Globalization, an expression now heard on every continent, entered public discourse through former U.S. national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski’s book Between Two Ages: America’s Role in the Technocratic Era, published in 1970. At the special commemorative meeting of the General Assembly to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations on October 22, 1995, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the then secretary-general of the United Nations declared, “The world of the 21st century will confront two great opposing forces: globalization and fragmentation.”
At the start of the twenty-first century, our rapidly globalizing world makes us simultaneously aware of new challenges and new opportunities in the diverse areas of economy, politics, health, education, technology, arts, and the humanities. This is reaffirmed, although in a different context, by the COVID-19 pandemic. Porous borders have exacerbated the spread of infectious diseases, terrorism, cybercrime, and the illicit drug trade, so magnifying the complex, critical uncertainty that confronts the world as a whole. We must therefore ask what we can do to meet such challenges at this critical time.
Ruth Benedict, prominent anthropologist and intellectual figure in twentieth-century American life, brings us inspiration in addressing these current challenges. She says in her influential book The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: “One of the handicaps of the twentieth century is that we still have the vaguest and most biased notions, not only of what makes Japan a nation of Japanese, but of what makes the U.S. a nation of Americans, France a nation of Frenchmen, and Russia a nation of Russians. Lacking this knowledge, each country misunderstands the other.” By reflecting on history, Ruth Benedict identifies the role that understanding culture plays in both international conflicts and cooperation. What, then, can we do to avoid as far as possible the biases, misunderstandings, and stereotyping that are rooted in and presented through culture?
Willingness and commitment to intelligent reading of culture is the key. What distinguishes intelligent reading of culture from mere reading of culture? “Du Fu: China’s Greatest Poet,” a BBC documentary aired in the April of 2020 is a useful example.
The poster for the BBC documentary "Du Fu, China's Greatest Poet." [Photo/BBC]
This documentary inspired scholars to rethink why intelligent reading of culture is significant to understanding otherness.
For Chinese scholars, this question begins by reflecting on why, in the West, it should be poet Du Fu (712-770) that is compared with Shakespeare, and not the more or less unanimous Chinese choice of celebrated Ming Dynasty dramatist Tang Xianzu (1550-1616). China’s comparative analyses normally raise three major points: First, both Tang and Shakespeare played a leading role in their respective countries’ cultural progress, both as regards social development and reform of theatrical stage design. In Tang Xianzu’s time, the Ming authorities introduced and successfully brought into effect an array of new, more liberal policies. Second, both achieved new pinnacles of literary achievement that contributed to an enduring global legacy. As regards their masterpieces, Shakespeare’s four greatest tragedies are Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, and Macbeth. Coincidentally, Tang’s famous four dreams, Zichai Ji (The Purple Hairpin), Nanke Ji (A Dream under a Southern Bough), Handan Ji (Dream of Handan), and his most famous Mudan Ting (The Peony Pavilion) are widely considered as the zenith of traditional Chinese opera. Third, both are masters of rhetoric. Shakespeare’s works are like a long, broad river of words that are perfectly attuned to his conceit. Tang’s Mu Danting involved a large cast and many scenes whose performance spanned days. There is, therefore, no getting away from the fact that Tang Xianzu is China’s Shakespeare, regardless of the fact that 1616 was the year that both great dramatists passed away.
Yet, the BBC’s “Du Fu: China’s Greatest Poet” inspired Chinese scholars to rethink Du Fu’s life, works, and times, and to explore his profound influence on Chinese culture in a holistic way. The spirit of the true, the good, and the beautiful in Du Fu’s works resides in his lifelong love for the Tang Dynasty in which he was born, and for his fellow men. This is in direct contrast to Tang Xianzu’s works, whose primary focus is youthful romantic love. In common with most of his contemporaries, Confucianism was essential to Du Fu’s values. Certain priorities — like focusing on your assigned role at times of Tang Dynasty prosperity while asking how you can be of help amid adversity — were vital elements of his poetry. “Spring Scene,” for instance, describes Du Fu’s anguish at the collapse of his beloved Tang Dynasty. Without pure, yet impassioned love, no poet could write stanzas inspiring enough to buoy people’s hopes sufficiently to overcome their rising fears: “In fallen states, hills and streams yet exist. The city in spring has abundant grass and leaves.”
Just as importantly, Du Fu refused to accept that man is bound to endure hardships and bear suffering, which is why his poems uplifted people from fear and despair. Du Fu indeed subsisted in poverty, his life constantly fraught with tribulations and turmoil. But hardships served to remind him of the power of courage, compassion, and hope. He wrote his most famous stanzas after a storm destroyed his small thatched cottage: “Could I get mansions covering ten thousand miles, I'd house all poor people and make their faces beam with smiles. Ay! Should these houses appear before my eyes, I, frozen in my unroofed cot, would die content.”
By contrast with Du Fu, Shakespeare lived in England’s golden Elizabethan age. His works were consequently vibrant and full of gusto, yet imbued with the same compassion, devotion, and love embodied in Du Fu’s poetry. In his universally acclaimed Hamlet, Shakespeare wrote, “What a piece of work is man. … In action, how like an angel. In apprehension, how like a god.”
From this we might understand that a life’s work lies in the agony and sweat of maintaining the spirit of the true, the good, and the beautiful; and that a life’s confidence lies in writing that helps people endure and to prevail. This somehow identifies why Du Fu is compared with Shakespeare, and why Harvard Professor Stephen Owen includes Du Fu in the select company of Shakespeare and Dante as “poets who create values by which poetry is judged.”
The reading of culture through culture and for culture, and more, constitutes intelligent reading of culture. Through intelligent reading of culture, the BBC’s “Du Fu” inspired Chinese scholars in pursuit of fruitful intercultural communication with the world. To answer the question of why we regard Tang Xianzu as China’s Shakespeare, while in Shakespeare’s home country Du Fu is regarded as most comparable, it is of help to us Chinese to think from a more holistic perspective. In this sense, we need more works like “Du Fu: China’s Greatest Poet” to bridge the large divides that the world faces.
Our world is battling the biggest crisis since World War II, according to Reuters. Amid fear, belief in the true, the good, and the beautiful is the key. Evidence of this can be found in the recent book, titled Do Morals Matter? Presidents and Foreign Policy from FDR to Trump by political scientist and Harvard professor Joseph S. Nye, Jr., which underscores the role of ethics through a penetrating historical analysis of U.S. foreign policy. Correct, intelligent reading of culture is not the sole requirement for effective development of mutual understanding, but no communication can survive without it.
“Globalization is changing the way the world looks, and the way we look at the world. By adopting a global outlook, we become more aware of our connections to people in other societies. We also become more conscious of the many problems the world faces at the start of the twenty-first century,” states eminent British sociologist Anthony Giddens in his Sociology (3rd Edition). To build upon a house of differences in the age of interdependence, the world needs to exercise intelligent reading of culture.
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LIU CHEN is a professor at the School of English and International Studies, Beijing Foreign Studies University.
