COLLATERALITY IN EARLY CHINESE COSMOLOGY: AN ARGUMENT FOR CONFUCIAN HARMONY (HE和) ASCREATIO IN SITU

Abstract

One important benefit of the Guodian and Shanghai Museum slips is the new insights they are providing in our understanding of the early intellectual evolution of classical Chinese philosophy. But there is a second important opportunity that the newly recovered documents provide. Beyond what is new in them, these same materials can be used to qualify, corroborate, and reiterate perhaps old but still undervalued insights into the interpretive context within which we construct our understanding of early China. Indeed, our best interpreters of classical Chinese philosophy are explicit in rejecting the idea that Chinese cosmology begins from some independent, transcendent principle and entails the metaphysical reality/appearance distinction and the plethora of dualistic categories that arise from such a worldview. In fact, the recently recovered Guodian materials provide us with both the resources and the occasion to revisit three related cosmological issues: What is distinctive about classical Chinese cosmogony and its notion of origins? What is the Chinese alternative to the assumptions about our own familiar creatio ex nihilo source of meaning? And how is “creativity” expressed in the Chinese philosophical vocabulary?

Boredom, Shanzhai, and Digitisation in the Time of Creative China

“…For this reason, it is also seen as a counterculture towards the Western 'global innovation culture' and the capitalist system by copying Western luxury goods into cheap and lowquality local products. 36 The idea of Chinese producers creatively 'destroying' Western brands is also behind the nationalist pride that many Chinese feel towards shanzhai products. 'Long live the Chinese people / Resolutely attack legitimate products, support pirate products', in the words of the Chinese netizen quoted at the opening of this section.…”

“…38 The fast development of new media and technology have made a kind of 'do-it-yourself'-shanzhai possible, where websites like Bilibili and Youku are flooded with parody movies, music videos, and TV shows. For example, in his famous essay 'Copycat', the writer Yu Hua describes a shanzhai TV show 36 Josephine Ho, 'ShanZhai: Economic/Cultural Production through the Cracks of Globalization', plenary presentation, ACS Crossroads: 2010 Cultural Studies Conference, Hong Kong, June 2010. 37 Pang, The Art of Cloning -Creative Production During China's Cultural Revolution (London: Verso, 2017), 247.…”

Confucian Ideology and Creativity

“…What are some fundamental differences between the two concepts of creativity: creato ex nihilo and creato in situ ? Ames () argues there are at least five aspects distinguishing the two.…”

“…Simply put, whereas creativity resides in the power of the creator according to the biblical view, it is the very nature of everlasting interaction between the creator and the context that result in creativity according to the Chinese wisdom. Some scholars called such a notion as co‐creativity (Ames, ) or contextual creativity (Wen, ).…”

“…Both Taiyishengshui and Dao De Jing are regarded as documents from the Taoist ideology (Allan, ; Ames, ). However, it is important to note that the concept of co‐creativity ( creato in situ ) or contextual creativity is not only embraced by the Taoist tradition, but it also exists in Confucian doctrines.…”