Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series Philosophy of History...
Click here for the Resource Center for the Round and Square series Philosophy of History...
Click here for the Resource Center for the Round and Square series Philosophy of History...
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| [a] Cold, rainy, spring RF |
I recently wrote an essay for a website that proposed to deal with history, philosophy, culture, and the practice of daily life in early China and Greece. The piece that was finally published was a great deal different from this one, so I am happy to post the "long version" here. As will be clear soon enough, I see profound connections between the thought of Greek thinkers such as Hesiod and Herodotus, on the one hand, and Chinese writers from Sima Qian to the anonymous authors of the Book of Songs (詩經/诗经). Through it all, like a flowing watercourse, runs the calendar and a question that I think needs asking (and re-asking) as we study history: what is the relationship between repeatable events, such as we find every year at certain points of the calendar, and singular moments in the past. This is a philosophical question...about history, culture, and time. That is why it is the second post in this series on the philosophy of history (of philosophy).
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| [b] Flowering RF |
All of this, and more, is contained in one column of text
that has shown a remarkable consistency over the past two millennia.[2]
Agriculturalists in China’s first millennium BCE followed prescriptions and
proscriptions for daily activities, and in a way that bears resemblance to
today’s patterns. Above all, though, they followed the rhythms of the year.
They “read” the patterns of freezing and thawing carefully, prepared their
implements, and were ready for plowing as soon as the earth was.[3]
But first, they would dance.
The brilliant sinologist and sociologist Marcel Granet
(1884-1940) has written memorably about these spring celebrations during what
we today call “March” and “early-April”—most notably about two weeks on either
side of the vernal equinox. For the careful reader of the calendar, the year has
been building to this point. The period names are memorable, and even more
resonant than the names of months are for Westerners: “east wind melts the
ice,” “dormant creatures twitch,” “fish swim upstream, breaking ice,” “river
otters sacrifice fish,” “wild geese head north,” “grasses and trees sprout.”
These period names show the yang-melts-yin momentum of the year, and Marcel
Granet tells what happens next: people gather before they plow, and love fills
the air.
Holy was the place, sacred the slopes of the valley they
climbed and descended,
the stream they crossed with their skirts tucked up, the blooming flowers they
plucked, the ferns, the bushes, the white elms, the great oaks and the wood they
took from them: the lit bonfires, the scent of the nosegays, the spring water in
which they dipped themselves, and the wind that dried them as they came
from bathing, all had virtues, unlimited virtues; all was a promise given to
all hopes…
the stream they crossed with their skirts tucked up, the blooming flowers they
plucked, the ferns, the bushes, the white elms, the great oaks and the wood they
took from them: the lit bonfires, the scent of the nosegays, the spring water in
which they dipped themselves, and the wind that dried them as they came
from bathing, all had virtues, unlimited virtues; all was a promise given to
all hopes…
...The ancient festivals were above all festivals of
initiation, which brought into social intercourse young people hitherto shut up
in the hamlets of their families: betrothals and marriages were contracted to
the benefit of the community and under its control…[The young people stood in
rows, facing each other, and their chants] had such potency that on each
occasion the young people burst into poetry…When they faced one another in
[these choral] contests…their rivalrous action was always regulated by rhythm;
whatever the contest, it had the appearance of a duel of dance and song.
With all the images of the ritual landscape, flowers,
foliage, the rainbow joining
two regions of Space, springs flowing together, they composed a litany of
seasonal saws by means of which they linked their wills together and placed
one another under a spell. Little by little, by the effect of this long inclination,
feelings of sexual modesty and family spirit were muted within them. The power
of the poetry finally brought them together, and they no longer resisted the duty
to unite.[4]
two regions of Space, springs flowing together, they composed a litany of
seasonal saws by means of which they linked their wills together and placed
one another under a spell. Little by little, by the effect of this long inclination,
feelings of sexual modesty and family spirit were muted within them. The power
of the poetry finally brought them together, and they no longer resisted the duty
to unite.[4]
The writer who sees only naiveté in these lines misses
Granet’s point entirely. Those who live on and for the soil gain a sense of the
rhythms of the year that frames their daily lives, as well as the life cycles
they experience as they age. These actions make the calendar. It is not the
other way around, except in the most mundane sense. We don’t follow the
calendar; the calendar follows us. Everything we know about daily life flows
from these patterned activities.
Such a statement would likely have sounded perfectly natural
to a farmer in early Greece, as we shall see, as well as to a rural Chinese
agriculturalist. It is not so much the
facts surrounding cycles of cold and heat—natural and obvious to anyone paying
attention—as the peculiar mix of human labor, creativity, and imagination
connected with those cycles that make the everyday lives of early
agriculturalists fascinating to study. From this perspective, the spring
equinox was a time, according to Marcel Granet and the earliest calendrical
sources, to gather, celebrate, and hope—together, in blissful communion. It was
a time for betrothals, sharing of the last savings from winter domesticity, and
making plans for the work in the fields that would dominate their lives for the
next six months. Indeed, the very word for “society” in Chinese has roots in
this practice of communal gathering in sacred spaces. 社會
(“society”) literally means “gathering” (會) at
the grain shrine (社)”—uniting together in sacred space.
Through this lens, we can know something of the rhythmic
cadences of their social and working lives, most of which took place far beyond
the gaze of power holders and writers of history. There is an old saying in
China, and it is as relevant to ancient China as to Greece—“heaven is high and
the ruler is far away” (天高帝遠). The state may have
codified the calendar and distributed copies of it. The distant agriculturalists
knew better that they were solely responsible for negotiating the cycles of
growth and decay. The rest of this essay will explore the implications of these
ideas for the study of everyday life.
This is one post in a four-part series. Click below for the other posts:
This is one post in a four-part series. Click below for the other posts:
Notes
[1] A translation of the current lunar calendar date is posted
every day on my blog, Round and Square. www.robert-lafleur.blogspot.com.
[2] Even the earliest calendars in Chinese history connected agriculture and the ruling house. Examples can be found in several first millennium BCE works, including the Guanzi (管子) and the Spring and Autumn Annals of M. Lu (呂氏春秋). See Allyn J. Rickett, Guanzi: Political, Economic, and Philosophical Essays from Early China (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985) and John Knoblock and Jeffrey Riegel, The Annals of Lü Buwei (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001).
[3] In East Wind Melts the Ice, Liza Dalby writes memorably about these seasonal patterns. Liza Dalby, East Wind Melts the Ice (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007).
[4] Marcel Granet, The Religion of the Chinese People [Edited and translated by Maurice Freedman] (New York: Harper & Row, 1975), 41-44.
[2] Even the earliest calendars in Chinese history connected agriculture and the ruling house. Examples can be found in several first millennium BCE works, including the Guanzi (管子) and the Spring and Autumn Annals of M. Lu (呂氏春秋). See Allyn J. Rickett, Guanzi: Political, Economic, and Philosophical Essays from Early China (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985) and John Knoblock and Jeffrey Riegel, The Annals of Lü Buwei (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001).
[3] In East Wind Melts the Ice, Liza Dalby writes memorably about these seasonal patterns. Liza Dalby, East Wind Melts the Ice (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007).
[4] Marcel Granet, The Religion of the Chinese People [Edited and translated by Maurice Freedman] (New York: Harper & Row, 1975), 41-44.
Bibliography
Dalby, Liza East Wind Melts the Ice. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2007.
Granet, Marcel. The Religion of the Chinese People [Edited
and translated by Maurice Freedman]. New York: Harper & Row, 1975.
Knoblock, John and Jeffrey Riegel. The Annals of Lü Buwei. Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 2001.
Rickett, Allyn J. Guanzi: Political, Economic, and Philosophical Essays
from Early China. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985.
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