After reading what you wrote about Fingarette's idea of "at least two human beings", I thought of another way to say it: 'One can't achieve harmony with just one note.'
Great minds think alike!!! Harmony has always been connected to musical harmony and tones... I copied this note from the Ames book for re-reading!
The composition of the earlier and more complex graph for “optimal harmony” (he 和) found on the oracle bones is [xvii] and on the bronzes is [xviii]. This character is composed of a yue 龠 wind instrument constructed out of reed pipes, with “growing grain” (he 禾) as the phonetic element, alluding to the playing of music as one metaphorical way of understanding this highly aesthetic sense of harmony.112 And in fact, early twentieth-century reformer Lu Xun 魯迅, in describing Sima Qian’s Records of the Grand Historian, appealed to just such hyperbolic terms, calling this great work “the historians’ most perfect song” (shijia de juechang 史家的絕唱)
Lovely post. It reminds me AGAIN how persistently ignorant our own culture is exploring the ideas and practices of cultures with different points of view that could enlighten us. It also makes me smile, thinking of how when we were kids and wanted to make a point, we'd put a finger our chin, fake a Chineses accent and say, "Confusius say..." I know. Terrible. But it still makes me smile.
Chinese is so compact and they’re an aphoristic quality to it!! and I really really agree. About learning from other cultures I can’t tell you how many times over the years in Japan I thought if only America wasn’t so busy, trying to export its way of life and thinking it might actually learn something from Japan! They had so many things right not everything, of course, but there was so much to learn!
After reading what you wrote about Fingarette's idea of "at least two human beings", I thought of another way to say it: 'One can't achieve harmony with just one note.'
Great minds think alike!!! Harmony has always been connected to musical harmony and tones... I copied this note from the Ames book for re-reading!
The composition of the earlier and more complex graph for “optimal harmony” (he 和) found on the oracle bones is [xvii] and on the bronzes is [xviii]. This character is composed of a yue 龠 wind instrument constructed out of reed pipes, with “growing grain” (he 禾) as the phonetic element, alluding to the playing of music as one metaphorical way of understanding this highly aesthetic sense of harmony.112 And in fact, early twentieth-century reformer Lu Xun 魯迅, in describing Sima Qian’s Records of the Grand Historian, appealed to just such hyperbolic terms, calling this great work “the historians’ most perfect song” (shijia de juechang 史家的絕唱)
Lovely post. It reminds me AGAIN how persistently ignorant our own culture is exploring the ideas and practices of cultures with different points of view that could enlighten us. It also makes me smile, thinking of how when we were kids and wanted to make a point, we'd put a finger our chin, fake a Chineses accent and say, "Confusius say..." I know. Terrible. But it still makes me smile.
Chinese is so compact and they’re an aphoristic quality to it!! and I really really agree. About learning from other cultures I can’t tell you how many times over the years in Japan I thought if only America wasn’t so busy, trying to export its way of life and thinking it might actually learn something from Japan! They had so many things right not everything, of course, but there was so much to learn!
So marvelous to be reminded of this! And I do love the phrase "human becomings".
I do too!!