The comment is provoked by Thorsten Pattberg's sharp insight about the way the oriental word 'shengren' is understand by the occident.
Same story applies to another oriental word, 'dharma'.
What is 'civilization'? In Archaeology, this tends to be equated with material phenomena identified in an urban context, in archaeological digs.
There is another word in Samskṛtam: संस्कारः saṃskāraḥ which is not exactly translatable as 'culture'. The lexicons provide the following semantics for the word:
संस्कारः 1 Making perfect, refining, polishing; (मणिः) प्रयुक्तसंस्कार इवाधिकं बभौ R.3.18. -2 Refinement, perfection, grammatical purity (as of words); संस्कार- वत्येव गिरा मनीषी Ku.1.28 (where Malli, renders the word by व्याकरणजन्या शुद्धिः); R.15.76. -3 Educa- tion, cultivation, training (as of the mind); निसर्ग- संस्कारविनीत इत्यसौ नृपेण चक्रे युवराजशब्दभाक् R.3.35; Ku. 7.1. -4 Making ready, preparation. -5 Cooking, dressing (as of food &c.). -6 Embellishment, decora- tion, ornament; स्वभावसुन्दरं वस्तु न संस्कारमपेक्षते Dṛi. Ś. 49; Ś.7.23; Mu.2.1. -7 Consecration, sanctifica- tion, hallowing; संस्कारो नाम स भवति यस्मिञ्जाते पदार्थो भवति योग्यः कस्यचिदर्थस्य ŚB. on MS.3.1.3. -3 Impression, form, mould, operation, influence; यन्नवे भोजने लग्नः संस्कारो नान्यथा भवेत् H. Pr.8; Bh.3.84. -9 Idea, no- tion, conception. -1 Any faculty or capacity. -11 Effect of work, merit of action; फलानुमेयाः प्रारम्भाः संस्काराः प्राक्तना इव R.1.2. -12 The self-reproductive quality, faculty of impression; one of the 24 qualities or guṇas recognised by the Vaiśeṣikas; it is of three kinds: भावना, वेग, and स्थितिस्थापकता q .q. v. v. -13 The faculty of recollection, impression on the memory; संस्कारमात्रजन्यं ज्ञानं स्मृतिः T. S. -14 A purificatory rite, a sacred rite or ceremony; संस्कारार्थं शरीरस्य Ms.2.66; R.1.78; (Manu mentions 12 such Saṃskāras viz. 1. गर्भाधान, 2. पुंसवन, 3. सीमन्तोन्नयन, 4. जातकर्मन्, 5. नामकर्मन्, 6. निष्क्रमण, 7. अन्नप्राशन, 8. चूडाकर्मन्, 9. उपनयन, 1. केशान्त, 11. समावर्तन, and 12. विवाह; see Ms.2.26 &c.; some writers increase the number to sixteen). -15 Purifica- tion, purity. -16 A rite or ceremony in general. -17 Investiture with the sacred thread; मांसं मूत्रं पुरीषं च प्राश्य संस्कारमर्हति Mb.12.165.76. -18 Obsequial ceremonies. -19 A polishing stone; संस्कारोल्लिखितो महामणिरिव क्षीणो$पि नालक्ष्यते Ś.6.5 (where संस्कार may mean 'polishing' also). -Comp. -पूत a. 1 purified by sacred rites. -2 purified by refinement or education. -भूषणम् (speech) adorned by correctness. -रहित, -वर्जित, -हीन a. (a person of one of the three higher castes) over whom the purificatory ceremonies, particularly the thread- ceremony, have not been performed and who therefore becomes a Vrātya or outcast; cf. व्रात्य. -शब्दः a word which gains its currency owing to संस्कार; संस्कारशब्दा एते आहवनीयादयः ŚB. on MS.5.3.21. संस्कारक saṃskāraka संस्कारक a. Consecrating, purifying, refining &c. संस्कारवत्त्वम् saṃskāravattvam संस्कारवत्त्वम् Refinement, elegance (of behaviour); संस्कारवत्त्वाद्रमयत्सु चेतः Ki.17.6. (Apte lexicon)
So, while presenting an academic excursus in English and attempting to establish language hegemony, we are likely to miss an important variable called tradition, call it oriental, call it sanātana, eternal, universal?
Kalyanaraman
Language hegemony: It's shengren, stupid!
By Thorsten Pattberg
If you are an American or European, chances are you've never heard about shengren, minzhu and wenming. If one day you promote them, you might even be accused of cultural treason. That's because they are Chinese concepts.
They are often conveniently translated as "philosophers", "democracy" and "civilization". But they are none of those. They are something else. Something the West lacks. And since foreign concepts were irritating for most Westerners, they were quickly removed from the books and records in the past and, if possible, from the history of the world dominated by the West. In fact, German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel once remarked that the East plays no part in the formation of the history of thought.
But let us step back a bit. Remember what school told us about the humanities? They are not the sciences! If the humanities were science, the vocabularies of the world's languages would add up, not overlap. Does that surprise you?
There are more than 35,000 Chinese words or phrases that cannot be properly translated into the English language. Words like yin and yang, kungfu and fengshui. Add to this another 35,000 Sanskrit terminology, mainly from India. Words like buddha, bodhisattva and guru.
At a recent lecture at Peking University, renowned linguist Gu Zhengkun explained that wenming describes a high level of ethics and gentleness of a people, while the English word "civilization" derives from urban people's mastery over materials and technology.
The correct Chinese translation of civilization should be chengshi jishu zhuyi. Wenming is better, but untranslatable. It has been around for some thousand years, while Europe's notion of "civilization" is a late 18th century "invention".
Tourists and imperialists do not come to be taught. They never run out of material because it is a trick, a language trick: China indeed has no concept of "privacy" or "love". Why? Because those are Western words, steeped in Western history. On the other hand, Chinese tradition has the concepts of siren and ren'ai, which have no corresponding words in Western languages.
"Democracy" is a concept of Greek origin. The Hellenic "civilization" failed a long time ago, of course. It's gone, while China's wenming is still here, uninterrupted, after 5,000 years. "Democracy" originally had little to do with letting the mob vote, even less so for the mob to rule the country. On the contrary, it meant that various, powerful interest groups should fight over the resources, each mobilizing its supporters of influential city dwellers.
While in China we still see a family-value based social order, in the West the order is based on interest groups. You do not apply strict laws or make contracts in your family, instead you induce a moral code. Laws are needed for strangers, interest groups that fight against other interest groups and cannot be trusted like family members.
Up to the 20th century, the Europeans believed China was not a proper "civilization", because it had no police force, while China accused Europe of being without wenming, for it lacked of filial piety, tolerance, human gentleness and other human traits.
And Shengren is the ideal personality and highest member in family-based Chinese value tradition, a sage that has the highest moral standards, called de, who applies the principles of ren, yi, li, zhi and xin, and connects between all the people as if they were, metaphorically speaking, his family.
The modern Chinese word for philosopher, zhexuejia, is nowhere to be found in any of the Chinese classics. Yet the Western public is constantly told, through the highly subsidized China scholarship, that Confucius is a "philosopher" and that Confucian thought is "philosophy".
The "barbarians" always had superior weapons and technology, but, as Gu Hongming noted in 1920, lacked true humane intelligence. How's that? Well, it's a bit like Star Trek wisdom: If prehistoric humanity evolved from beasts, wouldn't the most advanced human societies be the least physically aggressive ones?
In 1697, German philosopher G.W. Leibniz famously argued that the Chinese were far more advanced in the humanities than "we are". He never specified. But, I think, it was clear when he urged Germans not to use foreign words but their own language instead (German is a compound language, so it's an infinite source) to build and enlarge the German-speaking world.
And so they did. And so the Germans rose to the top. As expected, the Germans, the descendants of the Holy Roman Empire of German Nation, called Confucius a heiliger (a saint or holy man). Now, that's convenient. But is it correct scholarship?
Since the European languages have their own histories and traditions, they cannot sufficiently render Chinese concepts. The solution, I think, would be not to translate the most important foreign concepts at all, but adopt them - so that next time, in international relations, we could discuss how we're going to improve minzhu in Europe and how we can help the United States' transition into a decent wenming.
Maybe the West just lacks shengren after all.
The author is a German scholar at the Institute of World Literature of Peking University. He is the author of The East-West Dichotomy and Shengren - Above Philosophy and Beyond Religion.
Comment(s)
imho2012-02-28 05:10
A single-sided, non neutral view. The author describes something which can be observed between all languages and cultures, it is not something special about Chinese or China.
AngryManofShandong2012-01-17 13:11
China must decide on where its priorities rest, it either promotes its own language or else abandons it and adopt more and more Western concepts. It's easy to say Confucius is a philosopher or saint but the consequences for Chinese culture are devastating because 5000 years of Chinese shengren history are erased with the stroke of a Western pen. Western people dont want us to look at our own history. They want us to learn a Western version of Chinese history. Attend any English class in the US and you will know this.
lilliput2012-01-16 17:56
the entire west is using the wrong translations, so the entire west is now eating anger and fear
every chinese knows the shengren but no american knows the shengren because they use translations that suits them
they wearing american glasses and cannot take them off
Wilkens2012-01-15 17:02
Slanted, angry gobbledegook!
The author may be knowledgeable in World Literature but fails miserably in World History.
LiZheng2011-12-02 16:10
I enjoyed the reading. I have to admit that Thorsten Pattberg understands Chinese culture more than most of the people even scholars in China, definetely more than me who have been greatly influenced by western culture. The lack of true appreciation of cultural difference is one of the major sources of misunderstanding between people from different coutnries and different cultures. Today I learnt an important message Pattberg's article on the shengren delivered with great clarity.
Leibniz2011-11-30 12:31
The author of this article, T. Pattberg, also wrote a highly underreported book called "The East-West dichotomy". That's one of the few titles every western student in China should have on her reading list.
Leibniz2011-11-30 12:26
Great article!
"There are more than 35,000 Chinese words or phrases that cannot be properly translated into the English language. Words like yin and yang, kungfu and fengshui. Add to this another 35,000 Sanskrit terminology, mainly from India. Words like buddha, bodhisattva and guru."
Different people in different times and different places, think and discover different things. That was bad news for Germany, so Leibniz and Hegel urged the Germans to use only German already established concepts and annotate them with "chinese" or "indian". This way, the world looked and felt to the Germans as if it was German. Hence the idea, that ONE civilization can replace all others and will never miss a thing.
HellO2011-11-28 09:53
'The "barbarians" always had superior weapons and technology, but, as Gu Hongming noted in 1920, lacked true humane intelligence'
in the beginning of civilization, it was gongsun xuanyuan that advanced human society from nomadic 'barbarian' ways of life, to a more developed agrarian and principled way of life that solidified the institution of marriage between man and woman. it was gongsun xuanyuan whose superior weaponry and strategy created the civilization generally know as china. china had shared technology with numerous nomadic states afterwards, such as rong, xiongnu, xianbei, mongols, etc.
gandalf2011-11-26 11:49
Don't say Leibniz didn't elaborate at all. He liked I-Ching. Isn't it romantic to have binary exactness in humanities? Also, it's good to remove certain Western illusions, such as "Gutenberg invented the printing press". But it's bad to inflate Chinese egos with their wise men of the thousand year past. Chinese started ignoring wisdom long ago. Their mandarins didn't save them. The revolutionaries did.
http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/2011-11/25/content_24002615.htm