Beltane\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Full Planting Moon<\/p>\n
Finally.\u00a0 A morning with no other responsibilities so I can go out and plant the remaining veggies.\u00a0 After that, it’s time to get to work on all the things I’ve neglected, the flower beds.\u00a0 We have more flower beds than we do vegetable garden, so I’m talking a lot of stuff to do.<\/p>\n
I’m not yet feeling great, but I feel better.\u00a0 Sluggish, tired, but not wasted.\u00a0 The sun will feel good.<\/p>\n
Here’s a weird idea.\u00a0 It may have no basis, but it flitted through my head the other day.\u00a0 I’ve been reading the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, one of the most popular books of Chinese classical literature.\u00a0 The Dream of the Red Chamber and Journey to the West are two others, both on my list and in my house.\u00a0 This is a long book, really long and its narrative style takes some getting used to, not to mention the Russian like propensity for having way more names than this guy can recall easily.\u00a0 But. It does show a clear thread of Chinese culture, that is, obedience to the state is the norm, the heroic “side” in a conflict.\u00a0 If you’re a rebel in the Three Kingdoms, you’re a bad guy.\u00a0 If you convert from being a rebel to being a loyal follower of the Emperor (the last of the Hans in this case), then you’ve taken a step toward redemption.<\/p>\n
I’m reading this literature to get a sense of the Chinese geist, the recurring themes that define and shape their sense of themselves.\u00a0 Chineseness, I guess you could call it.\u00a0 This has been a long project, lasting many years for me, and engaged in a very unsystematic way, but I have covered a lot of history, film, art, literature including poetry and even a tiny bit of language.<\/p>\n
OK.\u00a0 Let’s juxtapose this rebel bad, obedient good theme to a consistent thread in American film and literature, that is, rebel good, obedient bad.\u00a0 Our founding story after all is one of rebellion, foisting off the cloying grip of mother Britain.\u00a0 Think of Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter where Dimsdale pales morally when compared to Hester Prinn.\u00a0 An anthropology professor of mine, David Scruton, said Americans are infracaninophiles, lovers of the under dog.\u00a0 Unions against big business.\u00a0 Slaves against masters.\u00a0 Women against men.\u00a0 Incumbents versus challengers.\u00a0 Rebel Without a Cause.\u00a0 Twelve Angry Men.\u00a0 The American individualist.<\/p>\n
This seems to be a fundamental polarity between the Chinese, submit to family and state (a Confucian ideal), and Americans, the rugged Individualist, Self-Reliant, Don’t Tread on Me types.\u00a0 Right?\u00a0 I’ve always heard it put something like this.\u00a0 Admittedly these are sweeping generalizations, but that’s what I’m after here, the broad stroke that has some anchors in culture and history.<\/p>\n
Here’s the weird idea.\u00a0 What if the broad strokes mean exactly the opposite of what we take them to mean?\u00a0 In other words, the Chinese emphasize in literature, film, Confucian thought and political rhetoric obedience to the state and family because the Chinese are, in fact, a nation of rebels, individualists.\u00a0 I know this seems like an odd position, but it comes from a surprising encounter I had with MingJen Chen about a year ago.\u00a0 Jackie Chan had just said that he thought the Chinese people needed to be controlled.\u00a0 I asked Mingjen about this and she surprised me by agreeing with Jackie Chan.<\/p>\n
What if American’s emphasize individualism in literature, art, film, novels and political rhetoric because we are, in fact, a nation of conformists who use the veneer of rugged individualism to cover a submissive spirit, one that will not struggle with what Emerson called the establishment.\u00a0 Or, at least, won’t struggle so hard with it that it fears its foundations in jeopardy?<\/p>\n
A weird idea, I know, but perhaps a useful one nonetheless.<\/p>\n
This idea comes in part from the Jungian notion that we often emphasize in our reading, our writing, our attempts to interpret the world those things that are missing in our life, the thing we would like to live towards or into.\u00a0 It also comes in part from the realization that, like most things, the notions of individualism and collectivity are not unrelated, isolated realities, but ones that bump up against each other in everyday life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Beltane\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Full Planting Moon Finally.\u00a0 A morning with no other responsibilities so I can go out and plant the remaining veggies.\u00a0 After that, it’s time to get to work on all the things I’ve neglected, the flower beds.\u00a0 We have more flower beds than we do vegetable garden, so I’m talking a lot of stuff … Continue reading One or Many?<\/span>