martial arts which is utilised through Asian uses of forms for education.

5.6  Concluding Comments This chapter has explored the notion of self- and cultural cultivation through the intercultural examples of three martial arts pedagogies: Asian budō and, tàijíquán and Mexican xilam. We focused on the specific Asian interpretation of forms as a body pedagogic, and used this to apply the work of Yuasa (1987, 1993) to intercultural learning contexts in conjunction with recent pedagogical research into form-­ based learning. Bolstered by our own research into these martial arts, we argued these systems use forms deliberately as vehicles for self- and cultural cultivation achieved through the specific, sustained practice over one’s lifetime. In the examples provided, the form-based pedagogy of kata, tàolù or formas exists as a bidirectional construct; being influenced by, and influencing of, the philosophy of an art form. The purpose and process of internalizing the philosophy through repetition of patterns of movement is ultimately a creative pedagogy that inspires practitioners to seek further answers within the forms themselves, with the structure of the form eventually leading to discovery and development of an individual’s philosophy that will influence future practice. Our reason for combining these exemplar martial arts is due to their common doctrine of fostering self-cultivation through what Yuasa (1987, 1993) termed ‘lifelong learning’ (shugyō) and internalization and embodiment of practice, with an approach of open-mindedness as exists in beginners (shoshin). By following a cyclical process, as opposed to a linear one, form-based training attempts to provide a blueprint out of which new revelations and epiphanies can be found. Our own experience and ongoing research have found that while forms rarely exist in isolation, they are vital practices for the cultivation of martial arts practitioners as encultured, ‘improved’, and for the maintenance of martial arts cultures. The three case studies used in this chapter show a common pedagogical strategy in which forms are repeated again and again over years in which the basics are continually honed until a degree of excellence is reached which gives way to creativity. The metaphorical language of the forms and their techniques allows for deeper and sustained attention to the embodied meanings embedded in the movements, for martial, cosmological or cultural reasons. Due to reasons of space, we limited ourselves to offering an overview of karatedō, tàijíquán and xilam and their use of forms from the perspective of a body pedagogic strategy that works towards bodymind unification and cultural embedment. Further research examining the specific form, forma, kata, tàolù or pattern practices of martial arts disciplines may yield greater understanding of its educational value. We would add that an analysis of non-martial art cultural practices (such as musical forms or the tea ceremony) that use forms would also provide complimentary understandings. Such analyses might extend the project of globalizing East Asian

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philosophies of forms as body pedagogics and in particular the Japanese philosophy around kata applied to various contexts (see Cheung and Lam 2017). This project promises to provide important translational knowledge that underpins how educators might make use of form learning in a wide range of other learning contexts.

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Jennings, G. (2018). From the calendar to the flesh: Movement, space and identity in a Mexican body culture. Societies, 8(3), 66. Jennings, G., Brown, D., & Sparkes, A. C. (2010). “It can be a religion if you want”: Wing Chun Kung Fu as a secular religion. Ethnography, 11(4), 533–557. Kato, E. (2004). The tea ceremony and women’s empowerment in modern Japan: Bodies re-­ presenting the past. London: Routledge. Keister, J. (2004). The shakuhachi as spiritual tool: A Japanese Buddhist instrument in the West. Asian Music, 35(2), 99–131. León Portilla, M. (1990). Aztec thought and culture. Norman: University of Oklahoma. Liao, W. (2011). The essence of T’ai Chi. London: Shambhala. Maffie, J. (2014). Aztec philosophy: Understanding a world in motion. Boulder: University of Colorado Press. Matsunobu, K. (2007). Spiritual arts and the education of “less is more”: Japanese perspectives, Western possibilities. Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies, 5(1), 103–119. Matsunobu, K. (2011). Creativity of formulaic learning: Pedagogy of imitation and repetition. In J. Sefton-Green, P. Thomson, K. Jones, & L. Bresler (Eds.), Routledge international handbook of creative learning (pp. 45–53). Abingdon: Routledge. Matsunobu, K. (2016). Conforming the body, cultivating individuality: Intercultural understandings of Japanese Noh. In K. Powell, P. Burnhard, & L. Mackinlay (Eds.), Routledge international handbook of intercultural arts research (pp. 139–147). Abingdon: Routledge. McFarlane, F. (1989). Bodily awareness in the Wing Chun system. Religion, 19(3), 241–253. Minamoto, R. (1992) Kata to nihon bunka [Kata and the Japanese culture]. Tokyo: Sobunsha. Molle, A. (2010). Towards a sociology of budo: Studying the implicit religious issues. Implicit Religion, 13, 85–104. Nagatomo, S. (2016). Yuasa Yasuo’s philosophy of self-cultivation: A theory of embodiment. In B.  W. Davies (Ed.), Oxford handbook of Japanese philosophy. Oxford: Oxford Handbooks Online. Noguchi, H. (2004). The idea of the body in Japanese culture and its dismantlement. International Journal of Sport and Health Science, 2, 8–24. Ozawa-de Silva, C. (2002). Beyond the body/mind: Japanese contemporary thinkers on alternative sociologies of the body. Body & Society, 8, 21–38. Peak, L. (1998). The Suzuki method of music instruction. In T.  Rohlen & G.  LeTendre (Eds.), Teaching and learning in Japan (pp. 345–368). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Powell, K. (2012). Pedagogy of embodiment: The aesthetic practice of holistic education in a taiko drumming ensemble. In L. Campbell & S. Simmons (Eds.), The heart of art education (pp. 113–123). Reston, VA: The National Art Educators Association. Rafolt, L. (2014). Ritual formalism and the intangible body of the Japanese Koryū Budō culture. Narodna umjetnost: Croatian Journal of Ethnology and Folklore Research, 51(1), 183–208. Rosch, E. (2008). Beginner’s mind: Paths to the wisdom that is not learned. In M.  Ferrari & G. Porworowski (Eds.), Teaching for wisdom (pp. 135–162). New York: Springer. Rosenbaum, M. (2004). Kata and the transmission of knowledge in traditional martial arts. New Hampshire: YMAA Publication Centre. Rudowicz, E. (2004). Creativity among Chinese people: beyond western perspective. In S. Lau, A. H., H. Hui, & G. Y. C. Ng (eds.) Creativity: When East Meets West (pp. 55–86). River Edge, NJ: World Scientific Publishing. Ryan, A. (2008). Globalisation and the ‘internal alchemy’ in Chinese martial arts: The transmission of Taijiquan to Britain. East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal, 2(4), 525–543. Schipper, K. M. (1993). The Taoist body. Berkeley: University of California Press.

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Shilling, C. (2017). Body pedagogics: Embodiment, cognition and cultural transmission. Sociology, 51(6), 1205–1221. Shilling, C., & Mellor, P. A. (2007). Cultures of embodied experience: Technology, religion and body pedagogics. The Sociological Review., 53(3), 531–549. Spatz, B. (2015). What a body can do: Technique as knowledge. Practice as research. London: Routledge. Suzuki, D. T. (1959). Zen and Japanese culture. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Weiming, C. ([1925] 2012) The Art of Taijiquan (Taijiquan shu) Translated by Paul Brennan. Available at: https://brennantranslation.wordpress.com (Accessed 28.05.2020). Xilam Official Website. www.xilam.org. Last accessed 7 Dec 2018. Yano, C.  R. (2002). Tears on longing: Nostalgia and the nation in Japanese popular song. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center. Yokota, K. (2010). Shotokan myths: The forbidden answers to the mysteries of Shotokan Karate. Bloomington: Xlibris. Yuasa, Y. (1987). The body: Towards an Eastern mind-body theory. Albany: SUNY Press. Yuasa, Y. (1993). The body, self-cultivation and ki energy. Albany: SUNY Press.

Part III

Encounters

Chapter 6

Tu Weiming, Liberal Education, and the Dialogue of the Humanities Paul Standish

Most teachers in universities and anyone working in a school, in particular, are likely to have felt the profound pull of the institution they work in. Commitment to the life of the school, where one becomes busy not just with what one is teaching but with the pastoral care of students and with the ever-encroaching burdens of administration, can easily become all-absorbing: schools can seem complete worlds-in-themselves. So too, school leaders and policy-makers can become so preoccupied with the seeming necessities of the task at hand, so steeped in a habitual busyness, that they can lose sight of the contingencies of their practice and the principles that guide them. It can then be peculiarly edifying to contemplate the way things are done in another culture. For example, teachers in the UK or the USA in the 1960s could look with some amazement at their colleagues in France, working within the rigidities of the centrally imposed curriculum, in ways that might have unsettled assumptions on both sides, while contrasts in the teaching of particular subjects – say, the creative arts in contemporary Western culture and the tradition of calligraphy in the East1  – can reveal in relief the contours of a practice that will otherwise remain unnoticed. As the latter example begins to indicate, comparisons can be all the more rich where they are not just between contemporaneous policy jurisdictions but across time, revealing features in one’s own practice that would otherwise remain obscure and challenging assumptions that might otherwise remain sacrosanct. For reasons that are not unconnected, comparative approaches to philosophy can similarly be valuable in disturbing settled beliefs or exposing the contingency of theoretical and sometimes metaphysical assumptions. Yet the difficulties here are not to be underestimated, especially because such exposure seems to demand an  For a compelling discussion, see Shoko Suzuki (2007).

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external viewpoint, a position from which such contingencies can be dispassionately considered. Hence, there is the notorious tendency not to go back far enough, as it were  – surreptitiously to cling onto a framework of thought within which another way of thinking can be contained, weighed up and evaluated, and in a sense rendered exotic. When it comes to Western reception of classical Chinese philosophy, few have done more than Donald Hall and Roger Ames to address these problems, and their influential writings have done much to render them tractable (see especially Hall and Ames 1995). They have succeeded in part through their identification of two contrasting problematics – or, say, disparate frameworks of thought – in which philosophy is understood and pursued: they artfully upstage the Western tradition, and ironize its fundamentalist aspirations, by characterizing it pointedly as the second of these problematics. Distinguishing features of this problematics are inter alia the beliefs that there is a beginning and, hence, perhaps a creator of the universe, and that it makes sense to think of an external, god’s-eye perspective on this (that is, a perspectives on perspectives, a stepping outside time and circumstance), which together install a certain objectivism. The contrast between this external, supposedly non-contingent perspective and the relative perspectives that are the product of the ordinary human condition engenders an anxiety over the relation of appearance to reality and opens the way to scepticism in its modern Cartesian forms (about an external world, about other minds). This is not, of course, to say that all Western philosophers are objectivists but to affirm that such are the terms of the problematics in which the questions of philosophy typically arise and are pursued, including where they take the form of beliefs that it endeavours to overcome. By contrast, the first problematics, that of the Chinese traditions, is characterized by its acceptance of the multiplicity of perspectives, with no inclination towards the external understanding envisioned in the West. Hence, the being of a thing is not rooted in its objectivity (the “thing in itself”) but rather in fluid relational capacities, with no assumption that, beyond these, there must be some transcendent reality (say, that of the Platonic forms). In the light of this, it will be a task of comparativists to offload the historical and conceptual baggage that stands in the way of their recognising and coming into a way of thinking alien to their own. In Anticipating China: Thinking through the Narratives of Chinese and Western Culture, Hall and Ames take as a running theme the need to jettison the “useless lumber” that blocks the way to thinking in terms other than one’s own. In keeping with the pragmatist sympathies of their project, this is a phrase drawn from John Dewey’s “From Absolutism to Experimentalism”, in which he writes autobiographically of his own experience as a philosopher. Indeed, one of the epigraphs Hall and Ames take for their book, is drawn from the following, closing words of Dewey’s essay: [I]t shows a deplorable deadness of imagination to suppose that philosophy will indefinitely revolve within the scope of the problems and systems that two thousand years of European history have bequeathed to us. Seen in the long perspective of the future, the whole of western European history is a provincial episode. I do not expect to see in my day a genuine as distinct from a forced and artificial, integration of thought. But a mind that is not too egotistically impatient can have faith that this unification will issue in its season. Meantime a

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chief task of those who call themselves philosophers is to help get rid of the useless lumber that blocks our highways of thought, and strive to make straight and open the paths that lead to the future. Forty years spent in wandering in a wilderness like that of the present is not a sad fate—unless one attempts to make himself believe that the wilderness is after all itself the promised land (Dewey 1930, pp. 26–27).

In an interesting essay on Hall and Ames’ work and cognizant of the encroachments of this “provincialism”, Warren Frisina qualifies his considerable appreciation with criticism of what he takes to be an unresolved tension within their approach: “As they describe their method, either we are outside a culture looking in, using whatever tools we can find to help us sort through what seems strange and what seems familiar, or we are insiders, unable to render fully contingent the categories we use for understanding ourselves and the world” (Frisina 2016, p. 573). To the extent that their method can satisfactorily be presented as posing this dilemma, it seems that the binary of inside/outside is shored up. Understanding another philosophical culture involves, then, a problem of translation between languages that are stable in themselves, distinct in their origins, and incommensurable in salient respects. (Stark differences between Chinese and English render this account of translation all the more credible.) My suggestion, which I shall try later in this discussion to substantiate more fully, is that this binary structuring of thought itself betrays a nostalgia for some kind of neutrality of viewpoint that, by Hall and Ames’ own lights, is not possible and, further, that anxiety over this risks dulling the point of the exercise. For, as they frequently successfully demonstrate, there is value in exposing oneself to the friction between ways of thinking – their mismatch, their differing discursive styles and textures, their ways of passing one another by. My purpose, however, is not primarily to discuss the work of Hall and Ames but rather to take the points just raised as an entrée into the problematics of comparative philosophy and education as these emerge in the work of the enormously influential figure, Tu Weiming 杜維明/杜维明. Over the course of some fifty years, he has come to be recognised as a leading exponent of the current new wave of Confucianism. Moreover, he is someone who has gone out of his way to build bridges between traditions. I shall focus on the considerable attention that Tu’s work has given to dialogue, both thematically and in terms of his practical engagements. I shall explore two of the contexts of such engagement, one in dialogue with ideas of liberal education and the other in relation to a prominent aspect of contemporary Buddhist practice. My recurrent concern will be with the relation between ideas of dialogue and the nature of language, and the discussion will draw to a close in qualified agreement with Tu’s advocacy for the importance of the humanities in education, albeit that this will bring me again to an emphasis on questions of translation. Let me begin, however, by providing some brief biographical details of Tu’s life and work. Tu’s life and illustrious career has spanned countries and continents, and it has been shaped by major political upheavals. Having spent his early years in Kunming, Yunnan Province, China, he moved to Taiwan with his parents in 1949 at the age of ten, at the time of the Chinese Revolution. Although he did not formally study Confucianism as a child, he has spoken warmly of the fact that he grew up in an

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environment strongly influenced by Confucianism. While his parents were well-­ educated, the nanny with whom he spent much of his time was not: yet, in her words and actions, she embodied Confucian values. Thus, although Tu did not study the Confucian classics during his childhood, he was brought up immersed within a Confucian cultural environment. At the time when he went to Taipei Municipal Jianguo High School, the Taiwan government was advancing a form of national moral education with a strong emphasis on Confucianism. Some of the teaching stimulated Tu’s interest, and he subsequently set about pursuing the study of Confucianism at Tunghai University in Taiwan, studying with the “New Confucian” philosophers Mou Zongsan 牟宗三 and Xu Fuguan 徐復觀. He was successful enough to be awarded a Harvard-Yenching Institute scholarship, enabling him to study at Harvard University, where he completed his Masters and PhD degrees in East Asian studies. On the strength of this background, and beginning in 1967, he went on to hold academic positions at Princeton University and the University of California at Berkeley, and served as a professor at Harvard University from 1981–2010. Since then he has held academic positions at Beijing University and at Peking University, while retaining the title of Research Professor and Senior Fellow of the Asia Center at Harvard University. As these moves indicate, Confucianism and Tu’s contribution to its interpretation have in recent decades gained increasing recognition in modern China itself. Tu has also committed himself to practices of dialogue between cultures and between traditions of thought, and his efforts in this respect are much to be admired. Yet there are attendant risks to such practices, and it is in part to these that this chapter gives attention. Tu’s work has come under criticism from more purist interpreters of Confucianism, amongst whose objections has been the claim that translations of key Confucian terms into Western language raise problems that are virtually insuperable. Xie Wenyu, for example, has argued that when Tu uses the terms “transcendent” and “faithful” in his definition of the Confucian way of being religious – “We can define the Confucian way of being religious as ultimate self-transformation as a communal act and as a faithful dialogical response to the transcendent” (Tu 1989, p. 95) – he is employing concepts that are well-defined in a Western context but are alien to Confucians. In particular, the idea, in the Confucian context, of being “faithful” refers to a good relationship between friends, and conveys no message about a relationship between the transcendent and a human being. Consequently, the expression “a faithful dialogical response to the transcendent” can be understood only in a western context. Of course, in the shadow of the Western conception of religion Tu may easily understand the concepts of transcendence and faith, and so be able to conceive its religious significance. But this is not a Confucian religiosity (Xie 2004, p. 92, n. 6).

Central to Xie’s discussion in this paper is the concept of cheng (诚), commonly though problematically translated as “sincerity”, and resonating with the phrasing that is questioned in the above passage. Mindful of these difficulties, let me withhold further discussion of the term until the end of the chapter. There is also reason to think critically about Tu’s work in relation to broader questions regarding the nature and possibilities of dialogue between traditions,

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along lines intimated by my opening paragraphs. I have written elsewhere about problems of translation in philosophy and education, attempting to face up to “untranslatables” but not acquiescing in “insuperability” (Standish 2011; Yun and Standish 2018; Cassin 2014), and this is something to which I shall later return; here my concern is more centrally with practices of dialogue. Much of Tu’s work can reasonably be seen as an exercise in comparative philosophy, and, against this now familiar feature of the global philosophical scene, his achievements and high profile raise in distinctive ways questions about how the purpose and substance of comparative philosophy are to be understood. It is abundantly clear that questions of education are central to Confucianism and to Tu’s own development of Confucian lines of thought. In order to bring these into focus, and specifically in the light of the possibilities of dialogue and comparative philosophy, I propose to begin by considering a fairly recent lecture series at Georgetown University entitled “Confucianism and Liberal Education for a Global Era: Lectures with Tu Weiming”, which took place in 2013.2 The paragraphs that follow, then, provide a summary and paraphrase of what Tu has to say in his keynote lecture.

6.1  Confucianism and Liberal Education Tu begins the lecture by drawing a distinction between Confucianism and the thinking of other major civilizations and worldviews. In Greek philosophy, Judaism, Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam, there is the aspiration to thinking about the world as a whole, as if from some external perspective and in cosmological terms. Confucianism, by contrast, concentrates on what is in the world. While the Greeks reflected on the ultimate reason of reality and other religions on what is transcendent of the world and what is not, Confucius preferred a reflexive thinking about thinking. Tian 天 (heaven, sky) is not other-worldly or transcendent but relates rather to the human ability to think beyond the actual, to think in terms of possibility. The Confucian way is, then, the tradition of the scholar, the engaged intellectual, with Confucius himself being seen not as founder but rather as a great exponent and transmitter of the art. The project is not based on any dogma, and the learner is not to emulate but instead to be inspired. This brings Tu to the question of what Confucian learning is for – whether it is to be understood as for the self or for others. Certainly, it is not for the sake of “the people”, in the sense associated with Mao Zedong 毛泽东. On the contrary, authentic learning is learning for the sake of the self, involving heart and mind, and it a building of one’s character. Self-cultivation of this kind requires that each person – from the high to the low – see this learning as the root, and as a task and challenge

 Available at: https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/events/confucianism-and-liberal-educationfor-a-global-era. Accessed: 4 December 2019.

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for all. It is this-worldly learning, committed to concrete principle and concrete humanity, and the self, within this picture, is understood always as the centre of relationships. At the centre, autonomy and dignity are required in establishing oneself as an independent human being who is, nevertheless, necessarily in relation to others. In these relations, the human being is not isolated. A critical issue for Confucianism is, then, the relation between the private self and the self in the public domain. What is projected leads beyond the privatised self, and it is to be understood as a move beyond egoism, parochialism, ethnocentrism, and nationalism. It is the way to be human, which is misunderstood, in Tu’s views, as anthropocentric, and for which he prefers the term anthropocosmic. The latter term is designed, as he has explained elsewhere, to refer to the “complete realisation of the self, which is tantamount to the full actualization of humanity, [and which] entails the unity of humankind with Heaven” (Tu 1985, p. 10), where Heaven is, as we saw, nothing other-worldly but open as possibility to the human being. The journey of self-­ realization, which begins with concrete experience, should not be thought of as an assertion of the finite and culturally specific to the exclusion of the infinite, transhistorical, and universal. The significance of the project of learning to be human lies in “its insight into the creative tension between our earthly embeddedness and our great potential for self-transcendence” (ibid.). The sense of the intrinsic meaningfulness of humanity involves faith in “the living person’s authentic possibility for self-transcendence”, where this is understood as a communal act (p. 64). The lecture continues with the assertion of the basic ethical principle of reciprocity, which is a kind of care for the other characterised by the Golden Rule in the negative – the so-called Silver Rule: do not do to others what you would have them not do to you. Hence, the recognition of the other is an extremely important principle of communication. It is necessary to go beyond the Silver Rule, however, towards a positive humanist commitment: I must help others to establish themselves. Yet such help should not become a kind of preaching, and Tu himself does not want to be considered an advocate for Confucianism, still less an evangelist. The precept is that one should not impose one’s own truth on others. On this view, it makes little sense to talk of the cosmos as created, and human beings are not creatures. They are engaged in the cosmic process as participants. Only the most true human beings can fully realise themselves. If they can do this, they can realise human nature. And if they do this, they are taking part in a transformation between Heaven and earth. The human consists in this cultivation of true potential as co-creator in this cosmic process. Heaven is creativity in itself, and it is omnipresent and omniscient. Our responsibility is to make heaven present in the world now. The fully cultivated human being will, then, need to cultivate three things: first, their own character, autonomy, and self-understanding; second, the disposition to serve the wellbeing of everyone (in a manner that can be seen as proto-democratic, with people more important than the state); and, third, a sense of responsibility to the transcendent. All this includes responsibility to future generations. Because human beings suffer from an affective surplus and a calculative deficit, there is a

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need for wisdom and for some form of spirituality, brought together in a process of continuous self-refinement. Confucianism, as Tu goes on to explain, is and must be adaptable. It is a broad holistic humanistic vision, and so is compatible with all major spiritual quests. Indeed, it is through civilisational dialogue that the possibilities of hybrid development can be exploited. Confucian humanism cannot, as Tu puts it, “afford to be confined to East Asian culture. A global perspective is needed to universalize its concerns. Confucians can benefit from dialogue with Jewish, Christian, and Islamic theologians, with Buddhists, with Marxists, and with Freudian and post-Freudian psychologists” (Tu 1993, pp. 158–9). In the course of Tu’s work with Kofi Annan, UN Secretary General, in 2001 and UNESCO in 2004, it was agreed that a conception of human flourishing based upon shareable core values to which all spiritual traditions could subscribe should be promoted, and that this would require the development of a new language of global citizenship, incorporating ecological consciousness and a commitment to international order. In bringing the lecture to a close, Tu emphasises that there is no doubt that the resurgence of Confucianism is of significance for politics in China and in the world as a whole, and that it is worth reflecting on the political importance of dialogue. Too often political dialogue degenerates, as is evident in the history of Sino-­ American “dialogues”, which have sometimes been a matter less of genuine dialogue than of bargaining, confrontation, and even aggressive condemnation.3 Hence, Tu concludes by making a plea for more genuine dialogue, along the lines he finds expressed in the work, for example, of Amitai Etzioni, Robert Bellah, and Francis Fukuyama. Following the lecture, José Casanova asked a question to the effect: What kind of liberal education do we need in our global age? The dominant conception of a liberal education refers especially to Renaissance humanism. A key figure in this was the “Renaissance man”  – that is, the person of refinement and accomplishment across the range of the arts, humanities, and sciences. And this was understood as arising from a recovery of the ancient classics – and, hence, was clearly Western-­ centred. If we now need a liberal education that brings together all of humanity, how is this to be constructed? In what ways will this facilitate a global dialogue? Tu’s remarks in response begin by alluding to contemporary education in China itself, but he quickly steers his answer towards a broader defence of the humanities. In China, as we saw above, many people are in his view good at quantitative analysis, but not at qualitative analysis. It is a choice whether you develop your intelligence in music or in science, but the development of ethical intelligence is not a choice: it is something no human being can afford to ignore. Liberal arts education should be about how to live an ethical life. This has to do, as we also began to see earlier, with a kind of immanent transcendence: one can understand heaven through

3  In the context of this focus on dialogue, it is interesting to recall the opera Nixon in China. This somewhat surreal and eerie work was commissioned in 1987 by the director Peter Sellars, with a libretto by Alice Goodman and music by John Adams.

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self-knowledge. Human beings are not creatures, but co-creators. “God”, as outer reality beyond human comprehension, has to be interpreted again and again. On the strength of this, Tu identifies three main principles that should govern education. First, it must comprise breadth and refinement. Second, the priority must be for education in matters of quality, not just in forms of quantitative analysis. Third, education must be oriented towards knowledge that is comprehensive. Yet the idea of comprehensiveness should not be taken to imply some kind of totalized perspective or any notion of completeness. We must not confuse data with information, knowledge with wisdom. To be hybrid, ecumenical, is a good thing. The art of listening, which has become increasingly difficult in recent times, is to be encouraged because it enhances intellectual horizons. It is one of the means necessary to the confrontation with radical otherness, and thereby to the enhancement of one’s own self-reflexivity. Yet this is not a eulogy to the wisdom of age: in fact, older people must learn from the young because the young are open to more possibilities. At the heart of this vision, then, there is a paradox, which has ontological and existential dimensions. All, it is said, are sages, and yet no human being can become a sage. The first statement is ontological, and the second existential. As the latter indicates, learning can never be complete. We never create heaven, we are children of heaven, and we earn the right to appreciate heaven. Casanova’s question prompts the making of connections with the idea of a liberal education, and plainly Tu’s response endeavours to meet this demand, while retaining the terms of Confucianism. But there is a need to say something more directly and explicitly about the idea of a liberal education. While Casanova’s point of reference is the figure of the Renaissance man and, perhaps, the university, we can helpfully turn to a more recent manifestation of the idea, where the focus is more on schooling. This is an idea that has been influential in contemporary practice, albeit that some of its central tenets have become invisible or at least obscured and distorted with the onslaught of performativity and the pervasive culture of accountability. I am referring in particular to the restatement in the 1960s and 1970s of the idea of a liberal education that is associated especially with R.S. Peters in the UK and Israel Scheffler in the USA. While the spirit of a liberal education is strongly present in both authors’ work, it is Peters who has the more systematic account, which I shall briefly sketch. Central to this ideal of education is the question of content: what is it that education is to pass on and why? Peters’ response to this question is formulated in terms of the centrality to the curriculum of initiation into worthwhile pursuits. In Ethics and Education, in a series of ascending stages, he builds a conception of what this might mean. (Peters 1966) What is it that human beings enjoy? They enjoy physical pleasures such as food and sex. These are important aspects of experience, but they are cyclical desires and limited as a result. At a next level, we find enjoyment in such activities as sports and games. These offer scope for the progressive development of skill and understanding of the game, and they can provide remarkable arenas for the display of human excellence. But they too are limited in that the playing of a game, even the achievement of prowess, has little bearing on wider aspects of one’s life. It will be of help only incidentally in one’s personal relationships, in the work one

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does, or in one’s broader social and political life. It contributes little to the development of judgement or wisdom in life as a whole. At a further level, however, Peters identifies what he calls “theoretical activities”. He has in mind such intellectual pursuits as the study of history or physics, which we might otherwise think of simply as academic subjects. These forms of non-instrumental enquiry are, in the first place, not cyclical: one does not have to jettison what one knows in order to add something new; in fact what one does come to know and understand becomes the means for further pursuit of the subject; moreover, there is no shortage of the object being pursued – indeed, the further one advances into the subject, the greater one’s appreciation of what there is still to learn, generating a desire that intensifies the more it is pursued. This line of reasoning appears to be sufficient to demonstrate the superiority of such activities over the others considered, but the affirmation of their worth depends also upon a more controversial claim: this is that the person who has been initiated into worthwhile activities of this kind will find what they have learned extending beneficially through their practical lives – that is, through their personal, social, and political responsibilities and engagements. A walk by the river will be enriched if one has some understanding of the physics of water-flow, the variety of life-forms the river supports, reasons for the growth of human settlement along its banks, and the qualities of the literature it has inspired. In a similar fashion, one’s political choices will be informed by a sense of historical context and precedent, by some understanding of ramifications of policy in the economy, and by some awareness of the chemistry of climate change and its origins in human practice. Initiation into worthwhile activities is an important point of emphasis in the idea of a liberal education, and Peters expresses it well. But to anyone with Confucian sympathies, the manner of approach in the argument just rehearsed is characteristically Western. We are to imagine an individual with desires who ascends through a series of stages from appetite to the intellect. The relation to others comes into the picture insofar as it sustains those higher practices that are theoretical activities. Indeed, Peters goes so far as to say that the love of theoretical activities is superior to the love of a person because persons are finite and theory is not! Plainly it is the case also, then, that this initial foray into what is perhaps the driving idea behind this restatement of the idea of a liberal education has led us into a discourse that is different in style and tone from that of Tu’s restatement of Confucianism, and in due course I shall return more directly to the question of these differing registers of thought and argument. But let me first say a little more about the position developed by Peters and his colleagues. The somewhat nuanced remarks by Tu regarding breadth and comprehensiveness find echoes in the idea of a curriculum that embraces all the “forms of knowledge”, a term associated especially with the work of Peters’ colleague, Paul Hirst (1965/2010). The epistemological commitment driving Hirst’s position is that knowledge is not all-of-a-piece but arises in different forms, which is illustrated by the fact that a chain of reasoning in chemistry is other than one in history, for example. While this is no barrier to interdisciplinary enquiry (these subjects could be brought together, say, in research into the preservation of manuscripts), a purportedly logical point is being made about the nature of reason itself. Hirst equivocates

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a little over the exact number and character of the forms, but he holds to this general epistemological structure. But while, in his classic statement of these views, he goes on to claim that an initiation into each of these different forms of reasoning, with the distinct bearing each has on the world as a whole, serves as the best preparation a learner can have for the practical life as well, he later, under the influence of Alasdair MacIntyre especially, retracts this claim. Nevertheless, his epistemological position has had a significant influence on curriculum policy and practice in schools. Hirst’s work reveals a tension that runs through this version of the idea of a liberal education between its inheritance, on the one hand, of ideas of Immanuel Kant and John Stuart Mill and, on the other, of ways of thinking that reach back to classical times and find articulation, contemporaneously, in the writings about education of Michael Oakeshott. It is a telling point, then, that Hirst’s most influential paper culminates in and concludes with an extended quotation from Oakeshott’s essay The Voice of Poetry in the Conversation of Mankind (1959): As civilised human beings, we are the inheritors, neither of an inquiry about ourselves and the world, nor of an accumulating body of information, but of a conversation, begun in the primeval forests and extended and made more articulate in the course of centuries. It is a conversation which goes on both in public and within each of ourselves. Of course there is argument and enquiry and information, but wherever these are profitable they are to be recognized as passages in this conversation, and perhaps they are not the most captivating of the passages… Conversation is not an enterprise designed to yield an extrinsic profit, a contest where a winner gets a prize, nor is it an activity of exegesis; it is an unrehearsed intellectual adventure… Education, properly speaking, is an initiation into the skill and partnership of this conversation in which we learn to recognize the voices, to distinguish the proper occasions of utterance, and in which we acquire the intellectual and moral habits appropriate to conversation. And it is this conversation which, in the end, gives place and character to every human utterance (in Hirst 1965/2010. p. 308).

It is a matter of some curiosity that Hirst reorders the sequence of the sections of text separated by the ellipses and that he does this without explanation. But the passage is nonetheless moving, and it is rightly celebrated as a powerful expression of liberal education in this aspect. Yet in the decades that followed, it was the other line of influence, associated more obviously with liberalism in the familiar political sense, that quickly gained the upper hand. The guiding idea of liberalism in this sense has its locus classicus in Mill’s On Liberty, originally published in 1859. Mill writes: The object of this essay is to assert one very simple principle, as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and control, whether the means used be physical force in the form of legal penalties or the moral coercion of public opinion. That principle is that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can rightfully be exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant (Mill 1978, p. 9).

The positive principle that is the correlate of this restriction is that people should be allowed to do what they want to, provided that it does not harm others. This emphasis on autonomy as the absence of constraints turns into an ideal where what one

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does is rationally ordered, in line with Kant’s account of freedom as requiring the ordering of the passions by reason. Robert Dearden’s influential paper “Autonomy and Education” (1972/2010) laid the way for intensified emphasis on the ideal of autonomy as a central aim of education, and under this line of influence the ideal came to be expressed not just as “autonomy” but as “rational autonomy”. The work of John White, Eamonn Callan, and Harry Brighouse, for example, as well as the more obviously political philosophy of Matthew Clayton and Adam Swift, can clearly be seen in the light of these lines of influence and, hence, in relation to the massively important impact of John Rawls. The vision of education embodied in Oakeshott’s writings, which extends back to Plato’s Cave, has, thus, been partly eclipsed by those who have most vociferously promoted the liberal ideal. The above quotation from Mill should reinforce the point that the idea of human being implicit in liberalism and liberal education of this kind is not close to the emphatically relational ontology found in Tu’s thinking. Similarly, its conception of reason and the educated person is more explicit but plainly more restricted than the Confucian evocation of wisdom in the figure of the sage. On the latter, consider the following remarks from Tu’s The Global Significance of Concrete Humanity: Confucius once insisted that the right kind of learning – the sort handed down by the ancient sages – was not learning to please others but “learning for the sake of one’s self”. This message is not an individualistic, romantic assertion about one’s existential right to be unique. The rights-consciousness prevalent in modern Western culture is alien to the Confucian tradition. By advocating learning for one’s own sake, Confucius did not suppose that the human self is an isolated or isolable “individuality”… The “individualists” in ancient China were apolitical but not anti-social. Like Confucius, they understood the self as a connecting point for relationships, an inseparable part of a network of human interaction (Tu 2010, pp. 310–311).

These remarks open the way to revealing two further points of contrast with the idea of a liberal education outlined above. First, where liberal education in the form discussed above emphasizes the impersonal, in its advocacy for theoretical activities, the Confucian approach turns towards the person. This is not to suggest anything self-indulgent or narcissistically introspective but is perhaps closer to the epilemeia heautou, the care of the self, of which Socrates speaks – which has more to do with a recognition of the weight of responsibility one has for one’s actions and for who one is, and is thoroughly ethical in kind. Confucian education is an explicitly ethical education. In the light of this, some qualification is needed in that connection can be seen with a different realisation of liberal education, in the tradition associated with the liberal arts college. For here too there is an emphasis on the personal, not the abstract and impersonal: this is pursued in a way that is not self-referential but, in more classical fashion, turns the person outwards, beyond themselves. This is a turn not towards the bookish and pedantic but towards the best that has been thought and said, in Matthew Arnold’s phrase (Arnold 2009, p. 5). Allan Bloom’s polemic in The Closing of the American Mind (1987) against the university education emerging in the USA in the 1980s expresses a similar commitment (to what he calls “general education”), while more recently William Deresiewicz’s Excellent Sheep (2015) voices related concerns.

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In its ethical education, Confucianism finds its feet, so to speak, in ordinary daily affairs. Hence, as a second point, in contrast to the prioritization of theoretical activities favoured by Peters and his colleagues, the Confucian approach emphasizes embodiment and is centred in familiar and everyday experience. The emphasis on the body resonates with the child-centred education whose growing influence  – focused too much on the manner, insufficiently on the matter of education – was something these advocates of a liberal education sought to contest. In Confucianism, “Elementary learning” is addressed to a realization of the body, and this in due course lays the way for the “great learning”, which entails “the sort of self-­cultivation that aims at the ‘embodiment’ of all levels of sensitivity” (Tu 2010, p. 311). Both levels of education  – “elementary” and “great”  – seek to enhance a refined self-­ awareness. The ritualistic elements of learning, which help to prepare elementary learners for transition to the next stage, are not aimed at the rigid shaping of behaviour and thought, a socialization in conformity, any more than training in calligraphy is intended simply to issue in identical reproductions, but rather at providing the instruments of self-expression and communication through which those who are learning can come to participate in their own socialization and contribute creatively to society’s development. But to put this in these terms  – of “society’s development” – is to fall short of the range of this idea and of the part education plays in the “great transformation”. This term applies not primarily, or not exclusively, to education and the human being, but to the way the world becomes, and the term used earlier, “anthropocosmic”, is intended to draw attention to the fact that we are not creatures but co-creators in the cosmic process, according to a Heavenly Principle (tianli 天理) that involves the human being in an ethic of responsibility: The Confucian statement in the Analects that human beings can make the Way great, but the Way cannot make human beings great may lead to the false impression that human beings act as creative agents on their own. The injunction is rather that we human beings are obligated, by a sense of awe and reverence, to make ourselves worthy of what the Heavenly Principle empowers us to do as partners. The Doctrine of the Mean (Book XXII) states that through self-realization human beings actively participate in the transforming and nourishing process of Heaven and Earth and thus form a trinity with Heaven and Earth. Accordingly, we can rise above our earthly existence by cultivating the virtues inherent in our nature (p. 345).4

In “The Ecological Turn in New Confucian Humanism”, the closing chapter of The Global Significance of Concrete Humanity, Tu turns this principle towards the current environmental crisis, and he redescribes the role of the Confucian scholar in more contemporary and democratic terms: The Confucian idea of the concerned scholar may benefit from the wisdom of a philosopher, the insight of a prophet, the faith of a priest, the compassion of a monk, or the understanding of a guru, but it is the responsibility of the public intellectual that is the most appropriate to the embodiment of this idea (p. 397).

 For further discussion, see Tu (1989), especially pp. 77–79.

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The idea of the public intellectual is also itself given a significant democratic twist in that this is said to be a role that is incumbent on all citizens. He acknowledges that a significant factor in the environmental threat posed by Chinese economic growth has been the narrowing of Confucian thinking through its misappropriation, especially during the twentieth century, in authoritarian policy and a utilitarian mindset: a “limiting and limited secular humanism” has “legitimated social engineering, instrumental rationality, linear progression, economic development, and technocratic management at the expense of a holistic, anthropocentric vision” (pp. 392–393). In this context, Tu has emphasized the need to change the language that prevails in Chinese culture – modes of discourse that are themselves barriers to dialogue of the kind he energetically seeks to advance. Thus, we come back to the “deplorable deadness of imagination” that Dewey laments. These modern Chinese forms of obstruction to paths of thought – their narrowing of the language – resonate in some degree with resistance in the West. The difference in rhetorical form between modern philosophical writing in the liberal tradition and that of the Analects is obviously a major barrier to the reception of the latter today. It is one of the achievements of Tu that he has developed a register of expression that partly overcomes this yet maintains its adherence to the Confucian tradition. It is no coincidence that his advocacy incorporates also a robust defence of the arts and humanities in education, and indeed this is crucial to the internal relationship he sees between education and wider political aims. While his advocacy in this is very much to be admired, I want to take issue in some degree with his own views regarding language. To lay the way for this, let me first air some reservations over the way that dialogue emerges in his work.

6.2  Dialogue and Language The Georgetown Lectures that we have been considering provide an example of dialogue in a form that is familiar enough in the academy, and they demonstrate successfully some of the possibilities of comparative philosophy. It is a feature of Tu’s philosophy, however, that his efforts to inform and to make connections have extended well beyond the university, in, for example, the work mentioned above with Kofi Annan. I want to consider a product of his collaboration with Daisaku Ikeda, the Buddhist philosopher, peacebuilder, and educator, and founding president of Soka Gakkai International. In 2011, their dialogue issued in the jointly authored book, New Horizons in Eastern Humanism: Buddhism, Confucianism and the Quest for Global Peace. The book is a congenial exchange between highly influential thinkers representing different worldviews, both originating in the East. Again and again, the authors find harmony between their respective worldviews, and the political sentiments and moral principles expressed are eminently worthy. The following exchange, in which dialogue is explicitly discussed, is indicative of the book as a whole:

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The passage indicates also the spirit of mutual admiration that characterizes the dialogue. Moreover, there is frequent recourse to aphorisms of the form: “One should study as though there were not enough time, yet still feel fear of missing the point”; “A person who can bring new warmth to the old while understanding the new is worthy to take as a teacher”; and “Do not be concerned that no one recognises your merits. Be concerned that you may not recognise others.” In a sense there is nothing to object to in the substantive principles and virtues that are extolled, and they may prompt the reflection that the partners in the dialogue revere. But is this enough? Is it not rather the case that dialogue here has become a rhetorical form that, in its monotone of harmony, risks anaesthetizing thought where most it is needed? Consider, as an illustration of the problem, one of the most well-known passages in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Polonius, a close advisor to the Danish king, is bidding farewell to his son, Laertes, who is about to leave for Germany, where he is to study philosophy. These are excerpts from the fatherly advice that Polonius gives: Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar. … Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice; … Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment. … This above all: to thine ownself be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man. (Act 2, Sc. 3, 547–566)

The passage, with its regular rhythm and series of imperatives, has a directness and simplicity that makes it eminently memorable. These are amongst the most quoted lines in Shakespeare, and, at least when they are first heard, they are likely to be taken as the expression of reason and responsible fatherliness. But as events transpire in the play, Polonius turns out not to be the model of moral propriety that he portrays here, and – more importantly perhaps – the “good advice” that he imparts proves inadequate to, even a barrier to confronting, the problems that Hamlet and other characters will face. What is familiarity, and how is vulgarity expressed? What is it to listen, and what to speak – to speak, say, for oneself, in one’s own voice? What, amidst this series of judgements, is one to imagine to be the occasion for reserving judgement or the form that this might take? And, above all, what is it to be

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true to oneself? What is the self and what would constitute being true to it? Would this necessarily be a good thing? Hamlet is a play in which madness appears in various guises. Mad people can be sincere, speak with conviction. Are they being true to themselves? Is Polonius? In any case, the point is that Polonius’s words, however worthy they may be, are not adequate to the realities of experience with which the play grapples, and their memorable rhetorical form is part of the problem. In the reassurance of the aphorism, there is reasonableness and good measure, but this is also the subduing of life  – morality subjugated to a kind of normalisation. Shakespeare knows this and plays on the seductive quality of the right-mindedness that is here so neatly expressed. The dialogue between Tu and Ikeda must surely be sophisticated in various ways, but rather than opening new connections, it deadens the imagination, installing a new provincialism that blocks the highways of thought. Is this not the manifestation of the forced and artificial integration of thought of which Dewey warned? Dewey himself was not without his limitations in this respect, and his own experience in Japan led him to barriers in the range of his own thinking (see Saito 2019, 2020). In his visit to Japan, from February 9 until April 28, 1919, the principles he espoused of mutual understanding and of universal democracy, beyond national and cultural boundaries, were severely tested. The move towards democratization was soon to give way to a new nationalism and militarism in Japan, and he left the country in disappointment. During the short period of his stay, he struggled to penetrate below the surface of the culture. “Japan is a unique country,” he remarked, “one whose aims and methods are baffling to any foreigner’ (Dewey 1982, p. 171). He communicated with liberal intellectuals but realized that, in Japan, “such higher criticism is confined to the confidence of the classroom” (p. 174). In the minds of ordinary people, any aspiration to democracy was shouldered out by nationalist sentiment, and it was impossible to communicate his idea of democracy as a personal way of living. Dewey noticed everywhere the obstacles to “the development of an enlightened liberal public opinion in Japan”  – “the conspiracy of silence”, patriotism, and the institutional religion that prevented “critical thought and free discussion” (Dewey 1983, pp. 257–257) – and he was troubled by the authoritarian, nationalistic ethics indoctrinated in elementary education (Dewey 1982, pp. 167–168). He was struck and confused by the inconsistency involved in Japanese modernization, where he found a combination of the “feudal” and “barbarian” ethos of the warrior with the worship of Western industrialization (pp. 160–161). As he put it, “There is some quality in the Japanese inscrutable to a foreigner which makes them at once the most rigid and the most pliable people on earth, the most self-­ satisfied and the most eager to learn” (p. 168). In my view, a telling symptom of Dewey’s limitations is to be found in aspects of his own prose-style, which, although it has its powerful and moving moments (as seen in the quotation around which the present discussion has circulated), is inclined towards a kind of flatness. I have referred to this elsewhere as a homeostatic quality, which is indeed in keeping with the general tenor and substance of his thought (see, for example, Saito and Standish 2014). Tu’s style is, of course, very different, but again I find that there is a kind of continuity – a benevolent serious-mindedness that

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tilts towards earnestness, and an inclination towards the defence of general, good and sound principles that does not always vivify the troubled fabric of human experience. Pragmatism  – perhaps Dewey’s pragmatism rather than say William James’s – has been haunted by the question: does pragmatism have a tragic sense? My impression is that, for all the undoubtedly sincere concern with the most serious problems – locally, politically, globally – that one finds in Tu’s Confucianism, and with due acknowledgement of his elegant command of English, there remains some barrier to the finding of a language in which this tragic dimension might be better realized. In the light of this comment, I shall conclude with some brief remarks about Tu’s championing of the humanities and his criticism of aspects of anglophone philosophy.

6.3  Language, Dialogue, and the Humanities In his Preface to The Global Significance of Concrete Humanity, Tu writes: My teaching experience at Princeton University and the University of California at Berkeley further convinced me that unless the practitioners of Anglo-American philosophy, fashionable at universities in North America at the time, transcended the epistemological and linguistic turns, they could not fruitfully address fundamental questions confronting American society, let alone the human condition. When I chaired a committee reviewing Berkeley’s Philosophy Department in the 1970s, one of my recommendations was to insist, as a way of broadening the reach of the American philosophical curricula, that the two sides of the Atlantic be bridged. I did not even mention the Pacific. It was obviously [sic] that the ocean extending all the way to the “Far East” was too wide for the “analytical philosophers” to leap across (pp. xx–xi).

These in some ways enlightened remarks express belief in philosophy’s broader significance and the suspicion that the subject, in becoming more technical, might become scientistic. But they also betray a misunderstanding of at least some of what these developments in the subject were achieving, especially with regard to language. One aspect of the linguistic turn was that language was no longer taken to be primarily a means of communication, which, when used well, would make meaning transparent; for language, it came to be seen, was generative of thought. Another was the realisation of the great many things that we do with words – in particular, the recognition that language is not to be reduced to the proposition, and that in any case expressions, including propositions, have a performative force to them (promissory, imperative, etc., but also reassuring, warning, cajoling, demeaning, etc.) that is not to be evaluated purely in terms of their truth or falsity. Advances in thinking about these matters, especially in the later Wittgenstein and in J.L.  Austin, have opened the way for recognition of the extent to which human lives and reality in general are to be understood in terms of human expressiveness. There was sometimes stunted in the earlier turn to language, as found in extremis in the work of the logical positivists; and there is something stunted in a different but related way in

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the moral proprieties and assurance of Polonius’s advice to his son, just as there is in approaches to moral philosophy that are preoccupied with abstraction and formal principle.5 The philosophers I have mostly been concerned with in this discussion, as well as Shakespeare himself, are alive to the significance of what we do with words. It is abundantly the case that Tu draws attention to differences in the connotations and significance of Chinese expressions in Confucian thought and to the problems of their being translated into English. This is an important contributing factor to the credibility and influence of what he has to say, however much he may offend Confucian purists by venturing to translate at all! But what is going on in translation of this kind tends to be something like the provision of  a glossary of terms6  – undoubtedly of great use in making the ideas more clear but maintaining a kind of distance from the struggle for meaning that is internal to language, to English or Chinese. As was intimated earlier in the discussion, Xie’s approach goes somewhat further in exposing the difficulties, as we can now see in the following remarks about cheng (诚): Linguistically, cheng conveys a disposition or an attitude of being honest, sincere, truthful, and real with oneself. Most English translators use “sincerity” for cheng. In English, “sincerity” can be defined in the context of morality of a community. However, the Zhongyong employs the term cheng to refer to a disposition in which one is true to oneself; so it further indicates an existence in which one is immediate with one’s own nature. It can be a disposition when one is alone, having nothing to do with others. If forced to translate, “being true to oneself” may be suitable (Xie 2004, p. 97).

Xie’s “If forced to translate” nicely evokes the paradox of translation  – that, as Jacques Derrida (1998) has put it, one cannot translate but one must translate. One must live with this incommensurability, which requires the continual exercise of judgement without a rule. The paradox comes with a healthy reminder that languages are not pure and discrete, but always in the process of change, with their absorption of words from outside and with the inevitable accretion of new meanings that is inherent in the very functioning of human signs, in their necessary openness to interpretation and new connotation. Hence, translation, which is less a calibration than a movement of meaning, is at work not just in the encounter between different languages but also within any language itself. The stark contrast or etymological and cultural distance between Chinese and English may mean that these factors come less readily to light, and so it does indeed seem that the glossary is what we need. But Xie’s phrase suggests something closer to the struggle with words and meaning that I am trying to bring to the fore, a struggle that Shakespeare enacts. It is a struggle internal to being true to oneself, and to what being true to oneself might mean. Early in this discussion I expressed concern about the binary structuring to which comparative philosophy and comparative education are inevitably prone. It is 5  I have in mind the work of R.M. Hare and J.L. Mackie, as well as the theories of moral development of Lawrence Kohlberg. 6  A close cousin of the glossary approach is the systematic Wikipedia-style listing of key concepts, useful for the newcomer but potentially misleading.

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a logical point that comparison involves the bringing together of two or more things, so my objection can hardly be to that! The problem is rather that the differences in question can be metaphysicalized, especially where it seems we are dealing with discrete, self-contained forms. A (perhaps a philosopher, a text, a practice, a policy) is compared with B (the corresponding item from the other culture) in relation to the attributes that each has, and similarities and differences are duly noted. But attributes and qualities can leave undisturbed the identities to which these are attached. Good comparativists will then conscientiously attend to linguistic differences, and none of the philosophers I am centrally concerned with in this discussion fails to do that. But what I am referring to as the glossary approach may slip too easily into this identitarian thinking. It is inclined to contain the struggle – that is, to set things in order, whether by finding approximate correlates,7 or by acknowledging incommensurability or untranslatability, or by immobilising a word by adopting it unchanged, with the aura this then will carry; whereas we can find examples elsewhere of engagement in translation where the dynamism of language is fully in play. Translation has, in the light of this, become a prominent substantive concern of poststructuralist philosophy, suggesting new openings for comparative thought.8 Frisina’s criticism of Hall and Ames, and the criticism by extension in my own account of Tu, may well be too strong, but the lapse of comparative approaches into the metaphysicalizing binarism I have described remains a surreptitious threat. The threat can also, in my view, embed itself too easily in faith in dialogue. Of course, so much depends upon context and upon how the word is used, so let me try to illustrate what I have in mind by stylising a contrast between dialogue and conversation. Tu points to the egregious Sino-American “dialogues” of the past, and it is easy in the post-truth politics of today to find examples of more execrable kinds. A dialogue can be engaged in merely to shore up a position. It can be an occasion for negotiation between predetermined but disparate interests. It can provide the circumstances where the participants attempt in good faith to compare the beliefs they hold, exploring points of similarity and difference, engaged in mutual enquiry. But in all these cases there is the danger that faith in the procedure may induce an insulation from what I have referred to as the dynamism of language. How else might things be? If dialogue can be said to work through the exchange and consideration of existing viewpoints, conversation suggests ways of speaking in which, as the second syllable of the word signals, there is a turning of thought: each speaker takes her turn, each does a turn; and the turning is a fashioning and crafting through which thought is shaped in a new way; and there is symbolically the turning of the

7  An example of this would be Tu’s appeal in the Georgetown lecture to the notion of autonomy (alongside dignity) as central to education, a concept that, for all of its extensive analysis in Anglophone philosophy, is left here unexplained. 8  See, for example, the recent publication of Derrida’s Geschlecht III (2019) as well as my own discussion of Pierre Joris’ extraordinary reflections on his own experience of translating Paul Celan (Standish 2017). In something other than a poststructuralist vein, and prompted partly by his reading of Thoreau, Stanley Cavell has pondered the idea of philosophy as translation (see Standish and Saito 2017).

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head, as when a new speaker strikes up, or when a participant is released from the picture that has held them captive, away from the images on the back of a cave.9 Dialogue takes language as an instrument of communication; conversation works with the resistances of words, acknowledging their generative power for thought. The participant in conversation is not its architect but a receptive-responsive “co-­ creator”  – to risk appropriating Tu’s phrase  – in the thought that it enables. The contrast I have just made must not be taken to imply anything essential, for this would, of course, be to fall into the binarism I am trying to expose. I have risked exaggerating the contrast through this stylization because it makes vivid the dynamism of language and the fluid, projective nature of identities in which language is at work. I believe this struggle for meaning to be close to what the humanities are about. It is highly significant that problems of translation arise in the humanities in a manner that is rarely evident in the physical sciences or in engineering. The humanities are different from the sciences in that the objects of their study are not the brute givens of nature but the already linguistic behaviour of human beings. In fact, “brute givens” is scarcely an adequate formulation in that what is studied in the physical sciences is already conditioned by categories and concepts generated within the development of the science in question; nature itself knows no differences. But I am adapting an argument in respect of the social sciences advanced by Peter Winch (1958): while the objects of study in the physical sciences do not have a vocabulary of their own but are articulated only in terms of the one the scientist brings to them, the objects of study in the humanities are already constituted by vocabularies of their own, in relation to which those engaged in study and research must bring their own forms of analysis and interpretation (that is, their specialized vocabularies). Human action, as constituted by meaning, is already conditioned by an openness to interpretation: literature, history, anthropology, and philosophy are essentially concerned with the meaning-making of human beings. And Tu says much that supports the view that, because of this, the humanities have a more fundamental role than the sciences, in that it is through them that one can address broader questions about what is of value, about the value of the sciences and the arts, about what makes a good life or a life good, and about what a just society might be like. Such has been the concern of philosophy since ancient times, East and West.

9  Emerson writes that conversation is a game of circles: “When each new speaker strikes a new light, emancipates us from the oppression of the last speaker, to oppress us with the greatness and exclusiveness of his own thought, then yields us to another redeemer, we seem to recover our rights, to become men” (“Circles”, in Emerson 1983, p. 408). Wittgenstein writes: “A. picture held us captive. And we could not get outside it, for it lay in our language and language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably” (Wittgenstein 2009, §115). In The Republic, Plato provides the allegory of the Cave.

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Chapter 7

Quiet Minding and Investing in Loss: An Essay on Chu Hsi, Kierkegaard, and Indirect Pedagogy in Chinese Martial Arts Viktor Johansson

7.1  Introduction In the popular book The Monk and the Philosopher (1998), Jean-François Revel and his son Matthieu Ricard engage in a friendly but critical dialogue between Western science and philosophy and Buddhism. The very form of the book, the critical dialogue, shows a commonality between Western philosophy and Buddhism. Both share a tradition of searching for insight and understanding through investigative conversation. Nevertheless, when Revel and Ricard encounter issues where they are not in, or do not come to, agreement Ricard struggles to communicate to his father what he means. It is not only that he can’t find words to explain his insights but also that language itself seems insufficient. Ricard returns to various metaphors, often to Revel’s frustration, in order to point to something that he has come to see through years of Buddhist practice. Certainly someone more familiar with Buddhist practices, thought, and life would more easily understand such metaphors, and even the less metaphorical explanations. This is a pedagogical problem with which many of the ancient philosophers in both the East and the West were deeply concerned. How can we teach and explain something that seems to require an experience of that thing in order to understand it? How can a teacher guide a student towards learning something, when getting to that something seems to require knowing it in the first place? But this is as much a problem for the student as it is for the teacher. How can I as a student work to learn something when I do not even understand the explanations of what it is I am trying to learn? This is, for sure, a paradoxical formulation. It seems that I have to have some idea of what I am trying to learn to try to learn. In this chapter my focus is on aspects of some learning processes where I am at loss for concepts, as Cora Diamond V. Johansson (*) Södertörn University, Huddinge, Sweden e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 D. Lewin, K. Kenklies (eds.), East Asian Pedagogies, Contemporary Philosophies and Theories in Education 15, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45673-3_7

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has put it (Diamond 1988; see also Laverty 2009 and Lear 2006 for discussion). Occasions when whatever I think I want to learn seems to dissolve in an acknowledgement that whatever concepts I had for what I am doing have lost their sense. I want to explore how such a loss of concepts can be pedagogically valuable and even necessary for certain forms of knowledge and learning; a pedagogy for learning not a conceptually determined something, but a pedagogy of investing in loss. To do this, in this chapter I discuss the practice of learning a martial art and its relationship to the idea of a pedagogy of investing in loss. Much of martial arts study and training consists in practicing movements and techniques and conditioning of the body. Those exercises can be an athletic endeavour, but they can also be exercises of the mind that transform the student’s attitude to life. In the martial arts that grew out of the Buddhist Shaolin and Daoist traditions, a crucial frame of mind for the martial artist consists in calming the mind and losing one’s ego (Smith 1974; Shahar 2008). Practicing martial arts can be seen as an exercise in reaching that end, the achievement of a calm mind and lost sense of ego. However, in practicing martial arts, calming the mind and losing the ego is itself also a requirement for succeeding with particular skills and techniques. So, for the classic martial arts practitioner a quiet mind can paradoxically be both an aspect of being able to perform certain techniques and practices and the goal that leads one to practice martial arts in the first place, where the quieting of the mind is reached through the self-cultivation that a martial arts training involves. Martial arts  – as with many other practices of meditation and self-cultivation emphasised in different cultural settings of Buddhist thought and practice – can thus be seen as a form of pedagogy of the mind. I will elaborate on this later. For now we need to see how the paradox of engaging in both cultivation towards a quiet mind and the realisation that a quiet mind is a requisite for engaging with such cultivation (in martial arts practice) also involves another problem. It is not the paradox that is the problem in Ricard’s attempts to explain central Buddhist ideas to his father. Rather, the pedagogical problem is at the very core of Buddhist self-cultivation itself. A key feature of Buddhist thought shared by, or so I shall argue, certain forms of Confucian thought, is that the goal is subjective understanding of the mind through observation of one’s own thinking, feeling, experiencing, or one could say minding. Unlike the sciences of the mind in Western modernity – psychology, cognitive science, or neurology, and so on – which study the mind from the outside as an observer of brains, behaviours, expressions, and so on, the Buddhist study of the mind focuses on our subjective experience. Hence, it is hard, if not impossible, to describe the process of the quiet minding from the perspective of an outside observer. The martial arts teacher may of course give directions to a student to relax certain muscles, to move the hip more, or to breathe in certain way. It is usually clear what such instructions mean, and these aspects are certainly important to attaining a  quiet mind. But if the teacher tells the student that for the external and internal aspects of martial arts to go hand in hand one must have a quiet mind (as Robert Smith’s teachers did, as recorded in his memoirs of practicing in Taiwan in the early sixties), or that the skill in Chinese boxing comes from “quite minding” and “investing in loss”

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(Smith 1974, pp. 30, 51), then the relevance of attending to the outward appearance of a movement is harder to see. If a quiet mind and the loss of concepts and ego is something reached through subjective experience, training, and observation, it seems impossible to teach such abilities, or even to convey what they mean, through direct instruction. We may not even be able to understand what such notions mean until we attain the ability they speak of. Of course, there are many different descriptions of what it means to quiet the mind or to lose one’s sense of ego. The question is whether we can even understand what those descriptions mean. For a martial arts student, this involves a difficult pedagogical problem, similar to that found in Ricard’s attempts to explain his Buddhist convictions to his father. How is it possible to learn how to develop a skill or frame of mind that I have only have had glimpses of? What does it mean to respond to an instruction or a teaching I receive without understanding how to practice it? How is it possible to understand a practice that transforms the very way I conceptualise and live in the world? Both the Buddhist and the Confucian approaches to learning address something beyond our current experience and understanding. In contrast to an objective empirical approach, or so I will suggest, these approaches can be a form of subjective pedagogy. The term often used in Chinese traditions to refer to such a subjective pedagogy is dào [道] (the way). Similarly, philosophers such as Søren Kierkegaard investigate the subjective knowledge and indirect pedagogy involved in exploring what Kierkegaard calls livets vei (the way of life). In this chapter I will explore the possibilities of a subjective pedagogy by reflecting on my own experience of trying to understand the practice of quiet minding in Chinese martial arts through contemplation of my encounters with the neo-Confucian Chinese philosopher Chu Hsi [朱 熹] (1130–1200) and my search for an existential form of pedagogy through studying the work of the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard.

7.2  Martial Arts Training and Practice I need to begin this section of the chapter by confessing my ignorance, an ignorance that is multi-faceted. First, I am a scholar trained in Western traditions of philosophy and education. Even though I read translations of both classical and contemporary texts in and about East Asian philosophy, my lack of education in Buddhist and Confucian thought (both of which are important to this chapter) must be acknowledged. My knowledge and understanding are only fragmentary. Second, although I have on occasions travelled in China and engaged with Chinese people and scholars, my familiarity with the vast range of cultural expressions, languages, texts, and their history is very limited. I have not lived in any Chinese culture. Third, although I have practiced Chinese martial arts for almost 8 years I still sense that I am only scratching the surface, not only of Chinese martial arts in general, but also the particular style, O Shin Chuen [五形拳], which I practice with Shīfù Louis Linn ­[師父

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林瑞耀]. Still, it is in this position of ignorance, not unusual for Western academics, that I find something pedagogically relevant to explore. Undoubtedly, to become skilled and to achieve insight and understanding in a martial art such as O Shin Chuen, a style of Southern Shaolin Boxing [Shaolin Nánquán, 南少林拳], requires a lifetime of practice and study. The movements and our understanding of them needs to be precise, otherwise they simply do not work. This is one of the things that draws me to this martial arts style. In some ways I can liken it to my bookshelves. There are books there that I have not read, which remind me of everything that I still don’t know; but there are also books there that I have read, and that I need to read again and again, which remind me that what I do know, I do not know well enough. When practicing martial arts, every movement I have learnt points to new things to discover, new insights to be found; and then there are all the movements, forms, forces, that I simply do not know yet. Moreover, it is not enough just to know the movements; I need to repeat them so that the technique eventually shapes my body, mind, and soul: the whole of my being becomes the movement, and so becomes part of who I am, my nature. To me this means not only an intellectual understanding of the style, its forms, and its techniques, but also an understanding that consists in the performance, in the action itself: To see and understand not only the movement, but also through the movement. But herein lies the pedagogical problem. If my understanding consists in such a holistic transformation of my being, how can I practice while not fully understanding what I practice? Moreover, when practicing I am rarely aware of such transformations. The realisation seems to come almost imperceptibly, like the growth of a tree. It can be frustrating, but looking back at my practice in martial arts I can see that there are ongoing transformations, slow but ongoing, and that is the point, there is always room for improvement, and therefore no moments when the work is done. This has resulted in a realisation that the understanding I have of the movements and what I understand through the movements is unclear, unfinished, and unpolished. Every time I practice, by myself, with others, or with my teacher, I can see details that I did not see before. I see that what I thought was precise, is not so. Understandings I have of myself are stripped away, displaced. To me the destruction of illusory understandings has been a part, and is a part, of the spiritual journey of practicing O Shin Chuen. This involves risks that make the pedagogical problem of cultivation in and towards conceptual loss in the encounters between teachers and students, and the faith they show each other, deeply socially and ethically complicated. Moreover, it seems as if this requires faith not only in each other but also in the methods for training. In the martial arts community, this reliance on faith can be deeply problematic. It may involve manipulation of students and misguided trust in authority that leads students to actually harm themselves or to form beliefs in practices that are harmful. It may also lead to misguided understandings of the art that is practiced. Many traditional martial arts have a historical basis in systems for training military techniques and self-defence, but have, especially as a result of military technological changes, later become forms for self-­ cultivation where the fighting application of movements and practices are less

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emphasised, or were developed into combat sports (Lorge 2012). Most contemporary martial arts schools and styles are to various extents involved in all these aspects of training. However, it is easy to be confused and, in my experience, some promoters of particular styles are not always helpful in clarifying the emphases of their particular ways of practice. Thus one of the challenges in practicing particular styles of martial art is to find a sound balance between faith and doubt in oneself as a student, one’s teacher, and the system of practice. In my own practice the balancing act of doubting and having faith in myself as a martial arts practitioner has involved discovering my lack of understanding, skill, and precision in performing particular movements and techniques, and in disclosing my ignorance of particular details, an understanding of myself emerges. Discovering personal lack in this way functions like a mirror that shows not only my body, but also my soul, a mirror that emerges in practice and reveals how and where my soul is in most urgent need of cultivation. Practicing thus helps me to see what is not there in my movements that should be, or what is there that shouldn’t be. It involves me in a process of purification of movements and through those movements of my whole being, a purification that extends to other parts of life as well. In its deepest form, in my understanding, this is a practice of attention. It is the mindful attention to details in movements that will unlock a Way of being in the world. When asked by his student Robert Smith why so few of his students came close to equalling their teacher’s skills, the famous Tai Ji Chuen master Cheng Man-­ ch’ing’s [郑曼青] (1902–1975) answer was simple: “No faith” (Smith 1974, p. 30). My understanding of faith in this context is that the study of martial arts as an art of living, rather than just a combat sport, requires practitioners to look beyond their current skill, knowledge, and understanding, yet without knowing where the practice will take them. In embarking on Chuen Fa [拳法], the method of the fist, one cannot know exactly where that method or that way will take you. So, every step, even on the parts of the way that are well trodden, involves what Kierkegaard called a leap, a decision to go on using where we are now in our lives as a point of departure. For the martial artist this involves a form of humble courage, not simply a daring to do hard or dangerous things, but rather a courage to cultivate oneself without knowing what might come of it. It means having faith in the method, in the walking, and putting faith in the uncertainty of taking the way, rather than having a belief in a specific proposition about life or the martial art. The faith involved in studying martial arts is a kind of pedagogical faith that can be part of any form of study, as Simone Weil notes (Weil 1973, pp. 105–117). The student’s giving their attention to what is studied in this way, then, puts both the teacher and the student at risk. The student has few means to judge whether the teacher is helping them to cultivate and quiet their mind. Likewise, the teacher does not have much to go on when trying to help the student quiet his or her mind. Accordingly, the relationship of trust between teacher and student is a commitment to teach and a commitment to study that is itself built on a kind shared faith, of not knowing what and where the teaching and practice will take them. When it comes to the subjective work, where at least one of them may not have the concepts to understand what they are doing and where it leads, this trust is even more problematic. The instructions about how

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to do a certain movement or how to relax are, in some sense at least, possible to be taught directly, but in the subjective practice of quiet minding the student may not even have a concept of the goal of the practice or not understand a teacher’s instruction. What does teaching, call it a subjective skill, really involve? So let me turn to the specific struggle I have as a student of Chinese martial arts. One key to becoming a good martial artist is the ability to relax and to remain relaxed throughout sometimes fast and intense movements. Relaxing helps to avoid giving force to the movement, instead letting the force come from the momentum of a turn of a foot or the hip, from a step or a stance, from the precision of the directness of the strike towards the target, and from breathing. All this should be perfectly synchronised. However, the attempt to forcefully strike the target will create tension in muscles other than those needed for the movement, resisting the movement rather than supporting it. Moreover, relaxing is not only about the physical effort. It is also a matter of attitude, both in the moment and in the approach to training. Practicing and performing require a quiet mind: a mind that is empty of expectations, ideas, and presuppositions, that is open to what happens in the presence of every aspect of a movement, both our own and our opponents’, and to how repeated practice will transform both body and mind. This is, as we have seen, problematic. We are back to the pedagogical paradox of teaching a subjective understanding. It seems as if – at least if we take Robert Smith’s accounts of his teachers, as well as my own teacher, seriously  – the practice of martial arts requires what it is aiming at: a quiet mind. As a student this is what I find most difficult in practicing martial arts. It is expressed in the cryptic formulations of the instructions of Cheng Man-ch’ing, that skill “comes by ‘quiet minding’ while ‘investing in loss’” (Smith 1974, p. 30). It is as if the full insight of what it means to relax and quieten both mind and body is beyond our grasp. Insights only come in glimpses. Moreover, insights come a piece at a time, regarding one movement at a time, and they come as the movement becomes more familiar, as the unnaturalness of the movements become second nature (cf. Misawa 2018 for discussion). I cannot understand what it means to relax and quieten my mind in a particular movement until I master that movement, until I have become the movement in a way, while at the same time, mastery of the movement in itself involves quiet minding. Thus, it is clear that teaching traditional Chinese martial arts can be as much about showing the student the way and the method of practicing, as giving direct instructions of how particular movements are performed. The teacher has the delicate task of instilling faith in the Way and methods of practice. My understanding of Cheng Man-ch’ing’s and my own teacher’s repeating of the phrase here is that the, in English rather awkward formulation, “quiet minding” is important. In the more natural phrase “quieting the mind” the meaning shifts. We are doing something to the mind or with the mind to quieten it. However, using “mind” as a verb, something we do – minding – points in a slightly different direction. Although it is unclear what exactly Cheng Man-ch’ing meant by the phrase, it seems to be close to the idea of zhǐguǎn dǎzuò [只管打坐], often translated as “quiet sitting” or “just sitting” in Chan Buddhism (Zhang 2008, p. 94). My own experience with Chinese martial arts is of course with a Shaolin Buddhist

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style, rather than Cheng’s Daoist Tai Ji. Still, both Shaolin and Daoist styles have impacted each other for centuries. Moreover, adding to the uncertainty of the meaning, zhǐguǎn dǎzuò has been understood and practiced in a range of different ways within various Buddhist traditions. My reading of the phrase is grounded in its role in the way of life of studying martial arts in a context where the Swedish Western culture and Chinese martial arts culture meet. It is a culture characterised both by encounters with the martial arts traditions and culture of Cheng Man-ch’ing and other masters of Chinese boxing in mid-twentieth century Taiwan and the Swedish contemporary cultural context. This means that, in encountering the phrase, I am finding myself conceptually lost, both because I personally have not lived with the phrase – I am not living a form of life where it has meaning (Wittgenstein 1953 § 240–41) – and because in the contemporary setting of a Chinese martial arts school in Sweden long after masters like Cheng Man-ch’ing have passed away, the form of life where such phrases have meaning is in part lost (cf. Diamond 1988; Lear 2006). Here it is interesting to consider what Cheng Man-ch’ing meant by investing in loss. I have often thought of this investment as directed to our ego and sense of self. Now, I have begun to think that it is more far reaching than that; that it can be about conceptual loss more generally and that we may have reasons to invest in such loss in order to reach beyond what can be directly taught or conceptually grasped. To articulate this further I turn to the writings of Chu Hsi and of Kierkegaard. In my experience, or lack of experience, with the phrase “quiet minding”, taken as parallel with “just sitting”, the mind becomes an impermanent movement, but a movement that can be performed in different ways. In a way minding is what I do when I perform a martial arts technique. The question then is how am I minding? Am I relaxed, quiet minding, or am I forcefully minding, or carelessly minding? I am not trying to make an ontological point here. As is evident from the text, I am quite open to using all kinds of expressions in attempting to indirectly communicate what this may be about. I am simply showing that the different turn of words may direct our attention to different aspects of our experience and help the student, or us as students, to practice. It is perhaps not so surprising that Chinese martial arts may seem mysterious, often taught through legend and poetical descriptions of movements, where the students are left to continually practice until the goal is reached. Contemplating the process of classical Chinese martial arts exercises may thus help to understand the long tradition of emphasis on practicing in Chinese Chan Buddhism [禪] and Japanese Zen [禅]. Dōgen Zenji [道元禅師], for instance, repeatedly reminds his students and readers: “The Buddha way cannot be attained unless you practice, and without study it remains remote” (Dōgen 1985, p. 879).

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7.3  Chu Hsi’s Pedagogy of Reading One creative aspect of being conceptually lost in encountering forms of life not yet our own, like my encounter with the way of life involving notions such as “quiet minding”, is that in this loss we can find further forms of thinking, narratives, and ways of being that help us rethink and reorient our own lives. While thinking how to approach writing this chapter, my engagement in Chinese martial arts practice took me to the Wuyi mountains [Wǔyí Shān, 武夷山] in the Fukien province of southern china, the province from which O Shin Chuen originates. While hiking in the mountains we passed a school established by the medieval philosopher and educator Chu Hsi [朱熹]. The old school now functioned as a museum about Chu Hsi. This sparked a fascination with both the man and his thought. Chu Hsi lived and worked during the Song dynasty in the last half of the twelfth century. Due to his immense influence on Chinese culture, politics, and education, he is perhaps the most well-known neo-Confucian philosopher. As a young man he was attracted to both Daoist and Buddhist ideas, but later worked relentlessly to establish Confucian principles of morality, partly by rejecting Buddhist and Daoist tenets and partly by showing that the Confucian tradition already incorporated what, to Chu at least, was valuable in those traditions. In doing so he developed a neo-Confucian philosophy and pedagogy and became one of the most influential philosophers in the neo-­ Confucian tradition. Moreover, Chu developed methods of cultivation by observing nature, which also involved systematising both methods of observation, or methods of inquiry, and the observations themselves. This emphasis on systematised observations of nature has meant that he is sometimes introduced as the father of scientific thinking in China (which is how he was introduced to me). He is probably most known, however, for redefining the Confucian canon in terms of what is still considered the necessary foundation of a Confucian education. Through his extensive commentaries he drew attention to what has subsequently been called The Four Books [Sìshū, 四書]: The Great Learning [Daxue, 大學], The Analects [Lúnyǔ, 論 語], The Mencius [Mèngzǐ, 孟子], and Maintaining Perfect Balance/Doctrine of the Mean [Zhōngyōng, 中庸] (Gardner 2007). Chu Hsi’s thoughts have an interesting focus on education and learning in ways that resonate with many of the pressing issues in contemporary Western educational debate (Gardner 1989). What interests me here specifically are his ideas on reading and studying The Four Books. Hence, here I will focus on his pedagogy of reading. One of Chu’s worries about the Chinese education system of his time draws him to consider aspects of reading that are close to the pedagogical paradox I consider in this chapter. Chu was concerned that students of the Confucian texts studied only for the exam, simply memorising the texts and common interpretation of them to qualify for prestigious positions in the Chinese government, administration, and bureaucracy (Gardner 1989). Although Chu never denied the importance of memorisation – rather, he emphasised it – he did question how it was practiced. The ultimate aim of reading the Confucian classics for Chu Hsi was the cultivation of persons. He maintained that studying to understand moral principles was a means to

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cultivate one’s personality, even to perfect it. It is thus not primarily a theoretical endeavour or a matter of remembering what a text says, or even being able to explain the text (Chu 1986, 2.49 in Chu and Gardner 1990, pp. 13–14). Rather, reading is meant to cultivate the person. Through such cultivation the student’s moral ability will eventually overflow and affect others, helping others to see the Way [Dào, 道] and engage in studying it themselves. In other words, studying the moral thought of the classics is meant to cultivate the student’s moral practice so that he or she will become a teacher (Chu and Gardner 1990, pp. 101–2). Put in terms of conceptual loss, Chu’s emphasis on cultivation through reading can shed further light on the pedagogical paradox. It is possible to read Chu as saying that true learning lies beyond knowing, or keeping in our memory, what a text says. A sole focus on that form of knowledge cannot take into account the importance of conceptual loss, of approaching a text, or a practice, by trying to see it anew. If it is just a memorisation of words and concepts, it involves no attempt to live them, to let them form my Dào, the principles that make up my life, or how I embody them as a person. The words do not transform me other than by enabling me to achieve superficial titles. Chu Hsi writes: In reading we must first become intimately familiar with the text so that its words seem to come from our own mouths. We should then continue to reflect on it so that its ideas seem to come from our own minds. Only then can there be real understanding (Chu 1986, 10.168 in Gardner 2007, p. xxvi).

This process may be called a form of “slow philosophy” (Boulous Walker 2017), a form of philosophy where learning is about waiting. That is, we read, study, work with texts and problems, try to apply them in our everyday life, waiting on what such work can do with our ways of being and thinking. Thus we let the text shape not only our answering of questions in an exam, or the ways we write a paper, but our whole Way/Dào of life. In his emphasis on a lived balanced between stillness and activity [dong jing 動靜] for spiritual cultivation Chu explains that “activity and stillness also have no starting points, and their yin and yang also have no beginnings” (Chu in Adler 2014, p. 98). He goes on to say that the cycle between activity and stillness is endless, as each process involves the other. Stillness is the material of correct living expressed in activity (Adler 2014, p.  99). The cultivation of the human, the person, involves reading texts with this kind of spirit. Continually returning to the same texts, passages, and words involves a form of lived exercise drills similar to the repetitive practice of particular martial arts techniques. Chu Hsi warns against that becoming routine, a warning many classical Chinese martial arts teachers repeat in order to remind students of the spirit required of serious practice. For reading to be slow we must, as Chu Hsi puts it, pass the words “before your eyes, roll them around and around in your mouth, and turn them over and over in your mind” (Chu 1986, 10.162 in Gardner 2007, p. xxvi). It is not only about how many times we read a text or the tempo of reading it, it is a matter of really trying to uncover every aspect and detail of the text. This waiting also involves clearing the mind from what we expect to find in reading, or in practicing. “Should you want to

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engage in book learning, you must first settle the mind so that it becomes like still water or a clear mirror. How can a cloudy mirror reflect anything?” (Chu and Gardner 1990, p. 48). Waiting, clearing the mind, here means letting go of any preconceptions of what the text can mean or what it can do to us. It is a way of reading where we continually shy away from routine by reading the text with the mind of a beginner. It may seem that by writing these commentaries on The Four Books, Chu Hsi contradicts his own pedagogy of reading, by presenting a “correct” interpretation of the texts for the students. However, taking his remarks on reading into account, we can read his commentaries in a different spirit. They may be read not as giving instructions on how to interpret the texts, but rather as exemplary of a pedagogy of reading, of a particular way of engaging with the texts. That is, rather than presenting the correct reading they exemplify the spirit in which Chu Hsi himself reads, and demonstrate his attempts to read the classic texts with a clear and still mind, acknowledging his way of responding to them. Thus the commentaries can be read not as giving direct instructions on how to understand particular passages, even when they do offer an interpretation of particular passages. How could they if such understanding only comes through the student’s own journey with the text? Rather, in addition to giving an interpretation, they give an indirect instruction; they show us, by giving an example of how Chu Hsi studies, how to exercise and study with equal intensity in order for the texts to unfold themselves to us as our lives are transformed through the study of them. An example of this is the introduction Chu writes for Maintaining Perfect Balance where he explores the characters, Zhōngyōng, 中 庸, of the title of the work in relation to other writings of Confucius, Mencius, and the Cheng brothers. Chu maintains that meditating on the title of the work can be a work of practicing a balanced life and that the title characters could be read as advocating “maintaining perfect balance in each and every set of circumstances and thus keeping a steadfast principle at all times” (Gardner 2007, p. 109). For him it is by seeking to maintain balance in particular circumstances that one comes to understand the principle suggested in the title. In my understanding, Chu Hsi’s engagement with the Confucian texts and tradition is a demonstration of the key concepts and aims of Confucian education: for the student to practice the Way. As a first approximation of the meaning of indirect instruction, we can say it is: a form of instruction that is not about what is learnt but a form of instruction that itself can be seen as an exercise towards a way of life that we cannot preclude, at least not conceptually, what it consists in. For Chu Hsi both this exercise and the life that comes out of it is what a life of sagehood consists in (Adler 2014, pp. 9–11). The goal of study is, for Chu as for Confucian philosophers, to become a sage, someone who through working with the tradition, in a way keeping it alive by transforming it, becomes a “cultural manifestation of the Confucian dao” (Adler 2014, p. 45). According to Chu the early Confucian sages and the sages who worked within the tradition without having a teacher, who did not have access to the later Confucian texts, perceived the way on their own. They apprehended ideas that transcended what they could conceptualise (Adler 2014, p. 46). In that way they practiced in a position of cultural conceptual loss and tried to inspire new

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cultural orders (Adler 2014, p.  47). For Chu this means that we do not come to understand the Way merely through intellectual means or through reading. Reading is a help, but the Confucian Way is found by having the words of texts inspire us to live in ways that reveal virtues through practical mastery of those virtues. Thus, the Way, and the principles of the Way, is understood and constituted through the ways we live. We come to know it through living it, practicing it, exercising. For Chu Hsi reading and understanding the books was never an end in itself. It was a means to discover the Way, the true principles of life, through reforming the way we live. Study is always in the service of spiritual and moral advancement and perfection (Chu and Gardner 1990, p. 38). For Chu Hsi, existential insight is a matter of deep slow reading and waiting for the Way to open to us as we work on it by living in, with, and through the texts, or as the early Confucian sages did, by deep reflection. Much of the traditional martial arts training in China (and to a large extent in East Asia in general), even in the styles based on a Buddhist and Daoist philosophy, works within a Confucian pedagogical ethos. This becomes clear if we consider the role of studying forms in Chinese martial arts. Forms consist of a long sequence of movements that the practitioners memorise, repeat, and refine. They are in a way the literature of traditional martial arts. The sequences in the forms contain the techniques and movements of a style. The movements and techniques in the forms are studied to be applied in different fighting situations. In this way they are transmitted from one generation to the next. It is also a way to study. Repeating the forms and reflecting on their meaning and application the martial artist studies the art of a particular style. Some movements may have a clear meaning and application, but many forms take years to understand, and there are often layers of meaning in the forms discovered only by returning to and repeating them. This of course resonates well with Chu Hsi’s pedagogy of reading. However, for Chu as for the traditional martial artist, understanding the forms, or being able to perform particular movement well, is not enough. That would be like training for the test, which Chu is careful to emphasise is not the ultimate aim of studying. A concrete example of this is my own practice of the animal forms of O Shin Chuen. The animal forms of the shaolin five animal styles are often said to come from studying and trying to emulate the movements of particular animals. However, in O Shin Chuen the different animal forms are not only meant to train a pattern of movements, but also each form is meant to cultivate particular aspects, abilities, or characteristics, such as balance, precision, speed, agility, strength, and so on, that, at least symbolically, are connected to the different animals. For example, Lóng Shin [龍形], the dragon form, is meant to develop the mind. The movements in the form alternate between being very fast and slow. The hand is shaped so that many strikes use only the index finger. The form also emphasises breathing. The other animal forms of O Shin Chuen cultivate more concrete abilities and characteristics – such as balance, strength, precision, speed, and agility – more obviously connected to the animal. The dragon, however, is a mythological creature and its characteristics are based on its role in Chinese culture and narratives. I have struggled to understand what it means to cultivate the mind through the dragon form. Although understanding the role of the dragon in Chinese

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mythologies and cultures may help, as do the instructions I have had from teachers at different levels when practicing the form, I still do not see exactly what is meant by cultivating mind through these movements. It seems then that the cultivation of the mind that the form is meant to accomplish is not fully understood other than simply by practicing the form. It would seem then that the practicing of forms, like the dragon, works in a similar way to how Chu Hsi develops his pedagogy of reading; but, rather than letting words “roll them around and around in your mouth, and turn them over and over in your mind”, it is movements and sets of movements that are repeated and continued to be reflected upon through repeated practice until they “seem to come from our own minds”. The practicing of forms, then, like slow reading, can continually, almost unnoticeably, transform our way of being in the world. But this only brings us back to our pedagogical paradox, although perhaps more concretely now.

7.4  Kierkegaard’s Indirect Pedagogy It is difficult to talk about the processes involved in the pedagogical paradox and of one’s own development within a system of thoughts and practices like the study of Chinese martial arts. Certainly, many of us may recognise these difficulties in many other areas, such as when we are learning music, both the craft of mastering a particular instrument and the spirit in which we may learn a particular piece. We may also often encounter the pedagogical paradox in different forms of practice within mystic religious traditions. While reflecting on the pedagogical paradox I have in other aspects of my work returned to the nineteenth century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard is sometimes thought of as the father of existentialism. However, unlike many later twentieth century existentialists, his philosophical work is also to a large extent religious. Although, just as Chu Hsi was worried about the Confucian education of his times, Kierkegaard felt that the Christendom in his culture had become an empty form, a mere surface that had lost its search for what it meant to be human. To Kierkegaard, this question, what it means to be human, at the same time both religious and philosophical, had to be explored subjectively, by reflecting upon our own ways of life, ways of being in the world, and how our selves relate to ourselves. Consequently, his writings become a form of poeticised philosophy, where ideas, thoughts, and ways of life are explored by narrating lives of people living them, or at least trying to live them. This seems to have been intended to involve the reader in a particular way. As Clare Carlisle summarises the spirit in which Kierkegaard’s book Repetition is written: “The truth cannot be known, yet must somehow be lived” (Carlisle 2019, p. 4). In the same spirit, in considering the work of Kierkegaard in relation to Ludwig Wittgenstein, James Conant makes the following remark: The reader must engage in an exercise of self-criticism in order to engage the work and be engaged by it. There is no engagement with the work apart from an engagement with

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o­ neself – with one’s own philosophical temptations and confusions (Conant and Forsberg 2018, p. 123).

This is clearly in line with what Chu Hsi is saying. However, it also emphasises the style of the text, of teaching, and of our engagement with a teacher or a text. If what we are trying to learn is beyond what can be communicated by direct instruction, we need texts that encourage reading for a different form of instruction. The texts invite us to investigate ourselves, not in reference to their universal ideas, but as a subjective encounter between the voices in the texts and within oneself. Neither can such texts be read as simply conveying a set of ideas, or even a world view, nor can such reading be regarded as being merely a matter of attempting to understand what the author is trying to say to us. Rather the focus will be on what the author’s act of saying, what he or she says does to us. Reading Kierkegaard through the lens of Chu Hsi’s Neo-Confucianism, the Christian is someone who is in search of the way, a way of life. Or, when read through the figure of Socrates as found in Kierkegaard but also in Plato, the vision of wisdom is something the philosopher, the lover of wisdom, lacks and is in constant search for. Being a Christian, being wise, or grounding a life on the way, is a lifelong task. We do not know what being Christian, wise, or embarking on the Way consists in without living it and still we are unable to live it. Therein lies the paradoxical struggle of philosophy, of pedagogy, and the martial arts. It becomes an education in the search for a way of life. It would seem then that this form of philosophy is for those who do not know, or that the philosopher searching for a way of life is simply still searching because she does not know the Way, dào, or, for Kierkegaard, Christian life. However, the problem is that the knower is holding on to illusions of knowing, as if the Way, being a Christian, or being wise, is something we can measure, test, and leave behind after we have taken the exam on classic texts or doctrines, or after being baptised, or by regularly taking communion. This is indeed the problem that Chu Hsi’s pedagogy of reading responds to. It is also the view of Christianity that Kierkegaard attacks. Here is his response to a review of Philosophical Fragments (1985): And yet the book [Philosophical Fragments] is so far from being written for nonknowers, to give them something to know, that the person I engage in conversation in this book is always knowledgeable, which seems to indicate that the book is written for people in the know, whose trouble is that they know too much. Because everyone knows the Christian truth, it has gradually become such a triviality that a primitive impression of it is acquired only with difficulty. When this is the case, the art of being able to communicate eventually becomes the art of being able to take away or to trick something away from someone. This seems strange and very ironic, and yet I believe I have succeeded in expressing exactly what I mean (Kierkegaard 1992, p. 275).

The communication of Kierkegaard’s writing, what he is trying to teach indirectly, is very much for those who know, or think they know. Kierkegaard builds upon his reading of Plato, whom he read as seeking “to quieten the knowledge of the external world in order to bring about stillness in which […] recollections become audible” (Carlisle 2019, p. 18). In a way Kierkegaard, like Socrates, tries to bring us to a position of conceptual loss, where we lose our sense of knowing the

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world, and knowing Christianity. He wants his readers to rediscover that, although they may know Christian texts, Christian thought, and the conventions of their society, they may not know at all how to live a Christian life. This is the problem we face in martial arts instruction. We may know all kinds of things about a technique or a movement, but we do not know how to perform it or live it, nor its full meaning and applicability. Still, revealing our lived ignorance, although crucial, is not all there is to Kierkegaard’s indirect communication. For Kierkegaard, we will be indifferent to the teacher’s instructions or the philosophers we read. The content of that teaching cannot do anything for us: “The how of the truth is precisely the truth”, he writes (Kierkegaard 1992, p. 323). This means that instruction for life, for how to live, cannot come through what is said, but only by paying close attention to how something is said. That is, although we cannot be but indifferent to the instruction of a teacher, as we cannot at the outset live the teacher’s life with that instruction and give it the same lived importance, the teacher is not indifferent towards his or her own reality. But that importance, that innermost importance, with which a teacher approaches his or her own life, the way he or she lives the instruction, is not directly communicable. Rather, the teacher indirectly communicates such an approach to life and the reality in which he or she lives; that is, in how the teacher speaks, writes, or shows the realities of his or her individual approach to life (Kierkegaard 1992, p. 325–27). But this seems to get us nowhere. We still cannot say what kind of pedagogical act this consists in. As Kierkegaard began his Philosophical Fragments, and Plato began to make philosophy into pedagogy through Socratic midwifery, and I struggle as a martial arts student, we share a question: can truth, the truth of leading a human life, be taught? Kierkegaard’s insight here is that although the Socratic teacher can assist in giving birth to one’s individual subjective truths, Socrates, and no-one else, except God, can bring forth the birth of knowledge (Kierkegaard 1985, p. 10–11). Or, put otherwise, without the Christian theistic undertones, birth simply happens. The teacher, the midwife of truth, is simply momentarily (although sometimes that moment is long) assisting in the process, but not making it happen. As Kierkegaard puts it: “because I can discover my own untruth only by myself, because only when I discover it is it discovered, not before, even though the whole world knew it” (Kierkegaard 1985, p. 14). Kierkegaard sees the Socratic dialogue as an example of such an indirect teacher, where the interlocutors push each other further and further until they come to certain realisations that transform their lives. However, I am reminded of how seldom this actually seems to happen in Plato’s narratives about Socrates. Chu Hsi sets up his pedagogy of reading in a similar way. And of course the martial arts training by necessity is practiced in such a spirit. By the guidance of the teacher we practice, but the teacher does not give birth to the eventual skill and understanding. It simply happens when it happens during all those hours of practice. Nevertheless, there is something to the concreteness of the martial art practice and the skills it is meant to result in that makes it slightly different from both Kierkegaard’s existentialist Christianity and Chu Hsi’s Way. Perhaps that is why some Chinese say “that to be a true gentleman it is important to be well versed in the

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literary and the martial” (Salzman 1986, p. 30). The craftsmanship, or the skills, involved in martial arts training adds a bodily dimension to what may seem a bookish formation of the individual in Kierkegaard and Chu Hsi. Also, although there is considerable effort and pain involved in the transformative processes of those thinkers, the sometimes painful physicality of the efforts, at least in the Shaolin tradition I practice, is demanding in a more concrete way. There are no books to read to become a great martial artist. There are, however, traditions. But such traditions are passed on orally rather than through text. There are of course plenty of books on martial arts, and some of them are quite helpful, but they cannot replace the presence of a teacher while practicing. Many Asian martial arts have a systematisation that turns them into a particular art form. A style has a certain set of techniques practiced in a certain way out of which criteria for excellence emerge (Smeyers and Burbules 2010). Those techniques and the system in which they are set up have practical explanations for their application and usage. They also often have mythical and poetical explanations. For example, the forms practiced in many Shaolin styles are named after animals and mythical creatures. Many of those framings of the movements and forms draw on a great range of motifs from Taoist, Buddhist, or Confucian myths and philosophy as well as on motifs from Chinese literature and traditions. There is also a form of indirect instruction in the telling of stories and the use of poetic expressions as they are used to open up particular conceptions of the practice or perhaps the spirit of the art. Poetic expressions and the narrative contexts in which they are used, such as the instructions to quieten the mind and to invest in loss, give a background to eventually come to an understanding. The understanding is not limited to understanding the practice, the movement, or technique. It is a lived understanding that gives a background to how to approach the martial art as a skill that hold a way of life, ontologies, epistemologies, and ethics within it.

7.5  C  onclusion: Buddha’s River, Heraclitus’ River, and a River Reading Chu Hsi on reading has helped me to narrate the experience of trying to practice to achieve quiet minding in martial arts without being able to conceptualise what such knowledge consists in. Reading Kierkegaard has given a further dimension to how to understand Chu Hsi’s pedagogical aims by highlighting instructions to approach life as a form of indirect communication. This in turn can show how the oral and embodied traditions of Chinese martial arts have helped me to re-read Chu Hsi and Kierkegaard. The idea of quiet minding and investing in loss is in various ways fundamental in East Asian philosophies. In the lived experience of many martial arts practices, or certain aspects of them, the concept quiet minding becomes flesh. The concreteness

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of shortness of breath, of sweat, bruises, pain, blood pumping, bleeding, speed, bodily balance, strength, agility, and flexibility required to do some movements; all this embodies the difficulty of quiet minding. The embodiment of the instruction to quiet the mind, to invest in loss, can be understood as a way to live, to truly embody philosophical ideas. Let me briefly give an example of how the Buddhist doctrine of impermanence can be lived. Quiet minding and investing in loss can be seen as an expression of giving up the idea of a stable self, of the concept of a self. It is hard to communicate the meaning of such an idea. That is partly what Ricard finds difficult to explain to his father, the Western philosopher. It seems to lie deeper in an approach to life more generally. Thus, the Buddha turns to metaphor to communicate the insight: O Brahmana, it is just like a mountain river, flowing far and swift, taking everything along with it; there is no moment, no instant, no second when it stops flowing, but is goes on flowing and continuing. So Brahmana, is human life, like a mountain river (Devamitta 1929 in Rahula 1974, p. 29).

Walpola Rahula takes this as an instruction in how to understand the Buddha’s saying to Ratthapala: The world is in continuous flux and is impermanent (Rahula 1974, p. 26).

Western philosophers recognise this from Heraclitus (cf. Van Norden 2017, pp. 44–46). When I encountered Heraclitus’ thought, however, it was introduced to me as an ontological proposition. When a martial arts teacher tells me to relax, to quiet the mind, and to invest in loss or let go of my ego, they mean to live it. To understand the instruction is to live. Then understanding the proposition is not enough. I must live the doctrine of impermanence. In Linnea Axelsson’s lyric novel Ædnan (2018) one of the characters, a Sámi from northern Sweden, describes her relationship to the river: I see how the river wants to flow by but is held back because the dam stand there blocking the way – as an inhibition in nature And I have perhaps not ever been able to separate nature from myself (Axelsson 2018, pp. 208–209, my translation)

For this Sámi women, Lise, the river is not a metaphor. It is a real river. Its inhibition is a real prison. Likewise, the relation between the poetry of the Chinese martial arts practices and East Asian philosophical discourse is that they both take the teachings beyond metaphors. Quiet minding in the encounters with the martial, the movements of life and death, opens a space for lived contemplation where the Way

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becomes a real struggle, where impermanence is understood in the context of experiences of fear, pain, and exhaustion, where the mind and the body need to be kept calm as the world rushes by. Martial arts practice can thus be seen as a live embodiment of what Kierkegaard and Chu Hsi hope to accomplish in their textual exercises. The instruction to quiet the mind, to invest in the loss of ego, thus always becomes an indirect communication, a call to live freely, without the inhibitions blocking the flow of life. The indirect communication of quiet minding communicates how to do, live, act, things that are more about practice and training, embodied understanding or enlightenment, than cognitive knowledge.

References Adler, J. (2014). Reconstructing the Confucian Dao: Zhu Xi’s appropriation of Zhou Dunyi. Albany: SUNY Press. Axelsson, L. (2018). Ædnan. Stockholm: Bonniers. Boulous Walker, M. (2017). Slow philosophy: Reading against the institution. London: Bloomsbury. Carlisle, C. (2019). Philosopher of the heart: The restless life of Søren Kierkegaard. London: Allen Lane/Penguin. Chu, H. (1986). Zhuzi yulei 朱子語類 (A collection of conversations of Master Zhu). (L. Jingde, Ed.). Beijing: Zhonghua shuju. Chu, H., & Gardner, D. (1990). Learning to be a Sage: Selections from conversations with Master Chu, arranged topically. (D. Gardner, Ed.). Berkeley: University of California Press. Conant, J., & Forsberg, N. (2018). Inheriting Wittgenstein: James Conant in conversation with Niklas Forsberg Part 2. Nordic Wittgenstein Review, 7(2), 111–193. Devamitta, H.  T. (1929). Anguttara nikaya: Collected and revised by Devamitta Maha Nayaka Thera, with the assistance of B.  Sri Revata Thera, and b. Dewarakkhita Thera. Colombo: W.P. Ranatunga. Diamond, C. (1988). Losing your concepts. Ethics, 98(2), 255–277. Dōgen. (1985). Moon in a dewdrop: Writings of Zen Master Dōgen. (K. Tanahashi, Ed.). New York: North Point Press. Gardner, D. (1989). Transmitting the way: Chu Hsi and his program of learning. Harvard Journal of Asian Studies, 49(1), 141–172. Gardner, D. (2007). The four books: The basic teaching of the later Confucian tradition. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. Kierkegaard, K. (1985). Philosophical fragments, or a fragment of philosophy/Johannes Climacus, or De omnibus dubitandum est. (H.  V. Hong, & E.  H. Hong, Eds. and Trans.). Princeton: Princeton University Press. Kierkegaard, K. (1992). Concluding unscientific postscript to philosophical fragments volume I, by Johannes Climacus (S. Kierkegaard, Ed., H. V. Hong and, & E. H. Hong, Trans.). Princeton: Princeton University Press. Laverty, M. (2009). Learning our concepts. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 43(1), 27–40. Lear, J. (2006). Radical hope: Ethics in the face of cultural devastation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Lorge, P. A. (2012). Chinese martial arts: From antiquity tot twenty-first century. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Misawa, K. (2018). Nature and nurture. In A. Chinnery, N. Hodgson & V. Johansson section eds. Section 3, Revisiting Enduring Debates in Paul Smeyers ed. International handbook of philosophy of education (pp. 905–920). Dordrecht: Springer. Rahula, W. (1974). What the Buddha taught (Rev. edn.). New York: Grove Weidenfield.

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Revel, J. –F., & Ricard, M. (1998). The Monk and the Philosopher: A father and son discuss the meaning of life (J. Canti, Trans.). New York: Schocken Books. Salzman, M. (1986). Iron and silk: Encountering martial artists, bureaucrats and other citizens of contemporary China. London: Hamish and Hamilton. Shahar, M. (2008). The shaolin monastery: History, religion, and the Chinese martial arts. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Smeyers, P., & Burbules, N.  C. (2010). Education as initiation into practices. In M.  Peters, N. C. Burbules, & P. Smeyers (Eds.), Showing and doing: Wittgenstein as a pedagogical philosopher. Paradigm: Boulder. Smith, R. (1974). Chinese boxing: Masters and methods. Tokyo: Kodansha International. Van Norden, B.  W. (2017). Taking back philosophy: A multicultural manifesto. New  York: Columbia University Press. Weil, S. (1973). Waiting for God. (E. Crawfurd, Trans.). New York: Harper & Row. Wittgenstein, L. (1953). Philosophical investigations (4th Rev. Ed.). Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Zhang, S. (2008). The method of no-method: The Chan practice of silent illumination. Boston: Shambhala.

Chapter 8

Alienation and In-Habitation: The Educating Journey in West and East Karsten Kenklies

The concept of ‘the whole world as a school’ is deeply rooted in the European tradition. We find it in Nicholas of Cusa as well as in texts of Paracelsus, Alsted, and Comenius. And not much younger is the practice that embodies this concept like no other: the educating or formative journey, or  – as it is known in German: die Bildungsreise. Theory and practice of journeying have their fixed places in the history of education – not only in Europe. This paper endeavours to introduce two concepts of the educating journey: the European version which arguably found its most theoretical expression in the German ideas of Bildung and Bildungsreise and is based on an idea of a deliberate alienation, and the Japanese concept of an educating journey as inhabitation as expressed in the itineraries of Matsuo Bashō 松尾 芭蕉, the famous haiku poet. However, going beyond a mere presentation, in contrasting both, the concepts do not only become more distinct but they hopefully can also offer a critical perspective on each other. And, maybe even more importantly: they can offer a foundation for relating those two traditions which so often are perceived as being very different.1 A first approach to the subject brings to mind two dimensions with regard to which we usually talk about formative journeys: We either talk about journeys in a more metaphorical sense, or we do mean literally a journey that takes us and our bodies from one place to another one. Usually those two forms can be distinguished This chapter takes up ideas explored in Kenklies (2015). 1  This is not the place to engage with the long standing discussion about the apparent uniqueness of especially the Japanese culture. Those discussions usually circle around the notion of Nihonjinron 日本人論 or Nihonron 日本論.

K. Kenklies (*) University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 D. Lewin, K. Kenklies (eds.), East Asian Pedagogies, Contemporary Philosophies and Theories in Education 15, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45673-3_8

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by the first one, the metaphorical one, being a movement of mind and spirit, whereas the second one emphasises a spatial change inasmuch as it is our bodies that move, too, and not only (or not at all) our minds and spirits. However, already our creation of the metaphor, i.e. the addressing of the changing of mind and spirit as a movement, as ‘journey’, bears witness to our tendency to frame non-material changes as mirroring bodily travel: For good reasons we relate thinking to travelling, for example, when talking about the ‘train of thought’ – and whereas extensive bodily journeying only started quite late to be of greater relevance (if we take a journey to be different from an escape, a nomadic lifestyle, etc.) human thinking, imagination and fantasy always have travelled extensively through space and time, leaving the body behind. With the help of books, stories and substances, the mind was supposedly freed from its domestic cage to explore the universe of possibility. None of this was mere play: most people were quite aware of the eminent consequences this kind of travelling has or could have, as whoever returns, if at all, does not return unchanged – a change that might be sought for or feared, that might accidentally occur and then is either welcomed or resisted: Those who ban drugs or burn books are very much aware of the changing power of such spiritual travels, as well as those who deliberately use this kind of help to induce a spiritual journey and embrace the change that this results in. Looking at Plato’s allegory of the cave (Politeia 514a–520a), we are presented with the archetypical image that subsequently shaped Western educational thinking in that it frames a spiritual, mental or psychological change as a material travel or journey. The image of the ascent of the mind from the cave upwards to the outer world, to the real world of ideas, conceptualises the internal change of the person as a journey in time and(!) space. The whole talking about inside and outside, lower spheres and upper spheres, of climbing up and leaving the cave – all those are spatial metaphors for something that is not at all spatial. Anyway, this metaphorical way of speaking about ‘internal’ processes was successful enough to still let us talk about the ‘wanderings of our minds’. However, this metaphorical conflation of the inner and the outer change as journey is neither new nor specific to Western cultures. Looking towards Japan, we do encounter the same usage of spatial metaphors of journeying for a sort of change that is not spatial.2 Those who are at least vaguely interested in Japan can hardly avoid encountering one of the most important notions of traditional Japanese education: dō 道. Maybe one has encountered notions like: karatedō 空手道, judō 柔道, aikidō 合気道, kendō 剣道, or maybe chadō 茶道. Dō actually means ‘path’ or ‘street’ – it’s the path one walks on to get from here to there, or the street that leads to somewhere. However, in the names of what are known as classic Japanese arts, like martial arts but also tea ceremony, this little syllable denotes a concept of self-­ formation that is characteristic of those practices. Here the way one walks becomes the way one develops, changes, transforms, and grows (Kenklies 2018). This is not 2  The very idea of ‘education’ is based on a very specific understanding of space and time; ‘education’ as notion is at its heart chrono-topological, as shown in: Kenklies (2012).

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contingent or accidental: The classic ways of Japan are highly codified. However, we can perceive the same tendency to conflate the associative space of the material journey, of actual walking and travelling, with the notions that refer to ‘internal’ educational formations and transformations. The arts that seek to change the whole self of a person, aim at spiritual, mental, and psychological transformations which then express themselves in visible changes of a person, e.g. in the capacity to do something specific in a specific way (e.g. fighting or drinking tea), or to exist and live in a specific way (e.g. in constant awareness that reduces mistakes originating from moments of abstraction). However, the metaphorical journey of mind and spirit is just one of the dimensions that should interest educators. Whereas the reflection on the allegory of the cave or the Japanese art-ways can teach us important aspects about the ways we use spatial metaphors of travelling and journeying to describe educational processes (and also about the ways those metaphors trick us into conceptualising those processes in a helpful or maybe even unhelpful way), it still remains worth noting that the actual travel and journey, the movement of bodies, has played an important part in educational thinking in East and West for quite some time. Even though, as hopefully I will be able to show, those educational appropriations of the journey tend to be quite different, they are very much relevant in both educational traditions. Let me therefore start with an exploration of what became famous as the German concept of Bildungsreise – the formative journey that became the topic of a whole genre of literature, the Bildungsroman (Abrams and Harpham 2015). Following this exploration, I will draw attention to the Japanese concepts of angya 行脚 and shugyō 修行 and the way those are epitomised in the life and works of Bashō. A brief exploration into the history of Western education reveals that the formative attributes of travelling have been known for quite some time. It was for this very reason that Plato, in his dialogue Νόμοι (Nomoi/Laws 949e–951c; see also Kenklies 2007), demanded that only those of unshakeable character and integrity would be allowed to leave the city and travel abroad: The danger of being exposed and subsequently influenced, changed by different cultures were too great for Plato to allow free travelling for just anyone. The assumed necessity for stability had to counter the imminent threat of change: The danger that the already formed character would be overwhelmed by those influences was contained through a clear separation from in- and outside, keeping the outside out as much as possible. The possible dangers which external influences posed to those in the process of formation were very much acknowledged even by those who deliberately promoted travelling as part of an education. In Francis Bacon’s essay Of Travel (1625), we are presented with such an account. It is widely known that the Grand Tour began to play an important part in the education of the young aristocrats (for England see: Chaney and Wilks 2013). As Bacon puts it: TRAVEL, in the younger sort, is a part of education, in the elder, a part of experience. He that travelleth into a country, before he hath some entrance into the language, goeth to school, and not to travel. (Bacon 1625, p. 50)

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He does, however, not embrace an idea of free travelling: Not only are the travels of the young gentlemen accompanied by a wise tutor who decides where to go and what to look at, he also emphasises that only that which does not(!) result in a thorough change of the traveller may be chosen: For else, young men shall go hooded, and look abroad little. […] And let his travel appear rather in his discourse, than his apparel or gesture; and in his discourse, let him be rather advised in his answers, than forward to tell stories; and let it appear that he doth not change his country manners, for those of foreign parts; but only prick in some flowers, of that he hath learned abroad, into the customs of his own country. (Bacon 1625, p. 52)

Maybe it can be seen as the Cunning of Reason that it was especially Bacon’s earlier works De dignitate et augmentis scientiarum, Novum Organon, and Instauratio magna which contributed to a complete turnaround in the history of the Western mind: The Querelles des anciens et des modernes – the battle between the Old and the New at the end of the seventeenth century – was not at last fought and won with the weapons Bacon provided. With the victory of the Modern, the idea that human salvation ultimately lies in the discovery and appropriation of the new rather than in reciting and getting acquainted with the Ancient and Classic became central to Western civilisation and education. Since then we are bound to find our luck as individuals and as societies in what has been termed as ‘progress’. In those countries that later became known as ‘Germany’, the Querelle was not fought as harshly and violently as for example in France: The idea that a certain kind of knowledge had to be acquired through the new ways of experimentation and observation was embraced without denying the relevance of the Classic culture of Europe, and it was only a matter of discussion whether it was the Greeks or the Romans who provided the paradigm for every culture that aspired to some sort of cultural perfection. (Kapitza 1981) We can witness an almost dialectical interrelation of the Old and the New, and it was the individual who provided the stage for this dialectical interplay, and the formative journey, the Bildungsreise, became the medium of this exchange. This is the background then for Goethe’s famous journey to Italy – the travel that became the paradigm for every journey the German cultural elite subsequently engaged with. “I shall come back a new man, and live to the greater joy of myself and my friends” (Goethe 1884, p. 296), declared Goethe in a letter from Rome to his mother (fourth November 1786), and he was determined to shape the official account of his travel according to this principle. This official account – the Italienische Reise (Italian Journey) of 1829 (Goethe 1993) – represents a theoretical reworking and reshaping of his memories of the original travel in 1786–88: His notebooks give a very different picture of the realities of travelling. However, it was the official book that turned into a bible for German culture  – and it was the official account that made such a huge impression on Humboldt that he framed his Theory of Bildung3 around Goethe’s travel mythos and its idea of a Re-Naissance of the Individual through the encounter with the world of Classic Antiquity. 3  Even though this text of probably 1793 only saw the light of day in 1903 when it was graced with a headline by the editor and published in the Collected Works, it still is regarded as the paradigmatic text for Humboldt’s theory of Bildung.

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What then was Humboldt’s idea of Bildung? (Humboldt 1793a) The foundation for Humboldt’s theory of Bildung is provided by a normative anthropology or theory of the human: It is the ultimate task of our existence to achieve as much substance as possible for the concept of humanity in our person, both during the span of our life and beyond it, through the traces we leave by means of our vital activity. (Humboldt 1793a, p. 58)

Humboldt hereby introduces what he thinks every person should achieve in her/ his life. Far from having a clear image of what the human should strive for (e.g. Godlikeliness), Humboldt sets the goal of all human aspirations as the richest possible life – to enhance the general idea of what it could mean to be human. The idea of humanity, the concept of being human, is not pre-given, is not already known or spelled out. What it means to be human will be unveiled in the process of the development of the human race through time, and every person, so Humboldt says, should attempt to enhance this idea of humanity as much as possible and take precautions for those achievements not to be forgotten by later generations by making them part of that culture which is transmitted through what we might call education and socialisation. Everyone participates in this enhancing of the general idea of humanity through the (trans)formation of oneself. Everybody should turn her/himself into an example of a human – an example that is as rich as possible, expressing in the most distinguished way what it could mean to be human, bearing witness to the capacities of all humankind. It now has to be asked how Humboldt envisions this enhancement to be achieved. Humboldt calls for conscious relating to a relation the self already entertains, namely its relation to the world: This [achieving as much substance as possible in a person, K.K.] can be fulfilled only by the linking of the self to the world to achieve the most general, most animated, and most unrestrained interplay. (Humboldt 1793a, p. 58)

In a complete reversal of the traditional pedagogical teleology of Godlikeliness, Humboldt states that it is the human who leaves its mark upon the world by shaping it according to its ideas: [H]is nature drives him to reach beyond himself to the external objects, and here it is crucial that he should not lose himself in this alienation, but rather reflect back into his inner being the clarifying light and the comforting warmth of everything that he undertakes outside himself. To this end, however, he must bring the mass of objects closer to himself, impress his mind upon this matter, and create more of a resemblance between the two. (Humboldt 1793a, p. 59)

How does this process enhance the capacities of the human? Using all of these as so many different tools, he must try to grasp Nature, not so much in order to become acquainted with it from all sides, but rather through this diversity of views to strengthen his own innate power, of which they are only differently shaped effects. (Humboldt 1793a, p. 59)

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In the end, changing our relation to the world serves only one purpose: “the heightening of [our] powers and the elevation of [our] personality” (Humboldt 1793a, p. 60), because [a]t the convergence point of all particular kinds of activity is man, who, in the absence of a purpose with a particular direction, wishes only to strengthen and heighten the powers of his nature and secure value and permanence for his being. (Humboldt 1793a, p. 58)

This clearly is founded upon ideas of the Enlightenment which, despite the emphasis on anthropology in all its versions (philosophical, biological, social, etc.), would regard the nature of the human as a mystery as long as it hasn’t completely unfolded in history. The fate and future of the human are not prescribed but open – the self is given to itself and has itself as a project of development and ­(trans)formation – the self is the result of its own Bildung into the realms of the undiscovered country that is its future. (Kenklies 2018) The fact that all this unfolding is based upon changing an existing relation to a non-self also secures traditional theories of Bildung from becoming theories of poetical constructivism4 because there always is something else that is not the self but to which it does have a relation that then has to be changed. And it is also the non-self that to some extent restricts the ways in which the self can (trans)form itself. Usually in these kinds of theory the relation that one has to act upon and that at the same time sets the limits of all formation is the relation to the non-self as world, as matter, as that which is not Geist (spirit). In correspondence to this idea of a non-self to which the self holds a relation that it then can begin to act upon (hereby establishing a relation-relation), those traditional concepts of Bildung are often based upon the idea of an unfolding of something preexisting that strives to express itself into the world, an expression that is initiated by the encounter with the Other. What now has this to do with the formative journey? What is the Bildungsreise? As can be seen, Humboldt envisions an inner transformation by the means of an encounter with the Other that is the world. It is through alienation – being ripped out of one’s old self  – that the individual begins to transform, to change, to expand; only after one has left its old self, risking everything, one can return renewed, reborn, reformed. Humboldt, in comparison, is very clear about the idea that the self leaves its home only temporarily – only to then return changed and transformed: Although all these demands are limited to man's inner being, his nature drives him to reach beyond himself to the external objects, and here it is crucial that he should not lose himself in this alienation, but rather reflect back into his inner being the clarifying light and the comforting warmth of everything that he undertakes outside himself. (Humboldt 1793a, p. 59)

– and hereby leaving it to Hegel and his theory of Aufhebung to introduce a concept of Bildung that does not include an idea of return but of constant negation and

 As, for example, then defended by Friedrich Nietzsche: Nietzsche (1873).

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transformation.5 Later, Nietzsche will revive the idea of a closed horizon that is just wide enough to accommodate and appropriate everything alien one is confronted with – blocking out that which is too much to digest. (Nietzsche 1874) Or, in other words: The alienation through the journey is formative only inasmuch as it does not completely negate the self in its former state; the formation of the self still is the formation or expansion of a specific self. Even though Humboldt in a very general sense talks about the world as that to which the individual has to relate in order to expand its capacities, it is the world of Antiquity that provides the superior object of relation. (Humboldt 1793b) From Goethe he learnt that it is the challenge of encountering the ancient high culture that enables the individual to ascend to unknown heights. Not through simple appropriation of antique culture but through encountering the challenges this culture represents for the contemporary individual. With the declaration of Greek and Roman culture to be the exclusive reference points for the necessary processes of alienation upon which Bildung can only be founded, Humboldt attempts to contain the same dangers that led Bacon to declare that not everything should be interesting for the traveller. And in declaring those cultures to be exclusive reference points, Humboldt embraces Goethe’s and the Germanic hellenophiles’ fascination with Italy and Greece – hereby once more conflating the concepts of an inner journey and transformation with those of an actual external encounter with the Other. In Goethe’s footsteps and Humboldt’s spirit, millions of Germans subsequently travelled to Italy in search for Bildung and transformation, and it could be said that Italy still seems to be the declared paradise for many German travellers and holiday-­ makers (even though the historic roots for this longing might be very much unknown to most of those contemporary Italy lovers); it might even be assumed that Germans did inherit this attitude to travel more generally, and other travellers also have absorbed the general idea, at least in part. That, however, was not the end of the Bildungsreise: The idea that embarking on a journey is a necessary part of the formation of the young still is very much alive in German educational thinking. Moreover, it did find its way in a way of philosophising that became so central for the German ways of reflecting: Hermeneutics. “To be in a conversation, however, means to be beyond oneself, to think with the other and to come back to oneself as if to another.” (Gadamer 1985, p.  110) Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics is structured according to Humboldt’s and Goethe’s concept of the formative journey: It’s only the encounter with the Other – the text – that one becomes aware of one’s own preconceptions and prejudices, and it is this encounter that may lead to a transformation of those preconceptions and therefore of the self in general. Hermeneutics is as much about the understanding of the Other as it is about the understanding and the reformation of the self – the medium of the Other offers the necessary alienation to create the sort of self-reflection and self-consciousness that can justifiably be called self-awareness, or, as Dewey puts it: Freedom:

5  A transformation whose distinct qualitative features are completely missed when presented in the formula theses – antithesis – synthesis; Hegel’s Logic is not a formal logic but a qualitative logic.

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One thing, then, that a University education should do for a man is to rid him of his provincialisms. […] There may be touches of provincialism in manner which nothing but actual contacts will destroy, or which will always remain as the outer tokens of a sturdy, genuine ‘home-keeping’ spirit. But the voyage one takes in entering college life is a voyage to a far port, and through many countries foreign in space, in time, in manner of speech and thought. If such travelling of the spirit does not remove the narrow and small cast of one’s opinion and methods it is failing of its aim. The Germans call the period of youthful culture a period of ‘self-alienation’, because in it the mind gives up its immediate interests and goes on this far journey. […] But all this ought a man to expect from his college course. Its name is Freedom. (Dewey 1890, p. 27)

With this observation, we are back to where we started: The inner journey and the outer journey which go hand in hand in transforming and educating the individual, to make it larger, greater, somehow more itself. However, this is only one way to look at the benefits of a journey. Let’s change now the perspective and meet the most famous of the Japanese haiku poets: Matsuo Bashō 松尾 芭蕉 (1644–1694).6 And, as can be seen from this structure, this chapter itself is structured according to the idea of the Bildungsreise inasmuch it hopes to increase understanding through enabling an encounter with the Other: The alienation that is attempted here may help to transform the reader; as an author who has been socialised into Germanic ways of reflection, I am very much caught in this German tradition, I cannot escape. Bashō was not only a great poet but also a determined wanderer who left his humble hut several times to undertake different journeys through Japan. Those experiences then were codified in the 5 travel notebooks (Bashō 2005) which he wrote and which present the reader with an elaborate composition of texts and poems, of haiku 俳句 – each notebook as much a stylisation and literary re-working of real experiences as Goethe’s Italian Journey, proving that journeying in the sense presented here is in itself a result of a certain interpretation that gives form to the raw experiences of travelling (as much as we use spatial, i.e. external and bodily, metaphors to describe internal, i.e. non-spatial and spiritual/cognitive, processes, we still need cognitive concepts to make sense of our bodily experiences; both go always hand in hand). One of Bashō’s notebooks rose to particular fame: Oku no hosomichi 奥の細道 (1694), Narrow road to the Interior, which, much like Goethe’s text, offers not so much an account of the actual travel as an account of the mythos, the theory of the formative journey. It is this text that we now draw our attention to. It starts with the following declamation: The months and days are the travellers of eternity. The years that come and go are also voyagers. Those who float away their lives on ships or who grow old leading horses are forever journeying, and their homes are wherever their travels take them. Many of the men of old died on the road, and I too for years past have been stirred by the sight of a solitary cloud drifting with the wind to ceaseless thoughts of roaming. Last year I spent wandering along the seacoast. In autumn I returned to my cottage on the river and swept away the cobwebs. Gradually the year drew to its close. When spring

6  There is not enough space to give a full introduction to Bashō’s life and works. For an introduction see: Shirane (1998).

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came and there was mist in the air, I thought of crossing the Barrier of Shirakawa into Oku. I seemed to be possessed by the spirits of wanderlust, and they all but deprived me of my senses. The guardian spirits of the road beckoned, and I could not settle down to work. I patched my torn trousers and changed the cord on my bamboo hat. To strengthen my legs for the journey I had moxa burned on my shins. By then I could think of nothing but the moon at Matsushima. When I sold my cottage and moved to Sanpū’s villa, to stay until I started on my journey, I hung this poem on a post in my hut:

草の戸も 住替る代ぞ ひなの家

kusa no to mo sumikawaru yo zo hina no ie

Even a thatched hut May change with the dweller Into a doll’s house.7

Three aspects are relevant for us here: (1) Bashō feels somehow driven to leave his house and to submit himself to the adventure of a long journey; (2) Bashō perceives his individual journey as an expression (or active instantiation) of the general being-in-movement and being-in-change of all existing things and of being itself; and (3) he is drawn to specific places at specific times: the barrier of Shirakawa in the mists of Spring, and the bay of Matsushima in the light of a full moon. Those three aspects can be taken together as an expression of Bashō’s intention: Bashō aspires to encounter his tradition and ancestors – an encounter that is more than a mere meeting or getting acquainted: it’s the kind of encounter that really transforms someone. Of course, Bashō’s idea of travelling has predecessors, too. On one hand, there was a tradition of especially Zen monks who practiced kyōgyō 經行 (Keown 2008, p. 142) – a walking or hiking meditation. On the other hand, there are angya 行脚,8 the traditional pilgrimage of monks from temple to temple, and shugyō 修行 (Yuasa 1987, p. 85), an established practice of self-cultivation of the samurai, the ancient warriors of Japan, to travel the country in search of challenge, exercise, and wisdom. With his interpretation of the travelling as an expression of the eternal change of the world, Bashō deliberately relates himself to the tradition of the famous ancient Japanese wandering poets, namely Saigyō 西行 (1118–1190). Keeping an eye on those poets, Bashō attempts to truly understand and grasp their view of the world even if this adventure puts his life in grave danger: I felt uneasy over my illness, recalling how far away our destination was, but I reasoned with myself that when I started out on this journey to remote parts of the country it was with an awareness that I was risking my life. Even if I should die on the road, this would be the will of Heaven. (Bashō 2012, p. 138f.)

 Here in the Classic translation of Donald Keene: Bashō (2012, p. 158f.).  Bankei would be a good example for this type of wandering: Haskel (1994).

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Bashō aspires to truly understand, that is to relive the teachings of the old masters and of the tradition: He is not setting out to gain something new or unknown – he sets out to regain something very old and ancient – he sets out not to be reborn as a new individual but as keeper of old wisdom. That becomes even more obvious if we are looking at where he is travelling to. The places Bashō intends to visit are uta-­ makura 歌枕 or hai-makura 俳枕. (Kamens 1997) Uta-makura – which translates as poem-pillows – are those places in Japan which are loaded with meaning – places which are famous as wonders of nature or for being part of the real or mythological history of Japan (a difference that was not made in Japan in the days of Bashō; Japan’s history was recorded in the Kojiki 古事記 ‘Records of Ancient Matters’/‘An Account of Ancient Matters’ and Nihon Shoki 日本書紀/ Nihongi 日本紀 ‘Japanese Chronicles’); hai-makura are those places which have been made famous by poets through repeated citations throughout the history of poetry in Japan. The medieval geography of Japan is shaped more by ancient legends, stories, and poems than by geographic-scientific features – a map of Japan becomes meaningful only through what is related to a specific place (in the same way Pierre Nora has described France as a net of lieux des memoire (Nora 1999–2010)). Bashō’s journey takes him to such places for continuing what tradition has taught him to do: As every other poet before him, Bashō adds his own poem to the reservoir of already existing poems – every single one of those places is already the object of hundreds of poems, and Bashō puts forward yet another poem as an expression of his own appropriation of this place and the tradition it represents. Bashō’s journey is a journey that leads him to in-habit the country through its tradition  – Bashō relives the experiences of his ancestors and writes himself into this tradition. In composing a new personal poem for the already traditional places, he not only expands the lore of what Japan is but also finds a contemporary expression of the ancient wisdom. This is what the formative journey is for Bashō: the immersion into the tradition, the adoption of the ancestral lore, and the existential comprehension of the ancient wisdom – in the ways of the tradition, on the ways of the tradition, and towards the tradition – this is travelling as in-habitation for Bashō. Now, it is time to step back and pause for a moment on our journey through space and time, to ask what the difference is between the two concepts of the formative journey presented here. As became hopefully clear, the German concept of the Bildungsreise is founded on the idea that through deliberate alienation and return as appropriation the individuality of the traveller is expanded, re-formed, or in general: developed. The journey to the Other renews the individual and deepens the pre-­ existing personal individuality. It is not the acquisition of new knowledge that drives the person undergoing Bildung – it is about expanding and broadening the personality of an individual. For Bashō, individuality and its expansion or broadening appear not to be the goal of travelling. On the contrary: He seems to travel to give birth to the tradition in his own self, to help to reanimate it, to take care for its continuation through re-presenting it. There is no obvious aspiration for individuality, particularity, difference. Whereas with Goethe and Humboldt, Bildung is about the unfolding of an ingrained possibility towards an individual and singular representation of

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humanity that begins with an alienation from the known, formation with Bashō is about the re-presenting and re-living of tradition through in-habitating of the known. We could stop here: Presenting that which is different as part of our necessary alienation to increase our understanding of ourselves, fulfils the structure of the formative journey that was introduced earlier. The journey, on which you, my patient reader, have accompanied me, could end here. However – one last step can be made: We still might return to ourselves to render this journey even more formative; we still could look with Bashō’s eyes upon our own culture, and with our eyes on Bashō. The new found awareness of different interpretations of what is maybe going on while travelling enables us to create some distance to both positions – a distance that now opens the horizon for questions, for puzzlement, or, in short: for criticality. With Bashō, we now need to ask whether or not the Bildungsreise really is enabling the rise and expansion of individuality; and with Goethe and Humboldt we become encouraged to ask, if Bashō’s travels truly only led him to recapitulate the tradition. Looking at Goethe and Humboldt, the idea that the individual unfolds through the encounter with the Other on a journey might be challenged in at least three different ways. At first, we would need to ask how this process of unfolding is to be imagined as it includes a concept of some sort of individual essence ingrained into the very structure of the individual from the first moments of its existence. Humboldt does not align himself with older ideas of essentialism, of a preformed seed that just unfolds to what has been ingrained before: On the basis of Blumenbach’s idea of the Bildungstrieb (Blumenbach 1780), the formative impetus or energy, Humboldt presupposes an individualised (and therefore individualising) tendency of growth. However, already Goethe sees (Goethe 1892, p.  73) that we don’t gain a lot by substituting the preformed seed with the preformed formative energy: Both are essentialist versions of preformation, predetermination, and predefinition  – concepts that seem to contradict an idea of a free and maybe even autonomous formation of the self through the self. Secondly, it might be noteworthy to remind us that Goethe too takes his Italian journey as reason to substitute his old aesthetics of genius with an aesthetics of the Classic (Fischer 1997) – hereby departing from a concept that saw the artist as an absolutely independent creative self, to accept a concept of a more dependent and embedded creation and formation that is shaped by and through the paradigm of that which is more general, even universal. And, thirdly, on a more empirical note, it can be seen that the Bildungsreise in its realised form quickly became nothing more than a tourist tour that ticks the right boxes of the sights deemed to be necessary to visit – a hollowing out of the original conception of risking oneself to re-form oneself on a higher level – a hollowing out about which to complain became a standard exercise of all German culture critics from Nietzsche to Adorno and which still can be perceived in the never-ending repetition of the same travel pictures and photographic poses in even those snapshots which are assumed to be somewhat individualistic. Not many really engage in journeying, in risking oneself in order to regain a new self, and it most certainly does not need the encounter with the Classic to become reborn: For most of us academics, to leave

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the gentrified areas where we often live and to visit the deprived areas in our hometowns may be more alienating than any visit of Greece or Rome could ever be. In summary, the Bildungsreise and its supposed emphasis on the re-naissance of the individual through the alienating encounter with the other might turn out to be more of a mythos. And what about Bashō? His in-habitation is far more than just an immersion into the tradition. Not only does the very idea of a relived understanding of the traditional lore mean to give birth to a completely new self (enlightenment is understood to be the most radical re-naissance of the self) – it also has to be noted that Bashō himself enacts a form of individuation that goes far beyond the formation in the image of the known tradition: His travel into the interiors, to the margins of the country is radically opposed to the general tendency of contemporary Japanese travellers to gravitate towards the centre of the empire, to Edo or Kyōto; he travels where no-one else usually travels, and he begins to draw attention to the simple life, in which people hitherto weren’t interested. He went as far as to withhold adoration for traditionally highly praised places through refusing to add another poem to the existing collection of poems. As much as his travels were a repetition of tradition – they were also a performative creation of a very special individuality that sets out to “envision the new in the old, to recuperate, revive, and refigure the cultural memory as embodied in the landscape” (Shirane 1998, p. 253). As in other Japanese arts, individuation maybe was not the proclaimed purpose of his journey, but that is surely what happened. (Kenklies 2018) And this is not devalued by the fact that subsequently his ways themselves became formalised into a tradition, into a school. Are we, in the end, arriving at the same point, just coming from two opposite directions? Could this encounter be described in terms of a familiarity that embraces the known and unknown at the same time: Whereas Bildung was initially assumed to be a process which unfolds and makes visible something previously very much unknown, and which now turns out to be resulting in something quite familiar, Bashō thought to simply relive the already known and still he changed the course of history in quite substantial ways.9 Was the starting point that talked about two different traditions a diversion, pre-formed by prejudices of difference? Did I want the reader to see differences to be then welcomed as reconciler? Or are the similarities that begin to emerge only caused by the single-mindedness of the interpreter who cannot deny that he is part of really only just one tradition? But then – is the mere possibility of similarities not already a prospect that should cause excitement given the fact that usually both traditions claim to be very different from each other  – always using the Other as a point of opposition in order to create one’s own identity? Are Japan and Germany, are East and West so different, or are they just products of strategic essentialisms which construct an Other to secure oneself?

 My gratitude to David Lewin for suggesting this interesting perspective.

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References Abrams, M.  H., & Harpham, G.  G. (2015). A glossary of literary terms (11th ed.). Stamford: Cengage Learning. Bacon, B. (1625). Of travel. In F.  Bacon (Ed.), The moral and historical works (pp.  50–52). London: George Bell & Sons. 1877. Bashō, M. (2005). Basho's journey. The Literary Prose of Matsuo Basho (Barnhill, D.  L, Ed.). Albany: SUNY Press. Bashō, M. (2012). おくのほそ道 The narrow road to Oku. Tokyo: Kodansha International. Blumenbach, J.  F. (1780). Über den Bildungstrieb (Nisus formativus) und seinen Einfluß auf die Generation und Reproduction. In G.  C. Lichtenberg, & G.  Forster (Eds.). Göttingisches Magazin der Wissenschaften und Litteratur, 1(5), 247–266. Chaney, E., & Wilks, T. (2013). The Jacobean grand tour: Early Stuart Travellers in Europe. London: I.B. Tauris. Dewey, J. (1890). A college course. What should I expect from it. The Castalian, 5, 26–29. Fischer, M. (1997). Augenblicke des Wiedererkennens. Zur Kategorie des Erlebnisses in Goethes Italienischer Reise. In M. Baßler et al. (Eds.), Von der Natur zur Kunst zurück. Neue Beiträge zur Goethe-Forschung (pp. 95–107). Tübingen: De Gruyter. Gadamer, H.-G. (1985). Destruktion and deconstruction. In D.  P. Michelfelder & R.  E. Palmer (Eds.), Dialogue and deconstruction: The Gadamer-Derrida encounter (pp. 102–113). Albany: SUNY Press. 1989. Goethe, J. W. v. (1884). Early and miscellaneous letters of J. W. Goethe, including letters to his mother. With notes and a short biography (E. Bell, Ed.). London: George Bell & Sons. Goethe, J. W. V. (1892). Bildungstrieb (1817/18). In J. W. V. Goethe (Ed.), Werke Vol. 71: Zur Morphologie 2. Theil (pp. 71–73). Weimar: Hermann Böhlau. Goethe, J.  W. V. (1993). Sämtliche Werke, Briefe, Tagebücher und Gespräche (Frankfurter Ausgabe), Vol. 15/1+2: Italienische Reise. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp. (English: Goethe, J.W.V. (2010). Italian Journey (W.H. Auden, & E. Mayer, Trans.). London: The Folio Society). Haskel, P. (1994). Bankei Zen: Translations from the record of Bankei. New York: Grove Press. Humboldt, W. V. (1793a). Theory of Bildung. In I. Westbury et al. (Eds.), Teaching as reflective practice: The German Didaktik Tradition (pp. 57–61). New York: Routledge. 2000. Humboldt, W. V. (1793b). Über das Studium des Alterthums, und des Griechischen insbesondere. In W. V. Humboldt (Ed.), Sechs ungedruckte Aufsätze über das klassische Altertum (pp. 3–33). Leipzig: G.J. Göschen. 1896. Kamens, E. (1997). Utamakura, allusion, and intertextuality in traditional Japanese poetry. New Haven: Yale University Press. Kapitza, P. K. (1981). Ein bürgerlicher Krieg in der gelehrten Welt. Zur Geschichte der Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes in Deutschland. München: Fink. Kenklies, K. (2007). Die Pädagogik des Sozialen und das Ethos der Vernunft: Die Konstitution der Erziehung Im Platonischen Dialog Nomoi. Jena: Garamond. Kenklies, K. (2012). Bildung und Kultur. Ästhetische Grundlagen der Vergleichenden Pädagogik. In M. Fröhlich et al. (Eds.), Bildung und Kultur – Relationen (pp. 53–80). Jena: Garamond. Kenklies, K. (2015). Entfremdung und Einwohnung. Reisen mit Matsuo Bashō zwischen Europa und Japan. In R.  Koerrenz (Ed.), Globale Bildung auf Reisen. Das Bildungsjahr an der Hermann-Lietz-Schule Schloss Bieberstein (pp. 23–38). Schöningh: Paderborn. Kenklies, K. (2018). (Self-)Transformation as translation. The birth of the individual from German Bildung and Japanese kata. Tetsugaku: International Journal of the Philosophical Association of Japan, 2, 248–262. Keown, D. (2008). A dictionary of Buddhism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nietzsche, F. (1873). Ueber Wahrheit und Lüge im aussermoralischen Sinne. In F.  Nietzsche (1988) Sämtliche Werke. Kritische Studienausgabe in 15 Einzelbänden, Vol. 1 (G.  Colli, & Montinari, M., 2nd edn., pp.  873–890). München/Berlin/New York: De Gruyter. (English: Nietzsche, F. (1873). On truth and lying in an extra-moral sense. In S.L. Gilman et al (Eds.)

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(1989), Friedrich Nietzsche on Rhetoric and Language (pp.  246–257). New  York/Oxford: Oxford University Press). Nietzsche, F. (1874). Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen. Zweites Stück: Vom Nutzen und Nachtheil der Historie für das Leben. In F. Nietzsche (1999) Sämtliche Werke. Kritische Studienausgabe in 15 Einzelbänden, Vol. 1 (G. Colli, & Montinari, M., Ed., 3rd edn., pp. 243–334). München/ Berlin/New York: De Gruyter. (English: Nietzsche, F. (1980). On the advantage and disadvantage of history for life. Cambridge, MA: Hackett Pub Co). Nora, P. (1999–2010). Rethinking France: Les Lieux de mémoire (4 Vols). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Shirane, H. (1998). Traces of dreams. Landscape, cultural memory, and the poetry of Bashō. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Yuasa, Y. (1987). The body: Toward an eastern mind-body theory. (S. Nagatomo, & Kasulis, T. P., Trans.). New York: SUNY Press.

Chapter 9

Western and Eastern Practices of Literacy Initiation: Thinking About the Gesture of Writing with and Beyond Flusser Joris Vlieghe

9.1  Introduction The main idea behind this chapter is that a philosophical investigation of basic pedagogical practices, and more exactly the different ways in which children get the hang of elementary literacy at school, can offer a deeper understanding of what school education is all about. I follow here the French philosopher of technology Bernard Stiegler (2010), who argues that this basic pedagogical form defines the school. For him, literacy training sets the model for the practices that make up schools, even if schooling as a rule involves far more complicated practices such as teaching youngsters how to play a musical instrument, write an essay, solve a complex mathematical equation or understand the reasons why empires rise and fall. In all these cases, Stiegler would argue, what is at stake is an introduction into dominant cultural technologies (Cf. Siegert 2015) – which are moulded after the more simpler practice of literacy initiation: grasping how to play the flute also requires an understanding of the relation between the notes on the score sheet and the required manipulations one has to perform on the instrument (which is very much alike to what we do when we first learn how to read and write letters and words). Or take as another example, writing an essay involves a profound insight into the architecture of a text and how an argument should be developed in a logically stringent way, and a mastery over rhetoric and stylistic operations one might use (or not). In all these cases students need to learn to adopt a cultural technology, or grammar as Stiegler (2010) wants it, i.e. an operational logic which is specific to each school discipline (music, literature and history respectively). However, this means that the very concept of technology needs to be understood in a very broad sense, and not just in the sense of tools (like hammers, knifes, cars, J. Vlieghe (*) KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 D. Lewin, K. Kenklies (eds.), East Asian Pedagogies, Contemporary Philosophies and Theories in Education 15, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45673-3_9

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etc.). It regards both tools and practices related to these tools – and in that sense a pen is as much technological as the practice of writing itself is. Technology is the name for all the things we rely on in order to be able to lead a human life, as well as for routines and gestures that are implied (Stiegler 1998). School is, then, the time and place where we come to interiorize the principles that command these cultural technologies. In that sense, the word ‘tool’ might be badly chosen, as technological objects are far more than just instruments we have at our disposal and which we might chose to use or not. Instead, we are but who we are thanks to the technologies we adopt. The (historically contingent) technologies we rely on decide to a large extent who we are (Kouppanou 2015; Vlieghe 2015a). As Stiegler argues, there is not first a core of subjectivity that is essentially human and devoid of any dependence on external supports. It is the other way around: we become who we are thanks to relying on technologies. Anthropogenesis (hominization) is technogenesis (Stiegler 1998). In this chapter, I will develop this thesis further, by going deeper into what  – according to Stiegler  – counts as the archetypical school practice: gaining command over the technology of reading and writing. Given the historical situatedness of technological developments (there is a time before and after the invention of script) and the cultural variety of technological systems (one can represent the same thing using different conventions, e.g. referring to the same number with Arabic and Roman numerals), a consequence of this line of thought is that there are different ways of anthropogenesis, depending on different forms of basic literacy initiation. In this chapter, I will contrast the traditional ‘Eastern’ writing system, based on the command over a manifold of complex logographic characters (hanzi), with the traditional ‘Western’ writing system, based on grasping the relation between sounds and a relatively small number of relatively simple signs, i.e. the 26 or so letters that form the alphabet. I will take my clue here from the media theorist Vilém Flusser (2011a, b), who has developed a philosophy of gestures, writing being one of them, and who has claimed that being acquainted with logographic writing as opposed to being acquainted with alphabetic writing go together with different forms of rationality – with what it means to think. Flusser’s work is interesting in that it offers a profound criticism of a dominant adversity against (a particular conception of) technology in Western philosophy, and notably in the work of Martin Heidegger, to which I will turn in the first part of this chapter. Also, Flusser’s work is of a great relevance for thinking about the meaning of pedagogical forms. I refer here to a doctoral thesis that was recently written by Lavinia Marin (2018), who specifies with the help of Flusser that academic writing (e.g. note taking in a lecture hall or writing essays) is a specific gesture that comes with a unique experience of collective and public thinking. In this chapter, I want to zoom in on the very beginnings, so to speak, and look at the basics: our very first steps into literacy during the first years of formal schooling. To this end I will have a look at the very concrete pedagogies, East and West, and interpret what is going on with the help of Flusser. More exactly, I first develop a Flusserian understanding of literacy in terms of gestures, and I discuss his claims

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that with the invention of writing a specific form of thinking arose. I then go on distinguishing alphabetic and logographic literacy to draw out what the differences between them imply for the issue of what it means to think. Taking a step beyond Flusser, I then investigate the concrete ways in which both literacies are acquired, to argue for the idea that both come with different senses of potentiality, i.e. of what it means to be able to read and write. In a last section, I argue that this comparison may throw an interesting light on what it means to read and write digitally.

9.2  F  lusser on the Gesture of Writing and One-Dimensional Thought A good place to start my investigations is, as I mentioned, the work of Heidegger. Not only has he written an important book on What is called thinking? (Heidegger 1972), his own work on technology seems to support the view which I have developed in the introduction with Stiegler and Flusser, viz. that technology might play a vital role in answering this question. In another seminal text, The Question Concerning Technology (1978), he holds that we completely misunderstand technology if we only regard it as a set of instruments at our disposal. Instead, technology pertains to a way of understanding itself. The world appears to us enframed in a way never encountered before we started to rely on technology when leading our lives.1 And yet, in his own work, Flusser (n.d.) criticizes Heidegger, because he seems to close off a positive reading of modern technologies. This negative reading relates, on a metaphysical level, to the claim that under the conditions of a technological worldview, literally everything (every being, all that exists) is seen as a resource, i.e. something which is out there only to be used and optimized. As such, we no longer appreciate things for their intrinsic qualities. Rather, we have come to take mere quantity as a sign of quality. This might well explain a rise in instrumental thinking, which has intensely affected all spheres of life (Cf. Thomson 2005). This technological framing of the world also comes with subject-centered world-view which might well have caused the global problems we face today: having played lord and master over the world, the world now turns against us, as we are increasingly suffering from the consequences of global warming, mass migration, etc. (Stengers 2015). However, this is not the main point with which Flusser takes issue. Far from engaging in profound metaphysical speculations, he takes us back to very practical and mundane stuff, such as the concrete way in which we write down and communicate our (philosophical) ideas. As will become clear shortly, Flusser has a fondness for typewriting, something which Heidegger abhors, and it is on the basis of

1  For Heidegger there seems to be an era in which we were human and did not yet rely on technology. This runs counter to the Stieglerian perspective I defend in this text to which the dependency on technological tools is essential for what it means to be human.

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this opposition that Flusser is able to develop some fascinating ideas about what it means to think (Cf. Vlieghe 2014). Interestingly, the text I will rely on is ‘typed’ by Flusser himself, and a copy of the original manuscript which gives a feel of him producing his text (e.g. by having a look at his typos) is accessible online2 and worth exploring in this form. This speaks to his philosophy of gestures I mentioned above: the question Flusser is concerned with is what it means, exactly, ‘to put very material letters upon the surface of a very material sheet of paper?’ (Flusser n.d., p. 9) Hence, an analysis of a technology-mediated gesture in its material concreteness is required (before one can start to engage in speculative thoughts about the technological enframing of our world). Now, the issue which Heidegger has with type-writing is clearly formulated in the following statement: The typewriter tears writing from the essential realm of the hand, i.e. the realm of the word. The word itself turns into something “typed”. […] Mechanical writing deprives the hand of its rank in the realm of the written word and degrades the word to a means of communication. In addition, mechanical writing provides “this advantage”, that it conceals the handwriting and thereby the character. The typewriter makes everyone look the same. (Heidegger, 1992, pp. 80–81)

From this quote, it is clear that Heidegger has two fundamental objections. First, ‘writing’ with the help of this device comes down to a mechanization of a more original and authentic form of writing – proper writing, which in Heidegger’s book, is longhand writing. Typewriting is at most an Ersatz kind of writing. Typed texts might be a tool for communication, but it does not concern real writing. Second, as the word ‘typing’ itself suggest – we also use the word type to refer to a level of generality that transcends the concrete and the individual -, typewriting will lead to a standardization of human existence. Over and against this, proper writing is always highly individual: the unique traits of a handwriting reveal the unique character of the writer. The ideas which Heidegger expresses here are more interesting to a Flusserian approach than the ones he develops in The Question Concerning Technology, because they take us to the ground level of our daily writing practice and what concrete gestures, in their full materiality, entail for the meaning of our existence. However, it seems that Flusser defends the exact opposite view: the gesture of type-­ writing reveals more what it means to be a human being, i.e. a thinking creature, than hand-writing ever could. To overstate things (and deliberately using a Heideggerian vocabulary here), longhand writing is the improper form of writing. Hence, the invention of typewriting has brought something to our attention that remained partially side-tracked for many ages. ‘The typewriter’, Flusser says, ‘is a machine for writing lines from left to right and for jumping back to the left side. Thus, the typewriter is, to some extent, a materialization of a cultural program of ours. If we look at the typewriter, we can see

2  http://www.flusserstudies.net/sites/www.flusserstudies.net/files/media/attachments/the-gestureof-writing.pdf

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materially, to some extent, how one aspect of our mind works.’ (Flusser n.d., p. 3). Far more than longhand writing ever could do, typewriting discloses what it means to think. In order to fathom such a bold claim, one must concentrate on the different bodily gestures both forms of producing script consist of. In order to do so, Flusser compares them to two other gestures: drawing and sculpting. Indeed, it could be argued that the longhand writer has to construct stuff: she expresses her individual thoughts and feelings by adding signs to the empty sheet of paper, carefully designing something that expresses her deeper self. Seen in this way, the irregular and singular characteristics of one’s handwriting are essential, as Heidegger holds. Typed texts, because of their standardized outlook and austere regularity, are then an inferior form of writing. Over and against this, Flusser suggests that ‘the typewriter is more faithful to the workings of our mind than is longhand’ (ibid.). To see this, we should compare it to the practice of the sculptor, who doesn’t add things, but cuts away, i.e. she destroys things in order to make something new appear. In the same way that the sculptor forces her material to take a particular shape, typewriting is fundamentally a matter of putting ‘concepts or their symbols into an ordered sequence’ (Ibid.) An important consequence is that ‘[t]he irregularities of handwriting are then considered to be unwanted accidents avoided by typed writing. The typewriter is thus seen to be a ‘better’ instrument than is a pencil’ (Ibid.) This is, once more, because typewriting is, more than longhand writing, a direct manifestation of our thinking. Thanks to the invention of the typewriter, an apparatus that forces its users to print letter after letter and word after word without any possibility to return, let alone to rectify previously printed letters or words, we come to see distinctly what thinking, as a material and technologically mediated practice, is all about. More exactly, thinking is essentially a diachronic, one-dimensional, one-directional process of linking and ordering ideas according to ‘linear thought sequences’ (Ibid., p. 10). This remained impossible, as long as humans only had speech at their disposal for forming and communicating ideas. Compared to script, oral discourse – ‘thinking aloud’  – is chaotic and associative. The invention of the written word involved a ‘repression of this ‘natural’ tendency to think aloud’ (Ibid., p. 13), and thus of disciplining (‘violating’) undirected streams of thoughts into well-ordered lines of thought. Whereas oral discourse lacks logical stringency, the thinking that is displayed in writing (or at least in alphabetic writing – a point to which I shall return shortly) allows for maintaining a genuinely thoughtful attitude towards the world. Now, the mythical babble was leveled so that it could run along a clear line towards an exclamation, question mark or full stop instead of turning itself in circles […] The alphabet was invented to replace mythical speech with logical speech and so to be able, literally for the first time, to ‘think’. (Flusser 2011a, p. 32)

Hence, there is an unbridgeable gap between oral and literate cultures. Importantly, this is not because written language expresses our proper humanity. On the contrary, the invention of the technology of writing (first as longhand writing which was later perfected as typewriting) has decided on what we are today as

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human beings. It is only thanks to this technology that thinking, or at least linear and diachronic thought, became possible in the first place: the clarity and orderliness of our thinking is dependent upon the coming into existence of a specific, material and mechanical practice of jotting down letters and words. At this point, Flusser is close to what authors such as Walter Ong, Marshal McLuhan, Ivan Illich and David Olson defend, and which is commonly called the literacy hypothesis: script is not the invention of already exceptionally smart and rational creatures to support their thinking, it is the other way around (Vlieghe 2015a). We are ‘smart’ and rational, because at a given moment script was invented and we became literate beings. Further to this, Flusser also argues that our whole sense of history is dependent upon being familiar with script: In prehistory (the term is accurate) nothing could happen because there was no consciousness capable of conceiving events. Everything seemed to move in endless circles. Only with the invention of writing, with the rise of historical consciousness, did events become possible. When we speak of prehistoric events, we are writing supplementary history and committing anachronisms. (Flusser 2011a, p. 8)

Historical consciousness only arose with the invention of writing and not with earlier forms of notation, like inscriptions in stone. Admittedly, as they were meant to commemorate great deeds, these inscriptions had some ‘historical’ significance. Nonetheless, they are only monuments that require contemplation of the past. To be able to have a sense of progress, the invention of documents, i.e. a form of writing that forces the writer/reader to jump from one word to the other, is required (Flusser 2011a, pp. 17–21). The capacity to relate to history as history (a causal chain of events) is itself dependent upon particular historical conditions.

9.3  Alphabetic, Logographic and Digital Literacy So far, I have made a case – with Flusser and pace Heidegger – for a technology-­ centred account of how we are constituted as subjects, and for the role which literacy plays with regard to becoming creatures endowed with the capacity for rational (i.e. linear) thought. Against this background, Flusser develops two further lines of thought, seemingly independent from one another, which have to do with the difference between alphabetic (Western) and non-alphabetic (Eastern) script and with the future of writing in a fully digitized world. In the remaining parts of this chapter I want to take these two lines of thought together and show how they are related. I will argue that a comparison between alphabetic and non-alphabetic systems sheds some light on the future of reading and writing in a digital era. Moreover, I want to set a step beyond Flusser, or at least complement his ideas on writing as gesture by coming back to the thesis of Bernard Stiegler (2010), as discussed in the introduction section, that we have to pay attention to the concrete ways in which we get introduced to writing and reading technologies at school. Considerations like this

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are completely lacking in Flusser’s account. And so, I will turn to the specificities of the practices of literacy initiation, East and West, as well as digital and non-digital. A first further development of Flusser’s ideas regards the thesis that thought has a history: humans are not necessarily thinking linearly. Before the invention of script, which is after all a contingent occurrence, we knew a different type of ‘thinking’ – if we may call it like that. More exactly, Flusser (2011b) holds that with this invention we moved from an era of two-dimensional thought to one of one-­ dimensional thought. Two-dimensional thought is the rationality that characterizes pre-literate societies, i.e. societies where people have to rely on images when they want to save their thoughts for the future. Hence, two-dimensional rationality is related to the way in which our eyes scan images. They can go in any direction (left to right and back, up and down), and, our gaze ‘can return to an element of the image it has already seen, and “before” can become “after”: the time reconstructed by scanning is an eternal recurrence of the same process.’ (Flusser 2000, p. 9) The time-experience involved here is circular rather than linear. And this is in stark contrast with the one-dimensionality related to reading and writing: here the optical regime of the eye is subordinated to the logic of the ears. An acoustic logic is a system of ordering sounds that is ‘line-like’. It is one-directional. One word comes after the other, and necessarily so. The upshot of this argument is that in an era when people only had images at their disposal to retain their ideas in a material shape, their thought was ordered differently from people who are trained to read texts. Hence the argument I presented in the last section is too simple. This is because it applies solely to alphabetic script. So, what about non-alphabetic notation systems, such as the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs or contemporary Chinese characters? In its incipient form, these sign systems are quite different from the alphabet, because there is no direct relation between spoken and written language. Every written alphabetic sign is the representation of a spoken sound (phoneme), and this only requires the knowledge of around 26 letters. This is not unlike the modern Western music notation system where every sound played by an instrument can be captured by using 12 signs (the tones and semi-tones of the chromatic scale) and where every dot of ink on the score sheet unambiguously refers to one sound. In a logographic system like the traditional Chinese script, on the other hand, there are thousands of signs (hanzi), and these signs are not linked to sounds, but to meanings. So, the task of reading consists of first grasping the meaning of a string of signs, and secondly translating this meaning into the spoken language (Griolet 2002). Hence, it is impossible to simply read a logographic text, whereas any alphabetic text can be read aloud (even if one hasn’t got any knowledge of the language in question). Logographic characters are purely optical realities that do not allow for being subjugated to an acoustic logic. The ideas communicated through logograms are not forced to the same extent into one-dimensional linear strings of thought (Flusser n.d., p. 14). This view is supported by recent neuroscientific research (e.g. Dehaene 2010): we are not born to be readers, and hence specific neurological

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pathways need to be developed in our brains, according to the requirements of different notation systems. It appears that people who have been raised to read hanzi have different neurological structures than alphabetic readers do (Ibid.). The problem with this account is that it remains suggestive and vague. And Flusser hasn’t really developed concrete ideas about the differences between two forms of rationality. Therefore, I suggest looking at the very concrete ways of how children get initiated in both notation systems. But, before doing that, I want to focus on a second line of thought which Flusser developed from the ideas presented in the last section: the implications of digitization on the way we think. Reading and writing while using screens and keyboards, or touchscreens, seems to bring an important technological revolution, Flusser (2011b) speculates (bearing in mind that he died only years before the spreading of the internet). Now, one might guess that for him digitization involves a return to the pre-literate era, as images gain a greater importance. And, because – as Bertrand Gervais (2013) argues – even if we still massively read and write today, we relate to texts as we do to images (e.g. because we can copy and paste stuff, or run it through translation software, which are typically operations to be performed on pictures). Nonetheless, for Flusser (2011b), digitization takes us into a completely new era. Instead of causing a return to two-dimensional thinking, the use of digital devices introduces zero-dimensional thought. With this he means that our thoughts are no longer the outcome of linear and discursive processes, but immediate results of (complex) computations (or manipulations, as in the cases I just mentioned: copying and pasting, and automatic translation). Instead of having to construct our thoughts step by step and in a well-­ defined chronological order, we combine in an infinitesimally short amount of time dots of information, that according to their various values (1 or 0) directly result in new information (Vlieghe 2015a). Moreover, this new era also comes with a different experience of time and history. Or, to be more precise, we will enter a post-historical era (Flusser 2011b). That is, the very idea of history won’t make sense any longer for those who live it: they radically live in the present and don’t define themselves in terms of a linear sequence that takes them from the past to the future. No past events or future aspirations have the force or appeal to give meaning to their lives. In the following section, I want to take up Flusser’s idea that digitization has important effects, but not necessarily the ones which Flusser describes. Again, I believe it is important to look at the concrete ways in which children learn to read and write with the help of screen-based, digital devices, and compare this to traditional ways of literacy initiation, both into the alphabetic system and the logographic system. I will argue in the next section that there are interesting similarities between acquiring literacy digitally and logographically.

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9.4  L  iteracy as a Space of Experience: Learning That One Can Write In view of the characteristics of the alphabetic system, there are certain requirements to learning how to read and write which make that the way in which people have been trained to become literate in large parts of the world is very similar over the last 150 years or so (Vlieghe 2016). The main task of literacy instruction is, first, to teach children the letters of the alphabet, second, to make them see the relation between the differently shaped letters and the phonemes out of which a spoken language is built-up so that one can identify letters, and later on words and whole sentences, and third, to ask them to form these letters themselves by mechanically and almost endlessly writing again and again the same letters, until one gets these letters right. It is important to note that these letters themselves have no meaning. They are just arbitrary signs. Painstaking and boring as this last practice might be, it is also a highly efficient one. By acquiring these relatively small amount of signs one will be, afterwards, able to read and write literally everything, and in a very short period of time, viz. the first year of primary school. Moreover, learning how to read and how to write happen simultaneously (Incidentally, before the second half of the nineteenth century, in Western countries too, most people who were privileged to get a literacy training learned how to read, but not how to write, because cheap, industrially prepared cellulose paper was not available, so there was no opportunity to practice of handwriting [Ibid.]). For the reasons explained in the last section, this reciprocity between teaching how to read and how to write is absent when a logographic system, like the Chinese hanzi notation, is concerned. Here, reading is a matter of deciphering coded images into spoken language, whereas writing is a matter of constructing correctly these highly complex images. Moreover, this kind of literacy initiation takes much more time, as a functional literacy involves the knowledge of at least 2000 hanzi. In fact, it takes the whole 12 years of primary and secondary education to master them all (Griolet 2002). Whereas the letters of the alphabet are in and of themselves meaningless conventions, logograms are always already full of meaning. Interestingly, this fullness of meaning is used as a didactical principle (Renonciat and Simon-­ Oikawa 2009). More exactly, in the first phase of literacy initiation class, children are given a drawing of, for instance, a landscape with a (wo)man making a fire, mountains in the background, a river flowing by, birds flying through the sky, which is full of rainy clouds, etc. In a second stage, they copy the picture of the landscape but with a greater level of abstraction, so that concrete things (e.g. the mountain) start to look like abstract figures (e.g. a triangle, ∆). In a third stage, children get a written account of the situation depicted in the landscape, but which is not complete (e.g. in the background there are many …), so that they have to complete the account by adding the appropriate figures they have just abstracted (e.g. in the background there are many ∆). Hence, based on depicting concrete things, pupils gradually become able to write about 2000 abstract characters, such as 人, 火 and 雨. These are the hanzi characters

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that refer to (wo)man, fire and rain respectively, and I hope it is clear to the reader how the abstract shape of these signs relates to the shape of the things they refer to. They are thus closely connected to a visible reality from which they draw their meaning. Of course, with the more complex symbols to be learned later on, the situation is not that simple and the direct iconic relation between sign and visible reality disappears (to a certain extent). Not all hanzi are mere logograms. For instance, out of the characters 人 (human) and 木 (tree) a new character can be composed, viz. 休 (‘man leaning against tree’), which means ‘to rest’ (See Renonciat and Simon-­ Oikawa 2009). Now, getting the hang of more advanced hanzi is a matter of gaining the skill of drawing correctly formed pictures. Pupils need to copy images that give an indication of the sophisticated architecture behind the hanzi. Pictures are then used to draw attention to the fact that two constituent lines of one sign don’t exactly have the same length or run not entirely parallel, but also to point out the fact that parallel lines should be well balanced or show a particular symmetry. And, like in the case of building a house on the basis of a blueprint, pupils need to master the capacity to construct hanzi line by line and step by step (i.e. in a fixed order) (Ibid.). Hence, Eastern literacy initiation is about developing a particular gestural mechanics that differs in a threefold respect from the routines that constitute alphabetic literacy. First, at a basic level, the characters are imbued with meaning: whereas a simple ‘a’ doesn’t mean anything by itself and is learned as an empty form (through repetition), the character 人 is learned based on the fact that it has a shape that resembles the thing it refers to (i.e. a human being). Second, both at the basic and the advanced level, acquiring hanzi competency boils down to becoming able to competently draw. Pupils need to understand the architectural principles behind these images, and to recreate these without flaws. One learns to reconstruct on paper the sinuosity of physical forms. Third, at no point in becoming literate is there a reciprocity between becoming-able to write and becoming-able to read, which is so central to alphabetic literacy training. This analysis, I believe, offers an interesting supplement to Flusser’s account of Western and Eastern notation systems in terms of one and two-dimensional thought. This can be rendered in terms of connections and disconnections. Developing alphabetic literacy involves first, a strong disconnection between form and content, as the signs themselves are emptied of all meaning, and second, a deep connection between consumption and production (Cf. de Certeau 1988), as learning how to read happens simultaneously with learning how to write. In the case of logographic literacy, on the contrary, there is a profound connection between form and content to start from, as an understanding of the iconic nature of the characters is vital, and second a complete disconnection between consumption and production occurs, as learning how to read and how to write occur independently. The claim I want to derive from this is that literacy should be defined, not merely as a technical or functional competence, but that it needs to be rendered in terms of something more substantial, viz. a space of experience. Depending on the two different didactics I have analyzed, pupils relate in distinct ways to text: they experience differently what it means to be able to understand texts and/or to create texts themselves. As such, literacy could be defined as a sense of what reading and/or

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writing are all about (Cf. Vlieghe 2015a, 2016). A sense, moreover, which thanks to repetitive training is firmly embodied, or – to refer once more to Stiegler (2010) – grammatized into our bodies. That is to say that the principles – the ‘grammar’ – is interiorized to such an extent that it has become a second nature. In view of the connections and disconnections I have spelled out above, alphabetic literacy can be regarded, first, as the ability to relate to letters as letters, and more generally to text as text. This is to say that there is a very direct – because embodied – understanding of what a competent reader-writer can do with alphabetic script. She immediately relates to the potentiality involved in reading and writing (Cf. Agamben 1999). But, this is only possible, because the letters she learns to read and write are first devoid of meaning and appear as ‘pure’ letters. This experience, moreover, is intensified because of the repetitiveness of the learning activity (Cf. Vlieghe 2013): what one acquires then is that these empty forms (a, b, c, d, …) can be used to signify literally everything, including the thoughts nobody has developed so far. Second, this sense of ability has a double direction: one is a competent reader only insofar as one is the potential author of the texts one consumes (Cf. Stiegler and Rogoff 2010). Literacy is not merely a matter of being able to absorb text, but also a deeply bodily engrained, first-hand understanding of what it means to create what one takes in. To draw, once more, an analogy with music, someone who possesses alphabetic literacy is not unlike the competent music player who has a deep understanding of the way in which a particular composition is constructed (i.e. how the composer has made use of the potential to produce music), as opposed to the mere amateur, i.e. someone who just takes in music and enjoys it, without any further understanding of it. Otherwise put, for those initiated into alphabetic literacy, script is thus understood from the inside out: it doesn’t remain merely an external object, because one has a deep sense of what it means to create it. In view of this, logographic literacy is to be defined as a quite distinct space of experience. As far as reading is concerned, the object (the text) is approached as something external, as the deciphering that is required has no direct connection with the construction of these objects. As far as writing itself is concerned, literacy is, essentially, an extremely accurate sense of depicting forms that, at least for its basic forms, immediately reveal a fixed meaning – through their iconic relation with the world. The potentiality involved in writing these characters is one of being-able to capture meaning through precision. It is essentially about being successful in constructing complex graphic compositions. As I announced, this analysis may shed some light on the issue of digital literacy. To be clear, I regard digital literacy here as its own kind of literacy. With this I mean that something more is at stake than simply writing or reading letters or characters on a screen or from a screen. Once more, I take literacy here in the sense of a particular way of relating to text and to a particular experiential realm that is connected to the characteristics of the training required to become able to read and write. To make this clear, one needs to imagine what it would mean for digital natives to acquire literacy solely by using keyboard and screen, or a touchscreen (rather than starting from the digital immigrant’s perspective who only acquires digital skills after a ‘traditional’ formation). To make a very simple contrast with traditional

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alphabetic literacy, when learning to type on a keyboard or touchscreen, it doesn’t make any sense whatsoever to repeat again and again the same letter (‘a, a, a, a, a, a, …’). This doesn’t add anything to one’s typing skills. It seems much more useful to immediately start typing things that already have meaning (e.g. one’s own name or the name of the city where one lives). In that sense there is an unexpected analogy to be found with logographic literacy: from the very start there is a fundamental connection between form and content. Text is thus never experienced as pure text, but always in relation to a particular meaning and use. The things one types when learning how to write digitally always have a specific sense – the combination of letters refers to something concrete in the world, whereas the letters one writes during alphabetic training are experienced as possessing the pure potentiality of conveying meaning (precisely because and to the extent that they are devoid of any specific sense; Cf. Agamben 1999). Digital literacy is, obviously, also a matter of learning that one can write, but this always regards the fact that one can write this or that. And in that sense it is opposed to the space of experience offered by alphabetic literacy which is about the fact that one can write (meaningful stuff). Moreover, when writing digitally consumption and production are disconnected. Whereas writing alphabetic signs is a graphomotoric gesture, typing is a pointing gesture. As Mangen and Vélay (2010) remark, ‘In handwriting, the writer has to graphomotorically form each letter  – i.e. produce a graphic shape resembling as much as possible the standard shape of the specific letter. In typewriting, obviously, there is no graphomotor component involved; the letters are “readymades” and the task of the writer is to spatially locate the specific letters on the keyboard.’ (pp. 385–386). Hitting the appropriate keys of the keyboard involves a separation between one’s bodily gestures and the actual production of text: it feels exactly the same typing an ‘a’ or a ‘b’, and there exists no intrinsic relation between the kind of movement one makes and the result one generates. The text appears on the screen and one has no embodied sense of how this happens, i.e. how the appearance of this letter is related to one’s fingers pressing a key on the keyboard (Cf. Vlieghe 2015b). For this one would need to be, at least, a hardware engineer and a software specialist, and even if this were the case one’s understanding would be far from an embodied one.

9.5  Conclusion In view of this short analysis of the gesture of digital writing, and in view of some formal similarities with learning how to write logographic script, I would argue that digitization has provoked changes in the very meaning of literacy which Flusser only started to see. To recall, writing in the digital age implies for him the end of one-dimensional rationality in favour of automatic computation (zero-dimensional thought), as well as the loss of any sense of history and progress (post-history). I think it is more exact to say that the change in rationality and experience has more

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to do with a sense of what it means to be able to read and write. In digital writing, a different potentiality is involved, and it makes sense to bring into view this new experiential realm by looking at how logographic literacy is acquired. This has important educational consequences. As I explained in the introduction to this chapter, learning how to read and write sets the scene for everything that happens at school. As such, the features of literacy initiation reveal what education is all about. I have suggested that this comes down to the embodiment of a grammar which leads to a particular sense of potentiality (Cf. Vlieghe 2015b). I will leave aside whether the advent of digital technologies is a good or a regrettable evolution – which is very much in the spirit of the work of Stiegler (2010), with whom I started my argument: Stiegler holds that technologies are pharmaka, which means that they are always and at the same time poison and cure. It all depends on how we relate to these technologies, and hence educationalists should worry about how to respond to the advent of new technologies in a responsible way (in the same manner that traditional schools could be analysed as responses to the invention of alphabetic script in the ancient Greek society (Masschelein and Simons 2013) or to the invention of the printing press (Postman 1982)). The suggestion I want to make here is that we need to better understand what is specific about digital literacy (in contradistinction to other literacies), and then develop a pedagogical response that is appropriate for this particular literacy. Elsewhere, I have developed such a response in terms of offering the new generation the possibility to acquire a spelling and grammar of the digital (Cf. Vlieghe 2015a). This would involve more than a theoretical understanding of what digital devices render possible (and impossible): what is required is a training which starts with the basics of such literacy, and which allows for an embodiment (or grammatization) of the skills one uses. At stake is then that digital readers and writers can start relating to these skills, and have a sense of the possibilities and impossibilities our digital devices grant us, but one which transcends a merely passive and consumerist attitude.

References Agamben, G. (1999). Potentialities. Collected essays in philosophy (D.  Heller-Roazen, Trans.). Stanford: Stanford University Press de Certeau, M. (1988). The practice of everyday life. (Arts de faire, Trans.). Berkeley: University of California Press. Dehaene, S. (2010). Reading in the brain: The new science of how we read. London: Penguin. Flusser, V. (2000). Towards a philosophy of photography (A.  Matthews, Trans.). London: Reaktion Books. Flusser, V. (2011a). Does writing have a future? (N. A. Roth, Trans.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Flusser, V. (2011b). Into the universe of technical images (N.  A. Roth, Trans.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Flusser, V. (n.d.). The gesture of writing. http://www.flusserstudies.net/sites/www.flusserstudies. net/files/media/attachments/the-gesture-of-writing.pdf. Accessed 26 Dec 2018.

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Gervais, B. (2013). Is there a text on this screen? Reading in an era of hypertextuality. In R. Siemens & S. Schreibman (Eds.), A companion to digital literary studies. Oxford: Wiley. https://doi. org/10.1002/9781405177504.ch9. Griolet, P. (2002). Writing in Japan. In A.-M. Christin (Ed.), A history of writing: From hieroglyph to multimedia (pp. 123–141). Paris: Flammarion. Heidegger, M. (1972). What is called thinking? (G. J. Grey, Trans.). New York: Harper & Row. Heidegger, M. (1978). The question concerning technology. In Basic writings (D. Farrell Krell, Trans.). New York: Harper Collin. Heidegger, M. (1992). Parmenides (A. Schuwer & R. Rojcewicz, Trans.). Bloomington: Indiana University Press Kouppanou, A. (2015). Bernard Stiegler’s philosophy of technology: Invention, decision, and education in times of digitization. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 47(10), 1110–1123. Mangen, A., & Velay, J. (2010). Digitizing literacy: Reflections on the haptics of writing. In M. H. Zadeh (Ed.), Advances in haptics. Intech, Open Science Publication. http://www.intechopen.com/books/advances-in-haptics/digitizing-literacy-reflections-on-the-haptics-of-writing. Marin, L. (2018). From the textual to the digital university. A philosophical investigation of the mediatic conditions for university thinking. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, KU Leuven. Masschelein, J., & Simons, M. (2013). In defense of school. A public issue. Leuven: ECS. https://ppw. kuleuven.be/ecs/les/in-defence-of-the-school/jan-masschelein-maarten-simons-in-defence-ofthe.pdf. Postman, N. (1982). The disappearance of childhood. New York: Vintage Books. Renonciat, A., & Simon-Oikawa, M. (2009). La Pedagogie par l’image en France et au Japon [Educating through images in France and Japan]. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes. Siegert, B. (2015). Cultural techniques. In Grids, filters, doors and other articulations of the real (G. Winthrop-Young, Trans.). New York: Fordham University Press. Stengers, I. (2015). In catastrophic times. Resisting the coming barbarism (A.  Goffey, Trans.). London: Open Humanities Press. Stiegler, B. (1998). Technics and time, 1: The fault of epimetheus (R. Beardsworth & G. Collins, Trans.). Stanford: Stanford University Press. Stiegler, B. (2010). Taking care of youth and the generations (S. Barker, Trans.). Stanford: Stanford University Press. Stiegler, B., & Rogoff, I. (2010). Transindividuation. e-flux, 14. Thomson, I. (2005). Heidegger on ontotheology: Technology and the politics of education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Vlieghe, J. (2013). Experiencing (im)potentiality. Bollnow and Agamben on the educational meaning of school practices. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 32(2), 189–203. Vlieghe, J. (2014). Education in an age of digital technologies. Flusser, Stiegler and Agamben on the idea of the posthistorical. Philosophy and Technology, 27(4), 519–537. Vlieghe, J. (2015a). Traditional and digital literacy. The literacy hypothesis, technologies of reading and writing, and the ‘grammatized’ body. Ethics and Education, 10(2), 209–226. Vlieghe, J. (2015b). A technosomatic account of education in digital times. Neil Postman’s views on literacy and the screen revisited. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 35(2), 163–179. Vlieghe, J. (2016). Education, digitization and literacy training. A historical and cross-cultural perspective. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 48(6), 549–562.

Chapter 10

Education in and Through Ikiru: From Mu to MacIntyre James MacAllister

10.1  Film as Philosophy and Ikiru as Educator This chapter is about Akira Kurosawa’s classic film, To Live (“Ikiru”, 生きる) (1952) , and in particular, what might be learned from it. Before getting in to the narrative arc of Ikiru, I want to make a couple of points about what I am trying to do, as well as what I am not, in discussing this film. Firstly, most of the discussion in the chapter will focus on the education of the main character in the movie – what might be thought of as education in the movie. However, this focus on education in the movie is in no small part motivated by a related desire to consider how viewers of Ikiru might be educated by the events and characters in the film – what might be thought of as education through the movie. I will in this chapter therefore think most about education in Ikiru. However, in the penultimate section I will also consider how viewers of Ikiru might be educated through watching the film. Secondly, though I will present two possible interpretations of the education that Watanabe, undergoes, I do not in any way want to suggest that these are the only or correct interpretations of his education or that this is the only thing of interest in the film. Indeed, just because a director places certain characters and events in the foreground does not mean that these are the only things on screen that viewers might attend to or learn from. As Alexis Gibbs (2017) has recently pointed out, to seek an ‘objective’ or correct meaning of a film, or only focus on one incident or character, might be to limit the ways in which that film might educate us more broadly. Gibbs suggests films of most philosophical interest might not be ones which are about philosophers or ones which have episodes that can be used to illustrate philosophical ideas. Instead films of most philosophical interest might be ones which play out philosophical questions on screen. Ikiru does just this. In a pivotal scene, Watanabe’s J. MacAllister (*) University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 D. Lewin, K. Kenklies (eds.), East Asian Pedagogies, Contemporary Philosophies and Theories in Education 15, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45673-3_10

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doctor asks another medic (and also the viewer) what they would do if they had six months left to live. While some may wonder if this is a philosophical question, in my view, it clearly is. I think this is a distinctively ethical question as it invites viewers to think about how they would live their lives if they had six months left to live. This question is for me reminiscent of what Bernard Williams in Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (2006) described as Socrates question, namely, how one should live. To try to avoid the trap of merely focusing on one scene to illustrate a philosophical idea or question though, I will first try to tell something of the whole story of Watanabe’s transformative journey as it is presented in the film, before considering two possible interpretations of his transformation. While the narrative of events I present may sound a little simplistic to some, as we shall go on to see, the argument I go on to develop about the film being more easily relatable to MacIntyre’s philosophy than that of the Kyoto School in no small part hinges upon understanding not only the events that facilitated Watanabe’s transformation but also the timeline of these events. The film is set in post Second World War Two Tokyo and is said to be one of Kurosawa’s personal favorites. Ikiru begins with an X-Ray image of the ‘hero’, Watanabe’s stomach. Unbeknownst to him, he has stomach cancer. Watanabe, whom we are told is the Chief Public Liaison officer, is then captured seated at his desk surrounded by papers. A group of petitioners gather at his office. They suggest that a site currently full of stagnant water be turned in to a children’s play-park. Watanabe does not speak to the petitioners or look up from his papers. Instead, he sends them to speak to ‘public works’. The narrator then states ‘this is the hero of our story, but whatever we say about him would be dreary. He is just killing time, drifting through life. We can’t say he is really alive at all. Surely there’s no story in him. He’s like a corpse’. The narrator remarks that Watanabe had been dead for 25  years. Any work or life ambitions he once had, have been annihilated by the intricate bureaucracy of his local government job. In this world, the best way to maintain his position is ‘to do absolutely nothing’. But the narrator asks, ‘is this how things should be? Is this enough?’ The narrator answers that it will take many more futile hours, and a worsening stomach condition, to get Watanabe’s ‘thoughts properly organized’. Meanwhile the group of petitioners get sent round approaching a dozen different government departments before a brief audience with the deputy mayor, who sends them back to the public liaison office. The petitioners return to Watanabe’s office only to be directed on to public works again. At this point they angrily say they are not fools and will not be sent round all the departments again. They demand that the stagnant water be drained and a children’s park be built or else they would forget about democracy. Watanabe was not at his desk to hear the tirade. This, his co-workers note, is unlike him. Watanabe is back at the X-Ray department where a doctor is seen telling a colleague that the film’s hero only has six months left to live. While the Doctor conceals the disease from Watanabe, Watanabe knows he is gravely ill. He is conscious of this, as a fellow patient in the waiting room had gone into gruesome details of the final stages of stomach cancer and Watanabe knows these symptoms mirror his own. His

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son, Matsuo, later finds Watanabe looking sombre in a darkened room and asks him what is wrong – Watanabe replies, ‘nothing, absolutely nothing’. Watanabe does not tell anyone close to him that he is dying. The only people he tells are a young woman, Toyo, who has resigned from his office and an unnamed writer of cheap novels that he meets in a bar. Watanabe looks for guidance from both these confidants about how to live in the knowledge of his death. While speaking with the novelist he confesses having contemplated suicide after learning of his cancer but states that ‘it is hard to die. I can’t just die. I don’t know what I’ve been living for all these years’. Watanabe tells the novelist he regrets saving a lot of money in his life and not spending much. He asks the writer to help him spend the 50,000 yen he has on his person. The writer responds that ‘your eyes have been opened to truth…men are such fools. They only realize life’s beauty when they are faced with death…a man has a duty to enjoy life…lust for life is a virtue’. The writer says he is happy to play his Mephistopheles for the night and promises to help him make up for his wasted life. He takes Watanabe gambling, to a music hall, and various other smoked filled bars with exotic dancing and dancers. Towards the end of the night, when in a piano bar, Watanabe requests and sings along to an old love song from the twenties. While mournfully singing ‘life is brief, fall in love sweet maiden… for there will be no tomorrow’ his fellow revellers are moved. They stop and listen to Watanabe. This night of excess did not seem to provide the meaning or answers Watanabe had hoped for. Instead Watanabe tells his second confidant, Toyo, that he felt empty and alone in the face of his impending death. Watanabe had for the past few days been following Toyo around because he thought she was so full of life. Watanabe tells her he wants to learn how to be so vitally alive too. While initially unnerved by Watanabe’s intense and eccentric interest in her, she eventually explains that there is no secret to living. She shows him a toy rabbit she had made and says she had a bit of fun in making it and encourages him to make something too. This exchange seems to help Watanabe find the sense of purpose he was looking for. After parting her company, he states that ‘even I can do something’. The something he goes on to do is build the play-park. The remainder of the film is told in flashback from Watanabe’s funeral and reveals how Watanabe pestered various bureaucrats, including the Deputy Mayor, to build the children’s park. At the funeral, it is revealed that he died as the snow fell, singing the twenties love-song on the swings of the play-park he helped get built. What might be learned from this story though? How might the film educate viewers? In what remains of this chapter I will consider two possible ways in which the transformational experiences of Watanabe might be understood as educative. Initially, it will be suggested that Watanabe may have undergone a process of aesthetic-human-transformation in line with that set forth by Kimura, a member of the Kyoto School of philosophy. However, it will be argued that given the narrative of events presented in the film, there are good reasons for understanding the ‘education’ of Watanabe in more MacIntyrean terms. Here it is claimed that by spending his last days contentedly immersed in a small-scale community project Watanabe has in effect learned what the ‘good life’ means for him. Before I turn to this task it should be noted that I do not think education and transformation are necessarily equivalent. I generally

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follow MacIntyre in thinking that much of education entails the development and actualisation of natural powers and potentials (MacIntyre and Dunne 2002) rather than the transformation of individuals. However, I do think it make sense to describe more radical or significant changes in people as transformations. I also think it is possible for more significant alterations of persons to be thought of educative when the changes contribute to the actualisation of individual and common goods. It is the significant alterations in Watanabe that I will focus on now and the extent to which his transformation may be thought of as educative.

10.2  T  he Kyoto School and Education as Aesthetic Human Transformation Nishimura suggests that the whole philosophy of Nishida and Kimura, two key members of the Kyoto School, corresponds to a theory of aesthetic human transformation (2012, p. 66). According to this philosophy, human beings have an essentially ‘expressive-formative-existence’ where aesthetic experiences can engender a self-awakening of absolute nothingness (“mu”, 無). Nishimura’s paper, mostly focusses on Kimura, who was in 1933 appointed chair of pedagogy at the Kyoto Imperial University. Prior to this, Kimura’s primary work was in aesthetics. This is significant as his interest in aesthetics directly fed in to the pedagogical ideas he would go on to develop (Yano 2012). Kimura was especially influenced by Schiller’s Aesthetic Letters (Nishimura 2012). It is worth pointing out here that though aesthetic experiences are not restricted to the beautiful (as ‘aesthesis’ in ancient Greek simply meant sensuous engagement and perception of any external object), beauty may well be the central concept in aesthetics (Koopman 2010). The perception of beauty certainly seems to have been core to the concept of aesthetic developed by both Schiller and Kimura. It has been suggested that Schiller developed two different theses about aesthetic education (Tauber 2006; Nishimura 2012). On the one hand, Schiller could be interpreted as believing that the aesthetic state is ultimately only a means to the later and more important end of moral and political freedom. One the other hand, Schiller, also seems to have suggested that aesthetic experience is a goal in itself (Nishimura 2012; Tauber 2006). Tauber suggests that while in the former thesis moral and political freedom follows on from aesthetic experience, in the latter thesis aesthetic experience contains within it moral and political freedom. Tauber remarks that in Schiller’s radical second thesis the ‘aesthetic experience is conceived…as an end in itself, for even morality and the principle of the free society are formulated in aesthetic terms’ (2006, p.  23). It may be the latter reading of Schiller that Kimura was more sympathetic too. Kimura after all thought that Schiller inquired deeply in to the fundamentally aesthetic (rather than rational or moral) character of human beings (Nishimura 2012, p. 68). However, Nishimura argues that Kimura’s interpretation of Schiller is a prime example of ‘how thinkers

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in the Kyoto School tried to confront Western philosophies, and reinterpret and transcend them based on traditional Eastern thought (Nishimura 2012, p. 71). According to Nishimura, the Kyoto School philosophy was grounded in Eastern religious thought and especially Zen Buddhism. Nishimura claims that as human beings have an essentially expressive-formative existence, aesthetic education is not so much part of Kimura’s philosophy. Instead, the whole of that philosophy is one of ‘aesthetic human transformation’ (2012, p. 66). Importantly in this philosophy it is not the movement from sensuousness to rationality that is of aesthetic transformative significance for humans but the reconciliation between sensuousness and rationality (Nishimura 2012). Nishimura claims that Kimura’s account of the purity of aesthetic experiences is unique. While Kant highlighted how aesthetic experiences are pure as they involve a disinterested perception of beauty for Kimura the purity of aesthetic feeling does not exclude human interests. Instead, Kimura followed his mentor Nishida in thinking aesthetic experiences are pure, not when they are disinterested, but when they embrace both reason and sense in such a way that any binary and contradiction between them is transcended downwards (Standish 2012b; Nishimura 2012). What does transcendence down involve though? For Kimura, knowledge and will can be transcended back down to the bottom or locus from where they originated when beauty is experienced purely with nothingness and non-­ conceptuality. Here ‘beauty is whole and absolute affirmation of all the content of life’ (Kimura in Nishimura 2012, p. 70). Nishimura claims that for Kimura if not Schiller, the question of whether the aesthetic state is a mere process on the road to moral and political freedom or a goal in itself is ultimately meaningless. This is so as aesthetic states are not just a process or a goal – instead they transcend and affirm everything (Nishimura 2012). Nishimura suggests that aesthetic states that transcend to the bottom and affirm everything correspond to mu or absolute nothingness, with ‘nothingness’ being another name for pure feeling (Nishimura 2012 p.  68). While Standish suggests that the state of absolute nothingness central to aesthetic human transformation is mostly alien to Western thinking, he also points out that Heidegger influenced the Kyoto School significantly (2012b). Heidegger thought that being-towards-death was an existential structure of human life, and that humans, unlike other animals, live their lives in awareness that they will die (Standish 2012b). However, the Kyoto School idea of nothingness diverges from Heidegger’s. Indeed, Nishida criticized Heidegger’s conception of nothingness for lacking a ‘sense of the religious’ (Standish 2012a, p. 7). The reconciliation to nothingness distinctive of mu certainly does not seem to fuse reason and sense together in such a way that reason remains the dominant and superior partner to sense. For Kimura, the purity of aesthetic experience is connected to an entirely and absolutely free will, not a disinterested one. Kimura defined man as a being that ‘expresses himself in a formative manner, and in so doing…possesses concrete awareness’ (Kimura in Yano 2012, p.  30). The suggestion here being that when human beings experience aesthetic beauty purely, they are not disinterested beings. Rather they are beings with will in the process of self-formation and transformation. While aesthetic experiences may provide a concrete locus for human will to be formed and transformed it is important to acknowledge that such experiences are in

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a vital sense unconscious or at least behind normal consciousness. Indeed Nishimura claims the reason why the Kyoto School is called ‘the philosophy of nothingness’ is because mu can never be apprehended by regular consciousness (2012, p.  68). While this philosophy sounds mystical in comparison to the ordinary life Neo-­ Aristotelianism I generally favor, Standish (2012b) maintains that the pure experience of mu may actually involve a return to ordinary life.1 He draws on Kimura’s mentor, Nishida, who claimed that an experience is pure when there is no abstract division created between subject and object of thought, will or perception. In the pure experience of mu human thinking, feeling, and willing remain undivided (Standish 2012b). To suppose that the self that abstracts from experience is the self that matters is to err in thinking. The self that matters is the unified one of pure experience not the one that reflects apart from experience (Standish 2012b). Mu may well then enable important learning, or rather, unlearning of the idea that the reflective self represents the highest or true self. Sevilla (2016), in part inspired by English (2012), suggests that mu may involve a certain losing of oneself, a letting go of binaries (such as life vs death) and importantly, an unlearning of mistaken ideas. At this stage I would like to step back and ask to what extent Watanabe might be said to have undergone an aesthetic-human-transformation over the course of Ikiru. Watanabe certainly underwent a transformation. Indeed, at the wake, there is speculation about what caused Watanabe’s sudden character reformation or awakening: from listless bureaucrat to tireless champion of local causes. After much drinking and disagreement Watanabe’s colleagues and family come to realize that while he may not have told anyone about his cancer, perhaps he nonetheless knew he had it. They wonder if it was awareness of his impending death that led to his renewed vigor for life. Two events recalled at the wake appear to confirm this explanation in the minds of the mourners. Firstly, Watanabe is seen telling a colleague he does not have time to get angry when his play-park petitioning hits a temporary stumbling block. Secondly, he is captured momentarily enjoying a sunset for the first time in thirty years, before remarking that he does not have time to enjoy such beauty now. Perhaps this moment signifies a key aesthetic-human-transformation in Watanabe – he can now experience purely what is beautiful in death and life and this concrete awareness has created a locus for his actions. Watanabe did begin the film ‘doing absolutely nothing’. By the end of the film perhaps he has been transformed by ‘absolute nothingness’. Might Watanabe’s transformation then simply be a story of how concrete awareness of his coming death helped him to lead what remained of his life in a more expressive and formative way? At first sight this seems like a neat fit – it is at least partly consistent with directorial intent. Kurosawa stated that ‘sometimes I think of death, of ceasing to be… and it is from these thoughts that Ikiru came’.2 This statement might suggest 1  Lear (1988) claims that for Aristotle, philosophy provides people with insight in to why their ordinary beliefs are true. 2  This quote is lifted straight from back cover of the DVD box for this film and so has no page number.

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that Kurosawa had, like his film’s hero, attained something like mu. While moments of suffering and thoughts of death spurred Watanabe to make a play-park, they spurred Kurosawa to make Ikiru. Ikiru is undoubtedly a film permeated with themes of death. However, it is also about how Watanabe learned, or perhaps rather, un-­ learned, how to live. Indeed, the title of the film, Ikiru, has been translated either as ‘to live’, or ‘living’. While I do then think, it may be possible to interpret the transformation of Watanabe as being a formative-expressive-aesthetic one consistent with Kimura’s concept of education, I do not think this is the only or most compelling interpretation of his transformation. Indeed, there is arguably a real problem with this reading. The only obvious moment where Watanabe perceives beauty in the film – he has no time to watch it! Instead he feels obliged to ignore the beauty of the sunset and the potential for transformation that may come with it to pursue the playpark project. It is not the beauty of the sunset that provided a locus for his actions then – this came earlier in conversation with Toyo. I therefore do not think the Kyoto School reading is the most compelling account of education in the movie as it is very questionable that Watanabe experienced a deeply transformative perception of beauty consistent with the aesthetic-human-transformation philosophy of Kimura. I therefore turn now to the philosophy of Alasdair MacIntyre, which I think can provide the foundations for a more plausible reading of Watanabe’s education in the movie.

10.3  M  acIntyre on Desires, Goods and the Ethics of State and Market While Kimura suggests that pure aesthetic experiences are, or at least can be, transformative for human beings, for MacIntyre it is ethical more than aesthetic education that makes human beings who and what they are. While MacIntyre (2016) stresses it is our initial education that makes us who we are, he does not entirely ignore the aesthetic aspect of existence. For one, in After Virtue (1984) he famously maintained that human beings are story telling animals who would be anxious and unsure what to do or say in their lives if they did not hear stories and tell their story. In his most recent book, Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity: An essay on desire, practical reasoning and narrative, he maintains it would be hard to flourish in life without some degree of aesthetic pleasure. However, it is ultimately Aristotelian ethical norms of flourishing that human beings need to strive for and evaluate their lives against in MacIntyre’s philosophy, not aesthetic experiences. MacIntyre begins Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity by claiming that human beings can fail to flourish as a result of inadequate, distorted or frustrated desire. He provides some examples to support this claim. A man may aspire to too little due to fear of disappointment, not recognising he has failed to make the most of his talents. Alternatively, a woman who has her heart set on athletic success ends up leading a life of disappointment because injury prevents her from getting the one thing she really wanted. Here

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MacIntyre stresses that it is her inability to desire and pursue objects other than athletic success, post injury, that makes her life one of disappointment  – not the injury or lack of athletic success in themselves. MacIntyre suggests that what we can ask of people who lead such lives of frustration is whether or not they had good reason to desire what they desired. According to MacIntyre, adults, unlike children, can become aware that their desires have a history. What reflection on desires can reveal is that while some desires remain constant in a person’s life others can become transformed as a result of new experiences and changes of habit. MacIntyre suggests that there are two different sorts of occasion that provide people with especially good reason to reflect upon the history of their desires in ways that might transform their present and future ones. The first instance when people might have cause to reflect upon their desires are those occasions when persons cannot avoid making a choice, like what to study or where, or if a mid-career change is truly wanted or whether to marry or not. The second occasion is when the ‘routines of everyday life’ are disrupted by serious illness or death or being told that one’s partner wants a divorce. Both sets of circumstances invite people to think about what it is they should do now. However, MacIntyre implies that if people in such situations want to avoid leading lives of disappointment some reflection upon (1) what they want and (2) whether they should want what they want, will be needed before they can work out what it is they should do. MacIntyre concludes that ‘whether a life goes well or badly…often does depend on whether in the types of situation I have identified someone thinks well or badly about their present, past and future desires’ (MacIntyre 2016, p. 5). According to MacIntyre, to be reflective about human desires requires one to pause before acting and ask whether or not I have good reason for desiring what I desire. As such MacIntyre thinks we ‘we have to take time to learn what we do desire as well as what we have good reason to desire’ (MacIntyre 2016, p.  12). Much later in the book MacIntyre maintains that if we are to understand what we have good reason to desire, then we also need to understand how the social and political orders we inhabit shape our desires. How does he think human desires are so shaped? MacInytre argues that the second half of the twentieth century witnessed the birth of new and interconnected forms of politics and economics. He maintains that during this time every major capitalist country (he provides the examples of Germany, Great Britain and Japan) saw incredibly close relationships emerge between the state and the market, ‘so close that individuals in many of their transactions confront something that is not quite either, but both at once: mortgages from banks guaranteed by agencies of the state, wages paid by firms dependent on government contracts…schools and universities…designed to produce a useful and amenable labour force and whose research may be supported only because its outcomes are thought to benefit economic growth’ (MacIntyre 2016, p. 128). MacIntyre reasons that today the desires of individuals in capitalist countries are distorted by the defective norms of the state and the market. In How Aristotelianism can become revolutionary: Ethics, Resistance and Utopia he says that ‘we inhabit a social order in which a will to satisfy those desires that will enable the economy to work as effectively as possible has become central to our way of life, a way of life for which

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it is crucial that human beings desire what the economy needs them to desire. What the economy needs is that people should become responsive to its needs rather than their own’ (MacIntyre 2013, p. 13). What MacIntyre suggests in both texts is that the laws, policies and economies of contemporary Western societies tend to pervert human desires in ways opposed to their flourishing. MacIntyre indicates that far too many people today have been educated to desire what they should not. But what does he think human beings have good reason to desire?

10.4  P  ractical Reason and the Common Good of the Local Community MacIntyre has most recently described himself as a Thomist Aristotelian informed by Marxist insights (MacIntyre 2016). As such, he thinks that people should desire, not, what the economy wants them to. Instead, they should desire final ends that enable their flourishing and the flourishing of others. MacIntyre argues that failure to think about one’s final ends and the full range of individual and common goods that could be brought to fruition via action ‘is at once a failure in reasoning and a failure in the exercise of the virtues’ (2016, p. 191). Without practical reason people lack the capacity to order the goods and desires of their life in such a way that they and their community will flourish. For this reason, MacIntyre stresses that ‘education into the virtues requires in key part making those educated aware in detail of the possibilities of error and of the errors to which each of them will be particularly inclined, because of temperament or social role, or whatever’ (2016, p. 191). It is worth remembering that for MacIntyre practical reason is a property of individuals in their social relationships, rather than individuals as such. He remarks that ‘what Aristotle and Aquinas stress is our fallibility, our liability to error, without…shared deliberation’ (2016, p. 192). According to MacIntyre, working out what is good for a person to do in their life is a matter of practical reason – and each person can only learn do this without error, with others, and with an education in to the virtues. In respect to character formation and transformation, he maintains that everything hinges on the type of practices and projects persons become involved in (2013). He believes that sometimes people in communities can reason and act together in such a way that their community is transformed for the better (MacIntyre 2013, 2016). MacIntyre highlights the value of collaboration and shared projects by referring to the work of the management theorist William E. Deming. Deming had significant impact on the Japanese Industry and economy in the early 1950s (the time when Ikiru was made). According to MacIntyre the attitudes of some Japanese factory workers to their work was transformed by Deming’s influence. He says that: Before most workers were subjected to mindless routines on production lines…each worker engaged in making one part of a whole to be assembled later, their works monitored for quality by inspectors. After, workers became members of teams, each team having the responsibility for making a particular car, taking it through each stage of production...

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Before, their work was no more than a means to livelihood... After, their work was directed towards an end they could make their own. (MacIntyre 2016, p 130)

Which brings us back to Watanabe. At the start of the film Watanabe bears more than a passing resemblance to the man MacIntyre describes at the start of Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity. A man who has not registered that he has failed to make the most of his human potential. A man who merely plays his atomized role in a bureaucratic system. However, he is transformed by being confronted with his mortality. His desires and habits are changed. But these changes only occur after he has reasoned with others about his desires, about what was good for him to desire and good for him to do. Watanabe, in discovering his illness, found himself in one of the two situations MacIntyre thinks provide people with especially compelling reasons to think about what they desire and want from life. It took discussions with others (Toyo in particular) to help Watanabe work out what was good for him to desire and do in his life. Spending 50,000 yen did not seem to aid his flourishing – perhaps he was here merely desiring what the economy wanted him to desire. In contrast his local community work to build the play-park did seem to aid his flourishing. This was an end of his own and this was work he engaged in with others and took personal responsibility for. By learning what the ‘good life’ meant for him Watanabe was able to spend his last days contentedly immersed in a small-scale community project. If the stress I am placing on practical reason seems strained, it is worth recalling that at the start of the film the narrator states that Watanabe does eventually get his ‘thoughts properly organized’ – so perhaps the educative transformation of Watanabe can be interpreted as a MacIntyrean one. Watanabe learned to reason well practically about what it was good for him to desire and do. Other aspects of the story might also be connected to MacIntyre’s thought. MacIntyre is highly critical of the ways in which bureaucratic processes in institutions stifle possibilities for human flourishing in both After Virtue and Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity. In the latter, he states that ‘[i]mpersonality is the mark of the good bureaucrat who serves the state’ (2016, p. 125). According to MacIntyre bureaucratic systems are problematic because they require persons to make judgements according to the role they happen to occupy, rather than the whole person they are out with their working role. Bureaucratic systems compromise possibilities for virtuous practical reason. Ikiru arguably presents Watanabe as a hero, in no small part because he was transformed from an impersonal bureaucrat with distorted desires and reasoning, into a person who was able to resist bureaucratic quagmire in ways that benefitted himself and his local community. MacIntyre (2013, 2016) also emphasizes the need for local acts of resistance against unjust social orders and Ikiru gestures towards the importance of such acts too. At the funeral, a reporter asks the Deputy Mayor if Watanabe’s death on the play-park swings might have been staged as an act of resistance against the political establishment, an establishment who were initially unwilling to build the play-park but only too happy to accept credit for it being built in the end for their political gain. While the Deputy Mayor is quick to dismiss this suggestion, the remaining

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funeral-goers come to regard Watanabe as an unsung hero. Someone who spent his dying days in quietly dogged public service. Inspired by the acts of Watanabe, the incoming chief of public liaison makes the sake fueled vow to turn over a new leaf and work for the public good. While he is quickly seen reverting to type and ignoring the petitions of the public, the film ends with children joyfully playing in the park that would not have been built without Watanabe’s character transformation and subsequent perseverance. I want to say one last thing about Ikiru before summing up. It is interesting that when the mourners are arguing over who should get credit for building the play-park, the prime candidates are the Deputy Mayor or Watanabe. The petitioners from the community whose idea it was to build the play-­ park in the first place do not get a mention. What I want to suggest though is that while the petitioners have little screen time, it is they and not just Watanabe that are the heroes of the story. Their suggestion provided Watanabe with the sense of purpose he needed in his darkest hour and when he fell down at the play park site nearing his death it was they who picked him up.

10.5  Education Through Ikiru In this chapter I have so far focused on education in Ikiru. I have claimed that it is questionable that Watanabe experienced a deeply transformative perception of beauty consistent with the aesthetic-human-transformation philosophy of Kimura. I therefore considered the possibility that Watanabe was able to transform his previously distorted desires when confronted with his mortality in such a way that he was able to flourish in more MacIntyrean terms. While I think this reading of events is more plausible this is not what I take to be most philosophically or educationally important about Ikiru. As I partly suggested in the first section of this paper, films may be of most philosophical and educational importance when they open up philosophical and educational questions. What philosophical and educational questions does Ikiru open up for viewers then? How might viewers be educated through watching Ikiru? While I make no claim to be exhausting all possible answers to these questions, in what follows I sketch two ways in which viewers might be educated by watching Ikiru. As I have already gestured towards, I think Ikiru opens up possibilities for reflection on a primary ethical question – how one should live when one knows they are dying. While viewers who have experience of a life threatening or terminal illness may identify more intensely with Watanabe’s transformative journey, the film does invite all viewers to reflect upon their desires, habits and goals, and if they are helping them flourish or not, and if there are things they want to do or change in order to feel a greater sense of flourishing before they die. The film also open up questions about the nature of education and human transformation. While viewers may not need to have studied some philosophy to think about these issues, an advantage of relating events in the film to both the Kyoto School philosophy of Kimura and the ethics of Macintyre as I have done is that this process enhances the possibility of being able to think deeply about what is at the

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heart of human transformation and education. Is it ethics and habits and practical reason and conversations with others and community projects that helps human beings change and be educated and flourish as MacIntyre suggests or is it aesthetic experiences that first and foremost form and educate human beings in line with the Kyoto School. I think the narrative arc of the film resonates most with the MacIntyrean explanation: that the education of Watanabe entails a transformation of his desires such that he became able to do what he previously could not – pursue his own good and that of his local community. However, when viewed with these different philosophies in mind, and bearing in mind there is some ambiguity in the funeral scene about what caused Watanabe’s transformation, I think the film ultimately resists final answers to these questions. Instead, it is left to viewers to decide for themselves what grounded Watanabe’s transformation. Importantly I also think the film leaves it up to viewers to decide what, if any, changes they intend to make in their own lives as a result of watching the film as well as what education and human transformation may or may not consist of.

10.6  Concluding Thoughts This distortion by translation out of context… is of course apt to be invisible to those whose first…language is one of the internationalised languages of modernity. For them it must appear that there is nothing that is not translatable in to their first language. Untranslatability…will perhaps appear to them as a philosophical fiction. (MacIntyre 1988, p. 385)

I would like to conclude by sketching some brief thoughts on the immense challenge of trying to understand an intellectual and moral tradition that differs radically to one’s own. In Whose Justice? Which Rationality MacIntyre argues that when a member or members of one linguistic community try to understand the language, culture and tradition of a community quite alien to them, understanding the other culture and tradition necessitates understanding the language, as far as possible, as a native knows it. They would have to live in that country and begin again as a child and learn that language as a ‘second first language’ (1988, p. 374). For MacIntyre, the marker of someone who might be able to pass themselves off as a native, is when they can recognize which terms are untranslatable into the second language. MacIntyre argues however that it is characteristic of many internationalized languages of modernity to gloss over the possibility of untranslatability. In particular, he argues that the meaning in texts being translated from one language to another can be so badly distorted in the process of translation as to become unrecognizable to the original language users. For MacIntyre, the mistranslation that is sometimes characteristic of the internationalized languages of modernity also brings with it a misunderstanding of the very nature of tradition. For MacIntyre, traditions can only be fully understood if the historical and actual contexts that they are borne out of are borne in mind too. Poor translations pay little or no attention to such contexts and histories. They are also all too ready to simply equate words and concepts in one

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language, with those in another, in ways that pervert the meaning of those words. I mention MacIntyre’s thoughts on translation and tradition for two reasons. First, I have in this paper examined two very different intellectual and moral traditions. MacIntyre’s re-interpretation of the Aristotelian tradition, is written in English and is available to me as a native language speaker. The tradition of the Kyoto School is not. Indeed, I am not even close to speaking Japanese as a second first language. I have never even been to Japan. As such, I am acutely aware that some ideas I have been grappling with might be both untranslatable, and not wholly understandable, to a non-native speaker like myself. Secondly, while I have used ideas from both traditions to think about the same film, these traditions may well be, in some vital aspects, incommensurable with each other, even for those who have Japanese as a second first language and English as a first or vice versa. For example, as an Aristotelian, MacIntyre has a foundational belief in the unity and teleology of human life. The Kyoto School in contrast resisted ‘clear teleologies’, even if there may be certain developmental assumptions in the philosophy of education derived from this school (Standish 2012b). Though incommensurable in some crucial respects, these two traditions may nonetheless share some concerns. MacIntyre and the Kyoto school both question the traditional morality of Western modernity albeit in different ways. MacIntye and Kimura both seem to have valued awareness of the histories of individuals and cultures too. They both offer interesting perspectives on the educational value of human transformation. While Kimura spoke of the educational significance of self-cultivation through expressive aesthetic formation, MacIntyre stresses the need for persons to learn how to reason practically well with others so that the desires of individuals and the communities they are a part of can be transformed. There may well be though, limits and points at which different traditions just cannot be compared without distorting one or the other. However, becoming aware of these limits, if and when they exist, would seem vital to attaining anything like an educated grasp of the different traditions in question. Acknowledgements  I would like to thank both David Lewin and Karsten Kenklies for their helpful comments and suggestions on an earlier version of this chapter.

References English, A. (2012). Negativity, experience and transformation: Educational possibilities at the margins of experience – Insights from the German traditions of philosophy of education. In P. Paul Standish & N. Saito (Eds.), Education and the Kyoto school of philosophy: Pedagogy for human transformation (pp. 203–220). London: Springer. Gibbs, A. (2017). What makes my image of him in to an image of him?: Philosophers on film and the question of educational meaning. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 51(1), 267–289. Koopman, K. (2010). Art and aesthetics in education. In B.  Richard, B.  Robin, C.  David, & M.  C. Christine (Eds.), The Sage handbook of the philosophy of education (pp.  435–450). London: Sage. Kurosawa, A. (1952). Ikiru. British Film Institute. Lear, J. (1988). Aristotle: The desire to understand. New York: Cambridge University Press.

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MacIntyre, A. (1984). After virtue: A study in moral theory. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame. MacIntyre, A. (1988). Whose justice? Which rationality? London: Duckworth. MacIntyre, A. (2013). How Aristotelianism can become revolutionary: Ethics, resistance and utopia. In P.  Blackledge & K.  Kelvin Knight (Eds.), Virtue and politics: Alasdair MacIntyre’s revolutionary Aristotelianism (pp. 11–19). Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. MacIntyre, A. (2016). Ethics in the conflicts of modernity: An essay on desire, practical reasoning and narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. MacIntyre, A., & Dunne, J. (2002). Alasdair MacIntyre on education: In dialogue with Joseph Dunne. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 36(1), 1–19. Nishimura, T. (2012). The Kyoto school and the theory of aesthetic human transformation: Examining Motomori Kimura’s interpretation of Friedrich Schiller. In P. Standish & N. Saito (Eds.), Education and the Kyoto school of philosophy: Pedagogy for human transformation (pp. 65–76). London: Springer. Sevilla, A. L. (2016). Education and empty relationality: Thoughts on education and the Kyoto school of philosophy. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 50(4), 639–654. Standish, P. (2012a). Sounding the echoes – By way of an introduction. In P. Standish & N. Saito (Eds.), Education and the Kyoto school of philosophy: Pedagogy for human transformation (pp. 1–15). London: Springer. Standish, P. (2012b). Pure experience and transcendence down. In P.  Standish & N.  Saito (Eds.), Education and the Kyoto school of philosophy: Pedagogy for human transformation (pp. 19–26). London: Springer. Tauber, Z. (2006). Aesthetic education for morality: Schiller and Kant. The Journal of Aesthetic Education, 40(3), 22–47. Williams, B. (2006). Ethics and the limits of philosophy. London: Routledge. Yano, S. (2012). The philosophical anthropology of the Kyoto school and post-war pedagogy. In P. Standish & N. Saito (Eds.), Education and the Kyoto school of philosophy: pedagogy for human transformation (pp. 1–15). London: Springer.

Chapter 11

Freedom in Security or by Recognition? Educational Considerations on Emotional Dependence by Takeo Doi and Axel Honneth Sandra Töpper

11.1  Introduction As the psychoanalyst Rene Spitz observed in his research on developmental processes of unmothered infants, children without a social relationship can neither develop nor exist. Thus, infants without social and emotional attachments showed increasing developmental disorders or even died. (Spitz 1965, p. 267ff.) Therefore, we know that children can only gradually build a relationship with themselves and the world if they experience appreciation or security in a natural symbiotic relationship with a reliable caregiver. Thanks to social interactions especially with the mother and the affective bond with her, the child is able to reify objects of the world and experience them. But experience of appreciation or security are not only important in early childhood but also during life as a whole. As studies on loneliness show, the lack of social and emotional attachment also has a negative effect on the health and psychological development of the human being in the further course of life (e.g. Cacioppo and Patrick 2009). And this insight is not only important in terms of developmental psychology, but also for pedagogy. The facticity of human’s sociality is also a starting point for reflection on education. Precisely because people are interdependent and related to each other and can only succeed together, they are dependent on education. The student is dependent on the learning aid of others for his own development. And this learning aid is organized by teachers as education. Thus, the educator organizes within a pedagogical relationship as a bisubjective1 education process. In this, the educator conveys 1  ‘Bisubjective’ reminds us here, that education takes place in a relationship between two subjects. Neither the teacher or the student should be reduced on being an object for the other and both can’t ignore the subjectivity of the other.

S. Töpper (*) University of Jena, Jena, Germany © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 D. Lewin, K. Kenklies (eds.), East Asian Pedagogies, Contemporary Philosophies and Theories in Education 15, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45673-3_11

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“world”,2 which the student takes to her mind. Education takes place here as “joint attentional scenes”, like the developmental psychologist Michael Tomasello would phrase it: “Joint attentional scenes are social interactions in which the child and the adult are jointly attending to some third thing, and to one another’s attention to that third thing” (Tomasello 1999, p. 97). Important in this triadic context is to understand that education is not a unilateral, educator-initiated process of just teaching, e.g. of knowledge and skills. In the pedagogical relationship as an explicitly bisubjective process, both cooperate with each other and together rebuild the meaning of the third object. However, this presupposes that both subjects count on the other and can trust each other.3 That’s why education requires a successful pedagogical relationship. And for successful education, pedagogy has to think about this pedagogical relationship in order to reflect mutual interdependence and dependency. This professional relationship is the medium in which processes of development, socialization and education occur. Pedagogy, therefore, should not only take into account the development of the child’s self-reliance as a function of social relationships, but also, beyond that, the meaning of the sociality of the person in the educational process. The question here is, if and how pedagogy does that. Contrary to these insights, independence and autonomy are playing a more important role in many Western pedagogical traditions and are still emphasized today. That is why in pedagogy most people talk about independence and seldom about dependency. Especially since dependency in its economic significance with the emergence of capitalism has increasingly negative connotations, this has superimposed the social, psychological, economic, and political meanings of the concept of dependency and depreciated dependency as a whole (Fraser and Gordon 1994, pp. 309–319). That is why dependency is, if at all, rarely addressed directly in pedagogy. Instead, it is currently more in e.g. discourses on intersubjectivity co-­ negotiated. These discourses mainly take place in social psychology and social philosophy, and pedagogy imports from these contexts concepts for their own discussions. For this chapter we now want to treat two such concepts as examples. The aim now is to present two concepts that explicitly address the dependency in social relationships and are pedagogically relevant. For this purpose, the recognition concept of Axel Honneth is first presented, which thematizes both the mutual dependency on the other in the social relationship, as well as the consequences of a lack of it. For this purpose, he systematically combines interdisciplinary social-psychological and philosophical considerations and summarizes many current popular theories in his concept. In German pedagogy, his concept of recognition has meanwhile become very influential and has become 2  “World” means here more than the objects of the world. It means everything in which education, transformation and formation takes place. 3  This is all the more important as the educational relationship can be in other respects, e.g. In terms of power, authority and knowledge, asymmetric. That’s why the teacher has a greater responsibility to maintain the mutual relationship of trust than the student.

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an important point of reference when thinking about pedagogical relationships (e.g. Prengel 2013). Second, the chapter will consider Takeo Doi’s (土居 健郎) comments on Amae (甘え). Amae is a Japanese term that would be difficult to translate. That’s why most writers do without it, and Amae, after Doi (e.g. Doi 1973), became a key word in investigating and explaining the need for human affection in Japan. The concept of Amae is only occasionally discussed in German (e.g. Schubert 2007) and English (e.g. Johnson 1993) discourse, but, with the positive connotation of dependency, represents a counterpoint to the frequent negatively charged readings of dependency in common discourse. In order to meet the general conditions of a chapter, only the first main thematic works of both authors can be considered: The Struggle of Recognition and The Anatomy of Self (甘えの構造). The aim of this chapter is to unfold a horizon by examining both concepts from a pedagogical perspective. With these two approaches will be discussed; first, that emphasizes the need of human for affection in a different way than a lot other pedagogical traditions; second, that questions the usual relationship between dependence and independence. As it turns out, both authors prioritize intersubjectivity, even if they substantiate this differently and draw different conclusions. Here especially the differences will be interesting to later work out the multidimensionality of dependency as a basic characteristic of the pedagogical relationship. Before it begins, a few last methodological hints: In the following, considerations from German-speaking and Japanese-speaking countries are introduced and brought into conversation with each other. And these considerations are negotiated in English. So of course, the following thoughts will not be free from certain challenges (e.g. the origins of different traditions of thought and historical contexts, bias of one’s own thinking according to one’s own historical, social and cultural location, language difference, etc.). But for a desired, open intercultural exchange, these challenges are consciously accepted and, where necessary, reflected. And this chapter is not about a comparison, but about an open intercultural exchange. So it’s about endeavors to find a dialogic mediation, a willingness to understand and to understand one’s own and the other in a hermeneutic way.

11.2  A  xel Honneth – Recognition as Anthropological Institution The concept of recognition has become quite popular at least since the 1990s, since it combines philosophical, psychological, sociological and political dimensions and follows the plea for a turn towards the other and towards intersubjectivity. Recognition concepts usually consider intersubjective conditions of development in social relationships and associated dependency relationships. For this such concepts mostly follow the already introduced insight that the self develops only through others. And this is true not only for children, but for the whole span of human identity development and beyond.

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One of the leading figures of the recognition theories is, for example, the American social psychologist George Herbart Mead, who shows in his work “Mind, Self and Society” how the self increasingly emerges from self-centeredness through communication with others. It is through others that the individual learns to take the other’s perspectives on the situation and on himself. This allows the individual to make himself the object of his self: The individual experiences himself as such, not directly, but only indirectly, from the particular standpoints of other individual members of the same social group, or from the generalized standpoint of the social group as a whole to which he belongs. For he enters his own experience as a self or individual, not directly or immediately, not by becoming a subject to himself, but only in so far as he first becomes an object to himself just as other individuals are objects to him or in his experience; and he becomes an object to himself only by taking the attitudes of other individuals toward himself within a social environment or context of experience and behavior in which both he and they are involved. (Mead 1972, p. 138)

That means, only through the Other is the Self able to make itself the object of its thinking, thereby reflecting on itself. In the course of its development, the Self learns to take on new and increasingly complex perspectives and increasingly position itself as a subject for this socialization process. Thus, in the development of identity, the sociality of human beings and his subjectivity are in a productive interrelation. The German social philosopher Axel Honneth also joins Mead and presented his theory of recognition in 1992. According to Honneth, referring to Mead, but also to the German philosopher Hegel, the individuation of human beings can be described as a process of mutual recognition in which subjects are interdependent and fight for recognition in a social struggle. To put it briefly, recognition is, according to Honneth, an intersubjective process that is the prerequisite for the subject to attain a practical self-relation by experiencing the perspective of another, to become “one’s partner in interaction” (Honneth 1992, p. 92). Honneth focuses on mutual recognition as well as its absence and forms of disrespect. Thus, he develops a typology of forms of recognition, which should make it clear at what level recognition takes place and which “forms of disrespect will […] injure or even destroy [a person’s intersubjectively acquired relation-to-self]” (Honneth 1992, p. 94). Honneth differentiates between three forms of recognition: Love, Rights and Solidarity. And this represent three different mode of recognition: Thus, emotional support stands for recognition in personal and friendly relationships, social esteem for recognition in economic performance-related relationships and cognitive respect for recognition in legally regulated relationships. Here cognitive respect in the sense of a central moral idea of equality should ensure, that she is recognized as a person and a legal entity, is able to develop self-respect and can reach social integrity. If this is lacking, this manifests itself as deprivation of rights and exclusion and can ultimately mean social death for the subject. Social esteem, on the other hand, expresses the idea of solidarity and values others as part of a shared community of values not only for their abilities and achievements, but also for the sake of self-esteem and to

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ensure that they can develop these dimensions of personality. Otherwise, the Self is threatened in his dignity and is offended by insult and denigration. And these two forms of recognition are both based on the first form of love. Successful recognition in the form of love and emotional support are the precondition for the recognition in the forms of rights and solidarity. And since love also plays the most essential part in Doi’s discussion of social dependency, let us take a closer look into the detail of Honneth’s reflections on this first stage of recognition. So Honneth points out, that “[i]n the reciprocal experience of loving care, both subjects know themselves to be united in their neediness, in their dependence on each other” (Honneth 1992, p. 95). As a result, love allows subjects to develop self-­ confidence because they are recognized in their needs. The second stage of legal recognition and the self-respect derived from it, as well as the third stage of solidarity in favor of self-esteem of the individual, both presuppose successful recognition in primary relationships. Only in the medium of love, like in parent-child relationships, in erotic twosome relationships, or even in friendships, can the subject develop the self-confidence that assures physical integrity through emotional affection for one’s needs and affects. Otherwise, the subject is endangered by social death and, in extreme cases, can neither learn to be self-sufficient as a person and legal entity, nor can she value herself as part of the common community of value. By disregarding the existential need for love, e.g. by abuse or rape, a person’s self-­ confidence can be damaged or permanently destroyed. For the formation of self-­ confidence, therefore, the reciprocal recognition of the respective neediness of the subject is necessary and this happens in the mode of a loving reciprocal affection. When Honneth thinks about his typology ‘love’, one of his most important references is the work of Hegel. This old enlightenment philosopher said that love is to be understood as “being oneself in another” (Hegel 1979, p. 110). This interlocking formula is already suggestive of a dialectical relationship, for it makes love both a form of binding (in another) as well as a form of independence (being oneself) (Honneth 1992, p. 95) and this therefore applies to both actors and is therefore characterized by reciprocity. In order to elaborate his understanding of ‘love’ as a special interaction based on a “particular pattern of reciprocal recognition” (Honneth 1992, p.  96), Honneth takes the psychoanalytic theorem of object relations into account to develop ‘love’ from a developmental perspective. The object relations theory extended the psychoanalytical explanatory model insofar as it examines the affective attachment of early childhood alongside libidinal development and analyzes its relevance to the process of becoming an adult. Specifically, Honneth bases his explication of love as a relevant relationship for recognition on the English pediatrician and psychoanalyst: Donald W. Winncott. Since later Doi refers to the development of the self from the developmental perspective too, we want to further follow Honneth’s understanding of Winnicott. Honneth thinks of the relationship between mother and child as a primary form of relational experience and from here he starts to unfold the dimensions of reciprocal dependence in the concept of recognition. And Doi also attaches special importance to the mother-child relationship.

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Winnicott describes the relationship between child and mother in the first months of life as a natural reciprocal symbiotic relationship, which is characterized by an absolute dependence. In these times the infant is absolutely dependent on the care and nursing behavior of the mother. As already noted in the introduction, if the child is deprived of this experience in his earliest childhood, the consequences are increasing developmental disorders or even death. But this dependency isn’t one-sided. “[T]he ‘mother’ also comes to perceive all of her child’s reactions to be part and parcel of one single cycle of action” (Honneth 1992, p.  98). This absolute (and mutual) dependency means that also the ‘mother’ recognizes the needs and the helplessness of the child “as a lack of her won sensitivity” (Honneth 1992, p.  99), because she identifies herself with it. Only if the mother provides the child with a feeling of being loved “by ‘holding’ them”, is the child able to “learn to coordinate their sensory and motor experience around a single centre and thereby to develop a body-scheme” (Honneth 1992, p. 99). The second phase, which Winnicott called “relative dependence” (Winnicott 1965, p. 86) represents the decisive phase for the development of “healthy” attachment. Honneth sees in the successful coping with this relative dependence the “model for all more mature forms of love” (Honneth 1992, p. 100). The more mature form of love corresponds to Hegel’s above-mentioned definition of love in the sense of “being oneself in another”. This phase of relative dependency is characterized by the gain of certain spaces of independence, which are accompanied by different processes on the part of the child and the mother. Following Winnicott, Honneth argues that the mother breaks away from the primary identification with the infant and postpones the satisfaction of the infant’s need in the context of regaining her autonomy back (Honneth 1992, p.  100). On the child’s side, from six months onwards, the cognitive and motor development starts, which is the requirement of the development of autonomous self-awareness. Thus, at this time, there is “an intellectual development, on the part of the infant, in which the expansion of conditioned reflexes is accompanied by the capacity for cognitive differentiation between self and environment” (Honneth 1992, p.  100). Characteristic for the child is the experience of gradual detachment from the mother, concretely experienced in the deferred satisfaction of its needs. This experience shows the child very clearly its “dependence” on the mother (see Honneth 1992, p. 100), which on the other hand also means that the child experiences no absolute power of disposition (Omnipotence) about the mother anymore. These new experiences, which differ completely from the protected experience space in the symbiosis with the mother, starts a coping process within the child, which consists of two different mechanisms: 1. On the one hand, the change in the interaction with the mother can be answered by the child with destructive tendencies, in that the child exercises aggression towards the now independent mother. For Winnicott as well as Honneth, with these acts “the infant unconsciously tests out whether the affectively charged object does, in fact, belong to a reality that is beyond influence and, in that sense, ‘objective’” (Honneth 1992, p. 101). And so the child “can come to recognize the

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‘mother’, unambivalently, as ‘an entity in it’s own right’” (Honneth 1992, p. 101). So that this transformation can succeed it is important that the mother doesn’t respond to this aggressive behavior with a revengeful or even aggressive withdrawal of love, but shows limits by denying things to the child. In this way the child can experience the mother as a counterpart and at the same moment as a reliable person. “In the bond”, which was initiated by the detachment process, “the child is able to reconcile it’s (still symbiotically supported) devotion to the ‘mother’ with the experience of standing on it’s own: “The mother is needed over this time and she is needed because of her survival value. She is an environment-­ mother and at the same time an object-mother, the object of excited loving.” (Winnicott 1965, p. 102)” (Honneth 1992, p. 101). The aggressive behavior of the child, which in its most primitive form is the expression of the struggle for social recognition (Honneth 1992, p. 101), signifies on the part of the mother the recognition of her child as a self-sufficient person, insofar as the child expresses his will to survive with his destructive actions who is opposed to the regained autonomy of action of the mother. And at the same time she recognizes the child’s dependence on her. 2. On the other hand the child tries to manage the upcoming independence from the mother and the experience of losing control over her with so-called ‘transitional objects’. Here too Honneth adapts explanation from Winnicott for his argumentation of love as a dimension of recognition. For this second coping mechanism the child uses transitional objects as a kind of replacement for the mother: Transitional objects can be characterized by the fact that they belong to an intermediate space, which unites inner and outer reality, as is the case in forms of playing. The child uses an object from reality and gives it symbolic meaning or builds up emotional relationships against the background of it’s own needs; these can be toys, cuddly toys, the tip of a pillow or something similar. The deciding factor of the transitional items related to the process of separation from the mother and self-employment training is, that “they represent surrogates for the ‘mother’, who has just been lost to external reality” (Honneth 1992, p. 102). And with them “the children can actively use them to keep omnipotence fantasies alive, even after the experience of separation, and can simultaneously use them to creatively probe reality” (Honneth 1992, p. 101). Sigmund Freud explained this with a famous example, in which he observed a boy who recreates the constant real separation from the mother by first throwing away a coil and then drawing it back and so on as the mediated intermediate space, gaining control over this experience. Within this play “the child repeatedly attempts to bridge, symbolically, the painful gap between inner and outer reality” (Honneth 1992, p. 103). The special nature of the intermediary experiential space frees the child from the pressure of adaptation to external reality and thus enables the child to become somewhat absorbed in his playful activity. For Honneth, Winnicott’s argumentation is decisive for his own recognition-­ theoretical foundation of love, as a necessary precondition for attaining a practical self-relation. Because since

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the child is capable of being ‘lost’ in interaction with the chosen object only if, after the separation from the symbiotically experienced ‘mother’, the child can generate enough trust in the continuity of her care that he or she is able, under the protection of a felt intersubjectivity, to be alone in a carefree manner. (Honneth 1992, p. 103)

This ability to be alone is, for both Honneth and Winnicott, the guaranteed psychological basis for developing and building self-esteem, self-reliance and the confidence that their own needs will be taken care of. Because of that, the successful primary mother-child relationship leads to the formation of self-reliance and releases the ability to be with oneself. Referring back to Winnicott’s theory of object relations, Honneth can interpret the formula for love introduced by Hegel “being oneself in another” and thereby redeem the claim that was only hinted at by Hegel: to legitimize love as a stage of recognition by explicating Hegel in the sense that “the experience of being able to be alone and the experience of being merged” are constantly being mediated (Honneth 1992, p. 105). This way the “‘ego-relatedness’ and symbiosis here represent mutually required counterweights that, taken together, make it possible for each to be at home in the other” (Honneth 1992, p. 105).

11.3  Doi – Being Oneself in the Other While Honneth’s concept is contemporary, Doi’s reflections are older and come from a time when quite a few Japanese thinkers were struggling to determine what’s Japanese. And so many Japanese thinkers contributed to a collection of texts called Nihonjinron (日本人論), in which they originally tried to distinguish Japanese cultural peculiarities from foreign cultural influences. Takeo Doi also took part in these discussions and tried to work out the peculiarity of Japan in favor of the West and was often criticized for such cultural nationalism. However, the question of cultural peculiarities is not relevant to the following considerations, so Doi’s explanations are read only in the interest of the topic of this chapter. Questions of cultural peculiarities or differences are expressly not the topic here. Some historical background information is to be noted. Japan before the Meiji Restoration as far as possible sought to minimize links with foreign countries. Of the few remaining foreign contacts, the Japanese knowledge system took up selected knowledge traditions from abroad quite slowly. In the course of the opening of the country, Japan keenly imported knowledge traditions of other countries for its own modernization and not infrequently broke with its own knowledge traditions or devalued them. This sometimes went so far, that isolated traditions from foreign historical, social, political and economic contexts up to the adoption of the untranslated terminology were taken without transformation. This can be seen, for example, in Psychology in which, according to Doi, German traditions of thinking were adopted and German terminology became frequently used. This historical background is an important context for the following remarks and must be considered, since they are also the starting point of Doi’s work.

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Thus, in the course of his practical work as a psychiatrist in Japan, Doi noted that those imported psychological concepts and the associated terminology that Japanese psychology had imported from other non-Japanese theory traditions of his time were insufficient to adequately capture certain Japanese idiosyncrasies. As one of these blanks Doi noted the lack of positive consideration of emotional dependence in the social psychology of his time. But since he found this blank especially relevant to understanding the “Japanese psyche,” he enfolded the amae-concept as a key to understand it. Because of this synthesis, amae would be an exclusive characteristic of Japanese psychology, Doi’s work earned much skepticism abroad and many scientists doubted the scientific seriousness of his work (e.g. Dale 1995). Despite these reservations, Doi’s reflections are still being debated to this day. But not as a contribution to the understanding of Japan, but as a Japanese contribution e.g. to developmental psychology. Doi presented his concept to the English-speaking audience for the first time in 1973  in The anatomy of dependence. Because of the difficulty of expressing all cultural particularities in foreign languages, translations didn’t translate the term amae, although Doi assumes that amae can be found within all humans. Amae comes from Japanese common speech and is the noun form of the verb amaeru (甘 える). As the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA) explains in its Inter-­ Regional Encyclopedic Dictionary of Psychoanalysis, Amae is “a combination of the verb, eru [獲る, S.T.], which means “get” or “obtain” and amai [甘い, S.T.]” (IPA 2018, p.  2). Amai means here sweet and can be used as well as taste or as behavioral description. Doi also points out, that amai not only can be understood as sweet, but also means “to behave self-indulgently, presuming on some special relationship that exists between the two” (Doi 1973, p. 29). The IPA says that “amaeru refers to behaving childlike, dependent fashion to elicit indulgence, to obtain what is desired: be it affection, physical closeness, emotional or actual support, or granting of a request. It is a behavior of an appeal to be indulged, and presumes a degree of familial or intimate closeness” (IPA 2018, p. 2). Doi continued, that, if amae isn’t possible one can do with amanzuru (甘んずる), what means “to be satisfied with something, to put up with it because there is no better alternative” (Doi 1973, p. 29). To describe such “various states of mind brought about by the inability to ameru” (Doi 1973, p. 29) the Japanese language has a lot of words to describe such differentiated states. Furthermore, Doi points out that there are different relationships possible, which refer in different ways to amae. So, for example, there are relationships where amae or dependence is more welcome (called ninjō (人情)) or “where giri [義理, S.T.] binds human beings in a dependent relationship” (Doi 1973, p. 35). Giri and ninjō can be roughly translated “as social obligation and human feeling” (Doi 1973, p. 33). And mostly ninjō comes naturally within the family, while within giri-relationships like pedagogical ones ninjō has to be brought in artificially. That’s why amae can be experienced in all relationships, such as family, close friendships, partnerships, in “cohesive small groups such as classmates or teammates” or even within “relationships where power or status differentials exist such as teacher/student, boss/subordinate, or senior/junior colleagues” (IPA 2018, p. 2). Like the IPA points out, amae can even in such relationships be “widely accepted as a signifier of

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the strength and soundness of a relationship” (IPA 2018, p. 2) But “it can also be perceived negatively as an indication of the person’s immaturity, self-indulgence, sense of entitlement, or lack of social awareness and common sense” (IPA 2018, p. 2). Which case is correct can’t be generalized to any form of relationship, but depends on the concrete relationship, situation and attitude of all involved. As reflected by the IPA, Doi’s reflections on the amae concept can be found in some articles of selected psychological dictionaries. Thus, the IPA notes an amae definition of Salmar Akhtar, which defines amae as a “Japanese term, which denotes an intermittent, recurring, culturally patterned interaction, in which the ordinary rules of propriety and formality are suspended, allowing people to receive and give affectionate ego support to each other” (Akhtar 2009, p. 12). Another extension of Doi’s Amae definition was found by the IPA in Daniel Freeman, who in 1998 referred to amae “within the ego psychological terminology” (IPA 2018, p. 2) as “interactive mutual regression in the service of the ego, which gratifies and serves the progressive intrapsychic growth and development of both participants” (Freeman 1998, p. 47). As Doi elaborates further, according to his amae-concept, above all interpersonal relationships these are most important, which allow amae within ninjō- or giri-­ relationships. Relationships which aren’t connected with amae aren’t valid and “have for the Japanese a ring of coldness and indifference” (Doi 1973, S. 36). Conversely, this means that those relationships that make possible to amaeru are the most valued and aspired to. Accordingly, freedom isn’t considered desirable for the individual, and corresponding ideas and ideals have long been unappreciated. Respectively freedom means “to amaeru, that is, to behave as one pleases, without considering others” (Doi 1973, p. 84f.), but in the confidence to be allowed to do so thanks to the other. “Wilfulness, of course, is not considered to be a good thing” (Doi 1973, p. 85). The IPA summarizes amae as “to depend or presume upon another’s benevolence” and as an indication of the desire or need to be loved underlining that children have this need, even after they became themselves independent from their mothers (IPA 2018, p.  3). But to this it must be added, that Doi’s amae-concept expresses the idea of whether the desire to be loved can be given in or whether the relationship doesn’t allow it. At least that can be read from his remarks to ninjō- or giri-relationships. Therefore, to reduce amae to pure emotional dependence, overlooks the necessary “mutual recognition of each others’s need for indulgence” (Doi 1973, p. 32). Here it is necessary to distinguish between a primitive amae, where this consciousness hasn’t developed so far, and a mature amae in adults, where this reflectivity is expected.

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11.4  T  he Multidimensionality of Dependency as a Basic Challenge to the Educational Relationship All these explanations underscore the importance of recognizing people’s need for affection, as announced in the introduction. But as indicated in the introduction too, this neediness is hardly addressed in pedagogy. In 2007, this was also stated by the German pedagogue Volker Schubert. In his article about “Liebe und das Recht auf Abhängigkeit” (Love and the right on dependency, S.T.) he took Doi’s amae-­concept as a starting point to reflect on love and the right to dependence in pedagogical relationships (Schubert 2007). Here he discussed Doi’s thesis, that “[t]he amae psychology presents an excellent vantage point from which to understand the problems perplexing the contemporary world” (Doi 1973, p. 142). However, Schubert notes critically that, although perhaps in Western modernity the amae-desire exists too, but here it is hardly discussed (Schubert 2007, p. 263). Love, affection and dependency are hardly thematized or even taboo in most pedagogical discussions. The educational relationship is characterized by several tensions: e.g. between caring closeness and professional distance, between symmetrical solidarity and asymmetrical power differentials, or between promoting independence and demanding normativity. And since the student is more vulnerable within these tensions, the pedagogical relationship is characterized by a fundamental asymmetry. This asymmetry is not unfairly negatively connoted, which is why pedagogical relationships tend to be geared to overcoming this asymmetry and leading the student to independence. For this reason, it is difficult in Western traditions to talk positively about dependency in pedagogical relationships, but one is quickly expected to overlook, ignore or even confirm this negative dependence. And talking about love in the context of pedagogy quickly exposes you to suspicion of ideology, sentimentality or even pedophilia. Because of all this, it is very difficult in education to explicitly address existing dependency relationships or even to appreciate them positively. So Schubert describes dependency as something unlawful for pedagogy, which means that the needs of infants, children and students for care, i.e. dependency, are concealed and ignored. The ideal of pedagogy is independence and autonomy, so that unacceptable personal relationships of dependence are overcome and not obscured (Schubert 2007, p. 265). Against that, Schubert pleads  – based on Doi’s amae-concept  – to consider dependency as a basic challenge to the educational relationship and to critically reflect on dependency as well as to positively appreciate dependency (Schubert 2007, p. 271 ff.). For that, he reminds us that dependency is a basic pedagogical issue. Not only the relationship of infants and children to their parents, but also every educational relationship is characterized by dependencies (Schubert 2007, p. 273). And both Honneth and Doi can help to consider the multidimensionality of such dependencies. Doi’s work itself focuses on elaborating and demonstrating the dynamics of amae. Thereby it becomes clear, that amae, with its multidimensionality, is difficult to carry out in a scientific manner. Thus, amae takes into account both the nature of

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the relationship between two people, as well as their inner attitude to each other. Depending on the relationship, at least one person is allowed to behave as one pleases, even without taking ordinary rules of propriety and formality into account. For this, as an active expression of a passive love, the person whose acting amaerus is given space to do so in the relationship and her behavior is unconditionally endured, as long as it corresponds to the nature of the relationship. Doi himself doesn’t work it out clearly, but his remarks can be read in such a way that the child is less expected to see the complexity of the relationships and to behave accordingly reflexively, as the adult. That means the need to amaeru is attributed to each person and granted for everyone, but because of the different standings in society determined by, for example, age, gender, personal or professional relationship, the possibilities to amaeru differ. Like Honneth within his recognition-concept, Doi also provides extensive reflections on the social conditions for amae. And he also analyzes the prevailing social conditions as a struggle for the possibility to amaeru. In order to develop personality, which is capable of a mature amae, successful amae experiences in personality development are required. And the possibilities for that are also framed, conditioned and structured by social conditions. But this has to stay a side note. Looking at Honneth and Doi’s horizons, it is striking that they can be read as complementary. Honneth describes the development of the self and the formation of its subjectivity as a multi-step process of emergence from the natural mother-child symbiosis and a process of separation. He also knows that the self has the desire to be loved, but he doesn’t develop this insight any further. In contrast, Doi implicitly assumes the psychological developmental ideas of his time (which were taken from “Western” traditions), but doesn’t directly adopt them. In his understanding, so-­ called ´Western Individualism´ overemphasizes self-development, but doesn’t pay enough attention to the human needs of security and being loved. In particular, the positive connotation he attributes to ninjō-relationships, which makes amae spontaneously possible, shows that he valued such relationships higher than giri- or other-­ ones. That’s why the most important goal in human life is to be in relationships which allow amae. Thus, his priority is intersubjectivity. Doi also considers the development of the self, which is capable of mature amae, as his book title already suggests, but he subordinates these considerations under his explanations of the basic need for amae. Honneth’s reflections don’t contradict Doi’s reflections, but seemingly set other priorities by focusing on forms of recognition and practical self-­ relationships such as self-confidence, self-respect, and self-esteem. Both aspects are relevant for pedagogy, since they indirectly consider social and psychological dependency relationships, which must be reflected in a differentiated way in the pedagogical relationship. Both authors imply an unavoidable social dependency, which is the precondition for the development of a self. And both locate this in a field of tension, where the self can separate itself from the other, but at the same time is able to deal reflexively with its own psychological dependencies on others. With the help of the theory of recognition, one could simplify this tension in a linear fashion along the forms of recognition and, in educational relations, systematically examine the conditions and prerequisites for creating and promoting

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successful practical self-relationships and systematically analyze and combat contraventions in one’s own practice. However, this would charge each educational relationship systematically with implicit norms and rules and set the others to respect them. This is not wrong, but within the framework of pedagogical relationships, it would take the space away to sympathetically deal with regressions in the service of ego development, as Doi suggests. This shouldn’t be misunderstood as an invitation to give up norms and rules, but at the very least points out that the ability to comply with them also has preconditions. And educational relationships need spaces to endure such acts, to reflect the causes of the underlying inability and to respond pedagogically and not only automatically with sanctions that try to normalise the person. Here, Doi and Honneth are fundamentally different. While Doi explicitly starts from the basic need for indulgence, affection, physical closeness, and emotional and practical support in his amae concept allowing the human to indulge in indeterminate engagement in certain relationships, Honneth’s concept of recognition always carries normative presuppositions. Doi explicitly distinguishes between amae and immaturity, lawlessness, lack of social awareness and arbitrariness, but makes the distinction dependent on the concrete situation, relationship and participants. Amae is poorly systematized here. Honneth’s concept of recognition, on the other hand, is strongly systematized and differentiated and knows exact forms of recognition, personality dimensions, modes of recognition, potentials for development, practical self-relations, contemptuous forms and threatened personality components. Along these lines, the pedagogical relationship can be concretely reflected between recognition, disregard and implicit ambivalence. Recognition then becomes a goal or proof of pedagogical relationship, while disregard is to be avoided. Here then the vocabulary of the theory of recognition replaces earlier pedagogical terminology. However, wherever recognition attributes identities to others with its own categories, it misjudges systematically the otherness of the other which doesn’t fit into these categories (Bedorf 2010). Both concepts approach the challenge of reflecting on dependency in pedagogical relationships and open up different perspectives, which have been read as complementary to each other. These explanations open up only the conversation, as it is only possible for a chapter in a research field that has hardly been investigated. The dialogue between Doi and Honneth would have to be further deepened to see how dependency in pedagogical relationships can be considered in such a way that the multidimensionality mentioned can be kept in view without unilaterally dissolving them. Doi tries this, but his outlines require further consideration. Honneth’s reflections are already more differentiated, but they could be even stronger in the sense of Doi’s plea to consider the basic need for indulgence, affection, physical closeness, and emotional and practical support. Because Honneth points out basic needs in his derivation for recognition, he later talks only about recognition. He shifts the focus with his vocabulary. Both would be especially interesting to think about the pedagogical relationship and keep their complexity and dependencies in mind.

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References Akhtar, S. (Ed.). (2009). Comprehensive dictionary of psychoanalysis. London: Karnak. Akhtar, S., & Kramer, S. (1998). The colors of childhood: Separation individuation across cultural, rational and ethic differences. Nothval, New York: Jason Aronson. Bedorf, T. (2010). Verkennende Anerkennung. Berlin: Suhrkamp Verlag. Cacioppo, J. T., & Patrick, W. (2009). Loneliness: Human nature and the need for social connection. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. Dale, P. (1995). The myth of Japanese uniqueness. London: Routledge. Doi, T. (1973). The anatomy of dependence. The key analysis of Japanese behavior (6th ed.). Tokyo/New York/San Francisco: Kondansha International Ltd. Fraser, N., & Gordon, L. (1994). A genealogy of dependency: Tracing a keyword of the U.S. Welfare State. Signs, 19(2, Winter), 309–336. Freeman, D. (1998). Emotional Refueling in development, mythology, cosmology: The Japanese separation-individuation experience. In S. Akhtar & S. Kramer (Eds.), The colors of childhood: Separation individuation across cultural, rational and ethic differences. Nothval, New York: Jason Aronson. Hegel, G. W. F. (1979). System of ethical life (1802/03) and first philosophy of spirit (Part III of the system of speculative philosophy 1803/4). Edited and translated by H. S. Harris & T. M. Knox. Albany: State University of New York Press. Honneth, A. (1992). The struggle for recognition: The moral grammar of social conflicts. International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA). (2018). Inter-regional encyclopedic dictionary of psychoanalysis. https://online.flippingbook.com/view/544664/2/. Last seen 30.12.2018. Johnson, F. A. (1993). Dependency and Japanese sozialization. Psychoanalytic and anthropological investigations into Amae. New York/London: New York University Press. Mead, G. H. (1972). Mind, self, and society. From the standpoint of a social behaviorist. Chicago/ London: The University of Chicago Press. Prengel, A. (2013). Pädagogische Beziehung zwischen Anerkennung, Verletzung und Ambivalenz. Verlag Barbara Budrich: Oplade/Berlin/Toronto. Schubert, V. (2007). Liebe und das Recht auf Abhängigkeit – Über das amae-Konzept und seine Bedeutung für die pädagogische Anthropologie. In J.  Bilstein & R.  Uhle (Eds.), Liebe. Zur Anthropologie einer Grundbedingung pädagogischen Handelns (pp. 263–276). Oberhausen: ATHENA-Verlag. Spitz, R. A. (1965). The first year of life. Psychoanalytic study of normal and deviant development of object relations. New York: International Universities Press. Tomasello, M. (1999). The cultural origins of human cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Winnicott, D.  W. (1965). The maturational processes and the facilitating environment: Studies in the theory of emotional development. London: The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis.

Part IV

Translations

Chapter 12

From Comparison to Translation: Mutual Learning Between East and West Naoko Saito

12.1  I ntroduction: Dewey’s Visit to Japan and His Encounter with the Untranslatable Travel is known to have a broadening effect, at least if the traveller is willing to keep his mind open. The amount of enlightenment which is gained from travel usually depends upon the amount of difference there is between the civilization from which the traveller starts his journey and that of the country at which he arrives. The more unlike the two are, the more opportunity there is for learning. (Dewey 1983, p. 262) To cooperate by giving differences a chance to show themselves because of the belief that the expression of difference is not only a right of the other persons but is a means of enriching one’s life experience, is inherent in the democratic personal way of life. (Dewey 1988, p. 228)

So writes the twentieth century American philosopher, John Dewey. By using the metaphor of travel and journey, he expresses his idea of democracy as a way of life that is always being created, and still to be created, through mutual learning from difference. When Dewey paid a visit to China and Japan in the late 1910s and the early 1920s, he called for mutual understanding between the East and the West for the cause of democracy. In Japan, however, now a century ago, from February 9 until April 28, 1919, he faced the real difficulty of putting into practice his democratic principle of mutual learning from difference. Dewey’s visit to Japan was a test case in which he was caught out by a real gap in cross-cultural communication – a foreign place where the English word democracy was untranslatable. He was confronted with a severe challenge to his hope of attaining mutual understanding and universal democracy, beyond national and cultural boundaries, and thus he faced the real difficulty of crossing borders. When he left Japan, he made the remark: “It takes N. Saito (*) Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 D. Lewin, K. Kenklies (eds.), East Asian Pedagogies, Contemporary Philosophies and Theories in Education 15, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45673-3_12

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more force, more moral courage to be an outspoken critic of the politics and social condition of one’s nation, to be a dissenter, in Japan, than in any other country in the world” (Dewey 1983, p. 257). Yet Dewey still proposed the importance, when confronting and surmounting difference in ways of thinking, value systems, and habits of mind in other countries, of an understanding that reached “the inner spirit and real life of a people” (p. 267). Such contact with another nation might become “a real means of education, a means of insight and understanding” (p. 263). He took the view that, even in the midst of tension and hostility, we human beings can be open to the possibility of reconciliation if we can learn from our enemies as from “friends” (Dewey 1988, p. 228). That is to say, one’s moral life and experiences can be shared with others through mutual respect and mutual learning. Having set the tone by recounting this telling episode in Dewey’s experience, my own discussion will address the question of mutual learning between East and West in the spirit of friendship, and its implications for education. Dewey’s call for mutual learning, alert to cross-cultural and trans-national horizons of thought and experience, East and West, is all the more relevant today. The term “internationalization” has become a catch-phrase in university education. In educational policy statements, the phrase is oftentimes coloured by the busy, even aggressive discourse of global markets and an image of border-crossing between different countries and different cultures that smacks of the pioneer, if not of a new colonialism. Due to the advancement of ICT, the transferring of information beyond national territories is much greater than Dewey’s times. Under these circumstances, can we say that international and cross-cultural understanding have been advanced? When we pay attention to international exchange in education, we find that academic discourse is dominated by a vocabulary of mutual understanding and communication. Under the name of mutuality, however, there are some patterns that deviate from the kind of mutual learning to which Dewey aspired. First is the mode of educational research and international exchange that is based upon objective data and upon an allegedly neutral stance. In some comparative education research, for example, in the name of neutral comparison, Asia and the third world tend to be treated as the object of comparison, and this from a Euro-American centred framework of thinking that is unidirectional in its assumptions and approach (Auld et al. 2018; Rappleye 2018). Comparative education tends to be not so much a site for mutual learning as an area of research in “purely academic interest” (Standish 2011, p. 73). Second is a certain mode of interdisciplinary research on a global scale. This aims for mutual interaction of academic disciplines beyond borders and to achieve reciprocal exchange of ideas. In reality, however, the ground of each academic discipline tends to be retained as it is, and its framework of thinking remains unchanged. In consequence, interdisciplinary research often ends up with the assimilation of difference into the dominant framework of thinking. There the experience of standing on the precarious border of disciplines and of entering into uncertain realms of thinking tends to be expelled. The third is the kind of international communication

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that is found, for example, in the “Japanese model” of international exchange.1 To go beyond the unidirectional, passive importing of Western ideas, internationalization based upon such a Japanese model is an attempt to export in one way what is allegedly unique to Japan. There exists some assumption that the identity of Japan and its distinctive ideas and practices will be communicated universally and be received by other cultures in a foreign environment. Beneath the apparently outgoing movement, there lies a kind of introspection and self-examination that centres on the question of what Japanese identity is. These three patterns are found in a certain kind of unidirectionality in international exchange and in the assertion of national identity and the sound basis for judgement that this provides – a kind of foundationalist impulse that itself attempts to consolidate identity. Though mutual understanding is ostensibly aimed for, the way of living through mutual learning from difference as Dewey envisioned seems to be obliterated. What blocks mutual learning and what accelerates one-directional traffic is the sense of loss, of falling into a gap that one must undergo in cross-­ cultural and international communication. Anxieties and fear that are posed to us when researchers and research system confront ambiguous and unstable borders are covered over in the aggressive and confident discourse of globalization. There, the senses of losing one’s way, of losing one’s bearings in a foreign land, and, in facing the limit of language, of being at a loss for words are covered over. When we are thrown into a foreign environment, the criteria of judgment that one is accustomed to are severely tested and sometimes shattered. In confronting radical difference, our sense of identity is destabilized. And then the reactionary avoidance of fear, the turn to close-mindedness, sets in, for the protection of one’s territory. This chapter will problematize such unidirectional and foundationalist modes of international and cross-cultural exchange, which cover over the senses of loss and destabilization. It will explore the positive roles of those senses in enhancing intercultural learning between East and West. How can we convert the negative state of exclusiveness and blindness to others to a hopeful state of mutual learning, as Dewey envisioned, and to truly bidirectional modes of international exchange? How can bidirectional communication be achieved without falling into aboriginal identity and rootedness in culture or into the cosmopolitan fusion (itself a covering over) of differences? How can we achieve modes of international exchange that are receptive to the voices of others? These questions involve internal transformation of human beings in cross-cultural encounters. In the light of this I shall then explore the educational implications of such alternative kinds of mutual learning between East and West.

1  As its example, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology in Japan has promoted the project called, “EDU-Port Japan.” It is a “‘Public-Private Collaborative Platform’ comprising relevant Japanese government ministries and agencies, universities/institutions, and private companies that was established to disseminate Japanese-style education and promote collaboration in education.” It aims to promote abroad attractive education from Japan. (https://www. eduport.mext.go.jp/summary/index.html).

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When Dewey encountered the untranslatable in democracy in Japan, he indicated the sense of limits in symmetrical exchange between East and West. It is this asymmetrical moment of cross-cultural encounter between East and West and the sense of impenetrability in mutual understanding that will be the focus of the discussion below. In the following, in problematizing the symmetrical notion of exchange, I shall first turn away from comparison and towards translation. I shall illustrate this point by reviewing Paul Standish’s article on social justice and translation. Second, I shall propose an alternative sense of mutual learning via Emerson’s asymmetrical notion of friendship – an idea that develops Dewey’s proposed idea of friendship in mutual learning and yet that fully addresses the question of the untranslatable and the impenetrable. Finally in conclusion, I shall propose a way of mutual understanding between East and West as an endless endeavour of perfecting one’s own culture through the encounter with the other. Emerson is represented as a figure who transcends the dichotomy between cultural identity and trans-cultural cosmopolitanism. The implications of his views in this respect for education will form the basis of the conclusion to this paper.

12.2  From Comparison to Translation In his article, “Social Justice in Translation: Subjectivity, Identity and Occidentalism” (2011), Paul Standish discusses the issue of social justice in intercultural settings. In connection with the global dominance of English in international exchange in educational research, Standish first raises questions regarding the colonization of thought in policy transfer. In view of the relationship, for example, between East Asian countries and Anglophone countries, he argues, “the traffic is likely to be one-­ way” (Standish 2011, p. 73). The idea of social justice and the practice of educational research associated with this concept are not an exception. The concept, when encountered in Anglophone contexts, is embedded in cultural circumstances that are alien to Asian contexts. And when it is translated into an Asian language, the original and the translated terms will have different connotations, opening different chains of associations (p. 74). He points out that the native speaker of English is unaware of such difference and openness of the term. Beginning with this example, Standish moves onto more a complex issue of translation – a critique of monolingual mentality that is blind to the gaps and inequivalence that translation beyond technical matters would bring in. It is then further explored in his examination of the translation into East Asian languages of the term, “subject” – a concept that is crucial to the idea of social justice. Naoki Sakai’s discussion on the discrepancy in the concept between English and Japanese is highlighted. In Japanese there are two translations for the term: Shukan(teki) [主観(的)] and Shutai(teki) [主体(的)]. The former suggests something like the Western epistemological concept of subjectivity, whereas the latter evokes a more embodied concept, implying a kind of independence of thought,

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self-reliance and resourcefulness. As for the complicated relationship between shukan and shutai in the relationship between East and West, Standish says: While it may seem, as Watsuji implies, that shukan is the mode of subjectivity of the “West” and shutai that of “East,” Sakai is eager to show that the Japanese are also shukan-teki in their construction of the West. Thus the “interiority called Japan” in Watsuji’s anthropology ends up being thoroughly “Western” – the grafting of the image of Japan on Japan determined by Western notions of identity. In the same way subjects are apt to be shukan in confronting cultural difference insofar as, in this process, the other is objectified. To identify shutai as defining characteristic of subjectivity in the East is ironically self-­defeating (p. 76).

Standish here indicates the complicated relationship between East and West in the construction of identity. There is some asymmetry here, beyond the simple equation or mutuality. Whereas Orientalism, he writes, is constructed on the basis of a Western metaphysics, Occidentalism, which might be imagined to be its mirror-­ image in the East, is not derived from any indigenous universalist metaphysics. Hence, “Occidentalism has the character of double-grafting: it is grafted on a borrowed notion of subjectivity and identity” (p. 77).2 This, he argues, aggravates the pattern of one-way policy transfer and “reduces the possibilities of exchange between countries,” while, at the same time, it “foregrounds shukan-teki ways of thinking and being at the expense of the greater openness and possibility of the shutai-teki” (ibid.). Standish’s attempt is to combine his critique of monolingual mentalities exacerbated by the dominance of English and extended through the dominant (Western) concept of social justice. What is, however, most important is his humble attempt as a Westerner to elucidate inequivalence and asymmetry in the intercultural relationship between East and West, and the rich possibilities of language and human life in shutai-teki ways of thinking in East. This is the territory of language and translation that a mere comparison cannot grasp, and perhaps it is a realm of thought and language that Dewey could not attain, baffled as he was by the impenetrability of Japanese culture. Moreover, Standish’s pointing out of the double grafting of identity in Japan’s relationship with West indicates the ambiguity and instability of what is alleged to be Japanese identity. Perhaps the last points begin to show the special significance of translation, beyond comparison, and destabilizing the dichotomisation and presumed equivalence of exchange between East and West. Translation is viewed by those who do not know much about this as a primarily technical procedure – just a matching of words from one language to those of another in the light of a common range of meaning. It is like converting from Fahrenheit to Centigrade. In this example, we have Scale 1, Scale 2, and the temperature. So it is imagined that, in translation, we have Language 1, Language 2, and the meaning (concepts + logic). But whereas the temperature is there regardless of the scales, the concepts and logic itself are not: 2  “In other words, the East’s construction of the West is grafted on a Western construction of the East, but the origin of such identity-construction is in Western forms of representation and objectification, and Western notions of identity” (Standish 2011, p. 79).

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they derive from the operations of our ordinary language (and, that is, in particular languages). Therefore, the translator is engaged in a practice where she is not simply governed by rules (like matching temperature scales) but is constantly exercising judgment – judgement in the absence of a rule. Judgement in the absence of a rule is in fact very important in our lives as a whole – in our moral and political lives, in our everyday lives with one another, and in our lives as teachers and students. These dimensions of our lives overlap in multiple ways, and it is a mistake to seek tidy categorisations here. It follows from the above also that no perfect translation is possible  – hence the Italian adage: traduttore tradittore (A translator is a traitor). In a sense, then, we cannot translate, but we must translate! So translation is an imperfect but necessary part of our lives. In fact, this imperfection, this openness of meaning, makes possible an opening to new thought, challenging or disturbing the dominance of received ideas. The experience of gaps in the understanding that are not to be filled can induce a new humility of approach, which itself involves a receptiveness to new possibilities of thought. The untranslatability of the Western concept of democracy as Dewey encountered in Japan could have been such opportunity. It is these dimensions of translation that are crucial to achieving mutual learning between East and West, as Dewey envisioned. In particular, the idea of asymmetry is significantly in tune with the sense of the impossibility of perfect understanding and full mutuality. I consider the distinction between comparison and translation to hinge upon the question of symmetry and asymmetry: that comparison lives within the false consciousness of an imagined symmetry. Hence translation’s significance lies in recognizing the asymmetry that actually exists (from the ‘original’ to the other language).

12.3  Asymmetry and Disequilibrium in Friendship In the aforementioned article, Standish points out that the Rawlsian concept of social justice, with its implications for education, “has less to say about certain central aspects of education – that is, about the substance of teaching and learning, and about its transformative place in human life” (Standish 2011, p. 77). He encourages us to open our eyes to rich, different semantic fields that Japanese and Chinese can open in their shutai-teki mode of thinking and language. It is here that Standish refers, in place of Rawlsian cooperation, to Emerson’s idea of friendship and conversation where “friend is not someone who merely reinforces my identity, who secures me where I am, but someone ready to challenge me towards my next, best possibility” (p. 78). I would like to explore more this territory of life as crucial to achieving mutual learning between East and West, and more broadly, the potential of Eastern pedagogy – Eastern not in the narrow, geographical sense (as it reinforces a dichotomous equivalence between East and West), but more broadly, in the sense of shutai-teki mode of thinking, as Standish explicates. Emerson’s idea of friendship illustrates possibilities of disequilibrium and asymmetry in relationship, and

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this will give an indication of the potential relationship between East and West, where this is understood in the terms of translation rather than comparison. Let us consider Emerson’s idea of friendship in more detail. There can never be deep peace between two spirits, never mutual respect, until in their dialogue each stands for the whole world. (Emerson 2000, p. 211) Friendship and intimate affection are not the result of information about another person even though knowledge may further their formation. But it does so only as it becomes an integral part of sympathy through the imagination…. We learn to see with his eyes, hear with his ears, and their results give true instruction, for they are built into our own structure. (Dewey 1987, p. 339)

Dewey says that friendship is the basis of democracy as a way of life and that its principle is mutuality and reciprocity, which echoes the idea of mutual learning. As an initial indicator of what it might be to go beyond such symmetrical relationships, Emerson offers an alternative idea of friendship. His essay, “Friendship” (1841) starts, in a puzzling way, with an episode about a friend who, “unsought” (Emerson 2000, p. 203), visits someone’s home as a stranger, which becomes the occasion of “a just and firm encounter” (p. 202). Emerson describes this as an ideal state, in hopeful expectation of which one would be glad to be “alone for a thousand years” (pp. 202–203). The friend not only constitutes a source of “joy and peace” (p. 206) but also causes disturbance, as a presence who “hinders me from sleep” (p. 203). The essay is also permeated by a strong sense of privacy and secrecy, signalled especially by the surprising phrase: “the absolute insulation of man” (p. 212). This quasi-mystical, unworldly territory of friendship seems to be cut off from the public, as if in the realization of the existence of some purely private realm. The “social,” if it is there, seems limited to a “select and sacred relation” (p. 206), to some esoteric circle. This sounds anti-democratic, even aristocratic. There are some distinctive characteristics in Emerson’s idea of friendship, and these provide a striking contrast to the idea of mutual recognition – to such an extent that any conventional framework of thinking is radically unsettled. First and foremost, and remembering Emerson’s influence on Nietzsche, there is a challenge to our commonsensical vocabulary of love and care in association of friendship. For the sake of “sincere” friendship (p. 207), Emerson asks us to give up “household joy” and “warm sympathies” (p. 213). With the arrival of a friend, we are “uneasy with fear” (p. 202), and a friend is a “delicious torment” (p. 205). There is something more deeply disturbing too. He says that a friend is a “beautiful enemy untamable” (p. 211). Second, Emerson does not talk about the immediate, face-to-face relation with the friend, but about the transient moment when friendship exists between two people. This requires us to pay attention to the evanescent moment of a perfect encounter – to what he calls in another essay, “Circles” (1841), “the flying Perfect” (p. 252). Though being evanescent, friendship is, Emerson says, real. It is grounded on earth with “feet” (p. 208), an ideal state ever to be perfected: friendships “are not glass threads or frostwork, but the solidest thing we know” (p. 206).

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Third, while friendship is the relationship of “affinity” where there is an “absolute running of two souls into one” (p. 209), Emerson talks about the “paradox” of “the not mine is mine” (p. 210). It requires a “rare mean betwixt likeness and unlikeness” (p. 210), with which he couples an alternative sense of possessing what cannot be possessed. It is a “paradox in nature” as “I who alone am … behold now the semblance of my being, in all its height, variety and curiosity, reiterated in a foreign form” (p. 208). Simultaneously he suggests that such possession requires parting, relaxing one’s grasp. In such relationship of affinity, “the Deity in me and in them… makes many one” (ibid.). Here is the paradox of possession and disowning, of acquisition and relinquishing, and of the one and the many. Fourth, a strong affirmation of the self-reliant self  – who declares, “thou art enlarged by thy own shining” (ibid.) – exists against the background of the humble sense of “High thanks I owe you” (p.  203). Emerson speaks on the verge of the affirmation of the self and negativity, derived, in almost Levinasian vein, from “the Other [who] comes to me as having depths that I cannot know” (Standish 2004, p. 494), and hence he anticipates something of poststructuralism. A strong sense of the singularization occasioned by the address of the other runs through lines. It is with this sense of an unbridgeable gap that the presence of a friend confronts us, in a relationship of correspondence, and yet “without due correspondence” (Emerson 2000, p.  213)  – a “just encounter” without balance, the relationship between those who are “equal” (p. 207) and yet without equivalence. This is a way of thinking about friendship markedly different from Aristotle’s virtue ethics. As Emerson says in another essay, “Gifts” (1844), “there is no commensurability between a man and any gift” (p. 362), expressing the perception of excess in relation to the other with a sense of “shame and humiliation” (ibid.). It is this sense of incommensurable correspondence that figures prominently in Emerson’s idea of friendship. Emerson writes, “He is a good man who can receive a gift well” (p. 362). One can express one’s thankfulness only indirectly – after the friend is gone, by one’s “own shining,” as Emerson puts this, by finding and demonstrating who one is. It is only this “I” who can redeem what is “unrequited” (p. 214). The subject thus replaced in Emerson’s idea of friendship is marked not simply by the negativity of self-abrogation and abandonment, but, more importantly, by the hope of self-affirmation. The relationship of friendship, though with its destabilizing and unsettling connotations, is thoroughly affirmative. It is not a negation of the significance of care and compassion towards the other: rather the morality of Emerson’s moral perfectionism involves shifting the focus of moral responsibility onto one’s self. In describing the friendship between Emerson and Thoreau, Cavell expresses this as “the shock of recognition” (Cavell 1992, p. 32). The friend awakens us, making us “ashamed of our shame,” of the state of our conformity, and represents “our beyond,” through “recognition and negation” (Cavell 1990, pp. 58–59). The sense of destabilization and asymmetry in friendship implies an alternative sense of mutual learning between East and West. If we follow Emersonian idea of friendship, in our cross-cultural dialogue we shall not solidify what is alleged to be our cultural identity. Neither shall we diffuse the cultural and national boundaries and appeal to borderless cosmopolitanism. We shall retain our own sense of self and

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culture, and yet, it will be receptive to the voice of the other. As Standish says, “Emerson advocates a kind of self-reliance, not as individualistic autonomy but as the kind of receptivity, openness, and resourcefulness that is achieved in the act of abandonment” (Standish 2011, p. 78). And surely this is not a mode of comparison based upon neutral position but is closer to the broader concept of translation discussed above – as the matter of translating one’s identity with the sense of loss and ambiguity.

12.4  C  onclusion: Cross-Cultural Translation and Mutual Perfecting of Cultures Territorial states and political boundaries will persist; but they will not be barriers which impoverish experience by cutting man off from his fellows; they will not be hard and fast divisions whereby external separation is converted into inner jealously, fear, suspicion and hostility. Competition will continue, but it will be less rivalry for acquisition of material goods, and more an emulation of local groups to enrich direct experience with appreciatively enjoyed intellectual and artistic wealth. (Dewey 1984, p. 370)

In the beginning of this paper, one directionality and the foundationalist mode of international and intercultural exchange were problematized. From the scope of translation and of Emersonian friendship, how can a kind of mutual learning between East and West be redeemed? How are their “boundaries” to be transcended as Dewey aspires in the above quote? The scope of translation and Emerson’s idea of friendship together remind us that mutual learning in the true sense of the word require to destabilize one’s own ground in encounter with the other, and to undergo the sense of a gap that the untranslatable presents us with. The imbalance and asymmetry in one’s relationship with the other, which disturbs the idea of mutuality and reciprocity, is at the heart of mutual learning. When the idea of translation is adopted in mutual learning between East and West, one directional export, for example, of the “Japanese model,” which is based upon the foundation of the Japanese identity, and for that matter, the Eastern practice, discloses its limit as an illusion. So is the illusion of a neutral stance in cross-cultural comparison. Translation is the process of testing one’s own criteria of judgment, one’s familiar way of life in a foreign environment and in encounter with aliens. There one cannot remain neutral and one’s framework is constantly put on trial. Shifting from comparison to translation requires this moment of self-criticism, and even of self-abandonment – one’s own self put on a precarious border of cultures and sometimes at a loss. Transcending boundaries involves risks. This is not a matter of the mutual understanding of a “different” culture but rather, of the understanding of other cultures  – others not only outside, but also inside ourselves. This requires an endless endeavour of perfecting one’s own culture in encountering the other – perfection in the Emersonian perfectionist sense of the quest of the better state (Cavell 1990) – to get at least to “first base” even where “hitting a home run” is not possible, to borrow Stanley Cavell’s wilfully colloquial

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metaphor (Saito 2017, p. 20). This implies neither the cosmopolitan fusing of the boundaries of different cultures nor the romanticization of the unknowable other. Our “home base” is continually destabilized and transformed. Such radical self-­ criticism is the condition of perfecting one’s culture. Cultural renewal is accompanied by an internal transformation, as Emerson says: “the inmost in due times becomes the outmost” (Emerson 2000, p. 132). Such internal transformation is at the heart of Cavell’s idea of the “education of grownups” (Saito and Standish 2012): “for a grownup to grow he requires strangeness and transformation, i.e., birth” (Cavell 1992, p. 60). The imperfectability of full understanding of other (and one’s own) cultures calls for a certain sense of humility, with a sense, as Emerson says that: “[t]here is always residuum unknown, unanalyzable” (Emerson 2000, p.  254). Cavellian and Emersonian cross-cultural understanding does not fall into either the solidifying of cultural identity or into the borderless cosmopolitanism. It is the eternal process of translation, of mutual perfection through criticism. It inevitably involves the transformation of self and culture. Aggressive discourse of international exchange is replaced by more humble reception of other cultures. One might call this a very “Eastern” way of thinking. The point of this chapter, however, is to disclose the illusion of such an idea of “very Eastern”: there is nothing purely Eastern: nothing purely Western. What is most significant is to pay attention to the very moment when such dichotomization is destabilized in cross-cultural encounter. This, I shall argue, is an authentically bidirectional mode of exchange. Emerson himself embodied such bidirectionality in the formation of his thought – in the very way he adopted and fused Eastern elements of thought with the Western grain. Arthur Versluis argues that Emerson in effect creates a unique “literary religion” that is neither Eastern nor Western. Versluis discusses the relationship of light and soul that Emerson describes in connection with the ideas of karma yoga and jnana yoga in the Bhagavad Gita (Versluis 1993, pp.  55, 66). Emerson went to some length to access those sources that were available in translation, and on the strength of this reading his idea of self-reliance took on a new quality with its fusion of the active and the receptive. How then, can such bidirectional mode of communication be cultivated? How can we transform the mode of international and intercultural exchange that is one-­ directional and inward looking to bidirectionality in which one learns to accept and listen to the voice of the other? From the spirit of this paper to destabilize the symmetrical distinction between East and West, I shall not draw out the implication for “Eastern” pedagogy or comparison between Eastern and Western models of education. Instead, I would like to propose to introduce the element of translation into diverse cross-curricular and interdisciplinary activities – translation not in the sense of technical switching of one language to another, but in the sense of translation as the metonym of our lives (Standish and Saito 2017, p. 2). For example, in native and foreign language education, students are to be exposed to the difficult moment of translation – to the open fields of meanings and diverse possibilities of translating one word into others. This might involve them in the experience of “bottomless[ness]” (Thoreau 1992, p. 190). From within the sense of precariousness and of chaos, they

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learn to exercise their judgment by testing their words in the eyes of others. Foreign language education then is the site for undergoing the sense of ecstasy  – that of going out of the existing ego. Or the mode of communication in the classroom is to be shifted from active exchange of one’s opinions to receptive mode of listening to the voice of the other. This might go against the popular, prevalent mode of “active learning.” The educational policy of hiring “native” speakers of English might be reconsidered from the perspective of translation. What is crucial here is not so much whether a speaker is native as whether a teacher is sensitized to the experience of the untranslatable. Thus, education must cultivate the art of translation, in service of mutual learning. Through such a command of language, crossing the boundaries of cultures and languages, one can translate oneself between the established and the deviant, between center and periphery. Language education then is crucial in promoting bidirectional, and indeed “other-” directional international exchange and mutual learning. Shall we call this “Eastern” pedagogy?

References Auld, E., Rappleye, J., & Morris, P. (2018). PISA for development: How the OECD and World Bank shaped education governance post-2015. Comparative Education, 55(2), 197–219. https://doi.org/10.1080/03050068.2018.1538635. Cavell, S. (1990). Conditions handsome and unhandsome: The constitution of Emersonian perfectionism. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Cavell, S. (1992). The senses of Walden. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Dewey, J. (1983). Some factors in mutual national understanding (1921). In J. A. Boydston (Ed.), The middle works of John Dewey (Vol. 13). Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. Dewey, J. (1984). The public and its problems (1927). In J. A. Boydston (Ed.), The later works of John Dewey (Vol. 5). Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. Dewey, J. (1987). Art as experience (1934). In J. A. Boydston (Ed.), The later works of John Dewey (Vol. 10). Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. Dewey, J. (1988). Creative democracy – The task before us (1939). In J. A. Boydston (Ed.), The later works of John Dewey (Vol. 14). Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. Emerson, R. W. (2000). In B. Atkinson (Ed.), The essential writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson. New York: The Modern Library. Rappleye, J. (2018). In favor of Japanese-ness: Future directions for educational research. Educational Studies in Japan: International Yearbook, 12, 9–21. Saito, N. (2017). Philosophy as translation and the realism of the obscure. In P. Standish & N. Saito (Eds.), Stanley Cavell and philosophy as translation: “The truth is translated” (pp. 11–23). London: Rowman & Littlefield. Saito, N., & Standish, P. (2012). Stanley Cavell and the education of grownups. New  York: Fordham University Press. Standish, P. (2004). Europe, continental philosophy and philosophy of education. Comparative Education, 40(4), 485–501. Standish, P. (2011). Social justice in translation: Subjectivity, identity, and occidentalism. Educational Studies in Japan: International Yearbook, 6(December 2011), 69–79. Standish, P., & Saito, N. (2017). Introduction. In P. Standish & N. Saito (Eds.), Stanley Cavell and philosophy as translation: The truth is translated (pp. 1–9). London: Rowman and Littlefield.

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Thoreau, H.  D. (1992). Walden and resistance to civil government (W.  Rossi, Ed.). New  York: W. W. Norton & Company. Versluis, A. (1993). American transcendentalism and Asian religions. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Chapter 13

Sumie Kobayashi and Petersen’s Jena-­ Plan: A Typical Case of the Acceptance of Western Pedagogy in Japan Hiroyuki Sakuma

13.1  Introduction Modern pedagogy in Japan has followed various trends in Western pedagogy by importing methods and technologies from Western countries without investigating deeply their roots and thoughts. This typical trend in Japan, namely superficial Western acceptance, continues to this day. Why is such Western reception typical in Japan? The reason goes back to the rapid modernization of the Meiji era (1868–1912). Therefore this article begins with a brief overview of Meiji’s modernization based on wakon yōsai (和魂洋才, Japanese spirit with Western learning) as the background, furthermore it focuses on the acceptance of Western education. Next, as a typical case of this reception, it will describe the acceptance of German education reformer Peter Petersen’s Jena-Plan by the famous Japanese pedagogue Sumie Kobayashi. The paper then clarifies the characteristics and problems of Kobayashi’s reception of the Jena-Plan, and finally it will suggest further tasks for studies.

13.2  Background: Meiji ishin and Wakon yōsai Meiji ishin (明治維新, Meiji restoration) was the political revolution in 1868 that led to the end of the Edo (Tokugawa) era (1603–1867). Then, the new era, named as the Meiji era, started as a country of imperial rule under the Emperor. The Meiji restoration brought not only wide political, but also economic, and social change, as This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers 16K04487, 19K02458. H. Sakuma (*) Tamagawa University, Machida, Tokyo, Japan e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 D. Lewin, K. Kenklies (eds.), East Asian Pedagogies, Contemporary Philosophies and Theories in Education 15, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45673-3_13

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well as the modernization and Westernization of Japan. It was very important for the new government in Japan to break away from the fetters of powerful Western countries. To realize that independence, it was recognized as a very significant political agenda to increase the wealth of the country based on the promotion of industry and to build up the military, through the acceptance of advanced knowledges and technologies from the Western countries in a special way, i.e. in wakon yōsai. From the end of the Edo era (1603–1868), Japanese people already understood and accepted this kind of wakon yōsai (和魂洋才, Japanese spirit with Western learning). It means adopting Western knowledge and technology while valuing Japanese traditional spirituality. What then is the wakon (和魂, Japanese spirit)? Many thinkers have explained it as mu (無, nothingness).1 Even today, it remains ambiguous. However, some typical ways of explaining it should be mentioned here. Yasunari Kawabata (1899–1972), who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968, spoke about mu (無, nothingness) as Japanese Spirit in his Nobel Lecture Utsukushii nihon no watashi (美しい日本の私, Japan, The Beautiful, and Myself) (1968): This is not the nothingness or the emptiness of the West. It is rather the reverse, a universe of the spirit in which everything communicates freely with everything, transcending bounds, limitless. (Kawabata 1969: 56)

On the other hand, in the context of pedagogy, yōsai (洋才, Western learning) was characterized obviously as the import of the Western education, including teaching method and didactics, to improve efficiency. Those imports increased more and more, and the Japanese spirit was gradually driven out of the education in Japan, except in the education that is part of the transmission of Japanese traditional arts ( 芸道, geidō) and martial arts (武道, budō), including chadō or sadō (茶道, tea ceremony), kadō (華道, flower arrangement), tōgei (陶芸, ceramic art), nō (能), kabuki (歌舞伎), kyōgen (狂言), kyūdō (弓道, Japanese archery). This trend continues to the present age. Rather, it seems to have become a kind of tradition of modernized Japan. Eijiro Inatomi (1897–1975), first chair of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, explained that Japanese pedagogy was recognized as a “department store of all educational thoughts” (Inatomi 1975: 151). However, would foreign researchers approve such a pedagogy? When German pedagogue Rudolf Lassahn (1928–) received a similar explanation about Japanese pedagogy in Japan, he criticized as follows: “It is strange that Japan is a department store of all kinds of pedagogy” (Hirano 1983: 277–278). On the contrary, Lassahn claimed, “Japan must have its own pedagogy different from the pedagogy of these Western pedagogues” (Hirano 1983: 277). Unfortunately, even today Japan’s pedagogy is still like a department store. In other words, it has not yet formed its own independent

1  The West’s best known Zen teacher D. T. Suzuki (Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, 1870–1966) explained Mu (無, nothingness) as being central to Zen (禅) Buddhism (see Suzuki 2019), and the Japanese psychologist Kawai Hayao 河合隼雄 (1928–2007) recognized it as Chūkū kōzō (中空構造, center-empty structure) (see Kawai 1999).

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pedagogy. The following is an overview of such Japanese educational history since the Meiji era.

13.3  T  he Beginning of Modern Education and Pedagogy in Japan First of all, the Japanese government constructed gakusei (学制, the modernized education system) in 1872, before drafting the Constitution of the Empire (1889). However, its drastic reformation was mainly based on a strong and indiscriminate influx of Western educational ideas, from countries including France, USA, UK, and Germany. Teacher training started promptly at Tōkyō Normal School in May 1872, then Marion McCarrell Scott (1843–1922) was invited from USA. He introduced modern Western education methods, for example, uniformed teaching and the Pestalozzian Object lesson etc. After the students learned these methods, they spread across the whole country. In 1875, Hideo Takamine (1854–1910) and Shuji Izawa (1851–1917) were sent to the USA by the Japanese Ministry of Education as the first government-financed foreign students in pedagogy. Takamine investigated teacher training at the Oswego State Normal School, New York, and he introduced shobutsu shikyō (庶物指教, the Pestalozzian Object lessons, i.e. learning of the number, form and word based on direct experiences; Anschauungsunterricht in German). Izawa’s book Kyōikugaku (敎育學, Pedagogy) from 1882 was the first publication with this title in Japan. It was based on his notebooks from the lectures of Albert Gardner Boyden (1827–1915), principal at the State Normal School at Bridgewater, Massachusetts. Takamine and Izawa contributed to the construction of the modern teaching method in Japan. Arinori Mori (1847–1889) who became the Minister of Education of the first cabinet in 1885 was influenced by the English philosopher Herbert Spencer (1820–1903). He introduced Spencer’s book Education: Intellectual, Moral and Physical (1860) to Japan. Pedagogy was taught for the first time in 1887 by the German adviser and teacher Emil Hausknecht (1853–1927) at Tōkyō Imperial University. He introduced the Herbartian pedagogical method of five formal steps. This methodology became dominant in those days. Tomeri Tanimoto (1866–1946), a student of Hausknecht, wrote in his book Jituyō kyōikugaku oyobi kyōjuhō (實用教育學及教授法, Practical education and method of education) in 1894: “Ah, Herbart! I can’t forget the name of Herbart even when I’m sleeping” (Tanimoto 1894: 1; all translations my own if not stated otherwise). He visited the Herbartian Wilhelm Rein (1847–1929) at the University of Jena in 1901.2 Thereafter, from the latter part of the Meiji era to the Taishō era (1912–1926), the Herbartian approach was swept away and neo-­ Kantian pedagogy or critical pedagogy was introduced by Sukeichi Shinohara

2  See ‘Liste der Teilnehmer des Ferienkurses in Jena, August 1901’, in Acten der Grossherzogl. und Herzogl. Sächs. Universitäts-Curatel zu Jena, Bestand C, Nr. 25, Universitätsarchiv Jena.

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(1876–1957). The pedagogy of the Taishō era was also influenced by progressive education, including the Swedish pedagogue Ellen Key (1849–1926), the Italian medical doctor and pedagogue Maria Montessori (1870–1952), and the American philosopher and pedagogue John Dewey (1859–1952). In connection with a democratization policy introduced just after World War II, the Japanese education system and method became largely influenced by Dewey’s pedagogy. As mentioned above, the history of modern Japanese pedagogy, i.e. of the academically reflected education, is since its beginning for the most part characterized by the import of the Western pedagogy, moreover by the peculiarity of those processes, i.e. accepting of Western methods and technologies without their roots and thoughts. Next, a typical case will be picked up and investigated.

13.4  Peter Petersen and Sumie Kobayashi Peter Petersen (1884–1952) was one of the leading philosophers and pedagogues of the New Education Movement (Reformpädagogik) in Germany. In 1923, he became a professor of academic pedagogy at the University of Jena as successor of Wilhelm Rein. He started to reform the affiliated school in April 1924. In 1927, he presented his school reform plan, the so-called ‘Jena-Plan’, at the 4th International Conference of the New Education Fellowship (abbreviated below as NEF3) in Locarno.4 The Jena-Plan is characterized as an internal education reform through realizing the living community in school, including heterogeneity inherent in groups, 4 rhythmic original forms for learning and self-realization (dialogue, play, work and festival). However, the name ‘Jena-Plan’ was not invented by Petersen, but by Clare Soper and Dorothy Matthews who were secretaries of the conference committee (Petersen 1927b: 3). Already, there were well known school reform plans in those days, including Dalton-Plan, Winnetka-Plan and Gary-Plan. Without getting permission, they named Petersen’s school concept and practice ‘Jena-Plan’ in reference to those other plans. However, through the conference, the Jena-Plan became famous throughout the world and it was valued as “the culmination of the new education” by the German Pedagogue Hermann Röhrs (Röhrs 1980: 248). 3  New Education Fellowship (NEF) is an international organization for progressive education which was established in 1921 while the summer conference in Calais, France, by some representative persons, including Beatrice Ensor, Adolphe Ferrière and Elisabeth Rotten. It is no doubt that Ensor was the initiator of NEF (see Boyd and Rawson 1965: 67; Koslowski 2013: 53–54). Since 1966, NEF is known as the World Education Fellowship (WEF). 4  See UNESCO Archives database Access to Memory (https://atom.archives.unesco.org/locarnoworld-conference-on-new-education-august-3-15-1927-4th-international-conference-of-new-education-fellowship, accessed 30 October 2017). Three languages (English, German and French) were used in the international conference. Along with that, the title of the conference was also ‘IV. Internationalen Konferenz des Arbeitskreises für die Erneuerung der Erziehung’ in German (see Petersen 1927b: 3), and ‘ IV Congrès de la Ligue Internationale pour l’Education Nouvelle’ in French (see NEF 1927: t. p.). About NEF, see Boyd and Rawson (1965); Koslowski (2013).

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Sumie Kobayashi (1886–1971), one of the Japanese representative pedagogues, joined the conference as the only official participant from Japan.5 Kobayashi was a professor of pedagogy at Keiō University in Tōkyō. Furthermore, he became Head of the NEF Japan section. He traveled in Europe to inspect Western education from June 11 to October 17, 1927. After he returned to Japan, he wrote his book Ōshū shin kyōiku kenbun (歐洲新敎育見聞, Report on the New Education in Europe; abbreviated below as Report) in 1928.6 This is the first report about Petersen’s Jena-­ Plan in Japanese. It also represents a very valuable testimony, because Kobayashi heard Petersen’s presentation at the Conference directly.

13.5  Kobayashi’s Report The 4th International Conference was called bankoku shin kyōiku kaigi (萬國新敎 育會議, The World Conference of the New Education) by Kobayashi. He explained the contents of his Report in the following division (see Table 13.1): Table 13.1  Contents and construction of report Chapter 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

Title From Tōkyō to Berlin Several Days in Berlin Arrived in London Several Days in Paris The World Conference of the New Education Report on the World Conference of the New Education (1): Right after the Conference Report on the World Conference of the New Education (2): Lecture held at a certain place after returning to Japan Brochure of the World Conference of the New Education From Geneva to Zürich Germany again Country Boarding Schools (Landerziehungsheime) Life Community School (Lebensgemeinschaftsschule) and the Wandervogel A New Method of Moral Education The New Education in Russia

Division Pages 4 10 4 2 4 16 4 3 4 9 4 7 2

29

1 4 4 3 5

60 5 24 37 11

5 5

16 21

Source: Devised by Hiroyuki Sakuma, based on Kobayashi’s Report on the New Education in Europe (1928)

5  Kobayashi wrote: “I was the only Japanese who attended from the beginning; Mr. Doi, part-time employee from Tōkyō, joined from the middle of the meeting. […] It was really disappointing that I was the only official member.” (Kobayashi 1928: 52). 6  The following explanation of the report of Kobayashi has revisited and corrected an earlier paper of the author (see Sakuma 2018).

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1 . Introduction to the main lecturers of famous speakers 2. Revised version of his own lecture held after returning to Japan 3. A newly written report 4. His travel experiences in Europe (see Kobayashi 1928: 1–2) 5. Reprinted articles from other journals (see Kobayashi 1928: 203, 214, 230) Chapters 5, 6, 7, and 8 in Kobayashi’s book are direct reports of the world conference; they add up to 105 pages and make up about 42% of the book. Chapter 5 ‘The World Conference of the New Education’ is Kobayashi’s memoir of the conference from August 3 to 13, 1927. He writes about Petersen’s presentation of the Jena-Plan on the 10th of August in chapter 5. There is no mentioning of the Jena-­ Plan in chapter 6. Chapter 7 reports that Petersen presented the Jena-Plan as one of the various “new education methods to realize educational freedom” (Kobayashi 1928: 55). That is all where Petersen’s Jena-Plan was addressed directly in connection with the 4th International Conference. Chapter 8 introduces the abstracts of conference lectures, including the foundress of the NEF Beatrice Ensor (1885–1974), the President of the Conference Pierre Bovet (1878–1944), Swiss education reformer Elisabeth Rotten (1882–1964), Belgian educator and psychologist Ovide Decroly (1871–1932), American education reformer Carlenton Washburne (1889–1968), German pedagogue Wilhelm Paulsen (1875–1943), and Swiss educator Adolphe Ferrière (1879–1960). However, Petersen is not mentioned. Further, Petersen’s ‘life community school’ (Lebensgemeinschaftsschule) is reviewed in chapter 12, but this is merely an article already published in another journal. Therefore, Kobayashi’s understanding of Petersen’s Jena-Plan needs to be explored in reference to chapters 5 and 7.

13.6  P  etersen’s Presentation of the Jena-Plan at August 10, 1927 In chapter 5 of ‘The World Conference of the New Education’, Petersen’s Jena-Plan is discussed for the first time. Kobayashi describes the proceedings of August 10, 1927 as follows: I heard a lecture of Mr. Petersen, Professor of Pedagogy at the Jena University. He explained the contents of the so-called ‘Jena-Plan’. He published a little booklet about it, so I would like to introduce its points to you someday. (Kobayashi 1928: 37–38)

However, Kobayashi did not write about the timetable of the conference on August 10. The Newsam Library and Archives at the UCL Institute of Education holds the conference program. According to the program, the 4th International Conference was scheduled for 13 days from August 3 to August 15. Its theme was ‘The True Meaning of Freedom in Education’ (NEF 1927: t.p.). At this conference, many lectures were given by famous speakers, as mentioned above. What is more, subcommittees of ‘Study Groups’ were set up (NEF 1927: 6). Indeed, Petersen’s name

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appears on page 16  in the program, but not as a single speaker. He belonged to “some of the speakers in the groups’” (NEF 1927: 13). There were 8 study groups. Petersen participated in the third group. His group was named as “Experimental Schools (accounts of experimental work in different parts of the world)” (NEF 1927: 6). The Peter-Petersen-Archive in Vechta, Germany, keeps materials and memoranda by Miss Else Müller (1891–1968), who also heard Petersen’s presentation at the group meeting and later became his married partner. According to Müller’s materials, the third group met on August 10 from 11:15 am to 12:30 pm. One of the leaders was ‘Dr. Peter Petersen’ and the subject was ‘The Jena-Plan’.7 Mrs. Marion Paine Stevens, from the Ethical Culture School, USA, was named as another leader in the group. In total, they had 75 minutes for the group. In any case, Petersen’s announcement was not a lecture, but a practice report on his school before the group discussion.

13.7  Petersen’s Abstract of the Jena-Plan It should be emphasized again that Kobayashi formulated his statement as follows: “He published a little booklet about it, so I would like to introduce its points to you someday” (Kobayashi 1928: 37–38). This booklet is Der Jena-Plan einer freien allgemeinen Volksschule (The Jena-Plan of a Free and Common National School) which later will be renamed as Der Kleine Jena-Plan (The little Jena-Plan). This booklet comprised only 41 pages, and in it, Petersen said: “It was written in haste as a sketch at the end of the semester” (Petersen 1927b: 3). The foreword of the first edition has the date of “July 31, 1927” (Petersen 1927b: 4), so the text may seem to have already existed at the time of the August meeting. However, it has been pointed out that the actual book was not published before the 4th international conference. The publication happened at the end of December 1927 (Retter 2018: 195). Therefore, it would have been impossible for Kobayashi to state at the 10th of August 1927 that Petersen “published a little booklet about it”. Petersen was requested to submit beforehand an abstract of the fundamental thoughts on the experimental work at the laboratory school attached to the University of Jena (Universitäts-Übungsschule), which became the basis for discussion in the committee of the conference prior to the international meeting. However, this abstract is not found in the materials of the Petersen Archive mentioned above. It also does not exist in Müller’s materials of the 4th International Conference. Müller has left handwritten memoranda with the title ‘Petersen’ dated to August 10 (see Müller 1927). She usually wrote notes in the margins of the delivered material, as she did in the cases of P. Boyet and O. Decroly. However, in the case of Petersen’s presentation she did not use the same style; she leaves six handwritten 7  Else Müller’s Materials and memoranda of the conference; the original has been lost and only copies survived, are in the folder 17 of the Peter-Petersen-Archive in Vechta. The material used here was numbered 26 (see Müller 1927).

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memos on a blank sheet of paper. Based on this, it is to be assumed that Petersen’s abstract which was required to be submitted to the committee was not distributed on the day of Petersen’s presentation. Or Müller was not able to obtain it because of the number of copies. In any case, Petersen’s summary has not yet been found. As mentioned above, Kobayashi does not address Petersen in chapter 8 of his report ‘Brochure of the World Conference of the New Education’. Therefore, it seems as if Kobayashi also couldn’t get hold of Petersen’s abstract on August 10; he seems to have listened only to Petersen’s oral presentation on the day.

13.8  Kobayashi’s Understanding of Petersen’s Jena-Plan Next, Kobayashi states: “Each of the speakers claimed that their own method of the new education realized freedom in education” (Kobayashi 1928: 55). Furthermore, he introduced ‘Montessori’s method’, ‘Project method’, ‘Dalton-Plan’, ‘Howard-­ Plan’, ‘Decroly method’ and ‘Winnetka System’. Following this, Kobayashi writes about Petersen’s presentation: “Among them, Dr. Petersen, who is managing a laboratory school attached to the University of Jena, introduced extensively ‘the Jena-­ Plan’ as the best plan to the audience” (Kobayashi 1928: 56). In addition, Kobayashi comments that Petersen is a “very promising scholar” and that “[t]his new education method of Petersen was something special, particularly for me” (ibid.). On the other hand, Kobayashi also remarks: Hearing about the new education methods of those people, I did find it extremely interesting that they thought their school could not be managed unless by their own methods. It seemed to me that this was natural. There is a strong power to the idea that ‘you can practice your ideas and I will practice my idea’. (ibid.)

Having witnessed the strong self-assertiveness of the ‘new education methods’ by the presenters, including Petersen, Kobayashi was reminded of the Japanese ‘Eight Educational Propositions’8 of the Taishō era (1912–26), because the presenters also did not compromise in order to produce good outcomes, and they also wanted to be faithful to themselves. In continuing, Kobayashi states: “Anyway, they claim that without using the new education method you can never achieve educational freedom” (Kobayashi 1928: 57). As can be seen, Kobayashi is understanding the Jena-­ Plan as a distinctively ‘New Education Method’ (Italics by the author).

8  ‘Eight Educational Propositions’ was a major event of the Taishō era which teachers were convened at Tōkyō Higher Normal School. From August 1 to 8, 1921, eight innovative pedagogues and theorists, including very famous educators Heiji Oikawa and Kuniyoshi Obara, presented and discussed their educational ideals one by one (see Amako 1921; Sakuma 2017: 96–97).

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13.9  Comparison of Kobayashi with Else Müller In the Peter-Petersen-Archive in Vechta, Germany, there are seven sheets of memoranda by Petersen from the 4th international conference. These memo papers are stored in folder 17. It is doubtful whether all of these notes were written during the conference, because they are of different types and the paper sizes are not uniform. Moreover, these memos are written in old shorthand which is not used anymore making them difficult to decipher. Walter Stallmeister, working on deciphering old shorthand in Germany, said, “Locarno text on August 10, 1927, is incomplete and it is difficult to reconstruct it” (Stallmeister 2008: 25). However, he focused on the notes of August 11 (Petersen 1927a: signed with ‘17. 12. 2.’), because a part of Petersen’s presentation on August 10 was being re-recorded. It is believed to be a memorandum summarizing the main points for preparing the group’s subsequent discussions. The memo starts with: “I would like to emphasize the following again” (ibid.). It shows how Petersen himself was thinking about the Jena-Plan: It is probably inherent in the Jena-Plan to unconditionally request that the class is being aborted if the child or the group indicates physically or by attitude that it does not go well. The teacher always has to begin with a reverence for life! (ibid.)

Petersen does not depart from a specific educational method in the Jena-Plan, but begins with understanding the internal state of the group consisting of the children who have free will. Instead of fitting any specific method to the immediate child or group, he will start from the immediate child and group and try to find ways suitable for that child or group. Therefore, Petersen continued to devise the school life and lessons in the (since 1924 reformed) laboratory school attached to the University of Jena, without sticking to any specific ‘way of myself’. He also continued to draw from other educational practices enough to be criticized as being very eclectic. Petersen’s basic idea is ‘from object to method’ instead of ‘from method to object’ of education. An important sentence of Petersen appears in the quotation mentioned above. It is a message: “The teacher always has to begin with a reverence for life!” – a phrase that Petersen probably borrowed from Albert Schweitzer. This shows the basic philosophy underlying his educational practice in which the success of educational practice relies first and foremost on an appropriate (metaphysical) foundation of this very practice, on the spirit in which one educates, and not so much on an apparently perfect method of educating. In other words, in a state of not being well the ‘reverence for life’ is lost, and the life of the child is compromised. Petersen demanded of teachers as a major premise to pay attention to the lives of children rather than teaching methods. He emphasizes this view enough to attach an exclamation mark at the end of the sentence in his handwritten memo. For him, this represents an important part of the foundational philosophy of the Jena-Plan. Therefore, it is unlikely that he would omit this from the announcement of the day, and one is not surprised to find it being mentioned in Müller’s memo of August 10 which explicitly

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states that Petersen talked about ‘reverence for life’ in the presentation (Müller [1927]: numbered 58). However, this message is not included in Kobayashi’s report. In addition, Kobayashi points out in chapter 7 that the Jena-Plan is “to educate through the social environment” (Kobayashi 1928: 69), and he says that the group must be created to educate through the social environment (ibid.). In continuation, he states: If you create such a group, more and more excellent children will grow, and even if there are children with low academic abilities, they will develop to be strong in other respects. In the classroom system of the past, both excellent children and low-performing children were hindered from developing, but by using the group system they will find the way to go forward for the first time. As described above, Dr. Petersen said this in his several papers. (Kobayashi 1928: 69–70)

Kobayashi is quite brief here, but he understood clearly that in a Jena-Plan school, children were grouped together in a different way. According to Petersen’s memo, he divided children’s learning into three stages, creating groups organized by different ages. Petersen designed finally basic groups (Stammgruppen) as follows: lower group (grades 1–3), middle group (grades 4–6) and upper group (grades 7–8), furthermore youth group (grades 9–10). One group consists of three sub-groups, each defined by a different age. So, in every group, children of three different ages are learning together, and each year, the sub-groups change position: the oldest move up to the next group, becoming the youngest there, the middle sub-group becomes now the oldest sub-group, the youngest the middle one, and a new youngest sub-­ group is introduced into the group, rising up from the class below. In this way, Petersen thought the school to be not only a much better representation of a heterogeneous society but also to provide a much more inspiring and supportive learning environment. For Petersen, this characterises the school as a ‘community’ (Gemeinschaft). As all children were included in this school, e.g. children with learning difficulties or those facing other challenges, this arrangement would support the development of ‘excellent children’ as well as the development of ‘children with low academic abilities’ or others with a diverse range of additional needs. In today’s language, this is similar to concepts of Inclusive Education that mixes children of different abilities and achievements. However, Kobayashi did not pay attention to any of those points.

13.10  Conclusion As mentioned above, this article tried to verify the report of Sumie Kobayashi regarding the Jena-Plan which Petersen introduced at the NEF’s 4th International Conference at the 10th of August, 1927. From there, it became clear that Kobayashi understood the Jena-Plan only from the viewpoint of the educational method and not as part of the much more comprehensively new approach to education represented by the ‘New Education Movement’ – a movement that introduced a completely new spirit to education and not just a new method of education. In this way,

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he did not pay attention to the basic idea of ‘reverence for life’ that lies at the root of the Jena-Plan. Therefore, he could not recognize why the multiage-grouping was adopted in the Jena-Plan. Furthermore, he understood the Jena-Plan only from its effect on the development in both ‘excellent children’ and ‘children with low academic abilities’. The acceptance of Petersen’s Jena-Plan by Kobayashi represents a typical case of importing Western Pedagogy in Japan. He did not acknowledge the Jena-Plan as a whole, but only as a new educational method. The superficial acceptance of educational methods without fundamental ideas such as ‘reverence for life’. This is typical for the Japanese reception of Western education. Many of the scholars who have shaped the pedagogy in Japan, including Kobayashi as presented in this paper, were university faculty members. Many of them have taken advantage of their foreign language abilities and translated the latest publications on educational knowledge and methods into Japanese. However, most of the scholars themselves did not engage in educational practice at school directly. On the other hand, it should not be forgotten that there indeed were educators embodying the interrelationship between educational theory and practice. They were not merely transplanting educational methods from abroad, nor were they satisfied with simple eclecticism. They were realists who started always from children in front of them, and were thinking always about what the best education for these children was. Therefore, they were not only seeking educational methods, but also their underlying ideals and thoughts. Something beyond wakon yōsai was born amongst them. In their practice, Eastern and Western culture had also the opportunity for deep encounter and integration. Those educators in Japan could be found in the Taishō era, including proponent of gōka gakushū (合科学 習, integrated learning) Takeji Kinoshita (1872–1946), of Bundanshiki dōteki kyōikuhō (分団式動的教育法, Group-based dynamic teaching) Oikawa Heiji (1875–1939), founder of Jiyu Gakuen (自由学園, Freedom School or School of Liberty) Motoko Hani (1873–1957), for ‘truly free individuals’ through ‘selfgoverning life’, and advocate of Zenjin kyōiku (全人教育, whole person education) Kuniyoshi Obara (1887–1977). In order to think about the future of pedagogy not only in Japan but also in so-called ‘Western’ culture, it would be beneficial to look more closely at the New Education movement and its representatives in the Japanese Taishō era which was characterized by many encounters between the West and the East in form of the newly founded Japanese reform schools in the first decades of the twentieth century. However, that has to be left for a future project.

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References Amako, S. (Ed.). (1921). Kyōiku gakujutsu kai (Academic world of education) (Vol. 44, No. 1, pp. 1–232). Tōkyō: Shūeisha. Boyd, W., & Rawson, W. (1965). The story of the new education. London: Heinemann Educational Books Ltd.. Hirano, T. (1983). Nihon no kyōiku tetsugaku kenkyū no tokushitsu to mondaiten (Characteristics and problems of educational philosophy research in Japan). In N. Murata (Ed.), Kyōiku tetsugaku (Educational philosophy) (pp. 277–288). Tōkyō: Yūshindō. Inatomi, E. (1975). Sengo nihon no kyōiku to bunka, Nihonjin towa nanika (Education and Culture in Japan after World War II: What is Japanese). Tōkyō: Gyōsei. Kawabata, Y. (1969). Utsukushii nihon no watashi (Japan, the beautiful, and myself) (E. G. Seidensticker, Trans.). Tōkyō: Kōdansha. Kawai, H. (1999). Chūkū kōzō nihon no shinsō (The center-empty structure: The deep structure of Japan). Tōkyō: Chūō Kōronsha. Kobayashi, S. (1928). Ōshū shin kyōiku kenbun (Report on the new education in Europe). Tōkyō: Meijitosho. Koslowski, S. (2013). Die New Era der New Education Fellowship. Ihr Beitrag zur Internationalität der Reformpädagogik im 20. Jahrhundert, Bad Heilbrunn: Klinkhardt. Müller, E. (1927). Müller’s materials and memoranda at the 4th international conference of the New Education Fellowship in Locarno, numbered from 1 to 104, copy, in folder 17 of Peter-­ Petersen-­Archiv Vechta. https://www.jenaplan-archiv.de/archiv.html. Accessed 30 Apr 2019. NEF. (1927). LOCARNO: Congrès Mondial d’Éducation Nouvelle, Programme. The St. Christopher Press. Petersen, P. (1927a). Petersen’s memoranda on August 11, 1927, signed with ‘17. 12. 2.’, manuscript, in folder 17 of Peter-Petersen-Archiv Vechta. https://www.jenaplan-archiv.de/archiv. html. Accessed 30 Apr 2019. Petersen, P. (1927b). Der Jena-Plan einer freien allgemeinen Volksschule. Langensalza: Beltz. Retter, H. (2018). Peter Petersens pädagogischer Reformimpuls. In H.  Barz, (hrs.), Handbuch bildungsreform und Reformpädagogik (pp. 191–202). Wiesbaden: Springer. Röhrs, H. (1980). Die Reformpädagogik. Ursprung und Verlauf in Europa. Hermann Schroedel: Hannover. Sakuma, H. (2017). Kuniyoshi Obara’s Zenjin education at Tamagawa Gakuen. In Y. Yamasaki & H.  Kuno (Eds.), Educational progressivism, cultural encounters and reform in Japan (pp. 93–108). London/New York: Routledge. Sakuma, H. (2018). Kobayashi Sumie Ōshū shin kyōiku kenbun Kō (小林澄兄『歐洲新敎育見 聞』考, A Study of Sumie Kobayashi’s Report on the New Education in Europe). In New World of Education, Journal of WEF Japan Section, No. 66, pp. 53–59. Stallmeister, W. (2008). „Etc. der Jenaplan.“ Bericht aus der Arbeit im Petersen-Archiv. Transkriptionsprojekt 2: Locarno 1927. In KINDERLEBEN, Heft 28, pp. 24–27. Suzuki, D.  T. (2019). Zen and Japanese Culture, with an introduction by Jaffe, R.  M., reprint, Princeton University Press. Tanimoto, T. (1894). Jitsuyō kyōikugaku oyobi kyōjuhō (Practical Education and Method of Education). Tōkyō: Rokumeikan.

Part V

Reflections

Chapter 14

The Tradition of Invention: On Authenticity in Traditional Asian Martial Arts Paul Bowman

14.1  Introduction: Imagined Binaries Discussions of pedagogy tend unsurprisingly to focus in a direct and literal way on the pedagogical scene of the classroom, the teacher-learner relation, or (as in the case of martial arts) the training session (Lefebvre 2016; Nakajima 2018). Without discounting the importance, value and utility of any such approach, in what follows I try to broaden the frames and examine the notions of ‘East Asian pedagogy’ and ‘traditional martial arts’ in two different ways: first, by situating these terms within a broader cultural context than is common in many discussions of pedagogy (Downey 2005; Wacquant 2004); and second, in terms of a principled scepticism about both of these categories themselves (Said 1978). Both dimensions are called for in discussions of East Asian pedagogy and/or martial arts because, on the one hand, it is essential to take stock of the broader cultural context in any discussion of pedagogy so as to avoid creating a false universalistic sense that teaching and/or learning ever take place in some kind of transhistorical or transcultural vacuum (Spivak 1993). On the other hand, it is essential to be highly cautious and self-reflexive on the notions that structure our discourse, because the way we structure our thinking has effects on what we are inclined or even able to think, look for, see, find and discover – not to mention ‘learn’ and subsequently ‘teach’ (Bowman 2007a; De Man 1983; Derrida 1992). In the present case, the categories ‘East Asian pedagogy’ and ‘traditional martial arts’ are so massively general, non-specific, homogenising and potentially reductive that they threaten to lead us by the nose into thought processes, methodologies, analytical frames and paradigms that are organised by deeply problematic and even perhaps widely discredited binaries – as if there really is a unitary ‘East Asian’ approach to P. Bowman (*) Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 D. Lewin, K. Kenklies (eds.), East Asian Pedagogies, Contemporary Philosophies and Theories in Education 15, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45673-3_14

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pedagogy, which is to be contrasted with some other unitary approach, perhaps conceived as ‘Euro-American pedagogy’, for instance. Such thinking can be characterised in various ways: as simplistic or simplifying, as essentialist, as orientalist, or even as ethnocentric or racist (Said 1978). Nonetheless, cultural differences and radically different pedagogical styles do exist (Ronell 2004; Sedgwick 2003). So, we must not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Rather, we have to try to acknowledge that while categories that try to convey cultural difference are problematic, there nonetheless are cultural differences, many of which are nationally, regionally, and linguistically determined (Ang 2001). Nonetheless, my point is, ‘East Asia’ is a very big place; there are unimaginably huge numbers of educators and approaches to education of all orders there. We must refuse to organise our thinking in terms of a simplistic binary. As postcolonial critic Gayatri Spivak once observed, it is all too easy to simplify the other, or reduce them conceptually to a state of simplicity and univocity (even if that other is not one individual but actually a complex community or culture – or vast numbers of communities and cultures), while insisting at the same time that the thinking, speaking, writing self is immensely subtle, complex and contradictory (Spivak and Gunew 1993). In the same spirit, Jacques Derrida often argued that we must try to resist the desire to collapse difference (or complex multiplicity) into opposition (via simplistic binaries). To draw a line between us and them is always a consequential conceptual, ethical and political gesture (Mouffe 2005; Spivak 1990). So, what follows combines a principled sensitivity to inevitable difference, heterogeneity and multiplicity with a reflection on the cultural contexts of the pedagogical scene of ‘traditional martial arts’. This discussion does not try to group or differentiate between pedagogical styles or techniques – on the basis of the fact that notwithstanding regional or cultural differences there are likely to be as many pedagogical techniques as there are pedagogical encounters (not merely teachers, but teaching and learning events). Anyone who teaches anything knows on their pulse that they do it just that little bit differently every single time they try to do it at all. Whether ‘Eastern’ or ‘Western’, sometimes teachers explain, sometimes they show; sometimes they discuss at length, sometimes they ignore; sometimes they laugh or shake their head. Sometimes they simply hit (Bowman 2013a, 2016b; Ronell 2004; Sedgwick 2003). Reciprocally, whether ‘Eastern’ or ‘Western’, sometimes students ‘get it’ incrementally, sometimes in a flash of enlightenment; sometimes in a structured way, sometimes chaotically. Sometimes what they ‘get’ when they ‘get it’ is not actually the thing that was offered, nor the same thing as their peers, nor the same thing they will ‘get’ next time, or whenever they return to the ‘same thing’ subsequently. Teaching and learning are complex and riddled with aporias (Bowman 2016b; Rancière 1991). However, rather than rejecting the notions of ‘East Asian pedagogy’ or ‘traditional martial arts’ just because they are problematic, complicated and often contradictory, in what follows I prefer to embrace these terms and categories. This is because such terms circulate freely in cultural discourses of all kinds. They have an existence. People use them. People want them, in different ways, for different reasons. Accordingly, I propose merely to begin from an understanding that such

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notions are constructs  – at once conceptual and material. Because they are constructs, they can be deconstructed. And if we deconstruct them, we are more able to examine what goes into them, and reflect on what kind of work they do and effects they have.

14.2  Desiring Authenticity Some studies of the teaching and learning of different cultural practices widen their perspectives away from pedagogical techniques in isolation in order to take into account the entire local context of institutions, practices, and values – or habitus (Bourdieu 1979; Downey 2005; García and Spencer 2014; Wacquant 2004). Studies organised by habitus considerations are always enlightening. However, I prefer to go even wider, and point out that there is a range of regularly recurring images, ideas, traits, tokens, rituals and tropes associated with Asian martial arts that circulate very frequently and widely in global media culture (Bowman 2015, 2017; Iwamura 2005; Park 2010). We see these regularly in films, TV programmes, adverts, music videos, online, and other forms of popular cultural representations. These images have effects. They are ‘key visuals’ (Trausch 2018) that provide what Derrida called the ‘attending discourse’ surrounding and in effect conditioning our interpretation (Derrida 1981) – in this case, our pre-understanding of any martial art practice – by constituting what Krug calls the ‘depth of texture’ (Krug 2001), the interpretive frame or ‘intertext’ (Weber 1987) that we draw upon when making sense of any aspect of martial arts. Culturally, we understand ‘martial arts’ in a certain way, and that way is massively informed by media images (Bowman 2013b). It is notable that the key signifiers of ‘Asian martial arts’ so frequently relate to the pedagogical scene. Other than in action films, whenever we encounter signifiers of martial arts in media culture, what we most frequently see are elements associated with martial arts classes. Images of uniforms (whether cotton and pyjama-like or silky and flowing), coloured belts, bowing, kneeling, standing and moving in lines, meditating, executing flamboyant and crisply coordinated choreographed movements, whether as a unified group, solo or in partnered couples – these are just some of the main visual ‘discursive regularities’ (Foucault 1970, 1991) associated with Asian martial arts classes in the West. A training hall decked out with Asian calligraphy (Chinese: shūfǎ 書法, Japanese: shodō 書道, Korean: seoye 서예 / 書藝, etc.), with racks of traditional weapons and pictures of ancestors or founding figures on the walls has more of an aura to it than an unadorned sports or community hall. The more saturated with such visual signifiers the training space is, the more ‘authentic’ it might be assumed to be. Westerners may not be able to read the Chinese, Japanese or Korean words or understand the icons and images – it may all be literally unintelligible – but it all has connotations that constitute an aesthetic of ‘martial art-ness’ (Barthes 1957; Bowman 2017), one that Westerners often still expect or even hope to encounter in their engagement with traditional Asian martial arts.

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Despite their literal unintelligibility, many of the most frequent features of Asian martial arts classes are so well-known in western popular consciousness today that individually or combined they work as short-hand for ‘martial art-ness’. Many have even gained the cultural status of clichés and stereotypes. Indeed, they are not merely stereotypes that encapsulate ‘martial art-ness’ alone, but stereotypes that overflow the confines of martial arts discourse and work to signify key images of East Asian culture more generally. This reduction, condensation or encapsulation of ‘East Asia’ in a small range of martial artsy images that circulate frequently in culture obviously has a problematic dimension. Such imagery can become the raw material of reductive and often hostile racism. However, by the same token, being immersed in (or trading on) a world of such imagery may be precisely what some people desire. This is the structure of representation, fantasy and desire that Edward Said called ‘orientalism’: the other becomes fantasized, othered, desired or feared via a limited and limiting range of symbols and ideas (Goto-Jones 2014; Said 1978, 2005). It amounts to a ‘structure of feeling’ that provides a ‘feeling of structure’ – and a sense of structure and stable framework with a sense of history and clear values is often said to be the very thing that people can come to desire in today’s often chaotic, rootless, globalised postmodern world (Chow 1995; Gregg and Seigworth 2010; McCaughey 1997). The themes of stereotyping, racism, orientalism, fantasy and desire in and around martial arts have been widely addressed in film, media and cultural studies literature (Iwamura 2005; Judkins 2016; Ma 2000; Marchetti 1994; Park 2010; Tierney 2006). The lessons of such anti-orientalist studies will inform this discussion. However, I do not intend to recapitulate, dwell on, or merely repeat these arguments without attempting to cover new ground. As Rey Chow noted in the 1990s, we have been in possession of Edward Said’s identification of orientalism and its problems since the 1970s, and yet many studies still organise themselves as hunts for and denunciations of the crime of orientalism in Western media, culture and society (Chow 1998). But surely, observes Chow, the existence of orientalism in culture should be our starting point, not our conclusion. By the same token, the issue of ‘authenticity’ has been thoroughly deconstructed in many academic and popular studies too. Nonetheless, although the theme of authenticity has been dismissed by some cultural commentators as being a complete ‘red herring’ (Heath and Potter 2006), it is certainly not a matter that looks set to leave us anytime soon. Authenticity constantly returns, springing up like a phoenix from the ashes of its own apparent destruction, or like the antihero in an action film who has not yet been thoroughly killed. Senses of authenticity constantly emerge, especially whenever we have experiences that we feel are obviously inauthentic – like seeing an ‘olde worlde Irish pub’ in an international airport. In this sense, authenticity and inauthenticity involve the activation of senses and feelings of taste. Further down the line, the binary authentic/inauthentic can easily become hierarchising, with the highest value being attributed to that which is deemed to be the most authentic (Chow 2002; Culler 1990).

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As such, part of the problem that many academics have with the idea of authenticity relates to this valuing, devaluing and hierarchising effect. The inauthentic is devalued and demeaned as either fake, contaminated, diluted or bastardized (Chow 2002). This may not seem like such a serious issue when discussing restaurants or pubs, but it has more obvious potential problems when it comes to classifying people, groups, regions, nations, ethnicities, and so on. For if we value some groups as pure and superior and others as contaminated and therefore inferior, the ethical and political stakes and consequences can be terrifying. In the discourse of traditional martial arts, the term authentic or authenticity has connotations that can easily be taken to imply a kind of unchanging monocultural purity. The term ‘traditional’ is its partner in crime: in this context, both traditional and authentic can all too easily imply a long unchanging history, and a pure unbroken lineage (Bowman 2017). ‘Authentic’ and ‘traditional’ are very easily read interchangeably as meaning ‘the way things have been, since the origin, unchanging down through the generations’ (Fabian 1983; Krug 2001). As such, authenticity and tradition share a deep affection for the idea of the origin.

14.3  Enter the Difference In the discourse around authenticity and traditional martial arts, the status of origin stories is immense (Judkins and Nielson 2015; Wile 2015). Fantasies of the origin are also combined with a deep investment in the idea of pedagogy as transmission – in which the practice of teaching and learning is imagined as nothing other than the smooth transmission of established knowledge, unbroken and unmodified, from teacher to student, down through the ages, from era to era and cultural context to cultural context. In such a paradigm, change cannot but be regarded as bad, because (1) if the origin is pure and (2) if the ancestors are superlative, then therefore (3) any change cannot but be a sign of either arrogance or corruption. Of course, such investments are fantasies. An origin is always a complex process of formation that is always ongoing and that only ever looks like a clean break or a pure moment of emergence in retrospect (Judkins and Nielson 2015). A tradition is always fractured, multiple, heterogeneous, inventive, transforming, partial, changing and  – as scholars since the early 1980s have been increasingly aware  – very often invented recently and passed off as ancient for the sake of attempting to gain cultural capital, kudos, mystique, gravitas and/or legitimacy (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983). Like tradition, pedagogical processes are far from simply the smooth, unchanged and unchanging transmissions of established knowledge from one body to another. Teaching and learning are partial, plural, variable, often inventive, and inevitably differing across time and space in form, content, and reception (Bowman 2016b; Rancière 1991).

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‘Traditional’ Asian martial arts as they are encountered around the world often attempt to police any drift or shift in form and content by insisting on the maintenance of strict ritualistic structures and strictures. The ‘traditional’ club, dōjō 道場, dojang 도장 or 道場 or kwoon 館 or 馆, has its familiar rituals, hierarchies, and visual insignia. A strong emphasis on ritualistic repetition can work to prevent the drift and transformation of the core content of a syllabus. Supplementing this with clear written codification of content and criteria for progression is equally important in preserving and maintaining ‘standards’. The value and function of written rules and regulations within an institutional structure can be seen when comparing the similarity of martial sports like. Kōdōkan 講道館or Olympic jūdō 柔道, on the one hand, and the difference between clubs of ‘the same’ style of kung fu, on the other. For, while practices like jūdō and taekwondo 태권도 / 跆拳道 have all manner of diverse centralised and dispersed institutional factors supervening on their practice, performance and appearance (Law 2008; Yabu 2018), the international dissemination of various styles of kung fu (gōngfu 功夫) have rarely (until recently) been subject to the demands to adhere to the rules, practices and yardsticks set out by any overarching governing body (Berg and Prohl 2014; Ryan 2008). The net result is that jūdō tends to be more or less the same the world over, while styles of other (unformalized, unregulated) martial arts vary enormously. But even in heavily policed, monitored and regulated contexts, things are not so simple. A brief anecdote captures a dimension of this. A Polish man that I know had arrived in the UK many years ago as a brown belt in jūdō. He remained static as a brown belt for many years in the UK, despite the fact that he was obviously the most skilled and proficient player in the club – evidently better than all of the black belts. I asked him why he had not taken his grading. He told me that the instructor had long urged him to take the grading, but what stopped him from doing so was the fact that he could not remember the names for techniques ‘in English’. ‘But they are all Japanese’, I said. ‘Aren’t they the same terms you used in Poland?’ He replied that, yes, the names and terms used in Poland and the UK are indeed all Japanese, ‘but’, he continued, ‘the Japanese is different’. Polish Japanese (or Japanese terms in a Polish jūdō club) and British Japanese (the Japanese terms used in British jūdō) are different. Of course, this difference is merely a difference in pronunciation (and perhaps spelling or transcription, as Polish and English may transliterate Japanese terms differently). But it illustrates the inevitability and micrological progression of change. So, the point is, even when the attempt and the intention is to maintain fidelity to a sense of a unitary or unified practice, difference always enters. Sometimes this can be caught and policed with checks and balances (for instance, via clear and strict syllabi, competition rules and other forms of standardization), but at other times and in other ways changes and differences will not or cannot be caught. Difference and change always appear. The point to be emphasized here is that this is the case even in the attempt to maintain fidelity to tradition (Bowman 2010; Derrida 1987).

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14.4  Diasporic Authenticity Traditional East Asian martial arts clubs the world over self-consciously attempt to institute and inculcate ideas of the ‘traditional East Asian’ (Tan 2004), via all of the methods already mentioned: the rituals, the repetitions, the hierarchies, the organisation of the training space, the terms and language used, and so on. But, they all do so differently; and, in the end, these ultimately have the status of simulations (Baudrillard 1983) – manifest in the overarching attempt to construct an imagined ideal Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or other national, regional or ethno-linguistic pedagogical scene. To use Jean Baudrillard’s term, many ‘traditional’ martial arts clubs should properly be regarded as hyperreal (Baudrillard 1994). Like a traditional Irish pub in Hong Kong or a traditional British pub in Tokyo, traditional martial arts clubs around the world are ontologically akin to theme parks (Baudrillard 1988). This is not to suggest that this is all about ignorant Westerners being guilty of yet another species of orientalist fantasy. Highly knowledgeable Easterners are often equally guilty of exactly the same thing – especially when it comes to what is sometimes called self-orientalisation (Bowman 2016a; Chan 2000; Frank 2006). Many teachers of ‘regional’ or ‘national’ martial arts have spent time studying in the source or origin cultures of the arts that they teach. So, this is not a matter of authenticity versus inauthenticity, or ignorance versus knowledge. Rather, it is a matter that springs from the irreducibly constructed character of any such practice. The attempt to capture and convey the ‘essence’ or ‘authenticity’ of a traditional martial art involves the deployment of all manner of conventional ‘secondary’ or supplementary things – from bowing, to standing in lines, to wearing uniforms and insignia of rank, to using Chinese or Japanese terms, and many other matters besides (Bowman 2019). Such contexts, whether in Asia or elsewhere in the world, constitute hyperreal simulations that attempt to create an imagined authentic East Asian origin. It is not merely ‘ignorant Westerners’ who take part in this process. There is much to be gained from the invention of tradition no matter who or where you are. Nation states actively promote mysterious, timeless and romantic images of themselves and their cultural heritage, precisely in order to attract tourist income (Bowman 2016a; Frank 2006). Diasporic communities romanticise and fantasise about their wonderful homeland (Abbas 1997; Osman 2017). And there are several other species of invention besides. Such ‘postmodern’ formulations as these may seem pessimistic to some readers. This is not my intention. The point is not to suggest that some cultures or contexts are ‘false’ while others are somehow ‘true’. (It is precisely this perspective that fuels and fires the martial arts pilgrimage industry, which floods countries such as China, Japan and (more recently) Brazil with tourists looking for true, authentic, traditional (etc.) kung fu, taiji or taijiquan (tàijíquán 太极拳), jūjutsu 柔術 or capoeira.) The point is rather to acknowledge the inevitability of inventiveness and the constructed character of entities and identities, even and especially at the very heart of

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the pedagogical scene  – which is the forge and furnace of the ‘reproduction’ of martial arts.1 In what follows, I will first set out a perspective that illustrates both the reasons for and problems with investments in ideas of origin, lineage and tradition in what are sometimes called ‘authentic traditional martial arts’ (Bowman 2016a). I will present an argument about why change is a problematic issue in this discourse – why it is in some ways advocated and in others militated against. I will also clarify my argument about why change is inevitable. After carrying out such an arguably abstract or quasi-transcendental discussion, I will turn to a concrete case, relating all of this to the example of taijiquan. Taijiquan has been chosen because it is arguably an exemplary species of the genus ‘traditional East Asian martial art’ (Frank 2006). Taiji discourse, both in its theory and its practice, also explicitly advocates change, on the one hand (as an ontological inevitability to be embraced), while it also, on the other hand, explicitly resists changing, ‘itself’.

14.5  Change Happens Ideas of anticipating change, accepting change, embracing change, and changing with change are widely celebrated as ‘wisdom’ (Bowman 2007b, 2008; Laozi et al. 1973; Morris 2001). Certainly, no internet search today is likely to return m/any famous or celebrated aphorisms that do not in some way advocate accepting the inevitability of change and proposing the virtues of flexibility in the face of this. In fact, it appears that affirmations of the inevitability of change have for a long time been popular within and across many (popular) cultures. Of course, this is not to say that change is universally acknowledged as ‘simply good’ (Bowman 2008). Many thinkers have for various reasons insisted upon the necessity of remaining steadfast, holding a course, refusing to veer, keeping to this or that path or, indeed, ‘way’ (Badiou 2001, 2005; Žižek 2001). Certainly, the philosophical or ideological advocation of the value of change and adaptability is not without its problems. Paradoxes quickly arise. How does one negotiate change when trying to stick to a certain principle, project, path or way? Should fundamental or orientating principles, projects, paths or ‘ways’ change if and when external forces seem to demand such a change? When should commitment to fixed principles, unchanging practices or solid positions be insisted upon in the face of forces that would bring change, and when should fixity be jettisoned in the name of change? These may seem like very abstract, transcendental or universalist philosophical questions. However, they have many pragmatic and practical ramifications – including ramifications for traditional(ist) martial arts. 1  However, as mentioned, I am certainly not averse to problematising the notion of the ‘East Asian’ as it features as a prefix followed by such terms as ‘martial arts’ or ‘pedagogy’. The ‘East Asian’ element of the formulation ‘East Asian pedagogy’ or ‘East Asian martial arts’ is neither self-evident nor straightforward; and this often-hidden complexity deserves to be acknowledged.

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In what follows, questions of historical, cultural and institutional change will be engaged as they present themselves as both a philosophical/theoretical and a practical matter for the traditional ‘internal’ Chinese martial art of taijiquan.2 As my emphasis of the word traditional suggests, the issues arising are also highly pertinent for all so-called ‘traditional’ martial arts. I also believe these issues to be relevant in considerations of other areas of tradition and cultural heritage beyond the realms of martial arts. Taijiquan has been singled out for several reasons. The key reason relates to the matter of negotiating the practicalities of a philosophical relationship to ‘change’. Provocatively put: in multiple approaches and for multiple reasons, taijiquan has often been associated both philosophically and practically with Daoism. Impermanence and the inevitability of change are certainly central tenets of Daoism, and taijiquan is often held to embody and illustrate Daoist principles in its ethos, approach and orientation. This is so even though taijiquan’s relation to Daoism is neither inevitable nor necessary but actually more of a contingent historical and cultural grafting. The influential claim of sinologist Joseph Needham that Chinese martial arts practices ‘probably originated as a department of Taoist physical exercises’ (Needham and Wang 1956, pp.  145–146) has been robustly challenged by subsequent historians (Henning 1994, 1995, 2012). Nonetheless, such connections have been forged, in some if not all minds – including those of many taijiquan practitioners themselves. But, as I hope to demonstrate via both a deconstructive analysis and a historical discussion, ‘change’ also stands as a particularly acute problem, even though such practices as taijiquan often present themselves as totally aligned with a Daoist philosophy of change. My basic argument is that change becomes a problem for even explicitly change-­ embracing traditions insofar as the value structures and underlying belief systems of such practices expressly militate against any change within or of taijiquan practice itself. This arises not least because the mythical founders of such systems are often regarded as quasi-divinities whose genius in capturing a superlative essence ‘therefore’ could not possibly be improved upon. As such, ‘traditional’ martial systems are inclined to regard themselves as having been complete and perfect at the origin. Hence change should be avoided at all costs. Indeed, the only legitimate way to countenance change within the practices of arts such as taijiquan would require an argument that preserved the premise that while the original system of the first masters was indeed perfect, much has come to be lost over time. This ‘lost golden age’ argument (Miracle 2016) logic opens a potential space for change to be presented as a ‘rediscovery’ of lost elements or practices. To this day, one or another version of this perspective can be found within ‘traditional’ styles and systems such as taijiquan. I have discussed some of the implications and consequences of the widespread fixation on ‘lineages’ within traditional Chinese martial arts circles before (Bowman 2017). A key feature of this fixation is 2  I will not be deconstructing or defending the internal/external binary that structures some discourse on Chinese martial arts here. Interesting discussions can be found in Wile (1999), Kennedy and Guo (2010), and I have also broached it in other studies (Bowman 2017).

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that practitioners tend to believe that they are participating in an ancient and timeless practice (Wile 1996), or an authentic remnant of a ‘golden age’ of times lost (Miracle 2016). (The belief in a lost past that was superior is quite common in these waters.) All of this combines with a dogged insistence on maintaining fidelity to tradition in order to preserve what remains of the timeless and essential perfection. Unless it involves ‘rediscovery’, change cannot but be regarded as negative and for the worse. Traditionalist institutions are always inclined to militate against it.

14.6  The Micro-Ontological Inevitability of Change Nonetheless, as all wisdom traditions (including Daoism) concur: change still happens. In martial arts lineage narratives, change is often narrativized through formulaic stories. There are two main themes. The first is factional breaks: the master dies, the institution fractures, and the students go off and teach their own – often ‘incomplete’ – versions of the system. The second is hybridity: the student learns first from a master of one style and then a master of another, until, in maturity, they synthesise all of the different elements into a new system. Such narrative accounts of change as these may either be factual or mythical, or contain elements of both (Henning 1994; Judkins and Nielson 2015; Wetzler 2014). Analysis of the veracity or otherwise of such narratives is valuable, but it is not part of my focus here. In fact, rather than puncturing specific historical myths in the name of proposing the value of historiography over folklore, if I am interested in puncturing anything at all here, it is the meta-myth of history as continuity. I want to do so in the name of alternative understandings of pedagogy, ontology, and tradition, each premised not on the idea of stability and continuity as natural, but rather on the inevitability of perpetual micro- and macro- discontinuity, disruption, transformation and reinvention (Derrida 1996). To argue this requires setting out and emphasizing a very particular view of the process or logic of change at work in martial arts practice, different from those of perspectives that tacitly assume continuity as the natural state or the law of ‘tradition’ or ‘transmission’. The key value of the perspective I will lay out relates to the ways in which this perspective clarifies how and why change is inevitable not only in terms of large-scale or monumental breaks (as discussed in the folkloric tales of changes involving factional disputes, rejections and revisions of systems, etc.), but also in considerably more prosaic, ‘everyday’ ways, at microscopic, micrological or micropractical levels. Essentially, therefore, this ‘micro-ontological’ argument agrees with wisdom traditions which assert that change is inevitable, and that it will happen anyway; but what I want to emphasise is the extent to which we are all inevitably going to be active and productive agents of change, ourselves, whether we want things to change or not. In terms of martial arts practices, my argument goes in a different direction than folkloric lineage narratives, and even common historiography. The crux and most controversial aspect of this argument is that even the most ‘traditional’ or ‘faithful’

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teachers of martial arts and other embodied practices will themselves inevitably be the instruments and drivers of untold changes within their practice, in ways that they themselves may well be completely unaware of, even if and when they believe themselves to be absolutely faithful to the idea of preserving the past, maintaining the established, repeating the known, and simply conveying established knowledge, ‘complete’ and ‘intact’.

14.7  Embodying Repetition My approach constitutes a combination of aspects of poststructuralist theory and theories of embodiment and ‘technique’ (Bowman 2007a, 2015; Spatz 2015). A key point, taken from poststructuralism, relates to the deconstruction of the idea of ‘repetition’: As Jacques Derrida’s approach (deconstruction) affirms, the idea of a pure repetition of sameness is something of a fantasy (Derrida 1976, 1981, 1982). In Derrida’s account, a repetition is actually a reiteration – something that is inevitably slightly different from what went before, if only by the fact that it is happening again and hence doubling, while also introducing one or another kind of difference, produced by temporal delay. For example, one hand clap is a noise. A ‘repetition’ of the same hand clap is not the same, both because of microscopic differences and because it may signal the start of something, perhaps applause, or maybe the setting up of a rhythm, and so on (Bowman 2008). Each subsequent iteration introduces something different and transforms what went before. There are many possible kinds of example that could be used to illustrate this process. Jacques Derrida termed this process of temporal delay and inevitable spatial and temporal transformation différance, a neologism that combines and emphasises the work of time in the construction of meaning (deferral) and the continual differing of things that we might tend conventionally to regard as remaining the same through time, space and context. Put crudely, things differ and their fixed or final meanings are permanently deferred. There are myriad possible ways to apply this perspective. My proposal here is that it can be deployed to transform our understanding of martial arts teaching and learning. On an interpretive level, for instance, consider the first time a student experiences a technique. It may be impenetrable, even unintelligible to them. They may not be able to ‘grasp’ it, never mind ‘do’ it. However, over reiterations of encounter, experience and experiment, insights into and understandings of it will begin to develop and unfold in different ways. Students may develop one understanding of it, or they may develop multiple understandings of it. There is no necessary endpoint to the potentially constant transformation of a technique in someone’s understanding, as well as in their estimation or evaluation. However, this is not merely a matter of subjective experience. On a pragmatic, practical or performative level too, the technique itself will transform, from first encounter onwards. In one sense, one may say that the more the technique is practiced, the more ‘efficient’ the practitioner is becoming. But thinking in terms of

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efficiency or efficacy misses certain other key changes that are also taking place at the same time or in the same process. For instance, learning some skills can actually be said to require and result in “the transformation of the person performing them” (Spatz 2015, p. 51). In other words, serious consideration of what is involved in skill acquisition should take us way beyond considerations of ‘efficiency’ or ‘efficacy’ (Farrer 2015)  – ideas that implicitly assume that processes like skill learning take place against the backdrop of a stable subject. Rather, my proposition here is that the mastery of certain techniques should sometimes be better understood as coterminous and coextensive with a substantial transformation of the very capacities, capabilities, identity or subjectivity of the learner (Downey 2005; Little 2018; Spatz 2015; Spencer 2011). If we add to this the ways that the performance or execution of techniques changes with other changes, such as the age or ethos of the practitioner, then the range of different possible ways of executing ostensibly the ‘same’ technique, and all manner of other possible factors, including emphasis of the teacher, ethos of the school, physical and psychological traits of the practitioner, then the extent to which différance is at play not only in the interpretation of techniques but also in the performative reality of those techniques themselves becomes clear.

14.8  W  hat’s in a Name? Ontological and Performative Heterogeneity Many things in what Derrida called the Western ‘metaphysical’ tradition actively work to close down perspectives that emphasize différance. Derrida called many of the dominant impulses and styles of Western philosophy ‘metaphysical’ because of their organisation by beliefs in notions of unity, identity, indivisibility, stability, and so on. As we have already seen, Derrida regarded these to be simplifications of more complex processes (as exemplified by his rejection of the idea of repetition and its replacement with an expansively explored notion of (re)iteration). The way (European) languages work is sometimes held up as providing at least part of the reason for the ‘metaphysical’ hold over (European) ways of thinking. Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe once characterised this as boiling down to a widespread belief in ‘laws’ of identity and non-contradiction (Laclau and Mouffe 1985). These ‘laws’ relate to the widespread ‘logical’ belief that a thing has or is an identity and that it cannot both be and not be ‘itself’ at the same time. Critical of such beliefs (or logics), Derrida expended a great deal of energy pulling apart the idea that identities are unitary, stable, fixed and non-contradictory. In one regard, Derrida argued that ideas of identity, fixity, simplicity, stability and unicity are merely effects of language. This can be illustrated by way of an example offered by the trailblazing translator of East Asian philosophy and thought, Alan Watts. To suggest the ways that

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language has effects on our thinking, Watts offers the Zen ‘koan’ (question), ‘what happens to my fist when I open my hand?’ (Watts 1990) As he explains, language organises our thinking in certain ways, by (for example) using nouns for things that should really be better understood through verbs. To speak of a fist implies that a fist is a fixed and permanent thing, when it is really better understood as an event.3 In the context of this discussion, what is most pertinent here is the way that the fixity of language (especially nouns and names) glosses over ontological or performative heterogeneity, covering over the potentially infinite possibilities for infinitesimal change on both performative and interpretive levels. For instance, the term ‘backfist’ is widely used to describe ostensibly one technique, or one ‘kind’ of technique, even though the range of applications, and indeed the range of techniques or kinds of technique varies widely. The taekwondo backfist is next to nothing like the taijiquan backfist, which is next to nothing like the escrima backfist. Each is different from the others. Similarly, even within ‘the same’ style or system, ‘the same’ technique will be taught differently. The ‘same’ style may have very different features in different schools, clubs or regions.4 Names and terms enable communication but they can also simplify complexity and imply unity and stability where there is really only heterogeneity and multiplicity. This is relevant for our next discussion: the case of taijiquan.

14.9  Traditionalising Taijiquan The discussion so far has sought to problematize any notion of historical ‘tradition’ as being simple continuity and of teaching and learning as being the smooth transmission of established knowledge from one mind or body to another, without change. Other scholars have deconstructed the notion of ‘origins’ as they apply in various cultural and martial arts contexts (Derrida 1998; Judkins and Nielson 2015) and of ‘authenticity’ as a supposedly non-constructed essence (Heath and Potter 2006). In what follows, the questions of continuity and change will be examined in relation to the documented history of the movement of taijiquan – which is perhaps the ultimate ‘traditional’ Chinese martial art. 3  This kind of proximity between deconstruction and ideas or orientations in East Asian philosophy have led some to reflect on how far the relations between such styles of thought may go (Hall 1991; Sedgwick 2003). 4  From a ‘traditionalist’ perspective, the subject of variation across space (differences between different teachers in different places) is perhaps less controversial than that of transformation or change over time. For, contingent or aleatory change in one lineage over time contradicts any idea of direct, pure, authentic or correct transmission. Put differently, it is always possible to say ‘the people in the other club are doing it wrong’; it is more difficult to rationalise the occurrence of wilful or accidental, deliberate or random, intentional or unintentional, conscious or unconscious transformation within one’s own lineage. This kind of change would subvert or at least jeopardize the idea that current practice is the pure, simple, unadulterated and direct expression of the past perfection of the past masters.

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Historical study reveals that the practice and performance of all so-called styles can and do change across both time and space (Frank 2006; Judkins and Nielson 2015; Singleton 2010; Wile 1996, 1999). As for taijiquan, historians have pointed out that comparing contemporary taijiquan with taijiquan as described in the ‘taiji classics’ (texts that were supposedly ‘discovered’ but more likely composed during the nineteenth century) strongly suggests that the practices described in these texts bear little to no resemblance to contemporary taijiquan (Frank 2006; Ryan 2008; Wile 1996, 1999). Both Douglas Wile and Alexandra Ryan have noted that the nineteenth century ‘discovery’ of the Taijiquan Classics (Taijiquan Pu 太极拳谱 or Taijiquan Jing 太 極拳經) is perhaps best regarded as “part of the conscious promotion of an internal martial arts ideology, developed in the late Qing to express resistance to external threat” (Ryan 2008, p. 529). The ‘external threat’ in question is all things Western: Western imperialism, science, ideology, cultural power and military might. All of these aspects of the West were menacing China in multiple registers at the time of the appearance and popularisation of these quintessentially non-western martial arts ‘classics’ (Wile 1996). In Wile’s analysis, taijiquan comes to be regarded as having been intellectually ‘invented’ as an ideological response to Western threats of all kinds. As Ryan puts it, numerous events – including the Opium War (1839–1842), the Treaty of Nanking and cession of Hong Kong (1842), the Taiping (1850–1864), Nien (1852–1868) and Boxer rebellions (1898–1900) – all ‘resulted in a shared sense of the loss of Chinese military power and the need to protect and recover indigenous cultural foundations’ (Ryan 2008, p. 530). Accordingly, she argues (like Wile before her) that ‘the emergence of taijiquan in early twentieth century China is deeply connected with the attempt to reinvigorate and defend the crumbling “semi-colonialised” empire’ (p. 530). This new academic ‘origin story’ of taijiquan, based on historical research and cultural analysis, differs in very many ways from the less well evidenced yet infinitely more well-known and romantic origin stories involving misty mountains and an original genius Daoist monk called Zhang San Feng 張三丰 over 700 years ago. In these popular stories of an ancient taijiquan, nothing very much is ever said to have changed. Taijiquan was born, different teachers may have emphasized different things, but almost a thousand mythical years later, we still have it. Conversely, in line with other historically researched studies of taijiquan (Frank 2006; Wile 1996), Ryan is clear that it is “not possible to demonstrate technical continuities prior to the nineteenth century” (2008, p. 530). This is because, “like other martial arts”, taijiquan was “developed primarily by oral transmission”, which means that “historical reconstruction is thwarted by many problems of evidence and method” (p. 527). Crucially, however, what is known is that, along with other martial arts, taijiquan’s “pedagogy and techniques were changed significantly in early twentieth century China and later during the Cultural Revolution, in line with ideals of physical fitness as a tool for social reform and nation building” (Ryan 2008, p. 525). Taijiquan survived – indeed, flourished within – the Cultural Revolution, because Mao Zedong 毛泽东 approved of its clearly non-Western characteristics and its

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propensity to be instituted as a uniform, collective, non-competitive, communal practice. However, communist state approval required elements of deracination, distancing taijiquan from both religious practice and many of its old, former characteristics. This took the form of standardisation. ‘All martial arts were standardised’, writes Ryan, noting that “in 1956, the PRC government tasked a team of experts with the creation of the first “modernised” taijiquan form. This was what is known as the ‘simplified 24-step Taijiquan’, which is based on Yang style taijiquan” (2008, p. 531). These examples of profound changes to taijiquan are often omitted in folkloric lineage histories. Schools and associations tend to prefer histories that focus on stories of successions of individual masters rather than massive institutional reconfigurations. Conversely, the best academic studies tend to involve the considerations of as many matters as possible, in order to produce well rounded accounts of martial arts as practices within social history (Judkins and Nielson 2015; Wile 2015). In this vein, contemporary scholarly understandings have come to regard taijiquan as having regularly been reconstructed and reconstituted during tumultuous moments in Chinese history, in ways that brought it into relations with larger ideological purposes. Key landmarks in taijiquan’s complex history include its emergence as a nineteenth century cultural, ideological and philosophical response to the multi-­ pronged threats of Western power and Westernisation (Wile 1996), followed by subsequent reconfigurations, again as a non-Western, collective activity. Later still, it became (and continues to be) a more complexly articulated part of both Chinese domestic cultural politics and Chinese international relations (Eperjesi 2004; Frank 2006). Certainly, Ryan notes that “as Deng Xiaoping’s [邓小平] rectification programme progressed in the late 1970s and 1980s, there was significant uptake of taijiquan in China” (Ryan 2008, p. 532): A ‘48-step’ routine was developed in 1976, composed of elements from the Yang, Chen, Wu and Sun styles. In 1989, this became the ‘42-step Taijiquan competition routine’, which was promoted at the 11th Asian Games in 1990 and became the standard global competition style. Sports instructors were trained in a standard wushu syllabus (including standardised taijiquan) and appointed to posts in the provinces to expand the teaching of government-­ sanctioned wushu. (p. 532)

So important does the status and role of taijiquan appear to have become in Chinese cultural politics, that Adam Frank has gone so far as to propose that taijiquan is frequently employed by the government of the PRC as the very symbol of ‘Chineseness’ (Bowman 2015; Frank 2006). The state management of taijiquan is pertinent both culturally and politically. As sociologists from Norbert Elias to Zygmunt Bauman have suggested, ‘culture’ and ‘management’ are essentially two sides of the same coin – so much so that one cannot fully discuss one without discussing the other (Bauman 2004). In Elias’s process sociology, institutions such as sport principally serve as a kind of non-deliberate yet tangibly effective ‘management’ process: sport is ‘cultural management’ in that it brings individuals into alignment or conformity in their behaviours and values, by practically teaching people how to react ‘as one’  – as a community, as a people (García 2018).

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Against this backdrop, it is possible to see that the sustained interest of successive Chinese governments in standardising and controlling both the cultural and the sporting dimensions of ‘traditional’ Chinese martial arts amply supports arguments that they have been culturally curated by power for a range of different reasons. Taijiquan has experienced reconfigurations on both a macro and a micro level in China, and it is often closely articulated to or reticulated within complex networks of politics and social power. In his study of its history and status, Douglas Wile proposed that, in many respects, taijiquan has functioned as one of China’s cultural ambassadors to the world (Wile 1996), and accordingly as a kind of entry point for Westerners into Chinese culture and philosophy. Accordingly, then, we may want to ask questions of the status and development of taijiquan outside of China.

14.10  Conclusion: In Authentic Translation Ryan’s discussion of taijiquan focuses on its ‘transmission’ to Britain. She argues that the dissemination of taijiquan to Britain “shows the creative interplay and the various tensions between forces of globalisation and tradition and between its martial and therapeutic aspects” (p. 527). As she puts it: In the mid-twentieth century, taijiquan migrated West, becoming aligned in the 1960s and 1970s with Western interest in holistic health, Asian meditative systems and Chinese martial arts, but its martial techniques were little known until the 1980s and 1990s. British taijiquan illustrates the complex outcomes of globalisation processes, resulting in the establishment of different hybrids. There is evidence of the transmission of simplified systems promoted by the Chinese government; of innovative adaptations, developed to suit Western needs; and practices that appear to have survived suppression in mainland China, to be reconfigured in the West. These varied outcomes have been enabled by diverse channels of transmission and by colonial relationships, for example between Britain and Hong Kong, whilst the opening of mainland China in the 1980s has added further exchanges and complexities. (Ryan 2008, p. 525)

Her study explores some of the key contours and connections of this emergence and development, and its fascinating interactions and interconnections with multiple practitioners, sets of values and aims – from the interests of countercultural and hippy practitioners to those in experimental dance, those interested in yogic, spiritual and health practices, and martial artists of all kinds. In each iteration, each incarnation, the name may have stayed the same, but the practice, its pedagogies, aims and outcomes varied enormously. Interestingly, despite the relative newness of many of its forms, patterns, exercises and principles, like qìgōng 气功, 氣功 (Palmer 2007), taijiquan entered the British cultural scene as (if) a fully established, unchanging, ancient and traditional art. Yet, like karatedō 空手道 in the American context, what was very much lost in translation in the migration from East to West was the wider awareness of how recent, variable and multiple the practice really was (Tan 2004).

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In the field of martial arts – whether ‘traditional’ or ‘modern’ – conventions and pedagogical methods are invented, modified and changed (ir)regularly. Many arts that claim to be ancient are actually younger than such avowedly modern martial arts as jūdō (Chan 2000; Gillis 2008; Moenig 2015). Jūdō was in many ways a synthesis of residual and emergent Japanese cultural values combined with Western approaches to teaching and learning (Law 2008). Similarly, kung fu styles and arts that are often regarded as ancient were produced or reconstructed and codified by the Jingwu Athletic Association 精武體育會, which itself was founded in Shanghai in 1910 (Kennedy and Guo 2010). Jingwu itself was in part an ideological response to the Western YMCA movement, and absorbed many of its principles, or developed related approaches. Many forms of/within Chinese martial arts have been devised far from China. And, of course, the most stereotypical image of practitioners of traditional Asian martial arts styles moving synchronously up and down a training hall in straight lines in response to the barked counting or commands of an instructor owes more to military training than to misty mountains. The interactions between East and West are infinitely more frequent, ongoing, deep-rooted and complex than easy binaries such as East and West make us inclined or even able to see. Those of us who research and teach either martial arts or academic subjects – or, indeed, both – have an obligation to deconstruct and displace, or – even better – to simply discard such imprecise, non-referential and value-laden binaries as East and West. Mystical mythical narratives have no purpose more valuable than allegory, but even when those allegories seem progressive (such as how the weaker may overcome the stronger, as in taijiquan; or how an honourable woman overcame an aggressive man, as in wing chun 詠春), too often and too easily those allegories are actually deployed for nationalist, orientalist, racist or ethnonationalist ends. Whether in the lecture hall, the classroom, the training hall or the gym, our obligation as researchers and educators is to forward and further the best possible knowledge and the best possible practice. I have never known a student of taijiquan be turned off by or to stop training because of being informed about the actual places and dates of the invention of specific forms or exercises. It is far better to tell a story about cultural responses to imperialism, the effects of the Cultural Revolution, the beliefs and fantasies of the Western counterculture, new age ideologies, and the ideological function of wushu and taijiquan in China’s contemporary approach to cultural diplomacy, than it is to trade in tales of mystical monks on misty mountains posing zen-like koans or setting challenges in the many chambers of the Shaolin Temple. The truth of the matter is that all sclassrooms, whether they be for martial arts training or for exploring any other subject, can and should be regarded reverently as the crucibles of variable and ongoing research projects that are able to produce all manner of monster or marvel.

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