China and the West

Mann, Thomas. Der Zauberberg. Bd. 1-2. (Berlin : S. Fischer, 1924).

Mann schreibt : Man konnte das eine das asiatische Prinzip, das andere aber das europäische nennen, denn Europa war das Land der Rebellion, der Kritik und der umgestaltenden Tätigkeit, während der östliche Teil die Unbeweglichkeit, die untätige Ruhe verkörperte. Gar kein Zweifel, welcher der beiden Mächte endlich der Sieg zufallen würde, - es war die der Aufklärung, der vernunftgemässen Vervollkommnung. Denn immer neue Völker raffte die Menschlichkeit auf ihrem glänzenden Wege mit fort, immer mehr Erde erobert sie in Europa selbst und begann, nach Asien vorzudringen.

Settembrini : Reden Sie nicht, wie es in der Luft liegt, junger Mensch, sondern wie es Ihrer europäischen Lebensform angemessen ist. Hier liegt vor allem viel Asien in der Luft, - nicht umsonst wimmelt es hier von Typen aus der moskowitischen Mongolei. Diese Freigiebigkeit, diese barbarische Grossartigkeit im Zeitverbrauch ist asiatischer Stil, - das mag ein Grund sein, weshalb es den Kindern des Ostens an diesem Orte behagt… Der Osten verabscheut die Tätigkeit. Laotse lehrt, dass Nichtstun förderlicher sei als jedes Ding zwischen Himmel und Erde. Wenn alle Menschen aufgehört haben würden, zu tun, werde vollkommene Ruhe und Glückseligkeit auf Erden herrschen… Asien verschlingt uns. Wohin man blickt : tatarische Gesichter… Es focht ihn [Settembrini] nicht an, dass Naphta ihn ins Chinesische heimschicken wollte, wo die skurrilste Vergötterung des Abc herrsche, die je erreicht worden sei, und wo man Generalfeldmarschall werde, wenn man alle vierzigtausend Wortzeichen tuschen könne, was recht nach dem Herzen eines Humanisten sein müsse. [Siehe 1912 Otto Julius Bierbaum zum Gedächtnis].

Ingrid Schuster : Thomas Mann setzt sich mit der Lehre vom Nicht-Handeln auseinander. Die Zukunft lässt er im Ungewissen. Ost oder West ? Das bedeutet auch : chinesische Philosophie des Nicht-Handelns oder abendländische Aktivität ? Pazifismus oder Patriotismus ?

Christiane Gabriel : Settembrinis wiederholte Mahnungen machen deutlich, auf welch komplizierte Art das Bild des Ostens mit der Werkstruktur verwoben ist. Seine Interpretation, die alle Bedrohung dem Geist des Ostens zuschreibt, wird durch den Gang des Romans zugleich eingeschränkt und bestätigt.

Hugo von Hofmannsthal schreibt in sein Tagebuch : Chinesische Gedichte. Das Höhere, niemals Zeitgebundene. Dies in der Kunst nur gespiegelt - darum kann solche Kunst auch in Übertragung zu uns sprechen. Die Kunstmittel, welche aufgezählt werden, zum Teil bei uns auch vorhanden. Anklang, Obertöne ; soziale Bedingtheit in der Wortwahl. - Über chinesische Gedichte und die Möglichkeit einer Umbildung der deutschen Poesie durch die Berührung.

Hürlimann, Martin. Tut Kung Bluff [ID D15746].
Hürlimann schreibt : Es gibt viele Bücher über Peking und noch mehr über China. Aber immer noch zu wenig. In Japan ist alles ausphotographiert, katalogisiert, etikettiert und mit entsprechendem Entree geschmückt. China aber ist noch ein offenes Feld für Banditen und andere Leute, die sich gern wichtig machen.

Li Fang-kuei studiert an der University of Michigan.

Gründung der Buddhist Society durch Christmas Humphreys.

Li, Shicen. Li Shicen lun wen ji [ID D18346].
Li Shicen schreibt : Schopenhauer regarded self-consciousness of the 'will' as a higher consciousness ; Nietzsche on the other hand saw it as a higher action. 'Drunken ecstasy' for him is the state when all man’s powers of symbolizing reach their full extent. Reaching the ultimate of human existence depends not on language and concepts but on the expression of the symbols of a self which has liberated all its strenght.
I am not an advocate of Nietzsche, but after close consideration of his thought I can't but admit his real value. We Chinese, due to our phlegmatic disposition, have been despised by the peoples of other countries. Lacking the courage to advance and deficient in creativity, we are docile slaves of custom, merely out of cringing timidity. Bringing up such docile slaves is a waste of the country's money, giving birth to them is a waste of the race’s energy. I suggest that we might perhaps find the salvation of these phlegmatic vassals in the thought of Nietzsche, who is so reviled, abused and refuted by our countrymen.

Buber, Martin. Besprechungen mit Martin Buber in Ascona.
Quelle : Lao-tse. Tao te king von Victor von Strauss [ID D4587].
Im Nachlass von Martin Buber befindet sich das Manuskript Besprechungen mit Martin Buber in Ascona über Laozis Dao de jing ; sowie Taoismus-Materialien unter dem Titel Die Lehre.
Irene Eber : The talks consisted in a chapter by chapter exposition of the Dao de jing, and he discussed altogether thrity-three chapters of the book. Broader religious and philosophical issues were also raised in conjunction with the text either or the participants. Buber's lectures are not preserved among his manuscripts, but their contents was recorded by one (or several) participant(s). The lectures reveal a new understanding of the concepts of the Dao de jing. They also established a wider philosophical context for the text comparing its ideas with Jewish, Christian, and Confucian thought. In these talks, Buber created for the Dao de jing a place in his philosophical and religious discoursce, and his explanations of the various chapters, now far less mystically interpreted, can be considered an attempt at a commentary on the Dao de jing. Non-acting was no longer accorded a central position, and he was also not overly oncerned with the role of the sage. On the other hand, issues related to society and the political state received more attention, and the Tao in the world (not as mystic oneness) was exhaustively discussed.
The talks indicates that Buber accepted most of von Strauss's notions, building his interpretations in many parts on these. Buber too, viewed the Dao de jing as a religious text which, he apparently believed, must be interpreted in a religious spirit. Although he never explicitly described Tao as synonymous with God, he attributed to Tao the quality of the divine (das Göttliche).
Buber's comments on chapters one and nineteen ascribe an ontology to the Dao de jing. By stipulating both an eternal Tao and one that is manifested in the world, Laozi established an ontological fact. Tao, therefore, is not a law of nature, not abstraction, but being or substance. Two indivisible parts of the divine exist ; one transcendent and unknowable, the other immanent and personal. Because the human being interacts with the immanent part, it can be termed the personal aspect of the divine. Buber argued that the ineffable, the transcendent Tao, is not the beginning of existence, stipulating a difference between origin (Ursprung) and cause (Ursache). The origin which makes possible creation is the transcendent Tao and the cause that sets the process in motion is the immanent Tao. Buber's comments to chapter seven stress two additional points : First, Laozi was not interested in otherworldliness, his ideals deal with reality itself, and second, Tao manifests itself in multiplicity. But the idea of Tao must not be taken to mean that the One is real and the many an illusion.
In spite of stipulating transcendence and immanence, Buber did not want to suggest a dichotomizing of Tao. Hence his comments to chapter ten and twenty-two reiterated once more the Tao's oneness. But oneness that had been so important to him more than a decade earlier now had somewhat different implications. It was no longer only a mystic and difficult to explain concept. Oneness now signified to Buber completeness and he related it to the person who participates in the divine, who stands in proximity to God, who exists in a higher sphere of undividedness, or who has sought the divine and been united with it. When such a person acts, the difference between acting in the name of man or in the name of God disappears. It is one and the same. Man is a religious being, he asserted in his comments fo chapters fifty-five and sixty-two. He possesses creative powers, spontaneously, without willing. He creates. Such a person is holy when he enters the sphere of completeness. Holiness is, therfore, not primarily and attribute of God alone, but of the human being as well. For this reason, Buber apparently did not hesitate using von Strauss’s the 'holy one' for sage, to describe such a person's wholeness and godliness.
Perhaps, because Buber now interpreted the Dao de jing as a this-worldly rather than a mystic text, he devoted considerable attention to those portions (chapters 29, 30, 57, 61, 78, 53) which deal with society and the state. The state to him meant community (Gemeinschaft). But not community as the sum total of individuals, rather community as a spiritual joining and acting together. Such a community resists domination by anyone person, for it is constituted by the relationship its members have to the person in the center. Buber argued that Laozi considered the political state both a state of human beings and a state of God. "To Laozi the state consists of the community and legitimate authority", by which he meant the lawful, religious rule of the person who is central to the community. Buber, however, did not develop the ideas of the political state and authority, or to what extent the sage was the ruler. He pointed to messianism in chapter forty-nine, stating that the Dao de jing's messianism concerns the sage, but that all messianisms are, in the final analysis, the yearning for a king. His definition of the sage or the holy one in chapter seventy-eight is more in keeping with his own views than the Dao de jing's, when he assigns to him the position of intermediary between God and the world who assumes responsibilities as well as guilt, who steps into the gap that has been created between God and the world.

Sun, Yatsen. Min zu zhu yi [ID D20118].
Sun schreibt : "Seitdem die revolutionären Gedankenströmungen nach Osten vorgedrungen sind, ist auch der Begriff der Freiheit eingeführt worden. Viele Gelehrte und erhaben gesinnte Leute heissen diese neue Gedankenströmung gut. Sie legen diese Freiheit sehr ausführlich dar und halten sie für äusserst wichtig. Dieser Trend hat [im Westen] bereits vor 300 Jahren eine gewichtige Stellung eingenommen. Denn die in Europa seit ca. 200 bez. 300 Jahren geführten Kriege wurden zur Erlangung der Freiheit geführt. Aus diesem Grund legen die europäischen und amerikanischen Gelehrten grossen Wert auf Freiheit ; auch die gewöhnlichen Menschen verstehen viel von der Bedeutung der Freiheit."

Qu, Qiubai. She hui ke xue jiang yi [ID D19717].
Nick Knight : Qu's initial foray into Marxist philosophy concentrated on its critique of the history of Western philosophy, although there are occasional references to other philosophical traditions, including China's. The purpose of his exploration into Western philosophy was to construct and map the historical development of the two great rival camps of philosophical thought : materialism and idealism. In Outline of social philosophy Qu considers why philosophy should have emerged at all, and why certain tendencies within it - idealism and materialism - should have become pronounced. He argues that philosophy developed as human knowledge became more complex, this giving rise to a variety of different sciences and the gradual specialisation of philosophy itself into methodology and epistemology. The root of philosophy was a concern with the nature of the universe. Materialism sets out from the objective (or nature, reality) and regards the subjective (or thought, mind) as built on objective reality. Idealism proceeds from the subjective, and perceives the objective as constructed on the basis of the subjective. Qu argues that the spiritualism of religion, which was inevitably in opposition to materialism, resulted from the attempt by 'primitive peoples' to explain their natural environment. The result was animism, a belief that natural phenomena were not themselves the result of natural causes, but of spirits residing within them.
Qu employed the logical tensions within the philosophies of individual philosophers to prosecute his critique of idealism. In particular, he was sensitive to the way philosophers sometimes unwittingly incorporated both materialist and idealist elements within their largely idealist philosophies. The result was eclecticism, something that indicated an advance over pure idealism, but which nonetheless was tainted by its retention of idealist themes. Examples of such eclecticism are the philosophies of Brekeley, Voltaire, Kant and Huxley. Qu gives the example of Hegel and Schelling, both of whom believed in an 'absolute spirit' that supposedly incorporated both the subject and object, the spiritual and natural worlds. He does come to the defence of Spinoza, and argues that he is often incorrectly identified as an idealist philosopher. He concurs with Fauerbach that Spinoza's philosophy was actually a manifestation of the materialism of his time, although he was not able to escape the influence of the 'spirit of the age', and his materialism consquently assumed a theological garb.
Qu consequently repudiates the idealists and neo-Kantians who accuse materialism of reducing psychological phenomena to material phenomena, for the distinction is a false one. He gives the exemple of Friedrich Lange who posed materialism a question to which it supposedly could not respond. Qu approvingly quotes Diderrot, a member of the neo-Spinozan school : "There is only matter in the universe and it can possess sense perceptions ; the existence of matter thus explains everything".
Qu refers in passing to the realms of freedom and necessity. Freedom, he argues, is based on necessity, a knowledge of necessity. If humans know the natural laws of the universe, this will allow them freedom ; but the laws orf nature come first.

Qu, Qiubai. Xian dai she hui xue [ID D19717].
Nick Knight : For Qu, the 'vexing problem' of the relationship between mind and matter had implications that extend beyond philosophy to the social sciences ; it was therfore essential to get a precise understanding of this relationship. The phenomena of the universe can be divided into two categories. The first (matter) has the capacity of 'extension' ; in other words, matter is all those things that exist in space, are in motion, and that can be experiences with the human senese. These are material phenomena. The second (mind) does not exist in space, and cannot be seen or experiences in the same way as material phenomena. Examples are human thought, will and feelings. Qu cites Descartes' aphorism - "I think, therefore I am" - to support the proposition that thoughts and feelings do have existence even though they are not material objects in the conventional sense.
Qu's cirtique of social theory focused on three schools - Enlightenment, utopian socialist, and Hegelian - and employs these, supposedly incorrect, theories as foils to establish the objective correctness of Marxist social theory. Qu responds to these fine ideals dismissively : "We of the twentieth century understand that the supposedly rational world painted by Enlightenment philosophy was nothing more than a rationalisation of an emerging boureois society, in which perpetual justice became bourgeois laws, equality became formal legal equality, and the rational state became the bourgeois democratic republic".
The Hegelian philosophy was quite different. Qu explains that Hegel had recognised that the universe is in a process of perpetual motion, change and devlopment ; and he sought the 'inner connections' of this motion, change and development. He recognised that history becomes the real process of the development of humankind, and that philosophy's task was to examine the way in which humans developed out of nature, and to discover laws from the myriad 'accidents' within this process. For Qu, these Hegelian postulates represented a significant achievement. Hegel's major failing was his idealism. Qu argues that, if the causal relationship articulated by Hegel was reversed, and based on a materialist premise, the positive, dialectical, dimension of his philosophy could be incorporated within scientific socialism. But for this to eventuate, fundamental change had to have occurred in social reality, and in particular the reality of capitalism.
Qu moves with facility through the philosophies of some of the most difficult of Western thinkers : Plato, Socrates, Kant, Fichte, Berkeley, Voltaire, Hume, Huxley, Descartes, Diderot, Feuerbach, and Marx, as well as many lesser philosophical luminaries. He illustrated his materialist social philosophy by reference to Durkheim, James Mill, Comte, Spencer, Owen, Saint-Simon, and Fourier. His view on quantum mechanics, cosmology and evolution were reinforced by reference to Laplace, Darwin, Rutherford, and Moseley, amongst others.

Qu, Qiubai. Makesi he Engesi [ID D20185].
Nick Knight : It was Lenin's achievement that he had been able to correctly discern and explain the development of capitalism to its imperialist stage, and to read the tendencies of social development and exert his own revolutionary will in a way which exploited the potential for change evident in the 'objective environment'. Qu's depiction of Lenin as the 'instrument of history' is certainly not one of a figure overawed into passivity by the immensity of historical forces; indeed, there is not the slightest suggestion of fatalism in Qu's positive reading of Lenin's character or political career. By the same token, it is quite evident that Qu did not accept that Lenin, as an individual human, made history purely through the force of his intellect or the steely determination of his political will. These undoubtedly were significant factors, but quite secondary to the objective context within which Lenin found himself. Lenin, like all historical leaders, might find ways to redesign the stage settings; but the stage on which he played was itself inherited from the past, and not of his own choosing or making. Similarly, while Marx was a product of his historical environment, his greatness derived from his capacity to comprehend the historical changes set in motion by the emergence of industrial capitalism and articulate these in a manner which could inspire in the working class a widespread desire for change.
Qu's biographical sketch of Marx and Engels stresses the historical context of their youth and the influences exerted on their families by the fact that Rhineland was comparatively underdeveloped industrially, and consequently influenced the more of ideals of the French Revolution ; indeed, their fathers and uncles were contemporaries of the French Revolution and had grown up in its shadow. While Marx, like Lenin, was a product of his historical environment, his greatness derived from his capacity to comprehend the historical changes set in motion by the emergence of industrial capitalism and articulate these in a manner which could inspire in the working class a widespread desire for change.

Liu, Yanling. [Panorama de la littérature française du XIXe siècle]. [ID D21051].
Luo Peng : L'auteur indique, probablement pour la première fois en Chine, quelques défauts du roman de Victor Hugo. Tout en admettant que Hugo était un grand artiste de roman et de poésie, je pensait que les romans de Hugo avaient pour principaux défauts d'avoir des chapitres de longueur inégale, des anecdotes invraisemblables et même ridicules. C'est pourquoi on lui reprochait de laisser le sentiment l'emporter sur la raison. M. Liu osa même dire : "Hugo est un auteur qui manque de capacité de raisonnement." Ce propos, emprunté évidemment à la critique occidentale contemporaine, montre tout de même que l'on cherchait déjà à se dégager quelque peu de l'admiration totale des premiers jours.

Mei Yi-pao erhält den B.A. des Oberlin College, Ohio.

Mei Yi-pao studiert an der Columbia University und der Harvard University.

Jacques Meyrier ist handelnder Generalkonsul des französischen Generalkonsulats in Shanghai.

Segalen, Victor. La terre jaune [ID D21844].
Liang Pai-tchin : Le passage qu'il a consacré à un tableau chinois contient des fragments qui trahissent vraiment l'admiration de l'auteur pour l'art chinois. Segalen y a déployé tout son talent de poète pour mettre joliment en lumière le génie du peintre chinois, qui sait donner à l'objet produit par un simple pinceau une vie tellement frémissante qu'on a presque envie de détruire le portrait pour cesser de souffrir de son expression douloureuse.

Wang Chi-chen erhält den B.A. der University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Yves-Louis-Napoléon Du Courthial ist Konsul in Hong Kong.

Saint-John Perse. Anabase [ID D22453].
Sekundärliteratur
Lorand Gaspar : Le poème Anabase ne contient aucune référence précise à la Chine, pas plus qu'à la Mongolie extérieure. Bien sûr en le relisant parallèlement aux lettres écrites de Chine, il ne nous sera pas difficile de déceler dans ces dernières des suites d'images qui semblent préfigurer tel ou tel passage du poème.
Ce que Saint-John Perse connaissait et aimait de la civilisation chinoise je ne pouvais en avoir qu'une idée très approximative après avoir parcouru les livres de sa bibliothèque se rapportant à la Chine ; ceux du moins qui portent les traces matérielles d'une lecture approfonide.

Qian Linsen : Saint-John Perse dispose, à un jour de cheval de Pékin, sur une éminence dominant les premières pistes caravanières vers le Nord-Ouest, d'un petit temple taoïste désaffecté où il écrira Anabase. Dans ce petit temple de Tao Yu, imprégné d'une athmosphère de méditation, de sérénité, de vide, il se laisse pénétrer par l'esprit du taoïsme. Le poète se rend dans ce temple pour écrier, se recueillir, se ressourcer. Pour moi, le poète a été influencé dans deux domaines : 1. Il crée une image poétique totalement imprégnée de taoïsme, image qui symbolise le chercheur dans la quête infinie ; 2. son oeuvre s'inspire de principes esthétiques en harmonie avec l'esprit taoïste du vide.
Saint-John Perse appréciait tout spécialement Li Bo et Du Fu. Il annota leurs poèmes dans la traduction d’Arthur Waley et s'inspira de leur conception du vide. Bien entendu, son style n'est en rien comparable à celui des poètes de l'époque Tang, mais dans leur projet, les deux écritures s'apparentent : chez les poètes chinois la promenade quotidienne d'un ermite est en même temps rapport de l'homme avec le cosmos ; tout cheminiment matériel y est aussi cheminement spirituel et le paysage décrit est tout autant celui de monde extérieur que le paysage intérieur du sujet. C'est aussi ce qui se produit dans Anabase où le « grand pays d'herbages sans mémoires,... sans liens et sans anniversaires » qu'embrasse le temps de sa marche désigne tout à la fois le lieu de sa randonnée et l'espace intérieur de sa méditation, l'espace vide, incréé, informel, qu'il investit de sa pensée.

Mireille Sacotte : Ce que Saint-John Perse a découvert en Chine, ses lettres et sourtout les deux oeuvres qu'il en a rapportées Amitié du prince et Anabase le montrent bien, c'est la confrontation avec les grandes steppes de Mongolie et les abords du désert de Gobi, le désert qui a exercé sur lui « une fascination proche de l'hallucination, qui m'aura conduit spirituellement encore plus loin que je ne m'y attendais : aux frontières même de l'esprit. » Ce qu'il y a trouvé, c'est Anabase qui nous le raconte : un homme insatisfait des étroites limites temporelles et spatiales qui lui sont allouées de naissance voyage à la recherche de l'évasion véritable. Dans le vide du désert, il découvre, sous l'apparente immobilité, l'apparente stérilité, le mouvement et la fécondité qui animent le monde. Il y gagne la certitude que « la mort n'est point », que sous toutes les centres la braise palpite, que la puissance de la mer persiste à l'endroit le plus reculé des plus profonds déserts et il opère finalement sa jonction avec le mouvement en cours depuis la Création.
Dans « L'été plus vaste que l'Empire » au début du chant IV, cet Empire avec sa majuscule est assurément l'Empire du Milieu, la Chine ; mais il est tout autant l'Empire romain, référence omniprésente dans le texte de Saint-John Perse. La référence chinoise est et sera donc présente, toujours, jusqu'à « Chant pour un équinoxe », mais jamais seule, jamais vraiment déterminante, pas plus qu'aucune autre en tout cas.

Catherine Mayaux : Dans Anabase, c'est surtout dans la manière dont le conquérant édifie le monde au fur et à mesure qu'il chevauche que peut se lire la trace d'une inspiration taoïste dans l'écriture du poème. L'esprit taoïste de l'inspiration se marque tout particulièrement dans la fondation rituelle de la ville au Chant IV.
Les termes abstraits jouent le rôle du 'vide' dans le langage des poètes Tang : comme les 'mots vides' et les 'mots pleins' qu'utilisent en alternance ces derniers tout en jouant des ellipses, ce sont les mots abstrait qui, chez Saint-John Perse, introduisent, au coeur de l'expérience et du monde concret, l'appel ou la présence d'une autre dimension. La rencontre de cette forme ésthétique inspirée par le taoïsme pourrait en partie expliquer l'évolution de la poétique à partir d'Anabase. Mais le lexique abstrait dans et à partir d'Anabase, modifie le sens et la portée de la démarche poétique qui, d'évocation nostalgique dont les actants sont l'âme, l'esprit, les signes, le chant, le poème.

Tod von Carlo Puini.