Humans, Beasts, and Ghosts

by Zhongshu Qian

  Noise and heat, silence and cold are mutually interconnected. This is why in the wretched darkness of Hell even the sun imparts a feeling of desolation. This is also why a cacophony of human voices can turn a cold room into a hot pot, making one’s entire body fidgety. Schopenhauer has a good point when he says, in section 278 [sic] of Parerga und Paralipomena, that a thinker should be deaf.16 If he isn’t deaf, he will hear sounds, and if those sounds are noisy, he’ll have a hard time keeping his mind collected, with the result that prejudice will take the place of impartiality. At this point—having forgotten that you too are a noise-making animal; that you too have stomped on the heads of people living downstairs; and that your own bawling has prevented people next door from thinking or sleeping—you will find yourself even more impervious to others’ complaints that your prejudices are too ingrained. As you add this new prejudice, you make another note in the margins of life.17

  EXPLAINING LITERARY BLINDNESS

  Finding a literary turn of phrase in a nonliterary book is like going through old clothing and suddenly discovering a dollar bill or spare change in a pocket.1 Even though it was yours to begin with, you still feel unexpectedly delighted. One autumn three years ago, for example, I happened to be flipping through Nicolai Hartmann’s masterpiece, Ethik, when I came across a curious item. Its gist is that there exists a certain type of person who can’t tell good from bad or distinguish good from evil, the same way a color-blind person can’t tell green from red or black from white, and that this person can be said to be suffering from “value blindness” (Wertblindheit). I found this metaphor to be simultaneously delightful and novel, never thinking that I would be quoting it today. Of course, borrowing a great methodological philosopher (and a German besides) for the opening of a casual essay seems like overkill—using antiaircraft guns to exterminate mosquitoes.2 However, if one doesn’t make a mountain of out a molehill, will anyone pay attention? That’s why when we open up a small shop or school we always find a way to invite the local headman to attend the ceremony, and when we publish a short book we beg a celebrity to grace its cover with his calligraphy.3

  Value blindness is characterized by a lack of aesthetic sensibility, the complete inability to appreciate works of literature and art. Following the example of color blindness, we might well dub this symptom “literary blindness.” On this point, Su Dongpo and I are in complete agreement. When Dongpo passed the examination but Li Fangshu did not, Dongpo wrote a poem bidding him farewell, which reads: “Having followed you for so long I have reason to doubt the elegance of my literary style / In the past we talked casually of ancient battlefields / Now, what passes before my eyes makes me confuse the five colors of the sunlight.”4 You see, he long ago compared failing to appreciate literature to being unable to differentiate colors. Odd though it may seem, those who make literature their profession appear to suffer from literary blindness even more acutely. Indeed, when it comes to the merits of poetry and prose, many literary scholars are utterly unappreciative and undiscriminating, but we need only expand our field of vision to realize that such a commonplace shouldn’t raise an eyebrow. Reading literary books without being able to savor them is perfectly analogous to the imperial age when the people guarding the rear palace and spending entire days mingling among a bevy of women were court eunuchs—they had the opportunity but lacked the means! Perfection is an unreasonable demand, and enemies inevitably cross paths; if it were otherwise, how could there be the farce of life?

  This expression “literary blindness” is too perfect; we should demand it from the educators of the masses. Literate people, after all, may yet be literature-blind. For example, no one on earth knows more characters than the linguist, but some experts on writing and language can never avoid fouling the air and suffering from cloudy vision when they read literary works. A linguist once remarked: “All literary criticism is rubbish. Only the shape, meaning, and tone of each character have any foundation.” Having had the privilege of hearing such brilliant views, we cannot help thinking of Gulliver in Brobdingnag gazing up at the jade-white bosom of the empress and seeing her hair follicles but not her skin. Should a fly be able to read characters—and I think it could, as evidenced in the Records of Fujian of the Book of the Jin—should a fly be able to read characters, I say, its view of literature would certainly be the same as that of a linguist.5 With such tiny eye sockets, its vision presumably would not be terribly far-reaching. Reading poetry or prose it would see only individual characters, and looking at people it would see only individual hair follicles. I must admit that the worldview of the fly is rich with poetic meaning. Apart from Blake himself, the fly, too, may be credited with the breadth of mind “to see a world in a grain of sand / And a heaven in a wild flower.”6 It can find a treasure island in a pile of meaty bones, and when flying from one pinch of garbage to another it appreciates the joy of a long-distance Eurasian flight. So long as it does not believe that no paradise exists beyond meaty bones or that no world exists beyond garbage, we should not hesitate to let this little creature buzz contentedly to itself. Exegetical studies and phonology are extremely useful and interesting fields. Our only fear is that these scholars’ brains are relics from the “plain study”7 period of the Qing dynasty, and that they are convinced that no learning exists beyond their own field, or that literary research involves nothing more than the examination and correction of characters and so forth. The high-handedness of plain study scholars is a fearsome thing. Sainte-Beuve points out in volume six of Nouveaux Lundis that learning how to read but not how to appreciate literature and instead devoting one’s efforts to philological work is akin to failing in one’s pursuit of a young lady and having to resort to her maid as a substitute.8 Unfortunately, a maid is the one sort of person you should not provoke, because as soon as you show her favor she will want to outdo the priceless young lady. How many maids in the world would not want to emulate Aroma from Dream of the Red Chamber?9

  Color-blind people never become art critics, but people with a blindness for literature sometimes do air their views on literature and do so, moreover, with particular verve and passion. What then is produced is a type of impressionistic literary criticism, which is also sometimes referred to as “self-expressive” or “creative” literary criticism. Of course, artistic connoisseurship can never be completely free from impressions. But exactly how such impressionistic criticism can be construed as “self expression” is something I do not understand. Common sense would have it that the literary work in question is what gives rise to the impressions in the eyes of the critic. One cannot say that the critic is expressing his own inner self. The impressions are what the work has engendered in him and cannot count as examples of his self-expression. At any rate, when these “impressionistic and creative critics” hold forth on literature, things get really lively! Probably because these persons are so lacking in aesthetic sensibility, their writing is especially colorful. Could it be that this is an example of what psychoanalysts call the “compensatory effect”? I dare not say. These critics will alternately cry out in anger, shout wildly, or even refrain from uttering a single word—thus entering the realm of “the sublime that transcends language.” They do no analysis—who has the patience? They offer no judgments—that’s too pedantic. Inspiration, Purity, Truth, Life—they misuse every word. Misusing big words is like not begrudging petty change, which indicates the boldness of their literary style. They’re not short on “impressions”—they have a whole string of worn-out and rotting metaphors. One may write an essay discussing Shelley, but you will find little Shelley in his essay. All you’ll find is a lengthy paragraph describing searing flames, a long section depicting the howling west wind, and an even bigger pile of carefree flying skylarks. These three nondescript things are said to be Shelley. But wherefore? It would be a miracle if the wind didn’t blow out the fire or the fire roast the skylarks. So, every time you come across a line like “His life is a beautiful poem,” you know that what inevitably follows is not
a beautiful poem, but prose. Calling such literary and artistic connoisseurship “creative” or “impressionistic” criticism is still not quite apt. We might attempt a little alchemy and change one character in each. “Creative” [chuangzao] becomes “fabricated” [niezao], in the sense of having a dream while “pinching” [nie] one’s nose10 and “making things up” [zao] out of one’s head. As for the “impressionists” [yinxiang pai]—we of course still remember the story of the four blind men feeling [mo] the white elephant [xiang]—they can be changed to “elephant feelers” [moxiang pai]. What do you think? This fits the literature-blind even better.

  How do fabricationists distinguish value when they basically repudiate artistic appreciation? Anything that matches their honorable tastes is good, and anything that does not is trash. Here we see even more clearly that literary blindness is a type of value blindness. A rich and fashionable lady once told the great painter James McNeill Whistler: “I don’t know much about art, but I know what I like.”11 Whistler bowed and responded politely, “My dear madam, your view on this matter is the same as that of a wild beast.” Indeed, the difference between civilized humans and savage beasts is that humans possess a transsubjective point of view. For this reason, humans are able to divorce questions of right and wrong, authenticity and falsity from their own personal gain and loss, and separate questions of good and evil, beauty and ugliness from their individual likes and dislikes. Man is not, in fact, inextricably bound to daily life. Rather, he does his utmost to escape his human body and criticize himself. This is how he knows truth beyond pragmatism; learning beyond teaching and submitting manuscripts for publication; and art beyond posters of movie stars.12 Though he cherishes life, he also understands the value of sacrificing oneself for one’s country or religion. Being born of humankind, he will inevitably do stupid things and make mistakes, eat forbidden fruit and love unworthy things.13 Yet his mind will stay balanced and he will not confound right and wrong or blur good and bad in order to protect himself. He understands that the things he has to do may not be those he likes to do. This division of the self, this fork between knowing and doing, results in tragedy during times of crisis and satire in times of repose. Only birds and beasts are born with their thoughts and actions united as one, oblivious to any higher ideal than their own personal sensual desires. Evolving from monkey to man was hard enough. To now confuse value with one’s own predilections and become a beast in human form is really a bit of an injustice to Darwin.14

  There is no need here to mention people who hate literature. Those with a thorn in their eye are bound to be blind. Even s0, though their eyes may have problems, their noses are extremely acute, since they often say they detest the stench of literary men. “Those to whom Heaven gave feet it deprived of horns, and those to whom it gave wings it deprived of teeth.” As for the fairness of the Creator, we can only sing His endless praises.

  ON WRITERS

  The writer is commendable for his modesty: while knowing how to get ahead in the world, he refrains from hankering after social position and eschews complacency with his lot.1 In truth, the writer’s own view of himself is sometimes more scornful than that of the ordinary outsider looking on. He finds it singularly annoying that he is a writer and goes to great lengths and with considerable expenditure of words, labor, time, and paper to prove how unwilling and dissatisfied he is to be a writer. In an age like the present, could this not be considered the mark of “a hero who has taken note of the contemporary situation”?

  It stands to reason that the concept of “writer” ought to refer to anyone who writes books, pens articles, or submits manuscripts for publication. In actual practice, however, the use of the term “writer” is limited to authors working in such genres as poetry, the familiar essay, fiction, and playscripts. That is to say, the term refers precisely to what the ancients called a belletrist, a “useless writer,” or someone who “once a writer, had no prospects worth noting.” As to the avoidance of such empty writing, specialists who have mastered subjects of substance in the social and natural sciences look askance at the very idea of being considered useless writers [wenren]—even though they may have written a flood of voluminous tracts, and in spite of the fact that they cannot quite measure up to the usefulness of military officers [wuren].2 Perhaps this looking askance at the very idea of being considered a writer derives from a correct self-assessment on their part, since writing black characters down on white paper does not necessarily make the finished product a literary composition.

  We can probably divide this idea of usefulness into two categories. The first would be the utilization of waste, such as the burning of cow dung in place of firewood, or something on the order of Tao Kan’s insistence that wood chips and bamboo stubs were both too useful to be casually discarded.3 The second would involve things that we have no choice but to use each day, such as toothbrushes and privies—things to which we feel a strong attachment akin to Wang Ziyou’s regard for bamboo: “One cannot get by for a single day without this esteemed companion.”4 Among the things in this world that have such a multitude of uses, it is only writers who have been crowned with the lofty title of sheer uselessness. Isn’t it a pity that writers have been reduced to sighing over their inferiority to such humble things as a wood chip, a bamboo stub, a toothbrush, and a privy?

  If we turn instead to useful persons [youyong renwu], we might as well give them a title that will serve to distinguish them from writers. We might call them “servants” [yongren], for example. The two characters in the term “servant” are an abbreviation of the four characters in “useful persons,” making it an apt counterpart to the two-character term “writer.” A word so pithy and broad ranging should not be monopolized by amahs, maids, and private rickshawmen. Furthermore, this term has two other advantages. First, it is replete with the spirit of democratic equality, in which experts and advisers employ the same title as that used for their attendants and menservants, with whom they line up directly alongside. Second, it avoids running counter to the principle of China’s total Westernization. In America, there is a president who is said to have called himself the “public servant of the citizenry,” that is to say, a servant at everybody’s beck and call. In Rome, the Pope calls himself the “menial of menials,” or the “servant of servants” (servus servorum). In the French Revolution, all the revolutionary party members called their servants “brother servant” (frères servants). Now the “president” is a ruler, the “Pope” is Father (Papa), and the “frère servant” is one’s brother; since in Europe and America all these terms are used in connection with “servant,” it is only proper that China should follow suit.5

  Servants look down upon writers; this has been the case since ancient times6 and is not at all some news snippet gleaned from this morning’s newspaper. For example, Sima Qian’s “Annals of the Han Emperor Gaozu” records that “the Han emperor disliked literature.” The “Biography of Lu Jia” goes on to explain the situation with a quote from Gaozu himself: “I have won the empire on horseback; why should I pay homage to the Classic of Odes and the Classic of Documents?”7 Full of candor and outspokenness, this famous dictum can rightly be considered a sagely imperial decree from a founding emperor. Among the plethora of expressions and myriad words used by opponents of literature from ancient times up to the present day, it all boils down to these two lines. During the War of Resistance to Japan, reading those lines about staying “on horseback” seems all the more envigorating and vivid. When it comes to Plato’s exclusion of poets and writers from his ideal society in The Republic, how could a long-winded fellow like him adopt such a trenchant and vigorous tone as Gaozu’s?8 Plato’s writings are rich in poetical feeling, and Emperor Gaozu once experienced a spell of poetic inspiration during which he composed his “Ode to the Great Wind” in an impromptu recitation. Despite all this, a loathing for literature was shared by them both—and all the more so among those primates who are so vulgar as to be “wholesome.”

  Théophile G
autier’s Records of Eccentrics (Les Grotesques) has recounted how wealthy merchants have been susceptible to a strange sickness known as “poesophobia” (poésophobie).9 This sickness manifests itself in a rather singular manner. The story goes that a man of wealth one day happened to open his son’s desk drawer, there espying a sheaf of writing paper covered with words. These papers were neither account registers nor debt ledgers—and while the first letter in each line was capitalized, the last letter for some reason stopped short of the right margin. After careful investigation, the father discovered that these papers were manuscript drafts of poetry. His heart seethed with fury, and he proceeded to fly into a rage. He sorely lamented the ill fortune that had struck his family in producing such a disobedient and unworthy son. A rapid progression to insanity ensued.

  Actually, this kind of sickness has been noted for its high degree of infectiousness. At such times, it can spread as an epidemic, just like cholera during the summertime or influenza in winter. As to a prescription, it is said that one does exist: commit to the flames a diverse assemblage of literature both ancient and modern, native and foreign, then swallow the remaining ashes. According to what people say, as long as the potion has been properly concocted, the upshot naturally is that the noxious humors within one’s chest will be dispelled and the thorn in one’s side removed; from this time on, moreover, the nation will be strong and its citizenry secure, government will be honest and its policies enlightened, and prosperity will reign with martial vigor in the ascendant!10 As to the magnificent theories in this mold by celebrated figures of modern times, they have long since achieved extremely broad circulation in leading periodicals of all types—and since everyone has gotten thoroughly acquainted with them, there is no need to belabor the point further.