A great Emperor, he spent the remainder of his days in a cold Manchurian prison-- not far from present-day Harbin. Many of you will recall his last poem; a poem which continues to haunt me.
Swallow Mountain Pavilion
I tell of the sorrow of partings upon partings
To a pair of swallows
Who refuse to understand
The heavens are so faraway; the earth so faraway
Separated by countless rivers and countless mountains
Oh, where is that old Palace?
How can I ever forget that old Palace?
Sometimes I visit in dreams
And yet all alone
Sometimes I am even unable to dream
There between mountains and the sea, my man is unable to even dream. And, on many a dreamless afternoon, he and I would engage in silent conversations, like those famous conversations that had occurred between Marco Polo and the Great Khan hundreds of years later.
Sitting by an open window, the frigid, northern wind would blow in us, and I would imagine asking him questions that he would imagine answering. Wiling away our cold days together, we engaged in unending imaginary conversations in this way.
Sometimes we would talk of empire.
If we could go back in time and dream up a more perfect political philosophy, what would our empire have been like? What kind of state would create the greatest happiness for the largest number of people.That this should be our aim, we both silently agreed. He had by this time given up his predilection for daoist philosophy. While it sounds good, it was a potential disaster in terms of politics. Confucianism seemed a more sound and promising philosophy, he said, on which to found an empire. And so, we proceededed from there.
It remains my opinion that he was a man who could think outside the box. Often going against the prevailing tide, he found himself often behind one after another cause célèbre. Perhaps it could be said that he agreed with me that it was the second generation of rights that should be given priority. Water, food, health care, education, safety-- and safety nets-- for the entire population, some might call our empire paternalistic. Maybe. Anyway, it was always fun to discuss the details.
In one particularly frigid Manchurian morning, I brought up the topic of Epicurean philosophy as something promising for our empire. Extemporized an argument I thought would persuade him I mentioned that:
In fact, hedonism comes from a root meaning honey-- that pleasures are sweet...... To say that life should be full of pleasure-- as the ancient hedonists said-- is NOT the same thing as claiming that our every desire and hunger should be satisfied (as the modern Americans do, right?)
Epicurus had his Garden school, around the time of Aristotle's Lyceum and Plato's Academy... and while Plato and Arristotle sought to found a moral system on political virtues, Epicurus sought to found a moral system on social virtues-- not unlike Confucius, perhaps?
Epicurus focused on friendship and brotherhood rather than family-- but the focus was on increasing overall happiness and pleasure through the *limiting* and *refining* of one's own desires with the great social virtues being consideration for others and suavitas. It is this last virtue that I have been particularly drawn to with regard to our own project.
Don't you agree that our empire should be a place where people enjoy delicious wines and cheeses; where people engage in thinking; where philosophers have a part in ruling?
**
I had such high hopes for my argument-- but in fact he only ended up all the more recalitrant.
Who provides the material foundations for philosophers? Isn't it 10000 farmers for every intellectual, as Mao put it? Shouldn't we be perturbed with injustice and seek the improve the world politically? And responsibilities to needy members of the family seem to have dropped out of the picture, as we discussed earlier? It's fine to be epicurians on the weekends, so to speak, but that's about all our Empire would tolerate.
As always he is correct. For I too think that the ultimate aim of rulership ought to be the provision of what to my mind are the true inalieable rights of all citizens: health, safety and education. However, with Mao in mind, in the same way that Rome had its Stoics and Epicureans, so too did the China of my man's times have its Confucians as well as its scholars and literati 文人. Without the cultivation of certain so-called elite social virtues in at least some part of the population, I wonder if a descent into Maoist anti-intellectualism or American philistinism is not inevitable? It's like what the Northern Song Minister said about our friend Mi Fu:
“Mi Fu is the kind of person we must have one of, but cannot afford to have two of!”
Whether it be Stoicism or Confucianism, I wonder if too much focus on duty and virtue as obligation would not be just as disasterous a project as too much focus on pleasure. Everything interesting in life is always in the details and cultural or aesthetic cultivation is perhaps the only thing that can really ensure the generating of certain types of ethical sensibilities (not to mention the preservation and continuation of cultural legacy) will be represented in any population. In that way, I do believe strongly that-- yes, even if it's just on the weekends-- that Republicanism demands the personal literati-style aesthetic cultivation of its citizens (friends, Romans and countrymen). For it will always be the artists, philosophers and poets, as Harrison says, who will be the people to unmask "society's self-serving fictions... and false idols."
知者樂水 仁者樂山 知者動 仁者靜 知者樂 仁者壽
The wise delight in water while the virtuous delight in the mountains.
A wise person is active and enjoys change while a virtue person seeks serenity and enjoys long life (accepting this as they come)
In an enlightened empire, both the wise and the virtuous are necessary. (All the Japanese glosses on this passage that I looked at do not position virtue above wisdom but rather stress that both types of people serve a necessary function in the world).
Imagining myself telling him all this, I close my eyes and imagine him nodding his head in agreement.
**
For more on Epicurean virtues: In Epicurus' Garden.
On my ipod: Entitled Opinions: Virgil (Archives: Oct. 25, 2005) From Republicanism to Empire-- I highly recommend this particular program, though I stand by my opinion that Aeneas is a terrible wet blanket. Yes, Aeneas certainly did cry-- as a later great poet once described:
And the sea became a sea of tears.
But, as one knows, precisely at the moment
of despair, the auspicious wind begins to blow.
And the great man left Carthage.
However, remaining the Stoic par excellance, so intent was Pious Aeneas to carry out his duty, that his actions were in the end over-thought, hard-boiled and not sensitive to the situation. Which is to say he could have done with a bit more Epicurean cultivation-- especially when it came to letting Dido down more easily!
Between Mountains and the Sea, I leave you with the Dido & Aeneas water ballet again here and below the Akhmatova poem, is the Chunqiu (Spring & Autumn) video, Between the Mountains and the Sea:
11
I abandoned your shores, Empress,
against my will.
-- Aeneid, Book 6
Don't be afraid -- I can still portray
What we resemble now.
You are a ghost -- or a man passing through,
And for some reason I cherish your shade.
For awhile you were my Aeneas --
It was then I escaped by fire.
We know how to keep quiet about one another.
And you forgot my cursed house.
You forgot those hands stretched out to you
In horror and torment, through flame,
And the report of blasted dreams.
You don't know for what you were forgiven ...
Rome was created, flocks of flotillas sail on the sea,
And adulation sings the praises of victory.
--Anna Akhmatova1962
Komarovo
Comments