My interests go much further, however, and that is why I have chosen my title. Round and Square is so named because of the Chinese idea (seen on traditional coinage, in the smallest form, and in the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, in one of its largest) that heaven is round and earth is square. Westerners from St. Anselm to Kant have taught that round and square are opposites—never successfully to be linked. Chinese cosmological thinking has always linked them, and the traditional imperial fengshan sacrifices on China's sacred mountains are among its greatest examples (I will have much more to say about sacred mountains). This break between east and west (round and square) is something I seek to examine in a blog that will take up everything from "do-overs" and "remonstrance" (criticizing one's superiors) to the rich, earthy substance of social and cultural theory. Round and square. East and west. Never the twain shall meet (it has been said).
Except when they do. And that is where all of this is going.
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