So far I have generally avoided talking about politics on my blog because it can provide inflammatory, so I decided to start with a not very controversial issue here in the UK- Europe. Thankfully, Derrida, writing in 1991, provides a very nuanced interpretation of the continent. Though, of course, this was before Brexit. I am not sure he envisaged his commentary on Europe as tackling this issue, but more the fall of the Berlin Wall. I believe he did not think being European was something we had a choice over.
So what does it mean to be European? The first thing to note is that Europe is defined by its relationship to what is outside of it. Thus, Derrida says ‘is there then a completely new “today” of Europe beyond all the exhausted programs of Eurocentrism and anti-Eurocentrism, these exhausting yet unforgettable programs?’ Europe is not the centre of the world, yet it is also not a periphery. Identity is also formed by the other, Derrida states ‘the heading of the other being perhaps the first condition an identity or identification that is not an ego-centrism destructive of oneself and the other’. The opening up of the other must always be ‘experienced as always possible’. Thus, Europe must be open to the potential of the other, the outside.
Identity is also constituted by difference-to-oneself. Derrida writes ‘this can be said, inversely or reciprocally, of all identity or identification: there is no relation to oneself, no identification with with oneself, without culture, but a culture of oneself as a culture of the other, a culture of the double genitive and of the difference to onself.’ This makes a lot of sense for me, we can only identify ourselves as different from an identity i.e we never fulfil an identity, even our own, completely. After all, identity is something we strive towards or against (the latter potentially being bad). European identity has also ‘exhausted all the possibilities of discourse and counter-discourse about its own identification.’ Furthermore, ”identification is itself cultural and never natural.’ The latter point is essential if we are to avoid falling into essentialist ideas regarding ethnicity and other forms of identity.
So is Derrida pro-transnational and pro-EU? I believe he likely would be, with a few caveats. For example, he still sees a place for nationalism. He writes ‘nationalism and cosmopolitanism have always gotten along well together, as paradoxical as this may seem.’ And ‘I am (we are) all the more national for being European, all the more European for being trans-European and international.’ In my opinion, when Derrida calls nationalism and cosmopolitanism as mutual with each other, he must be thinking of a civic nationalism, rather than ethnic nationalism. After all, his critique of identity would be against fixed ethnic and biological ideas. The other factor to consider is what Derrida means by European- when he uses the term he is not using it to exclusively refer to the EU. What about the Eastern European countries which joined in 2004, 2007 and 2013? Is he including them? He also speaks of the Mediterranean, he says he is ‘not quite European by birth’ since he comes from French Algeria, but sees himself as an ‘over-colonised European hybrid.’ Thus, the concept of Europe is not always that quite clear, he published this work in tumultuous times and openness to the other automatically challenges the idea and boundaries of Europe, though this is not necessarily a problem.
Another point worth highlighting is that The Other Heading also features a reference to Derrida’s concept of the ‘democracy-to-come.’ Democracy is ‘not even that of a regulative idea in the Kantian sense, but rather something that remains to be thought and to come…not something that is certain to happen tomorrow, not the democracy…of the future, but a democracy that must have the structure of a promise.’ This is an interesting idea and I will be interested to learn more about it when I read Derrida’s other later works.
The final thing I want to note is the Derrida’s approach to the phenomena known as ‘public opinion’ in the final essay of The Other Heading. The concept of ‘public opinion’ proves to be something, according to Derrida, that is hard to pin down. He states ‘if it had a proper place (but that is the whole question), public opinion would be the forum for a permanent and transparent discussion. It would be opposed to non-democratic powers, but also to its own political representation. Such representation will never be adequate to it, for it breathes, deliberates and decides according to other rhythms.’ Public opinion is thus, as a concept, does not fit into categories or even established institutions easily. Furthermore, ‘public opinion is de jure neither the general will nor the nation, neither ideology, nor the sum total of private opinions.’ Again, one only has to think of how often we hear of the public’s opinion on the news, when does a collection of opinions turn into public opinion? In my opinion, this is not an easy question to answer.
This post has not meant to be a comprehensive overview of Derrida’s The Other Heading, but it has meant to raise some points of interest. I hope I have raised some interesting questions and points that arise from a reading of the work.
I have been experimenting with Gephi again, with the aim of learning how to create a dynamic network (one which evolves over time). I have decided to turn my experiences into a tutorial, as it took me a while to create one. Furthermore, as a lot of the tutorials out there require you to code, I thought it best to show how to create one only using Microsoft Excel.
The first thing you will want to do is create your database. For the data in this tutorial, I am using my old undergraduate dissertation database on Cassiodorus’ Variae, though you will likely need to collect and input your data yourself. Networks consist of nodes and edges and you will need two separate sheets or documents in Excel to show these. Below you can see my nodes table. The crucial elements are the ID and the Label, Gephi will recognise these when you import the spreadsheet, and a column called ‘timeset’. The other columns, like gender and profession, are optional, but will become attributes you can analyse them in Gephi. In the ID column, assign a number to your nodes and label them in the next column, something that will allow you to identify them will be helpful in this instance. In the timeset column, enter the dates you want the node to exist for. If you want your node to exist, say, between 492 and 526, you must enter it the exact following format.
<[492.0, 526.0]>
Repeat this for the all nodes you want to assign a date, it will probably be useful to keep a note of start and end dates as you progress with the ID and Label columns, when you initially go through your data. A quick note- the dates I have entered for this example are for the purposes of the tutorial only, they are not meant to indicate the exact date the chosen individuals were around.
Next, you may want to assign a date to the edges (the links between nodes). If so, create a separate sheet or even document for the edges table. The easiest format for Gephi to recognise is a source-target table. In its simplest form, it involves a source (the first node in a connection), a target (the other node in a connection) and a weight (a measurement of the strength of a connection). The source and target should be the IDs you assigned in the nodes table. The fourth column should be named ‘timeset’ and again include the dates of a edge in the same format used for the nodes. You may find it useful to have a ‘source label’ and ‘target label’ column on this document. While not required (I have deleted them for the image below because of this), they can help you keep track of who is connecting to who, Gephi should treat them as attributes and so it should not alter the network itself.
You will now want to import your spreadsheets into Gephi. Firstly, click on data laboratory and then import spreadsheet. A box should appear which allows you to browse your files, click on your nodes table to import it to Gephi. An ‘import settings’ window should now open. On the first screen (below) make sure the nodes sheet is selected and that you have chosen import as ‘nodes table’. Click next and a second screen should appear. The next step is crucial, where it says ‘time representation’, make you click intervals. This should cause the box under the ‘timeset’ label to say ‘intervalset’. After this you can click ‘finish.’ Then another screen should appear and you should choose to append the imported data to the existing workspace.
Repeat the steps above, except this time import your edges data. Make sure import as edges table is selected and then on the second screen make sure interval is selected again. Finally, append the table to the existing ‘workspace’.
Go on overview and you should be able to seed your graph, with the nodes connected by the edges. I would then suggest running a layout algorithm to make your graph easier to understand visually. I selected the ‘Yifan Hu’ algorithm, you can choose this by going through window and then layout and then selecting the algorithm on the drop down menu that appears to the left.
Finally, you will want to know how to enable the timeline which allows you to view how the network evolves over time. The image above clearly shows ‘enable timeline’ towards the bottom. Another way to access the timeline is to go on ‘window’ and then ‘timeline.’ A box should appear at the bottom with a draggable animation interval, use this to select how quickly you will view the network evolve.
The images below show my network evolving overtime.
I hope this tutorial has helped anyone wanting to create a dynamic graph, please let me know if you need any help or have suggestions for my instructions.
This is my fifth podcast and its accompanying script. Two notes, firstly this episode is adapted heavily from a post I wrote on my old blog. It is one of my few posts that stand up on it and so it seemed suitable for a podcast covering it. Secondly, I have decided to change the name of my podcast from the The Early Medieval Podcast to The Late Antique Podcast. The reasoning behind this being that after doing five episodes, with all of them focusing on Late Antiquity, it makes sense to fit this niche.
Podcast:
Script:
The debate surrounding the settlement of the barbarians in the Western Roman Empire is one of the most hotly contested issues of the Late Antique period. This has been particularly apparent since the publication of Walter Goffart’s 1980 book Barbarians and Romans, A.D 418-584: The Techniques of Accommodation. Before this, the consensus on the settlement of the barbarians was mainly based around the Roman quartering system of Hospitalitas. This consensus, developed from Gaupp’s 1844 work, stated that barbarians received shares of land that had been divided into three. This was an extension of a law from the Theodosian Code describing the practice of billeting Roman troops on civilian land (Hospitalitas). Consequently,this implied that the settlements involved a physical transfer of land. Goffart, starting with Ostrogothic Italy, offered a radical departure to this, suggesting that instead of receiving land barbarian settlers were given a third of the usual tax revenues, specifically put aside for them. This was based on two key terms found in Cassiodorus’ Variae. The first being illatio tertiarum, previously this had been considered as a tax paid by those who were not currently hosting a Goth. He now argued this must be understood as referring to the aforementioned diverted and general tax revenue. The second term was millenarrii which Goffart believed referred to a unit of tax assessment that funded the payments made to the Goths, before this most interpretations thought this term referred to a commander of 1000 men. Goffart was therefore arguing that barbarians were not given or rewarded with a share of land, but instead with a share of the normal tax revenues of the state.
With this podcast I hope to show that the large difference between the ‘land’ and ‘tax’ views in the debate can mainly be ascribed to the highly scant and inconclusive nature of the evidence. In essence, it is a historiographical conundrum that raises questions about how the historian should interpret and use evidence. This is not a new point, Goffart himself saw the implications of his argument for historians when he wrote ‘what is at stake in all this not one’s sympathy or antipathy towards barbarians, Germans or Goths, rather a conception of how history on the modern marvel may be legitimately be assembled and written’. However, I believe it is a seriously underdeveloped part of the discussion surrounding the settlements. Secondly, by doing this it will become clear that this debate is too centred around finding a single explanatory model for the barbarian settlement. It is often in danger of becoming mechanistic by trying to apply a single model to different geographic and political contexts. More nuanced interpretations of the barbarian settlements do exist, for example Halsall has already made the case for moving beyond the ‘land’ vs ‘tax’ debate. In fact, Goffart himself sought to address some of the issues present in his argument when he returned to the debate in 2006, for example stating that ‘land’ could have had multiple meanings. I will extend this discussion of the historiographical aspect of this debate in three sections, by focusing on successively on the settlement of the Ostrogoths, Visigoths and Burgundians in the Western Empire.
Settlement of the Ostrogoths in Italy
Goffart, when working out the technicalities of barbarian settlement, started with Ostrogothic Italy. This was because, he argued, that the evidence for this area was the most contemporary and detailed. One of his first steps was to try and demolish the evidence for a landed allotment found in Procopius’ History of the Wars. This is a key step, as if Procopius is taken at face value a ‘landed’ arrangement is shown quite clearly. Procopius states ‘by giving a third part of the land to the barbarians, and in this way gaining their allegiance more firmly, he [Odoacer] held the supreme power for nearly ten years’. This of course is referring to the predecessor in Italy to the Ostrogothic king Theodoric and a supposed grant of land. Goffart proposes a number of reasons to distrust this statement. Firstly, that Procopius was from the Eastern Roman Empire and wished to describe Odoacer as a tyrant, with him also respecting Theodoric. The handing over of lands to the barbarians of course being seen as a negative act. Secondly, he also suggests another possibility, that Procopius is criticising the Roman practice of co-operating with barbarians. These criticisms of Procopius are quite valid and even some of Goffart’s major opponents such as Sam Barnish distrust this statement as evidence of a landed settlement. Some such as Peter Heather, in an article on Gothic ideology, have suggested we should not be too quick to dismiss Procopius as a source. The debate around whether we should trust Procopius is in essence historiographical, raising the question about how much trust we should put in a source, and how literal we should take it.
Goffart then, as shown in the introduction, goes to use Cassiodorus’ Variae to develop his theory for the mechanics of barbarian settlement. Overall, his thesis is supported very well by the evidence found in these letters. Goffart’s strongest piece of evidence is perhaps Variae 2:17, in which Theodoric instructs the local authorities of Trent to cancel the taxes for land given to the Priest Butila. According to Goffart, this letter states that prior to the assignment to Butila, the land was subject to ordinary taxation, but once he received it became tax free. Now in a possession of a Goth, the tax revenue, the illatio usually set aside for the Goths, was no longer necessary. Goffart also uses Variae 5:27 to support his thesis for the settlement of Italy. Hodgkin’s translation states that it orders the captains of the thousands of the men of Picenum and Samnium, suggesting that Gothic soldiers who served in the field should not lose their reward. Goffart takes a different interpretation of this passage suggesting that the term millenae refers not to a captain of the thousands, but the collective term to which all the Goths in these provinces are referred to as part of the process of receiving an annual tax revenue. The Variae can therefore be used to support Goffart’s thesis and yet at same doing so leaves us with even more questions about how we should approach the sources for the settlement of the Goths.
Different viewpoints in the Hospitalitas debate can often hinge on an interpretation of a single term or sentence in sources such as the Variae. This of course can be problematic, should we take the meaning of the texts literal? Likewise, can a word mean something completely different in the context of another source? Furthermore, Goffart seems to place more trust in Cassiodorus than Procopius, but is his reasoning valid? As shown by Patrick Amory the Variae themself often had an ideological purpose. What I am wanting to show by raising these questions here is that the debate on barbarian settlement, as it is based on technicalities and often small pieces of evidence, acts as a focal point for discussion on how history should be carried out.
While Procopius and the Variae may be considered as direct pieces of evidence on the settlement of the Ostrogoths in Italy, there are a number of practical reasons and pieces of external evidence to suggest that a landed settlement in Italy is unlikely. If a landed assignment was made in Italy, the aristocracy would have deprived themselves of their own land and also their wealth. There is little evidence for this or any unrest and the idea that a landed allotment would have been favourable to the aristocracy if a land grant was the case does not seem reasonable. Furthermore, the fact that we can say barbarians owned land does not necessarily prove that they received it as part of a settlement agreement. Settlers could have used their income from the tax in order to buy land. This once again raises a historical issue. In the context of Italy, Goffart’s thesis seems the most practical in contrast to the greater harm a landed settlement could have caused to the aristocracy. However, these assumptions are based on the absence of evidence or pragmatism, they are speculative even if it appears there are good reasons to believe in them.. Once again, the debate over the settlement of the barbarians in the Western Roman Empire forces us to encounter questions about how we should approach evidence and whether there is room for inferences ‘around’ or ‘outside’ the sources.
Settlement of the Visigoths
Whereas, a tax based reward seems more likely for the settlement of the Ostrogoths in Italy, it is harder to prove this for the settlement of the Visigoths in Southern Gaul. Halsall suggests that the restricted reading for their settlement (and also for the Burgundians) makes Goffart’s thesis more plausible. This is where I would make a departure and suggest that the absence of evidence actually makes a landed settlement more likely. Nevertheless, I still aim to avoid a general or ‘mechanistic’ view of settlement in the Roman Empire, emphasising a landed settlement in this instance only because of the particular context of the Visigothic settlement.
One of the major sources for Visigothic settlement is the fifth-century Code of Euric, which is only accessible through the seventh-century Visigothic Code. One can immediately identify that this poses lots of problems about whether we can trust the source and it is easy to see why Goffart leaves it to after his discussion of Italy. Nevertheless, there are a number of statements here that imply a landed settlement over a tax-based solution, even if they do so in a sketchy fashion. In 1:1:17 the codedescribes the process of returning land to Romans from which they had been deprived, this seems to imply physical ownership rather than a unit of tax assessment. 10:1:8-9 presumes that disputes would arise over land ownership, but there is an absence of any specific references to differences between Romans and barbarians. 8:5:5 refers to the fact that travellers may have used land that has not been closed in and could be making a reference to the Roman system of hospitalitas. The Code of Euric and the Visigothic Code are therefore highly problematic when it comes to discussing the settlement of the Visigoths in Gaul, even if there are hints at a landed settlement. With the evidence being so scarce, we are forced to ask if the external context and evidence can be used to try and understand the mechanics of barbarian settlement.
Perhaps, the most convincing reason to believe that a landed settlement would have been likely in Gaul is because the disadvantages of doing so would not have been as prominent, in comparison to Italy. Most historians agree that the area the Visigoths settled in was experiencing some sort of crisis. Kulikowksi suggests the settlement of the Visigoths in in Aquitania II meant that the areas that had recently supported usurpation were flanked by the Imperial capital, Arles and the Goths. Burns suggests the settlement must be understood in the context of Constantius trying to stabilise Gaul and Spain. The use of combined Roman and Gothic garrisons in the latter proved to be a bad idea, so the Visigoths, according to Burns, were settled back in Southern Gaul. Nixon has also used a range of literary sources to show the turmoil present in this area at the time. Therefore, while historians do not agree on what exactly happened, it is clear that Gaul during the period of Visigothic settlement was experiencing some sort of political crisis. A landed settlement of the Visigoths in Southern Gaul therefore makes sense as a means of trying to bring the area back into the fold of the Imperial administration. This was perhaps short-sighted, for example the Visigothic King Theodoric II would later support Avitus in his bid to become emperor. Nevertheless, a landed and physical settlement might have been seen as a politically viable move at the time to recover a ‘lost’ territory.
This of course once again raises the question of whether we should use indirect evidence- that which does not mention the terms or mechanics of barbarian settlement specifically- to help solve our historical conundrum. As we can see very different conclusions can be made from this sort of evidence when we compare the settlement of Gaul to the settlement of Italy. This problem is made more difficult by the number of references in Gallic sources of the period that could be used to imply a landed settlement, such as those in the works of Sidonius Apollinaris and the Gallic Chronicle of 452. We must be careful when using these as they usually detail individual disturbances or settlements. All this forces to ask whether it is possible and to collate fragmentary and ambiguous pieces of evidence to create a wider narrative about the barbarian settlements. As can be seen much of this will come to down to how the individual historian decides to approach the question of settlement and their choice of what is and what is not worthy evidence. Perhaps, what we can learn from all this historiographical pondering is that discussing the settlement of the barbarians does not have an easy answer and that trying to apply a mechanistic solution risks being overly simplistic.
Settlement of the Burgundians
The settlement of the Burgundians in the Western Empire equally raises many questions about how should approach the Hospitalitas Debate. Once again here, like the settlement of the Visigoths, the evidence is once again sketchy. The main source for a landed settlement in this instance comes from the Burgundian Code, in particularly titles 54 and 55 which belong to the Liber Consitutionum of 417. Much like the evidence from the Visigothic code, some of the titles imply a landed settlement quite heavily. Title 54 states ‘It was commanded at the time that the order was issued whereby our people should receive one-third of the slaves, and two thirds of the land’. The use of slaves concurrently suggests the reference to land in this instance could imply physical ownership. It is difficult to identify the idea of a tax revenue instead of land here, when there is also a clause containing information on a ‘physical property’ such as a slave. In title 54 there is also a reference to barbarians and ‘which hospitality assigned him’. This is using the language of hospitalitas, which is mostly not present in the evidence found in Cassiodorus’ Variae. Similarly, this clause also states that land should not be taken contrary to the ‘gift’. The language used here suggests it was a ‘one-off’ gift and it is difficult to suggest that this could mean a permanent tax revenue.
Title 55 also mentions the law of hospitality. Which once again raises the question of whether this should be interpreted as meaning temporary or permanent settlement. Perhaps, one of the strongest indicators of some sort of land based arrangement comes with the statement ‘let the guests of the contestants not be involved in the quarrel’. Once again it is difficult to see how this language of guests or hospitality could be interpreted meaning as something other than a land settlement. However, there is not much to go on within the code to show if this is arrangement permanent or temporary. We are also faced with another dilemma, can we put trust in the source that what it is saying is accurate? Like the Visigothic code titles 54 and 55 of the Burgundian text survive in much later copies. At the same time it provides some of the most detailed evidence on the process of settlement for the Burgundians. This of course, once again shows, how the debate surrounding barbarian settlement brings is ultimately of historiographical concern, ultimately about how one should approach the evidence that is available.
A number of writers and chroniclers also point towards the possibility of a landed settlement. Propsper of Aquitaine and Hydatius describe the handing over of land. Wheareas, The Gallic Chronicle of 452 describes how Sapaudia was given to the remnants of the Burgundians , who had been defeated by Aetius, to be divided with the native inhabitants. Wood has highlighted a number of problems with this source, for example its chronology is misplaced and the exact location of Sapaudia is unknown. Therefore, much like with the Visigothic settlement of Gaul evidence external to the law codes is fragmentary and is difficult to use when trying to discuss the settlement of the Burgundians. However, we should be careful in making direct analogies between these two settlements, despite the evidence initially appearing quite similar and with it leaning towards the ‘land’ side of the Hospitalitas debate.The evidence found in the Burgundian Code is quite different to that found the Visigothic Code, titles 54 and 55 more directly refer to the settlement of the Burgundians, whereas the Visigothic Code tends to only refer to the process of settlement by implication. The point of course here is that we should be careful when approaching evidence and trying to find an easy ‘fit-all’ solution to barbarian settlement.
Conclusion
This podcast has not necessarily tried to solve any of the problems regarding the settlement of the barbarians in the Western Roman Empire, but it has tried to show how the debate has a historiographical aspect. It forces the historian to question how they approach and how they should use the sources at their disposal, as vastly different interpretations have derived from a limited base of evidence, due to the different ways it has been approached. Secondly, it has shown that because of these varied problems it would be wrong to develop a ‘copy and paste’ mechanism in trying to understand the settlement of the barbarians. We cannot simply create a general explanation for barbarian settlement with the evidence available and so focusing on the individual contexts of the Ostrogothic, Visigothic and Burgundian accommodations is not only a necessity, but also good historical practice.
Bibliography
Primary Sources:
Cassiodorus, Variae translated in The Letters of Cassiodorus: Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator translated by Thomas Hodgkin. London: Henry Frowde, 1886.
Chronica Gallica of 452 in From Roman to Merovingian Gaul: A Reader translated by Alexander C. Murray. Letchworth: Broadview Press, 2000.
Lex Burgundionum in The Burgundian Code: Book of Constitutions or Law of Gundobad Additional Enactments translated by Katherine F. Drew. Philadelphia: University of Pennysylvania Press, 1972.
Lex Visigothorum in The Visigothic Code translated by Samuel P. Scott. Boston: The Boston Book Company, 1910.
Amory, Patrick. People and Identity in Ostrogothic Italy, 489-554. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Barnish, Sam. J. B. “Taxation, Land and Barbarian Settlement in the Western Empire.” Papers of the British School at Rome 54 (1986): 170-95.
Burns, Thomas S. “The Settlement of 418.” In Fifth-century Gaul: A Crisis of Identity?, edited by John Drinkwater and Hugh Elton, 53-63. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Goffart, Walter. Barbarian TidesThe Migration Age and the Later Roman Empire. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006.
Goffart, Walter A. Barbarians and Romans, A.D. 418-584 : The Techniques of Accommodation. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980.
Halsall, Guy. “The Technique of Barbarian Settlement in the Fifth Century: A Reply to Walter Goffart.” Journal of Late Antiquity 3, no. 1 (2010).
Halsall, Guy. Barbarian Migrations and The Roman West, 376-568. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Heather, Peter. “Merely an Ideology? Gothic Identity in Ostrogothic Italy.” In The Ostrogoths from the Migration Period to the Sixth Century: An Ethnographic Perspective, edited by Sam Barnish and Federico Marazzi, 31-80. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 2007.
Kulikowski, Michael. “The Visigothic Settlement in Aquitania: The Imperial Perspective.” In Society and Culture in Late Antique Gaul: Revisiting the Sources, edited by Raplh W. Mathisen and Danuta Shanzer, 26-38. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001.
Nixon, Charles E.V. “Relations between Visigoths and Romans in Fifth-century Gaul.” In Fifth-century Gaul: A Crisis of Identity?, edited by John Drinkwater and Hugh Elton, 64-74. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Wood, Ian. “Ethnicity and the Ethnogenesis of the Burgundians.” In Typen der Ethnogenese unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Bayern : Teil 1 : Berichte des Symposions der Kommission für Frühmittelalterforschung, 27. bis 30. Oktober 1986, Stift Zwettl, Niederösterreich, edited by Walter Pohl and Herwig Wolfram, 53-70, 1986.
———. “The Barbarian Invasions and First Settlements.” edited by Averil Cameron and Peter Garnsey, 516-37. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
As readers of my blog will know, I have sometimes engaged with philosophy with the purpose of establishing a personal worldview or belief system. For example, I have talked about the interrelationship of postmodernismand Christianity or examined Stoicism and Epicureanism.Yet,my encounter with Daoism, a Chinese philosophy/religion, has forced me to rethink my beliefs again. What I find compelling about Daoism is that it does not seem to contradict with my other worldviews. For example, I can still be a postmodernist and theist and still appreciate large parts of its philosophy. In this post, I want to describe my experience of reading two key texts of Daoism, the Dao De Ching and Zhuangziand discuss which parts of them I find compelling or at least intriguing even if I might not necessarily always agree with them.
The first thing to say is that both of the editors of the two texts I read do not believe that Lao Tzu (The Dao De Ching’s traditional author) and Zhuangzi (who gives his name to the Zhuangzi) are the authors of the texts traditionally assigned to them. Instead, they believe that the texts are collations of ‘sayings’ and ‘parables’ from early Daoist belief. Understanding this is pivotal when trying to explain some of the internal contradictions of the Dao De Ching and Zhuangzi, different parts may be from different sources. Secondly, I want to highlight unlike some philosophies I have commented on in the past, Daoism is still widely practiced in China and is done so in elaborate and diverse fashions. Admittedly, Stoicism is quite popular these days (sometimes not in a good way), yet I do not think many adhere to Stoic logic or physics, instead the focus seems to be on ethics. In my opinion, Daoism not only offers an ethics, but also a metaphysics that is acceptable to a postmodern mind.
Central to both texts is the Dao, or alternatively the ‘way’ or ‘course’ (as my editions named them). The Dao De Ching describes it as ‘the way that can be spoken of is not the constant way; the name that can be named is not the constant name’ Thus an integral part of the Dao is that words are not suitable to define it. Meanwhile, the Zhuangzi says ‘the greatest Course is thus always unproclaimed. Greatest argument is that which uses no words.’ The Dao is also something that you can go along with (i.e it flows and you can go along with it). It is a certain path of going along with the universe’s flow. The Zhuangzi states ‘all-embracing and nonpartisan, unstrained and unbiased, unhesitating but without any fixed direction, going forth to things without secondary considerations, ignoring all calculations, uninvolved in any schemes of knowledge, choicelessly moving along with things: these were aspects of the ancient art of the Course.’ The Dao is also metaphysical and not just ethical, it is ‘what is most unbiased among all doings’ and is a ‘nickname for the vastness involved’. Meanwhile, while describing what it actually is, the Zhuangzi states ‘the Course cannot be heard, whatever is heard is not it. The Course cannot be seen; what is seen is not. The Course cannot be spoken, whatever is spoken is not it. Know that what forms forms has no form. The Course corresponds to name.’ The course is therefore defined by how it cannot be defined and how it cannot be sensed. Secondly, it is forms the form of things, but has no form in itself. In my opinion, this as a metaphysics is quite compelling, it would make sense that which sustains the universe is too complex, too subtle, too elaborate to be stably put in a box of definitions.
The Dao is therefore metaphysical and ethical at the same time- it is my belief that these two philosophical fields should always be considered alongside each other. I will, at some point, upload an essay on the School of Chartres, in which I tried to unite these fields under the banner of craft (which was often used as a literary topoi). But a belief that the Dao is both metaphysical and ethical is crucial for understanding it.
The metaphysics of Daoism and the Dao, requires one further elaboration. The Dao is always transforming, thus everything in the world is also always changing. Rather than focusing on stable concrete forms or ideas (the latter in the Platonic sense), the world is an everchanging process. Confucius (who is interestingly quoted a lot in the Zhuangzi, despite being the founder of Confucianism) says in one section that ‘On and on go the transformations of all the ten thousands things.’ Meanwhile, ‘things do not remain positioned in any one fixed form. The years cannot be held on to, time cannot be stopped; waxing and waning, filling and emptying, each end is succeeded by a new beginning.’ I find this metaphysics very appealing and it suits my postmodernism. Rather than focusing on stable identities, Daoism holds that everything is changing. In the Zhuangzi, we learn death itself is just a transformation and that individuals do not have a fixed identity. This seems to fit with my belief that the identities are fluid and dynamic and to see this applied to metaphysics as well is thought-provoking, it reminds me of my brief encounter with Process philosophy..
What other features of Daoism are appealing to my postmodernism? It has to be how binaries are dealt with. It is true, that they are not simply demolished, but both sides of them are shown to have a subtle interaction. Apparently, ‘ying and yang shine on one another, injure one another, heal one another’. A further example is that ‘safety and danger replace one another, disaster and prosperity give birth to one another, leisure and hurry grind against one another.’ The interaction between different parts of these binaries is intriguing. In another example, the Zhuangzi states ‘ the bright is born from the dark.’ Thus, rather than organising their world around strict boundaries, it seems to be that Daoism believes in interaction between pairs of oppositions. The Zhuangzi states ‘all things are also free of formation and destruction, for these also open into one another, connecting them to form a oneness. It is only someone who really gets all the way through them who can see how the two sides open into one another, connecting them to form a oneness.’ It is clear the parts of binaries are open to each other and join to form a oneness.
So far I have discussed the metaphysics of the Dao and the interaction implicit in binaries, now I want to focus on the ethics of the Dao De Ching and Zhuangzi. Overall, it reminds me of Stoicism and Epicureanism in respect to focusing what is in your control and what is outside of your control. The Dao De Ching comments ‘the sage desires not to desire. And does not value goods which are hard to come by.’ Yet, paradoxically when considered alongside the transformation of all things, the Dao De Ching also suggests ;’what is firmly rooted cannot be pulled out; what is tightly held in the arms will not slip lose.’ Steadiness is still required, even if there are constant transformations. The Zhuangzi reinforces the emphasis on focusing on what is in your control, it states ‘if you’re following a course, it’s better not to mix anything extraneous into it.’ and ‘only a true virtuoso can remain untroubled whether he succeeds or fails.’
This is not the only ethical aspect of Daoist thought, it also argues for the importance of non-action. The Dao De Ching writes ‘the teaching that uses no words, the benefits of resorting to no action, these are beyond the understanding of all This is not the only ethical aspect of Daoist thought, it also argues for the importance of non-action.. The Dao De Ching writes ‘the teaching that uses no words, the benefits of resorting to no action, these are beyond the understanding of all but a very few in the world.’ The Zhuangzi links non-doing to transformation, it comments ‘stay in the state of non-doing and all things will transform themselves.’ Admittedly, I thought this sounded quite fatalistic, but it is important to recognise that non-doing is a way of overcoming what is thrown at you, it is a practice. The Dao De Ching states ‘the most submissive thing in the world can ride roughshod over, the hardest in the world.’ Non-doing is therefore a way of going along with the Dao and thereby overcoming any blockages.
The final thing I want to highlight is Daoism’s political dimension, in particular it seems to have an anarchic or primitivist train of thought. The Dao De Ching argues ‘the people are hungry. It is because those in authority eat up too much in taxes that the people are hungry. The people are difficult to govern: it is because those in authority are too fond of action.’ Meanwhile, it also comments ‘reduce the size and population of the state.’ The Zhuangzi suggests the ruler of Wei makes ‘frivolous use of the his state without seeing his error.’ It is interesting to see this proto-anarchism, if it can be called that, my feeling is that the Daoists are in favour of it because of the desire to to go along with the Dao rather than the state, which they may consider as unnatural.
Overall, there are lots aspects of Daoism to admire, even if I do not agree with them all. I hope this post has summarised the main points of the Zhuangzi and Dao De Ching which I found interesting. Overall, it is a philosophy and religion that makes you think a lot- and that is not necessarily a bad thing. I would certainly read more about Daoism.
Philosophical Ostrogoth 