Focusing the Familiar: A Translation and Philosophical Interpretation of the Zhongyong

Rating:
Summary: Restoring the poetry in ancient Chinese philosophy
Review: Remember reading poetry in high school? (It doesn't matter if you liked it, just recall.) The teacher would ask questions like "What does line 17 mean?" You'd struggle to explain.

Well, it really DID mean what you said. But, it also meant something else, a connection with line 34, perhaps, making it richer. It was more complex than you'd realized, a bit of a process of discovery, correlation. It had connectivity. Oh yeah, line 34. Then, you learned that pesky line alluded to a phrase in Shakespeare, the Bible, something else. All of a sudden your brain was reeling in a really big fish. For all of that and perhaps yet more, "line 17" was the focus of a field of meanings. And then in later years some new connection was formed to "line 17." The meanings grew, the connectivity grew, the process continued.

Thus we find this new publication of the Zhongyong. It is a translation, certainly. It also is informed by recent archaeological discoveries. The earliest written version of many standard classical texts date from centuries later than the original. These new discoveries are of much earlier versions of standard texts, with less of the patina of age than subsequent versions.

Even more, though, it incorporates awareness of the philosophical filters for classical Chinese thought and modern Western thought. The overlay of one filter on another may create an interference pattern. Such a pattern is discrete. It may be attractive, but it does not convey the original. In honoring both philosophical filters, Chinese and Western, Professor Ames offers greater insight into complexities of meaning, nuances of context, a glimpse of the continuity and poetry distilled in this ancient text.

It grows on you.

The glossary of key terms is a treasure mine. Here, you can take a bath in the meaning of a term, really get wet, see it from the inside. As so often happens on emerging from a bath, insight and appreciation grow.

Consider the term "cheng." Ames adopts "creativity" as cheng's focal meaning within this work. At the same time he connects "cheng" with "integrity" and "sincerity." Here they are lesser-included concepts, supportive of the classical meaning and our modern, fresh understanding of "cheng." In context they sometimes are even the primary sense.

How many Westerners would connect sincerity with creativity? In a lesser translation we would never make the connection. But there it is, and we're enriched thereby.

Section 9 of the Zhongyong, as translated, reads: The Master said, "Even the world, its states, and its clans can be pacified, even ranks and emoluments can be declined, and even flashing blades can be trodden underfoot, but focusing the familiar affairs of the day (zhongyong)-this is no easy matter."

Two and a half millennia show little change in the ease of the affairs of the day. Our understanding of that classical thought, however, is newly focused.

The poetry is back.

Rating:
Summary: Restoring the poetry in ancient Chinese philosophy
Review: Remember reading poetry in high school? (It doesn't matter if you liked it, just recall.) The teacher would ask questions like "What does line 17 mean?" You'd struggle to explain.

Well, it really DID mean what you said. But, it also meant something else, a connection with line 34, perhaps, making it richer. It was more complex than you'd realized, a bit of a process of discovery, correlation. It had connectivity. Oh yeah, line 34. Then, you learned that pesky line alluded to a phrase in Shakespeare, the Bible, something else. All of a sudden your brain was reeling in a really big fish. For all of that and perhaps yet more, "line 17" was the focus of a field of meanings. And then in later years some new connection was formed to "line 17." The meanings grew, the connectivity grew, the process continued.

Thus we find this new publication of the Zhongyong. It is a translation, certainly. It also is informed by recent archaeological discoveries. The earliest written version of many standard classical texts date from centuries later than the original. These new discoveries are of much earlier versions of standard texts, with less of the patina of age than subsequent versions.

Even more, though, it incorporates awareness of the philosophical filters for classical Chinese thought and modern Western thought. The overlay of one filter on another may create an interference pattern. Such a pattern is discrete. It may be attractive, but it does not convey the original. In honoring both philosophical filters, Chinese and Western, Professor Ames offers greater insight into complexities of meaning, nuances of context, a glimpse of the continuity and poetry distilled in this ancient text.

It grows on you.

The glossary of key terms is a treasure mine. Here, you can take a bath in the meaning of a term, really get wet, see it from the inside. As so often happens on emerging from a bath, insight and appreciation grow.

Consider the term "cheng." Ames adopts "creativity" as cheng's focal meaning within this work. At the same time he connects "cheng" with "integrity" and "sincerity." Here they are lesser-included concepts, supportive of the classical meaning and our modern, fresh understanding of "cheng." In context they sometimes are even the primary sense.

How many Westerners would connect sincerity with creativity? In a lesser translation we would never make the connection. But there it is, and we're enriched thereby.

Section 9 of the Zhongyong, as translated, reads: The Master said, "Even the world, its states, and its clans can be pacified, even ranks and emoluments can be declined, and even flashing blades can be trodden underfoot, but focusing the familiar affairs of the day (zhongyong)-this is no easy matter."

Two and a half millennia show little change in the ease of the affairs of the day. Our understanding of that classical thought, however, is newly focused.

The poetry is back.