From the Aesthetics of Ecological Existentialism to the Aesthetics of Creating Life: On Zeng Fanren’s View of Ecological Aesthetics

Ecological aesthetics arose in the process of the transition from industrial civilization to ecological civilization at the turn of the century. It is both an eye-catching socio-cultural phenomenon, taken in as an intellectual resource into the social practice of civilizational transformation, and an important event in the field of academic research; taking ecological aesthetics as the focus and breakthrough of theoretical research, it powerfully advanced the disciplinary construction of aesthetics and literary theory. Among these, Zeng Fanren made extremely important contributions. He is an active advocate, an enthusiastic organizer, and an influential standard-bearer, and is the theoretical founder of ecological aesthetics in China.

I. Crossing the Border between Ecological Civilization and Aesthetic Activity, Advancing the Discipline in Both Directions

Ecological civilization and aesthetic activity have a natural inner connection. Zeng Fanren acutely discovered this connection; setting his footing on and crossing borders, taking ecological aesthetics as the focus and breakthrough, he both more deeply expounded the view of ecological holism, intervening in the construction of ecological civilization with his own research, and, from a brand-new angle, expanded the field of aesthetic research and deepened aesthetic theory.

The fundamental difference between ecological civilization and modern industrial civilization lies precisely in changing the model of the relation between human and nature—transforming the original oppositional relation of governing and transforming nature into a friendly relation of coexistence and mutual generation of human and nature. This change precisely accords with the aesthetic view of existential aesthetics. Zeng acutely discovered the inner connection between the two, re-excavating from the Marxist practical view the theoretical resources of life and survival, and boldly absorbing Heidegger's ontological thought to transform practical aesthetics. Zeng holds that the practical view of Marx and Engels itself has extremely rich connotation; though it stresses the importance of human productive activity, it is by no means confined to material production but at the same time contains the far broader holistic survival activity of the human—a "materialist practical view with a rich ecological-aesthetic consciousness." Practical aesthetics, however, castrated its rich connotation, not only one-sidedly highlighting material production but also simplifying the complex relation between production and the aesthetic, directly regarding productive activity as the cause of aesthetic activity, regarding the human's transformation of nature as the root of aesthetic occurrence, and taking "the humanization of nature" as the cornerstone of aesthetic theory. In essence, this aesthetic theory is built on the epistemological foundation of subject-object division. In the dualistic relation of human and nature split and opposed, anthropocentric consciousness necessarily breeds, and aesthetic activity cannot possibly be gestated. The aesthetic can occur only in the state of human and external thing intersecting, according, mutually generating, and fusing, and this relation itself both accords with the postmodern view of ecological holism and belongs to the aesthetic view of existential aesthetics. Therefore ecological civilization and aesthetic activity have a profound inner connection; both require humanity to regard nature with an aesthetic attitude, equally and amicably, and both embody the ontological relation of human and world.

The recognition of the close relation between ecological civilization and aesthetic activity is precisely the true reason for Zeng's special affection for ecological aesthetics. He not only intervenes in the current construction of ecological civilization with his own thinking and research, responding to the urgent needs of the age, but also takes the "border" where different disciplines cross as his footing, setting out from the "margin" to re-examine aesthetics and literary theory with a brand-new eye, intending to achieve theoretical breakthrough and concretely advance disciplinary development. Just as Bakhtin said, the domain of culture is itself covered with crisscrossing borders and is therefore a rich, plural domain full of tension, change, and vitality, a feature most fully and prominently expressed at the crossings. "The most intense, most fruitful life of culture occurs precisely at the crossings of these cultural domains, not in the closed particularity of these cultural domains." Only by setting one's footing on the margin and transcending borders is it possible to cast off ready-made views of events, subvert the various habitual popular views, and display a new theoretical land.

For Zeng, how to transcend the dualistic view of epistemology and reconstruct a mutually coexisting, friendly holistic relation between human and nature is the key to the theoretical construction of ecological aesthetics; therefore Western phenomenology and ontology very naturally became his important intellectual resources. Phenomenology links consciousness and the conscious object with intentionality, suspends pre-views and preconceptions to carry out the transcendental "reduction," faces the things themselves, and thereby heals the dualistic split of human and world; especially the "intersubjectivity" it proposes accords more with the view of ecological holism. Heidegger's ontology turns the core question of philosophy from "beings" to "Being"; but Being has all along been concealed by beings, and to let Being emerge from concealment requires the path of phenomenology, "to let what shows itself be seen from itself, just as it shows itself from itself." Therefore ontology is possible only as phenomenology. However, Heidegger did not agree with Husserl's claim of reducing the everyday self to pure transcendental subjectivity, holding such reduction both impossible and unnecessary. He proposed the interpretive model of "Dasein's being-in-the-world" to explore the question of Being, tracing the unfolding state of Being in the world, and expanded phenomenology's theoretical vision to the human's concrete existence, transcending the limitation of consciousness and interpreting the true meaning of Being more deeply and broadly within the holistic relation of human and world co-living and interacting. Here Heidegger's theoretical aim is to interpret the question of Being, but his theoretical framework provides an interpretive model of human and world mutually coexisting and inseparable.

In Heidegger's view, the everyday self always inevitably falls into the world of jumbled being-with and dissolves into others; in this mode of existence, it no longer holds to authentic being, is no longer "itself," but becomes a "they-self," becomes an "average." Modern technology further intensifies the opposition of human and nature, so that even living existence is technologically objectified and thing-ified, everything reduced to usable "tools" and exchangeable "commodities," and the world sinks into a "destitute time." Yet in literature, art, and aesthetic activity, we thoroughly change our relation with the world, our relation with things and with others. The peasant shoes Van Gogh depicted are no longer merely implements; the boatmen, women, and tormented souls under Hölderlin's pen are no longer mere others; the hard rock of the temple is still less indifferent material—they exist according to themselves and for themselves and are set into the radiance of Being, truth occurring and opening of itself. The world and things and others are no longer objects standing before us for our looking and using but a co-existence drawing near to us, conversing with us, attracting us; thus we too slip out of the inauthentic state of falling and enter poetic dwelling. Architecture is not merely a dwelling, the clay jar not merely an implement; their emptiness holds earth, sky, the divinities, and life's brief mortals. "This pure, unified reflective transferring of earth and sky, divinities and mortals, we call the world. The world presences by worlding. … The fourfold, the unity of the four, presences as the reflective play of transferring, each in pure unity. … The reflecting of the world is the round dance of transferring. … The round dance is the ring that joins as it plays as reflecting. … It lights up the four into the radiance of their pure unity." Heidegger's "poetic dwelling" and "the fourfold play of sky, earth, divinities, and mortals" provide precisely the basic viewpoint for Zeng's ecological aesthetics and propose an ideal realm for ecological civilization.

Zeng not only critiques anthropocentrism on this basis but also points out the limitation of ecocentrism, holding that although ecocentrism acknowledges that nature has intrinsic value and advocates that humanity should respect nature, it denies nature as the bearer of its own value and in essence returns to the standpoint of anthropocentrism. He clearly states his own standpoint: human and nature co-generate and coexist, moving toward ecological holism, and he advocates the unity of the ecological view, the humanistic view, and the aesthetic view, advocating "ecological humanism." "The ground on which 'ecological humanism' can stand is the human's ecological-aesthetic nature. That is, as we said above, the human is born with a wish to be intimate with and love natural ecology and thereby gain a good existence. This 'ecological humanism' is precisely the philosophical and theoretical basis for constructing the new ecological-aesthetic view." This ecological humanism is a critique and sublation of the original humanism; it washes away the anthropocentrism implicit in traditional humanism, replaces the notion of human supremacy with the view of ecological holism, and reconstructs the intimate relation of human and nature with a brand-new attitude, thereby leading to the ontological aesthetic view. In the vision of ecological humanism, the human and the myriad things of nature all have their own value; the human is merely an existence equal to other existents in the natural whole, participating in the whole of nature as a member of it, coexisting and mutually generating, intimate and fused with the myriad things. This is an ought-to-be ecological relation, the cultivation and attitude contemporary people should possess, and it provides the basic conditions for aesthetic activity. Conversely, it is precisely the aesthetic that endows humanity with deep sympathy, lets the human rediscover the value of nature, and regard nature and the myriad things with an equal, friendly attitude.

If Heidegger could still not erase the dejected notion that real human life inevitably moves toward "falling," and could only place hope in the aesthetic world of literature and art, then Zeng intends to "everyday-ize" aesthetics, crossing the fence between ecology and aesthetics to construct an interdisciplinary ecological aesthetics, extending the aesthetic to the human's everyday-life domain and to the holistic relation of human and nature. This is not only the "everyday-ization" of the aesthetic but the "aesthetic-attitudinization" of everyday life, repairing the narrow utilitarian relation with a rich, free aesthetic relation and healing the dualistic split of human and nature. From this angle, ecological aesthetics is not a study-bound, purely theoretical exploration; it is itself closely linked to social history and to the civilizational construction of the present age—a discipline rich in practical significance.

II. Crossing the Border between Epistemology and Axiology, Expanding the Theoretical Horizon of Aesthetics

People often treat epistemology and axiology as distinct, but in fact the two are closely related. The establishment of any spiritual value system depends on a base point—belief in the sacred—and takes this as the spiritual yardstick to measure the value of various objects, behaviors, and phenomena, thereby constructing the whole spiritual value system. And the sacred hides within the mysterious; the object must first be mysterious, surrounded by a mysterious atmosphere, before it can possibly become sacred. Once the mystery is stripped away and the enchantment dispelled, the sacred has nowhere to hide. Therefore, as human reason became sound and the capacity for cognition developed, the various mysteries were successively dispelled, and the sacred too could not but be deconstructed and transformed into the ordinary. It is precisely the arrogance of reason that, after "God is dead," also deconstructed the human's subjectivity; the human lost sanctity and was reduced to a common mortal, even a walking corpse. When the human is reduced to DNA, when the posthuman age effaces the boundary between computer and human, where is there any sanctity to speak of in the human himself? Humanity, proud of its reason, finally, because of reason, pushed itself into the abyss of spiritual decadence. Thus, apart from the sole remaining practical values such as use-value and exchange-value, all spiritual value systems collapsed, and the human spirit too was leveled to the ground, degenerating into a "wasteland."

In The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Max Weber proposed the view of "the disenchantment of the world," while David Ray Griffin, against the reality of value-loss in the postmodern period, stressed the importance of "the re-enchantment of the world." Zeng made his own interpretation of this. He points out that it should "be understood as partly restoring nature's magicality, sacredness, and latent aesthetic quality," acknowledging that "nature is magical, sacred, and worthy of awe."

The disenchantment of the world is an irreversible process; its spearhead points directly at the various mysteries, because reason has the pursuit of continually exploring the world: once the disenchantment of the world is set in motion, it irrepressibly expands its territory and cracks the various secrets, and there is no so-called "re-enchantment." The only thing humanity can do is reflect on reason itself; reason should re-recognize its own finitude, clear away conceit and arrogance, and deeply know that, before boundless nature, reason is merely a faint lamplight—even life itself is far from thoroughly illuminated—and therefore must always maintain a heart of awe toward nature and life. The sacred and awe are not a return to superstition but humanity's self-awareness of the finitude of reason, the self-awareness of humanity's own finitude.

However, the self-awareness of reason is only one side of the matter; more important is tolerance for humanity's irrationality, acknowledging the legitimacy of the irrational. One cannot belittle the sensuous with reason, or belittle the body with spirit. It is precisely the irrational body that harbors the potential to break the dualistic relation of human and world, letting human and nature be intimate and fused, realizing the realm of thing-self as one, no-thing and no-self, and moving anew toward the unity of Heaven and humanity. This intimate, mutually harmonious relation of human and nature is the natural ground for the generation of value. And it is precisely humanity's self-awareness of the finitude of reason and its awe of life that lets it again revere the irrational body and treat the irrational body with tolerance. The human's awe of nature should include awe of the living beings that are part of nature, and include acknowledgment of the irrational as a constituent part of living beings, thereby reconstructing a new value system.

In fact, humanity naturally harbors a potential. The human was originally gestated by nature, originally inseparable from nature. The split of human and nature began precisely with the generation of human consciousness and reason; from then on, nature became humanity's object of cognition and object of transformation. Yet although the irrational body suffered belittling, its potential was not thereby effaced. The "Dionysian spirit" Nietzsche praised is deeply planted in the human body-mind, the expression of the omnipotent will and vital force. The Dionysian spirit is the foundation of ancient Greek tragedy, and Dionysus is the protagonist of tragedy. Relative to Apollo's tendency toward individuation, Dionysus lets the human return to nature and dissolves individuation. In Dionysus's mysterious jubilation, the charm of individuation vanishes like smoke, and the road to the mother of being, the core of the myriad things, is opened. Dionysus's magic unites human with human and reconciles them anew with the estranged, hostile, enslaved nature. "Just as we seem to fuse with the primal ecstasy of existence, just as in Dionysian intoxication we expect this joy to abide undiminished, in the same instant we are pierced by the sharp barb of pain. Even amid terror and pity, we are still fortunate living beings—not as individuals but as the one living substance, intimately bound with its procreative joy."

If Apollo objectifies and phantasmizes the world into individuals, then Dionysus lets the human return anew to the world, return to the eternal will-stream of ceaseless life-generation, and heal the dualistic world split by reason. Dionysus is the source of sympathy, the force of reconciliation between human and nature. This Dionysian spirit is most fully embodied in the aesthetic activity of tragedy, and is at the same time deeply hidden in everyday survival activity, deeply hidden in the irrational body. Aesthetic and artistic activity is interwoven with the Apollonian spirit and the Dionysian spirit, situated at the border of sensory cognition and value experience. For this reason, Zeng advocates the unity of soul and body. He points out: "Against the 'aesthetics of contemplation' that is built on the split of soul and body and relies only on the senses of sight and hearing, ecological aesthetics, on the basis of the unity of soul and body, does not exclude the important role of the body's other senses in the aesthetic, and thus strongly advocates an 'aesthetics of participation'—this too is a new breakthrough." The aesthetic is a whole-body-mind participation; it appeals not only to the human's mind but at the same time to the body, a unity of cognition and experience, an engagement of the whole body-mind. This engagement contains both contemplation and understanding, and still more sympathy, resonance, intoxication, and fusion; at the moment of the generation and fusion of the aesthetic world, an indescribable body-mind shock occurs. So one may say it is precisely the aesthetic that teaches humanity to sympathize with nature, respect nature, and treat nature well. The aesthetic will surely lead to ecological civilization, and aesthetic theory is most profoundly embodied in ecological aesthetics.

III. Crossing the Border between Chinese and Western Culture, Reinterpreting and Recreating Tradition

In writing An Introduction to Ecological Aesthetics, Zeng devoted himself to the synthesis and convergence of Chinese and Western aesthetic thought, and on the whole displayed the ground-tone of Heidegger's ontological aesthetic thought. He advocates: "We can let 'the unity of Heaven and humanity' converge with the ecological-existential aesthetic view; let 'the beauty of the mean and harmony' converge with 'poetic dwelling'; let 'within the realm there are four greats, and the human is one of them' converge with 'the fourfold play'; let poems of homesickness and images of settled ease converge with 'the consciousness of homeland'; let choosing a place to dwell converge with 'the consciousness of place'; let ancient poetic wisdom such as bixing (evocative comparison), bide (moral analogy), zaohua (creative transformation), and qiyun (spirit-resonance) converge with ecological poetics; and so on—constructing an ecological-aesthetic system that contains ancient Chinese ecological wisdom, resources, and discourse, accords with China's national conditions, and has a certain Chinese style and Chinese manner." As his research deepened and his excavation of traditional resources advanced, Zeng increasingly valued drawing nourishment from such traditional thought as Confucianism, Daoism, Buddhism, and the Book of Changes.

Although Western phenomenology strove to overcome the gulf of subject-object dualistic split, because it stresses the question of consciousness, it still keeps its theoretical vision on the relation of consciousness and the conscious object. The "intersubjectivity" it proposes is still the equal relation of subject and subject interactively coexisting, merely a modern variant of the objective relation. Even Merleau-Ponty's "inter-corporeality" did not completely cast off the horizon of consciousness. Heidegger absorbed ancient Chinese thought, and his ontology did indeed burst the theoretical framework of phenomenology, yet in the end he still returned to the question of language, regarding language as "the house of Being." "The later Heidegger raised the potential of language to create meaning to an absolute height." Language is humanity's exclusive privilege; it itself foreshadows the objective relation of the dualistic split of human and nature, and always relates to the question of consciousness and the question of reason; therefore logocentrism necessarily leads to rational-centrism and anthropocentrism. Although Heidegger's so-called language refers to "poetic Saying," once language is regarded as the "house" to which humanity belongs, one inevitably falls into the trap of logocentrism. Heidegger's understanding of Chinese cultural thought is still separated from Chinese culture by a layer.

In Chinese cultural thought, language does not enjoy the privilege of transcending all and interpreting all. Whether Confucianism or Daoism, both hold a cautious attitude toward language. Laozi bluntly says: "The Dao that can be spoken is not the constant Dao; the name that can be named is not the constant name." Wang Bi made further elaboration: "He who speaks it loses its constancy; he who names it departs from its truth; he who acts on it ruins its nature; he who grasps it loses its origin. Therefore the sage does not take speech as primary, and so does not violate its constancy; does not take the name as constant, and so does not depart from its truth; does not take action as his affair, and so does not ruin its nature; does not take grasping as control, and so does not lose its origin." Both Laozi and Wang Bi hold a skeptical, reserved attitude toward language, their aim being to let life itself transcend the confinement of language so as to reach directly to the time of life's origin and to life itself. In Wang Bi's view, the formless and nameless is "the ancestor of the myriad things," the source of life and life itself. Language precisely departs from the origin and the authentic. Language is always the differentiation and clarification of the chaotic universe, the solidification and delimitation of ceaselessly generating life, setting nature and life up as the human's object, thereby splitting the relation of human and nature, of self and other. To transcend the dualistic relation of human and nature and reach the realm of "the unity of Heaven and humanity," one must transcend language. Heidegger's ontology precisely halted here.

Zeng does not simply interpret the Chinese by the Western, regulate the Chinese by the Western, or use Western thinking, categories, and systems to transform Chinese traditional thought, categories, and systems; rather, setting his footing on and crossing the border of Chinese and Western culture, he extracts the essence of traditional culture in the mutual comparison of Chinese and Western so as to realize the recreation of traditional culture. His fondness for Heidegger's ontology arises precisely from the affinity between Heidegger and Chinese cultural thought, which thereby provides him with an exteriority standpoint, a theoretical fulcrum for exploring, reinterpreting, and reflecting on traditional culture, a frame of reference for comparing, selecting, and recreating traditional culture, and a theoretical bridge for returning to tradition.

In An Introduction to Ecological Aesthetics, Zeng critiqued the widely circulated Western "theory of harmony" with Chinese traditional thought. He points out: "The 'theory of harmony' takes epistemology entirely as its foundation, with subject-object division and opposition as its mode of thinking. … The ancient Chinese 'theory of the mean and harmony,' by contrast, is the nourishing fusion of the mean, the generation and birth of the myriad things, a macro-holistic interfusion and synthesis." Thereafter he further recognized that the intellectual source of the "theory of the mean and harmony" lies precisely in the notion of "the unity of Heaven and humanity," and held that the study of ancient Chinese aesthetics must first begin with this tradition. "As a Chinese cultural tradition, 'the unity of Heaven and humanity' is embodied in the doctrines of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism. Confucianism advocates 'the unity of Heaven and humanity' but leans more toward the human; Daoism advocates 'the unity of Heaven and humanity' but leans toward the natural Heaven; Chinese Buddhism advocates 'the unity of Heaven and humanity' but leans toward the Buddhist 'Heaven.' But in general, all schools explore cultural and artistic questions within the dimension of 'Heaven-human.'" Zeng holds that "the unity of Heaven and humanity" has become a Chinese traditional "cultural pattern" embodied in literature and art, concretized into such relations as form and spirit, pattern and substance, idea and realm, idea and image, feeling and scene, and language and meaning, constituting such special categories as form-spirit, pattern-substance, aesthetic conception (yijing), image (yixiang), feeling-scene, and language-meaning. These categories cannot be interpreted by the Western relation of universality and particularity or the unity of opposites but can only be interpreted by the cultural pattern distinctive to ancient China, "the Taiji diagram pattern"—a relation of yin and yang coexisting and mutually generating. In essence, this is the union and propagation of life with life, the way of nature, and also the great virtue and great beauty of Heaven and Earth. One may say that Heidegger's so-called "fourfold play of sky, earth, divinities, and mortals," though it stresses the harmonious coexistence of human and nature, is merely a remedial scheme for healing the state of subject-object split, while the Chinese "unity of Heaven and humanity" traces directly to the source of life.

Along this line of thought, Zeng no longer confines his theoretical vision to existential aesthetics but moves toward the "aesthetics of creating life" (shengsheng aesthetics). "Transforming 'the virtue of creating life' into 'the beauty of creating life,' doubling the word 'sheng' (life, generation) so that it carries the meaning of 'the creation of life,' Chinese aesthetics is an aesthetics of the creation of life, an aesthetics that creates life, thereby giving 'shengsheng' an ontological connotation." He further summed up the gist of "nurturing life" in four points: "the holism of the unity of Heaven and humanity," "the equilibrium theory of yin-yang harmony," "the theory of the unity of form and spirit," and "the reality of according with the four seasons." The ancient Chinese aesthetic view is built precisely on the foundation of the view of nurturing life; "the beauty of creating life" and "the virtue of creating life" are not only closely related but fused into one. In Chinese traditional art, painting "expresses the force of life in the contrast of yin and yang," calligraphy is "the dance of life," and literature too is rooted in the "qi" of life. "Therefore, in giving forth literature and art, one must regulate and release, clarify and harmonize one's mind, and tune and smooth one's qi"; "the mysterious spirit should be treasured, and the plain qi nourished"—this is the law of life and also the source of artistic creativity.

From this angle, ecological aesthetics should be the aesthetics of creating life. "Shengsheng" directly embodies the most source-like and authentic relation of the natural world. All other relations—including the cognitive relation, the moral relation, and the aesthetic relation—are derived from this source relation and unfold as "the way of creating life," "the virtue of creating life," and "the beauty of creating life." In the aesthetics of creating life, cognition, morality, and the aesthetic are not only of the same source and root but mutually interwoven, mutually influencing, and mutually fused; their distinction is merely a difference in the angle of viewing and the way of Saying this life-relation. In view of this, Zeng says: "Exploring the law of the unity and oneness of the rhythms of Heaven, Earth, and nature with the changes of social human life becomes the most basic philosophical orientation of thought, and the related 'beauty of the mean and harmony'—'Heaven and Earth take their place, and the myriad things are nurtured'—becomes the most fundamental aesthetic principle."

When ecological aesthetics moves toward the aesthetics of creating life, aesthetics is no longer the study of the object and essence of beauty, nor the isolated study of the beauty of the expression of life, nor the objective exposition of the holistic relation of coexisting, mutually generating life; it can no longer adopt the research approach of practical aesthetics, nor even adopt Heidegger's way of analyzing "Dasein's being-in-the-world," interpreting it as a phenomenon of Being. The researcher is no longer a bystander; he is first of all a participant, a member of the ceaselessly generating world participating in the holistic operation of life, soul and body together participating in the chorus and resonance of life, feeling and experiencing the splendor of life, chewing and savoring the inexhaustible flavor, and apprehending the wisdom of survival. This wisdom is no longer "knowledge" in the usual sense; it is the experience and apprehension of life, thereby opening a brand-new interpretive path, for which ancient Chinese literary and poetic theory provides precisely a reference. Therefore, Zeng's ecological aesthetics is by no means a simple, ready-made concrete application of aesthetic theory to the domain of actual life and the construction of ecological civilization; it has comprehensively updated Western aesthetics, drawn nourishment from the rich resources of Chinese tradition, reinterpreted and recreated traditional culture, and, from a brand-new perspective, made all-round breakthroughs in the philosophical foundation of aesthetics, the object of aesthetic research, the aesthetic relation and its attributes, and the paradigm of aesthetic research, thereby constructing an aesthetics with Chinese style and contemporary spirit.