Body, Energy, Culture – Culture is Body

In the spring of 2022, when it was warm and cold, the epidemic situation appeared "cold in the spring", and East China Normal University also entered a difficult moment of fighting the epidemic together. Professor Wang Feng of the School of Communication of East China Normal University took the lead and launched the online reading activity of "Reading and Dispersing epidemics, Loving in China Normal University" jointly organized by nine faculties and departments. Every day at noon and half an hour, a good book is read by teachers from different departments. Let the fragrance of books warm the lonely and isolated body, and let the calm breath soothe the anxious and restless mind. On March 21, Liu Liangjian (Department of Philosophy, East China Normal University) and Yu Zhe (School of Marxism, Donghua University) held a talk about dramatist Tadashi Suzuki's "Culture is the Body" and invited Li Xu (Zhejiang Academy of Social Sciences) to share their experiences. Less than half an hour after the end of the online reading activity, the interlocutor unexpectedly received a transcript from Ding Hongran, a doctoral student in the Department of Philosophy of East China Normal University. This ignited a passion to continue thinking. The following text is the product of a further written dialogue with the interviewer on the basis of the transcript. Without speculating on the ugliness, from the reader, the main thing is that "Culture is the Body" is worth reading: body, energy, culture, modernity, human condition... The artistic notes of a dramatist, the philosophical examination of a thinker, lead us to think about the nature of drama and the situation of human existence.

Meet "Culture is the Body"

Liu Liangjian (hereinafter referred to as "Liu"): Good afternoon, teachers and friends. Today, I will talk about the book of dramatist Tadaoshi Suzuki, "Culture is the Body" (translated by Li Jiqing, Shanghai: Shanghai Translation Publishing House, 2019).

My main business is chinese philosophy, so why would I think of reading such a book about drama? It's a long story. The Department of Philosophy of East China Normal University has always been concerned with philosophy education, and there is a philosophical drama project, which is organized by Teacher Wu Juan. He Yuyang, who was in charge of the project, and other students brought philosophical drama to the middle school classroom. In 2021, the Department of Philosophy and the Philosophy Education And Training Center of the China Academy of Wisdom, the Zizhu Campus of the Second Affiliated Middle School of East China Normal University and the Affiliated Junior High School joined hands with the West Bund Art Museum to jointly launch the "Thinking Together in Drama: Youth Philosophical Drama Series Activities". I also participated in this event, where Professor Peng Yongwen of the West Bund and Shanghai Theater Academy spoke about "Philosophy, Drama and Education". Later, Mr. Wu Chen'an of the West Bund Art Museum said that they were preparing to build a "bookshelf" plan and asked me to recommend a book. At that time, he recommended Tadashi Suzuki's book. Its editor is Xiao Haiou of Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House, and I am also a friend of Teacher Yu Zhe. My testimonial reads: "Noh drama, energy, physical organic energy, culture, reflection on modernity... The artistic notes of a dramatist, the philosophical examination of a thinker, lead us to think about the nature of drama and the situation of human existence. "Energy, body, culture, modernity, the human condition, these are the key words I feel when I read Suzuki's book. Perhaps "drama energy" can also be added: the essence of drama is "energy", which overflows in the script and the theater, but at the same time overflows the script and overflows the theater. I forget where this concept came from.

This time, professor Wang Feng, the initiator of the online reading activity of "Reading and Dispersing the Epidemic, Loving the Chinese Normal University", asked me what books I read. At that time, he was working on a new course on "philosophical drama creation", and "Culture is the Body" was just in hand, so he decided to read the book. Reading this book, I naturally thought of inviting Teacher Yu Zhe to talk with her, because she has rich experience in watching live dramas and is also familiar with the history and theory of Western drama. She also taught a course on "Ancient Greek Tragedies" at Donghua University.

Yu Zhe (hereinafter referred to as "Yu"): Good afternoon, teachers and friends. It's a pleasure to meet you all in the clouds and read books online. Suzuki Tadashi Theater Troupe came to Shanghai in 2018 to perform "Trojan Woman", I went to see it, and I felt quite deeply. On the one hand, I really admire the actors' physical control ability, and on the other hand, they are not very receptive to his treatment of the ending - softening Euripides. Frankly, "Culture is the Body" is nothing particularly new in art and intellectual exploration that inspires me, but I read about an admirable theater man who really strives to think and do. Moreover, this book touches on a wide range of topics such as drama, traditional culture, and modern life, and it is good as an entry point for discussion. This is also a way of reading books. Teacher Liu made a serious explanation, and I will add some flowers according to my experience in watching the performance and what I have read and know, and try my best to make these 30 minutes more interesting.

"Culture is the body", civilization and culture

Liu: This view of Teacher Yu Zhe shows the characteristics of critical thinking in philosophy. (Laughs) Let's start with the title of the book. If you understand the title, you may also understand the basic point of the book. Professor Gu Yi'an of the Shanghai Theater Academy distinguishes the nuances between the original Japanese title "Culture is the Body" and the English translation of "culture is the body" and the Chinese translation of "culture is the body" in the book "Culture is the Body". The English and Chinese translations sound like emphasizing the equivalence of body and culture, which is a relatively strong assertion. In contrast, the original Japanese expression is more elaborate. "Culture(ぶんか)は身(からだ)にある", literally means "culture exists in the body". Culture and body, one virtual and one real, one is spiritual content, and the other is a material carrier. The English and Chinese translations equate culture with the body, which emphasizes the importance of the body, but it is still different from "culture は身にぁる".

From these comparisons, we come to a fundamental question: Why is the body so important to culture? As I understand it, this can be seen from the perspective of reflection on modernity. Suzuki distinguishes between "civilization" and "culture", arguing that a crux of modernity is the development of civilization and the decline of culture. Thus, we have the mission of revitalizing culture, and the revitalization of culture requires us to rediscover and activate the original power of the body. "It seems to me that in a cultured society, people's ability to perceive and express themselves is cultivated in the process of using the innate animal energy that is inherently innate," Suzuki said. In the relationships between people and people, and in the communities that people make up, this animal energy promotes the sense of security and trust needed for normal communication. A society that uses animal-based energy is fundamentally different from a society sustained by non-animal-based energy sources such as electricity, oil, and nuclear energy, in terms of personality characteristics. Most people would argue without thinking that a society that relies on non-animal energy is necessarily more civilized. For me, however, a civilized society is not necessarily a cultural society. (Culture is the Body, p. 77; page numbers are given in this book below)

Yu: I would like to provide some directions for the exploration of body performing arts that are not the same as Suzuki's "animality" and "non-animality" in modern and contemporary dance. A few years ago, there was a movie called "La Danseuse" about the American dancer Loie Fuller. Fuller performed in Paris at the end of the nineteenth century, using brilliant lights to create a spectacle of the body, and it was the use of "non-animal energy" to achieve a new body display. For example, Merce Cunningham, who became active in the middle of the last century, choreographed by random lottery, deliberately breaking the coordination and coherence of body movements, and developing new body dynamics. Cunningham also did TV dance programs in his later years. Today's extreme practitioners of embracing technology are probably the Australian artist Stelarc, who installs a third arm for himself, performs with remote control technology, and so on, of course, many of his performances can no longer be considered dance. These are all rebellions or transcendences to "animal energy" that may help us see the body from more perspectives.

Too many people have said about the relationship between civilization and culture, and I find Terry Eagleton's statement in On Culture quite interesting: "Culture will bite the hand that fed it with vengeance"—that is, civilization. Simply put, culture is conceived by civilization and can question civilization. The relationship between the two is complex. In addition, today's culture does not necessarily decline, or we have to distinguish what culture and which aspects of culture have declined.

Liu: Speaking of the relationship between civilization and culture, I think of the "Clash of Civilizations" read at noon yesterday. Huntington basically distinguishes between "culture" and "civilization" in the sense of the size of the border. He would say that culture is small and large, and the biggest border is civilization. We have the "campus culture of Hua Normal University"; the scope is larger, we have the "Shanghai school culture"; and so on, and finally there is "Chinese civilization". But Huntington's distinction between "culture" and "civilization" doesn't seem to be as strict. For example, he says, "the coexistence of cultures requires seeking common ground among most civilizations, rather than promoting the universal character of a hypothetical civilization." In a multi-civilizational world, the constructive path is to reject universalism, embrace diversity and seek commonality. (Huntington: The Clash of Civilizations and the Reconstruction of World Order, translated by Zhou Qi et al., Xinhua Publishing House, 1996, p. 369) In the case of Chinese scholars, Qian Mu used "civilization" to represent the material aspect and "culture" to represent the spiritual aspect in "Introduction to Chinese Cultural History". And Hu Shi and Liang Shuming's understanding is different. Roughly speaking, there are many uses of "civilization" and "culture", and different users have different understandings, and also try to express something through specific instructions about the distinction between the two.

Regarding the body and "animal sexual energy", Suzuki may want to emphasize the primordial sexual power of the body. The atrophy of the natural body, and even de-physicalization, is not difficult for us to feel in our daily life at present. Is the car an extension of the foot, or does it cause the foot to shrink? Through the remote communication of the network (and the emerging metaverse), is it free from the shackles of the heavy flesh, or does it create the lack of physical absence? Culture is the Body, an introduction to Kameron H. Steele, about "global atrophy": "The gradual disconnection of people's bodies from everyday life may be the reason why modern society has been intensifying the consequences over the process." ...... Many of Suzuki's philosophies are reflections on this de-physical condition of human beings. In his view, the emergence of this situation has directly led to the almost complete dependence of contemporary civilization on non-animal energy sources. Since the 1960s, he has foreseen how modern technology will gradually dilute our individual selves and group identities. He has long foreseen that under the influence of network intelligence technology, today we are poor in body, sound and language expression. In fact, we are witnessing the shift of human communication from physical, biological, to virtual electronic patterns. ...... As the world becomes increasingly passive, numb, disconnected from its own body under the influence of virtual media, and behaves more predictably, the possibility of abuse of power by those in power — those who create this new system of communication and the world order that comes with it — is exponentially proliferating. (p. 8)

Suzuki emphasizes "animal energy" and believes that its strength and weakness are positively related to the rise and fall of culture. This reminds me of the debate between the literary and wild debates discussed in traditional Chinese philosophy. For example, "Zhuangzi Getaway" tells a story: "The Song people are rich and suitable for the Yue, and the Yue people cut off their hair and tattoos, and they are useless." "Zhangfu" is a hat that represents culture; "haircut tattoo" represents the natural state of "wild". "Uselessness" seems to mean that culture is useless in relation to the authentic state of nature.

In the study of Chinese philosophy in recent years, the aspects of the body have slowly emerged. For example, the study of the phenomenology of the body and the study of the theory of work have shown such a tendency. When I read "Culture is the Body" before, I had a simple exchange with Li Xu brother of the Zhejiang Academy of Social Sciences through WeChat. At that time, he said a very interesting sentence: "There is a clean kun in the body, and if you go to the body, you will destroy it." "Brother Li Xu is also online today, so we asked him to share his thoughts with us.

Body, energy

Li Xu: Brother Liang Jian! Yu Zhe is good! Hello everyone! Today, when it comes to the body, I will turn on the camera as well.

The phrase "there is a dry kun in the body" was also said at the time, and I did not think about this problem particularly systematically. Although there is no systematic thinking about our survival and the physicality of our lives, I have always paid more attention to it. Let's talk about a few personal physical experiences.

One is a bit nostalgic for the time of ballroom dancing at East China Normal University. Ballroom dancing is a particularly physical and mentally integrated way of interacting. Today's young people don't use this way to socialize and have fun. I think it is a pity that the decline of ballroom dancing, the development of online communication has made the physical communication have a tendency to degenerate.

The other is that in recent years I have begun to develop the habit of taking notes with a soft pen (brush). Brush writing has a special pleasure. What does this fun come from? The most critical point is that it is not easy to feel tired when writing with a brush, because there is a strong and soft interweaving inside the brush. Soft pens are not just soft, you can use soft pens to be tough. The same is true of the body, which can be both strong and soft. This is the basic feature of the body. We write with a brush and feel the unity of the body and the tools.

We talk about culture and civilization, and the ancients talked about "the mixed words of things." The most basic intermingling and interlacing is the interlacing of yin and yang, rigidity and softness, and our body is the energy field of rigidity and softness. The energy field of our body cannot be understood only from the perspective of rigid, masculine power, but also includes this side of the "kun" that is perceived, felt, and accepted. Aristotle speaks of "dynamis", but also of the potential of mobilization and the potential of being motivated, which are equivalent to the Qianhekun of our Zhou Yi. To borrow the words of the Great Confucian King Chuanshan during the Ming and Qing dynasties, our bodies themselves are "clean and built". This can be fully demonstrated in dance and calligraphy activities.

The "Genealogical Biography" says that Fu Xi began to make gossip "taking things from afar and taking all bodies from near", although the yin and yang of Qiankun are all over the heavens and the earth, but our understanding of Qiankun is first of all concrete. "Qiandao becomes a man, Kun dao becomes a woman", male and female couples are the closest experiences to understand Qiankun. There are also images such as "Qian as the head and Kun as the abdomen" in the "Tale of the Gua Gua". It is prepared for our bodies, which is commonly known as the "small universe". Our basic experience of understanding this is the "rigidity and softness" of the body, the elasticity of physical and mental activity, and if we leave the elasticity of the body, then our experience of Qiankun will become very external.

The pandemic has made our current interactions more and more frequent use of online tools, which has challenged the physical presence of our social life. Of course, online communication gives us convenience and freedom, which everyone can be aware of. Online communication is also missing, and the integrity of offline communication is also missing, and everyone can feel it. What is missing? I think the main thing is the "Kun" side, the perceptual, soft side. Today's popular word "tearing each other", the circle of friends, WeChat group in the various opposing positions are easy to "tear each other", I think an important reason is that each other can not see each other's "face", do not take much care of "face", will not "observe the color", we found that in the various debates on the Internet, even good friends for many years may disagree with each other and "tear each other" and "cut the table". Compared with face-to-face communication, online communication is more difficult to form a "decent" etiquette, and there are kun and dry and straight in the ceremony. Our embodied interactions are the vehicles of the "game" in which etiquette works. If the body is absent, Li Le may also be "mao will be attached". Of course, our online interactions are not completely absent, such as video conversations and meetings. During the epidemic period, there have been fewer mutual visits between national leaders and more video conferences. With the tools of telephone and text communication, why do you have to video? It's about creating a sense of presence that is physically engaging.

I didn't read the book "Culture is the Body", Liang Jian and Yu Zhe talked about drama and dance, and I think art is indeed the best example of cultural embodiment. By the way, when we say "culture" now, we may correspond more to the culture of Western languages than to the "culture of literature" spoken of by the ancients. The literal word "Culture" corresponds to the etymology of our "art", which originally means planting and cultivating. "Culture" is the self-cultivation, reproduction, and self-cultivation of our human life, which is the "art" of life. The roots and soil that are planted and cultivated are our body and mind, our embodied life. The creation, dissemination and prosperity of culture are rooted in the "dryness" of our bodies, the spontaneous creativity and perception of our bodies and minds. Embodied in artistic activities and works of art, culture is our second body, and the body is the primary productive force of culture. In the era of digital survival, I feel that we must cherish the "primary productive force" of this culture, and create, beautify and improve our culture and complete life.

Yu: Regarding ballroom dance, I see that the Shanghai ballroom ballroom is still quite popular - it is full of middle-aged and elderly people. My generation compares the life experience of that year with the present, and I rather doubt that today's young people also value face-to-face interaction and the like. In the book, Suzuki talks about how the modernization of the house has affected the physical feelings of the Japanese people, and does the new generation have the need to experience the old feelings of the old way of life?

Liu: "Zhou Yi" said: "Rigidity and softness are intertwined, and astronomy is also; civilization ends, and humanities are also." Look at astronomy to detect the changes of time, and look at humanities to transform into the world. ”

Brother Li Xu cuts from the brush writing, and his experience of the body has a strong Chinese cultural color. Similarly, Suzuki's understanding of the body is clearly steeped in Japanese culture. "Culture is the Body" has a section dedicated to "the grammar of the foot", which makes a very wonderful phenomenological investigation of the "foot". This section and many places throughout the book pay special attention to the relationship between traditional Japanese noh drama and body energy. For example, Suzuki argues that "Noh is permeated with a spirit created purely with human skill and mind" (p. 78); in Noh, "spiritual perception and ambition, like dance, are realized through the body" (p. 59); and that the ultimate goal of Noh performance is to "create something impossible in everyday life—a fictional experience in which the actor's physical energy engages the audience" (p. 60).

Yu: Regarding Noh, I've skimmed through some books written by Kyogen. As I understand it, Noh is a "type" (kata) performance, which is quite similar to our traditional operas such as Peking Opera Kunqu Opera. At the age of four or five, the berserk master learned to play, his hand was raised high and his father hit down, and his father was raised low to beat upwards, and after years of boredom and helplessness, he formed a physical memory. How many people, what kind of attainments have been achieved, and how much of a trained body can communicate with the spirit? Suzuki emphasizes the body, ultimately highlighting the spirituality of the body. This is also worth noting.

We can indeed clearly see the emphasis on the body from the traditional performance culture, but modern and contemporary theaters are not necessarily non-emphasizing the body, but the direction has changed, such as defamiliarizing the body, creating a sense of sculpture, showing the pain of the body... Of course, the ritual sense of performance is almost gone, which is clearly stated in Benjamin's "Works of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction", and the spiritual rhyme or light rhyme associated with worship is gone.

In addition, Suzuki is a theater person, and we are a performer, and we may think about the difference between the physical feelings of the performer and the performer. I once consulted a theater friend about masked performances, and she said that one of the special features of this kind of performance is that the co-performers who wear masks have limited vision and can't see the sides. This kind of experience cannot be obtained unless it is put into practice. In addition, I don't know if you have such a feeling, when we watch performances in theaters and concert halls, our bodies are rarely mobilized (some so-called immersive performances or some transfers). The only time I was extremely aware of my body when I watched the performance was when I listened to a false tenor solo: I was acutely aware that I was breathing, and this breath disturbed me to listen to the beautiful aria with all my might. I believe that everyone will involuntarily jump and jump and scream at the concert site, and watching sports competitions is similar. Why is it that our bodies are not easily mobilized when we watch the show? On the one hand, according to Brecht's theory, good drama makes us think half in the play and half outside the play; on the other hand, Pascal once said that drama is the most dangerous entertainment, because it mobilizes all the senses of the person into it, and threatens man's contemplation.

We have about the same time with us today. Finally, I conclude with a dedication from World Theatre Day 2018 (27 March): "Today, the speed of information is more important than knowledge, slogans are more valuable than words, and images of corpses are more revered than real human bodies." Drama here reminds us that we are flesh and blood, and that our bodies have weight. It awakens all our senses here, telling us that we don't need to just use our sight to capture and consume. ”

Liu: The Analects says that "poetry can flourish." This "Xing" is Xingfa. "Poetry" can be revived, and dialogue can also be flourished. For today's conversation, I did my homework with Mr. Yu Zhe in advance, and there was a certain script. However, in the process of living dialogue, the interlocutor is always carried away by the dialogue itself, and the random ideas are staggered, and from time to time deviate from the predetermined route of the script. Does the body have weight, does it mean that the body is a heavy burden that we need to get rid of, or does it mean that the body is something that makes us feel solid? I hope that in the near future, when the epidemic dissipates, we can meet offline and communicate this issue face-to-face. Today our online reading activity will end here. Thank you.

Yu: Are we going to give a round of applause? Because it's about the body. [Laughs]

Liu: According to the German practice, it is to knock on the table. Clapping and tapping the table are all physical acts of summoning energy. [Laughs]