Books and Social Anxiety

[Frostball]

What is the connection between reading and social anxiety, if any? Does reading about richly developed characters allow you insight into human nature and thereby helping you interact with the outside world? Or is reading such a solitary habit that it tends to keep you introverted and preoccupied on something that will never help solve your problem?

I figure the answer contains some of both, or perhaps something else altogether. What are your thoughts?

[kev67]

Reading is supposed to make you more emotionally intelligent, but I doubt it helps with social anxiety. I am not really sure it helps with emotional intelligence either.

[kelby_lake]

Reading is supposed to make you more emotionally intelligent, but I doubt it helps with social anxiety. I am not really sure it helps with emotional intelligence either.

I think it would distort your emotions if you based them on literature.

I think that literature helps a socially anxious reader in the sense that literature is generally about loners and outsiders, so the lives of the characters mirror the reader's own life. The reassurance that they are 'not alone' might encourage them to talk to people. However I do think that reading is a very introspective and introverted experience. Were it not for forums like this and book clubs, the reader would feel very lonely, as they've had an experience that no one else 'understands'.

[mal4mac]

Great questions, Frostball!

An important paper in the top journal "Science" took the point that understanding others mental states is a crucial skill enabling one to navigate complex social relationships. It then showed, through details of actual experiments, that reading literary fiction leads to better understanding of these mental states in both emotional and cognitive contexts, when compared with reading non-fiction, popular fiction or nothing at all:

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6156/377.abstract

So, according to this paper, reading about richly developed characters *does* allow you insight into human nature. The questions, "does this help you interact with the outside world?", "can this relieve social anxiety?", I would hazard to answer in the positive.

Surely if you have a better idea what other people are thinking and feeling you will interact better and have less social anxiety? Anyway, it's a great area for more research!

[JBI]

Canadian literature makes me feel lonely, and Chinese literature makes me depressed. Russian literature makes me nihilistic in outlook. I don't particularly like American literature, nor do I like modern or post-modern British literature (except verse), as I find the humor not funny.

[luhsun]

The 'explosion' in the diagnosis of social anxiety disorder is probably the creation of american psychiatrists/pharma companies trying to create glamorous conditions to sell the SSRIs. Social anxiety is just plain shyness most of the time. Occasionally, if the shyness is excessive and pathological, then a psychologist or a psychiatrist could help.
It will take a very resourceful person and lots of luck to expect someone reading books of literature to achieve vicarious learning through the colourful characters found in the books and presto.. self cure. You might as well read virginia woolf to find help for suicide, or dostoevsky for treatment of epilepsy.

[mal4mac]

It will take a very resourceful person and lots of luck to expect someone reading books of literature to achieve vicarious learning through the colourful characters found in the books and presto.. self cure. You might as well read virginia woolf to find help for suicide, or dostoevsky for treatment of epilepsy.

You seem to have a very low opinion of serious literature. Are the characters in serious literature just "colourful", or are they portrayals of human nature that might help you understand yourself and others better and thereby deal with life more successfully, with less anxiety? No one is suggesting "presto... self cure", any help provided has to be more subtle than that.

I take the point that Canadian literature might make you feel lonely, but doesn't the best of it provide resources that might help you deal with that loneliness?

[Frostball]

Canadian literature makes me feel lonely, and Chinese literature makes me depressed. Russian literature makes me nihilistic in outlook. I don't particularly like American literature, nor do I like modern or post-modern British literature (except verse), as I find the humor not funny.

Are such groups of literature that homogenous? I realize you were obviously making generalizations and must surely acknowledge the existence of exceptions, but are groups really even similar enough to say that a whole country's general output of literature makes you feel "single adjective"?

[Frostball]

The 'explosion' in the diagnosis of social anxiety disorder is probably the creation of american psychiatrists/pharma companies trying to create glamorous conditions to sell the SSRIs. Social anxiety is just plain shyness most of the time. Occasionally, if the shyness is excessive and pathological, then a psychologist or a psychiatrist could help.
It will take a very resourceful person and lots of luck to expect someone reading books of literature to achieve vicarious learning through the colourful characters found in the books and presto.. self cure. You might as well read virginia woolf to find help for suicide, or dostoevsky for treatment of epilepsy.

I'm not sure I agree with your assessment of the "explosion of diagnoses" being the result of capitalistic pharmaceutical companies; it seems altogether too cynical. I agree that such a thing exists and is definitely a factor, but I wouldn't underestimate the rise of awareness of mental disorders of all kinds, and the rise in ways to effectively treat them.

As late as a hundred years ago mental disorders were treated with a kind of "why can't you just act normal" sort of attitude, and people with them were often ostracized and thought of as weirdos and people to stay away from. If somebody's liver, heart, or lungs have a problem it is obvious to everybody that you need a doctor to treat these organs, and it's not perceived as the person's fault for having the medical issue. The brain is a tremendously complicated organ, far more so than even the previously mentioned, quite complicated organs, yet people's attitude toward mental problems is often very different. People act like the person should just get over it as if they can control what their brain does more than they can control what their liver does--which they can't.

This causes people to hide their problem, cope with alcohol and other drugs, or become reclusive and avoid contact with others who can't, or just don't want to try and understand them. These problems have always existed in humans throughout history, and I would argue that it's primarily because of modern science and understanding that we've begun to understand it as a medical problem just like a bad liver, and to develop ways to help people with these problems.

[Calidore]

The problem with knowledge and insight is that they don't automatically translate into skill in using them. For one example, Laszlo Polgar is a master chess teacher with a very deep understanding of the game's depths and strategies, and his three daughters are three of the best female chess players living (and his youngest, Judit, may be one of the best ever). Yet he's only a mediocre chess player himself. It's those other intangibles that can trip you up.

[JBI]

Are such groups of literature that homogenous? I realize you were obviously making generalizations and must surely acknowledge the existence of exceptions, but are groups really even similar enough to say that a whole country's general output of literature makes you feel "single adjective"?

Not homogenous in content, but there is a sort of social function and zeitgeist running through much of the works. So if you read classical Chinese literature you will notice the vast bulk of the famous poems are poets complaining about social ills, lack of political or career advancement, etc. That's generally the vibe amongst the major Chinese poets.

Russian novelists of the 19th century are very isolating and do force people to question things and relationships. Generally that is a major trend of movement, with the cold sort of criticism coming from them further forcing one to think of negative things. As for Canadian literature, it is very isolating, since the major theme we get coming from it is loneliness and "survival" alone. Hardly something to make one happy.

Thematic criticism like this has its limitations,but I am generally responding to a post that generalizes on the impact of reading on a public. I would wager different traditions ultimately have different effects. So that medieval literature, be it French or Chinese or Japanese, seems to drag one into a sort of court culture sphere that does not isolate, but invites. Margaret Atwood does the opposite and makes one feel lonely.

[Lykren]

Chinese literature makes me depressed.

Don't you spend a lot of time reading Chinese literature? Why do you do that?

[JBI]

Don't you spend a lot of time reading Chinese literature? Why do you do that?

I study it at the advanced level, but it is undoubtedly depressing. People always misunderstand Chinese verse as being about aesthetics, but for the most part, it is a sort of clever form of complaining. Since politics were the main focus of Chinese literary culture, it is not surprising that the most noteworthy poets seem to all be political failures, or seem to be writing in a time of political or cultural hardship. In fact, the Qing historians that pretty much framed the tradition of Chinese literature from past to present made a point of searching for these things - so that a philosophical poet Ruan Ji becomes a big whiner against political injustices.

The only poet who really seems to not whine is Su Shi, until you realize he is using his positive tone as a sort of political criticism to show he is not "beaten" by the unfairness allotted to him in political factional disputes. in a sense, his optimism is a sort of metaphorical whining.

This is the frame we get from the classics, where the vast majority of poems are about failures, or complaints. Complaining is the Chinese literary world's backbone, as poetry functioned socially as well as politically, and almost all major poets except for Monks and Daoist Priests were politically involved, and as anybody who reads politics knows, everyone is always unhappy when a decision or compromise is made. If one compromises, one complains of the compromise, if one loses, one complains of the loss, if one wins, one complains it takes too long. And we have from the Song onward about 3000 poems per poet, mostly written for political or social occasions. Quite depressing.

[luhsun]

I suppose xi men was indirectly complaining about too much sexual taboos in chinese society, and of course, we will all go depressed and pop a few prozacs after reading chin ping mei. But wait, wasnt there the legend that the book was written as a revenge...the manuscript was laced with poison, and the reader was so tittilated that he couldnt put it down until the end, when, of course, the poison had seeped through and he dropped dead... you are right.. the chinese works are depressing

[mona amon]

What is the connection between reading and social anxiety, if any? Does reading about richly developed characters allow you insight into human nature and thereby helping you interact with the outside world? Or is reading such a solitary habit that it tends to keep you introverted and preoccupied on something that will never help solve your problem?

I figure the answer contains some of both, or perhaps something else altogether. What are your thoughts?

As a bookworm with social anxiety (not anymore, I grew out of it), I have to agree with Lushun. Reading does not help. And I do not think it has anything to do with understanding other people, as some folks have been suggesting. In fact people with social anxiety usually have a better understanding of the way people think and behave, since they also tend to be the observant, introspective, 'watching life from the sidelines' types. So I feel the best thing is to try and interact with people more. Burying oneself in a book may be more pleasant, but it's completely delusional to think that it is the remedy for social anxiety.


Reading is supposed to make you more emotionally intelligent, but I doubt it helps with social anxiety. I am not really sure it helps with emotional intelligence either.

I agree, and I don't think emotional intelligence has anything to do with social anxiety either. Now my dad for instance - even now at the age of 83 has no emotional intelligence whatsoever, but never had the least bit of social anxiety. :)

[JBI]

I suppose xi men was indirectly complaining about too much sexual taboos in chinese society, and of course, we will all go depressed and pop a few prozacs after reading chin ping mei. But wait, wasnt there the legend that the book was written as a revenge...the manuscript was laced with poison, and the reader was so tittilated that he couldnt put it down until the end, when, of course, the poison had seeped through and he dropped dead... you are right.. the chinese works are depressing
That's hardly a mainstream example. The novel had been banned, and is still impossible to buy in many places. No book store really carries it here, and no school curriculum seems to teach it, despite being the most interesting of Chinese fiction.

Still, xiaoshuo as a genre is hardly mainstream in terms of the literary community, as you well know. These novels hardly ever entered the scholarly debates the way something like huaigu怀古 poetry would in every single dynasty since the Sui. As discourses, poetry was hardly even the top. The front runners were politically interpreted classics, then histories, then political tracts, and then finally non-fiction formal prose, then poetry, and then literary Chinese fiction, which itself was already seen as somewhat vulgar, and then finally popular literature, including novels and dramas. The whole tradition actually forbade young people from really engaging with trivial literature, in the sense of novels and plays, as witnessed by the dominance of scholarly training of sorts all the way until the Republican era, which still carried over much of the old associations.

Now, when we take the major literary players from each generation - Qu Yuan, Sima Qian, Cao Cao, Cao Zhi, Ruan Ji, Tao Qian, Xie Lingyun, Ban Zhao, Xie Tiao, Yu Xin, Wang Wei, Du Fu, etc. etc. we find that almost all were writing quite a bit about political hardship, and almost half of them were put to death for political reasons, or were forced into exile. The same continues throughout the Song, and through the Yuan-Ming transition, and the succession issues surrounding the Ming capital move to Beijing. Further literary purges would occur during the Qing transition, and finally during the Republic of China transition, as well as the century of Chaos proceeding it, and the century of chaos following it.

I am not far fetched in my description, despite what some counter-examples may suggest.

As for the legend of the poisoned book - hardly credible - just reading the original demonstrates that the text is a combined effort - parts of it show the distinct characteristics of assembled novels in the sense of Journey to the West or Water Margin.

[Lykren]

My question was really a personal one, JBI. If you say that Chinese poetry is mostly a form of complaining, and is thus depressing to read, I won't doubt you. I am still, however, curious as to what motivates you to read it, if such is the case.

This can of course be connected to the original topic of this thread. I would say that literature can be depressing in at least two distinct ways; firstly, it can be depressing by virtue of being dull, by being so utterly disengaged from anything that feels relevant to the mind that reads it, that it becomes simply boring. Secondly, one could read writing that expresses pain, emotional or otherwise, in a manner realistic enough that it invites the reader to compare their own afflictions with the afflictions depicted in the text. Ironically, this type of reading, though it cannot relieve the reader's pain, provides a sort of 'home', if you will, a safe setting for the reader to experience, cathartically, their pain.

I doubt whether this process can actually relieve the symptoms of anxiety such as shyness. The person who reads Snow Country, for example, or who listens to Beethoven's Grosse Fugue in order to assuage their existential loneliness will instead reinforce the very behaviors that exaggerate such loneliness. Interaction with art is an interaction with a static environment. The relief it provides is of the type that cannot attack the source of pain, because the artwork, when we come back to it, remains the same, while the pain has changed and will continue to change.

That's my experience, at least.

[JBI]

When you hear people cry and complain all day, it effects your mood. The same way when I was researching Taiwanese Soap Operas, and was watching 12 hours a day to finish the paper, I began to get intense mood swings, and found my emotions responding to the triggers of the sound track - you become absorbed into the world you read if you read it long enough and allow it to absorb you. In general, the world is a cold, dark, miserable place, especially everything from 100 years ago and sooner. When you are reading works about political turmoil, and death you begin to feel like you've witnessed them, and start to become emotionally involved. Regardless of what you read, if you are able to be absorbed by it, you will empathize with it. I got the same feeling reading My Antonia as a kid, finding myself falling in love with the fictional girl, despite knowing she wasn't real. It's basically the consequence of reading deeply that the lines between text and reader begin to blur.

Now, some texts are more welcoming than others. Despite people's attempts to humanize Hamlet, nobody can get into his head, and we reduce ourselves to either saying "he is a teenager and that's why he does x" or finding other rationale to understanding a mind we completely cannot enter (such as Freud saying he wants to fornicate with his mother).

Yet when you read these high end emotional works, such as Chinese poetry, or Japanese literature as a whole, you seem drawn in. Especially once you enter the infinite world of poems. So if you read Tang poetry, once you pass the first 300 that every school child knows, you start to see a world of poetry - people from everywhere discussing things - you see how they create themselves through poetry and interact with each other - and then you find yourself personally responding to the message poems they send their friends, or personally feeling sorry for the loss of their children or wives, or other hardships.

I think that's why people don't particularly engage with Post-Modern fiction - the actual world of the novel is rejecting of the reader, and is more clever than emotional. Modernism in many instances is the same thing, as are things like the beginning of The Sound and the Fury, which put me off reading the book maybe 100 times because I could not get through Benji's narration.

There is I guess a special quality of certain traditions, and certain artists to be more engaging - so for instance, when you read A Tale of Genji, and you first know a little about the book and its background - you feel like you are in Heian Japan with its close details and metaphors and subtleties. The same could be said of something like Proust, though I do not say it about Joyce, as Joyce is too difficult to enter - you are always struggling with his text.

[miyako73]

"So if you read classical Chinese literature you will notice the vast bulk of the famous poems are poets complaining about social ills, lack of political or career advancement, etc."

That came from a guy who cannot write a poem with innate Asian sensibility. That's what Edward Said used to say, "Orientalist blindness."

[Lykren]

JBI, that makes sense. The work is depressing initially, but when you learn to empathize with the characters, you are, in a way, comforted.

I think the question of whether a text engages the reader on an intimate, emotional level, or on a more topical, intellectual level is an interesting question. I'm curious about the classification of a novel like Snow Country - would you call it modernist? When I read it, the strange points at which the narrative would shift seemed off-putting, but by the time I finished it, they had cumulatively built a world in my head that was inviting not because it was pleasant, but because it was emotionally familiar.

Joyce is an odd case, certainly. I've never read anything else like Ulysses. Of course it was a struggle all the way, but certainly one that was easy to engage with. If that seems like a contradiction, I meant easy in the sense that I was never disturbed to find myself in a situation where I had to struggle that way.

I remember, when I finished Ulysses, feeling reduced to a state of childlike incomprehension. The world felt fresh and re-interpretable, and that I think is the power of Joyce's prose - not to act on our emotions directly, but to render the world around us in a way so profoundly new that it startles us into comfort with the unfamiliar. Of course, it remains to be seen whether this effect is one that will fade with repeated readings, but I think the sheer range, skill, virtuosity, what-have-you of Joyce's inventiveness with language will prevent that. Though it is based on the Odyssey, it seems to embody the spirit of newness. Again, I have yet to discover whether that sense of it is founded merely on novelty, having only read though the book once.

[kelby_lake]

I think that the greatest books connect on an emotional and intellectual level.

[JBI]

"So if you read classical Chinese literature you will notice the vast bulk of the famous poems are poets complaining about social ills, lack of political or career advancement, etc."

That came from a guy who cannot write a poem with innate Asian sensibility. That's what Edward Said used to say, "Orientalist blindness."

Or, you can ask someone who agrees with me, the late noted scholar C.T. Hsia, (Chinese Literature: Its Reception Today as a Product of Traditional Culture) who is both Chinese and an expert, who wrote about the same sort of reception to traditional Chinese literature years ago. Or you can take my professors, Zhang Peihang, and Luo Yuming who write something similar in their Chinese Literary History (both editions). Or you can take the numerous Song, Ming, Qing and modern scholars who hold up these poets as examples of going against the social ills of their time, and using their moral sensibilities against the sea of troubles that is the unethical world they are revolting against (notably, the Qing scholar Shen DeQian, famous for pretty much framing Chinese poetic history shares certain sentiments, as do the Ming dynasty 前后七子派 and the Qing 性灵派 to an extent).

I am not making this sort of stuff up as some orientalist appropriation. I do not know who you are, but you do not here me call you an ignorant brat for commenting on anything not relating to your personal background culture.

I do not need someone to tell me off for expressing my reaction to the field of my personal research. Especially when I was clearly stating my personal reaction as a personal reaction to texts. I never dropped a universal in my sentence, or stated this is the only possible reading. But a mere familiarity with the subject will pretty much show you I am right (such as knowing Su Shi criticzed Meng Haoran for not having enough negative world experience, a similar criticism he leveled at Meng Jiao and Jia Dao). Or knowing that the use of poetry as a social criticism is rooted in the basic interpretation of the classics, such as the book of songs, which in many instances has been interpreted since the Han as a purely political criticism.

I'm sorry that you somehow are a better expert than the top Ph.D. of mainland China, Taiwan, Japan and the English speaking world (I cannot speak for the others, since I have not engaged with their texts), but quite simply, they cannot all be orientalist. If you read 10000 poems about loss or separation, or failure, which make up the majority of the Chinese canonical poems (not the children's textbook poems, the ones that were generally anthologized and quoted for 1500 years) then you cannot help but empathize, thus, you feel depressed - the longing of a woman for a husband who will not return, and the sadness expressed in the most beautiful language will ultimately move you, which is why you feel almost heartbroken after a day of 10 hours of reading such works.

[miyako73]

I only comment on something I know.

Please read your posts in the past. I read your definition of "linguistic violence" as violent language against women in literature. Now you want us to believe your reading and analysis?

So, should I throw away these two volumes of Anthology of Chinese Literature? I don't think Cyril Birch, the editor, is a moron.

[JBI]

I only comment on something I know.

Please read your past posts. I read your definition of "linguistic violence" as violent language against women in literature. Now you want us to believe your reading and analysis?

So, should I throw away these two volumes of Anthology of Chinese Literature? I don't think Cyril Birch, the editor, is a moron.

Yes because your survey book in English of selections (meant to demonstrate all genres and forms keep in mind) really makes you an expert. Please, go out, learn Chinese, read the canon, and then come back. Or, perhaps, read my post where I use the key phrase "makes me feel". To be honest, I do not need to entertain such nonsense by someone who has a two volume anthology of Chinese literature and thinks they know enough to start throwing out isms at people.

[miyako73]

not an expert here. just correcting your notion that early Chinese poets were bunch of whiners. Can you post an online reference that says Chinese scholars have that sweeping reading of their classical literature being a literature of whining?

[JBI]

By critical consensus, Ch’ü Yuan, T’ao Ch’ien, Li Po, and Tu Fu are
among the greatest Chinese poets, if not the four greatest. They all wrote
an individualistic type of poetry stamped with character and feeling. In
real life they were unlucky by worldly standards in that their terms of
office were either brief or unhappy. Probably, if they had served happily
and had nothing to complain about, they could not have become the great
poets that they were. But the point, nevertheless, is that even T’ao Ch’ien,
who retired to his farm after a brief stint as an official, protested too much.
One senses that his rural happiness is incomplete unless he reminds himself
of his difference from all the courtiers and bureaucrats. The greatest
poets of their age, Li Po and Tu Fu nevertheless spent futile years seeking
potential patrons and trying to get government posts. Ch’ü Yuan was the
first major poet in point of time, and remains a fountainhead of inspiration
to poets today. Yet it is characteristic that in the Li Sao (On
Encountering Sorrow) he is addressing the basic issue of all subsequent
poet-officials—protestation of loyalty and virtue and disappointment over
the prince’s failure to appreciate and trust him. Whether in the end he is
supposed to commit suicide or become a recluse, his first duty to serve his
prince, if he could have his way, is never questioned. （。。。。。。）

In reading T’ang poetry, therefore, the sheer
recurrence of the same joys and disappointments experienced by a court
or provincial official, the same banquets and excursions, the same consolatory
messages to failed examinees or demoted bureaucrats, the same
unctuous praise of high ministers that could serve as one’s patrons, and the
same flattery of Buddhist and Taoist priests for their spirituality is nothing
short of nauseating. At the same time you detect in each poet the same
reticence about his family life and his more private self because it is
immensely to his advantage to maintain a correct image in accord with the
conventional ideals of courtly and scholarly behavior. He rarely mentions
his wife but upon her death he would have to write an elegy which, however
short or unconvincing, is what his poet-friends would expect of him.
（。。。。。。）
The greatest weakness of classical Chinese poetry, which follows from
its need to observe social and political decorum, is its satiric reticence—its
fear to speak out against government and social abuses and its avoidance
of raillery and lampoon in the name of good taste. Though Confucius
does not rule out the satiric function of poetry and values The Book of Songs
Classical Chinese Literature 17
for enabling readers to express their grievances (k’o-i yuan), by the Han
period the critical injunction that the poet should be gentle and kind (wenjou
tun-hou) and refrain from satire has been sanctioned by the new
Confucian orthodoxy supporting imperial despotism. Even without this
critical doctrine, of course, Chinese poets would have to check their satiric
impulse to preserve their personal safety. In the Han, so much of the court
literature (the rhapsodies on metropolises and capitals, for instance) reeks
of flattery and exaggeration that for descriptions of real life you have to
turn to the ballad tradition of folk poetry. And it was in emulation of that
tradition that the great T’ang poets Tu Fu and Po Chü-i wrote poems of
conscious social protest. Poets of later dynasties followed in their wake
and kept alive the spirit of humanitarian sympathy.10 But in view of the
large-scale tyranny and corruption of the imperial government during
these dynasties, it would seem that poets had not begun to exercise their
satiric power when they merely noted local instances of suffering and
injustice.
（。。。。。。）
etc.

From C. T. Hsia, mentioned above. Zhang Peihang co-writing with Luo Yuming in the introduction of their three part history of Chinese literature（new edition) note the central characteristics of a sort of melancholy dominating Chinese literature. Luo, writing alone, has also put out a translated version of his personally written literary history which was published by Brill a few years back. Though of course when Du Fu, who is known to have been a social poet was taken as the model for all poets after the Northern Song dynasty (known as the Poet-Teacher 诗师） who himself modeled his career on his poet teacher Cao Zhi, who was modeled on his father's clique the Jian'an school (known since the 6th century AD for writing a poetics of sadness, with phrases like "breaks the heart, riles the stomach, etc. quite common), and then later in life modeling himself off of Yu Xin, another poet of loss (as were the others), then you are able to see a pattern.

But, you don't need to listen to me. Or them, you can take an old translated book (Cyril Birch is writing quite early) as a model and tell someone he knows nothing. Everyone is always wrong but you, and now they are called Orientalist by someone whose understanding is limited to an early (and non-representative) translation book. Do me a favor and please just pretend I don't exist and save me the trouble of having to address you. If you do wish to engage with me, then do not throw insults or pejoratives, or things that question my authority in the field of my research. I don't go around calling you a moron, in fact, I don't speak to you at all. If you cannot be the least bit polite, just don't respond to me please.

[miyako73]

From the text you posted:

"The greatest weakness of classical Chinese poetry, which follows from
its need to observe social and political decorum, is its satiric reticence—its
fear to speak out against government and social abuses and its avoidance
of raillery and lampoon in the name of good taste."

"its fear to speak out against government and social abuses" doesn't sound complaining to me. You contradicted yourself with that text.

Again, post an online reference about Chinese literature as a literature of whining.

With that notion, you contradicted many historical facts--Confucian teachings on working not complaining, renunciation of worldly things by monks/scholars/poets, and mingling with nature and simplicity of daily life as the recurring themes in Chinese classical arts and literature.

Read my posts. I did not even mention your name. Don't accuse me of insulting you or calling you names. This is what I wrote:

"I don't think Cyril Birch, the editor, is a moron."

It's you who disrespected him and questioned his scholarship. Prove to me that you are better than him. If you can do that, I'll shut up. Where can I read your stuff?

[JBI]

From the text you posted:

"The greatest weakness of classical Chinese poetry, which follows from
its need to observe social and political decorum, is its satiric reticence—its
fear to speak out against government and social abuses and its avoidance
of raillery and lampoon in the name of good taste."

"its fear to speak out against government and social abuses" doesn't sound complaining to me. You contradicted yourself with that text.

Again, post an online reference about Chinese literature as a literature of whining.

With that notion, you contradicted many historical facts--Confucian teachings on working not complaining, renunciation of worldly things by monks/scholars/poets, and mingling with nature and simplicity of daily life as the recurring themes in Chinese classical arts and literature.

Actually you miss the point. He says they cannot speak about the government abuses, not that they cannot whine about themselves. So the idea of "nobody appreciates me", or the like is totally fine. Or, they can use metaphor to whine, such as Ruan Ji, or use the past as a form of criticism, such as all Huaigu poetry, or use the natural world to display frustration. The problem however is that the whining is internalized, so it is not a "look how bad society is" but a form of melancholy which becomes internalized, with blame then leveled at the poet, which causes, as Hsia argues, the poet to either retreat into the character of the recluse, or commit suicide.

I don't know what you know about the tradition of Confucianism, or Buddhism, but you seem to grasp very little of the actual historical or philosophical development as seen in China and Japan (I cannot speak as generally for Korea, not being familiar with local texts).

The general idea of complaint is actually quite common in the Shijing, the book of songs, as understood by the Mao Tradition, which is the backbone of all subsequent interpretation throughout Chinese history (and the foundation for Zhu Xi's exegesis which became the standard political text in the Yuan and lasted until the discontinuation of political examinations).

Your assessment of both Chinese literature, and these so called monks/scholars/poets shows a lack of understanding of the tradition. You also, by extension, would fail to grasp the metaphoric or symbolic quality of Chinese art. The poem, painting or even the written word are supposed to represent 情, as quoted in the Book of Documents in the 尧典. Farmstead poetry evolved out of a political form of poetry (take Tao Qian as an example) with a clear political background in mind. Such an intepretation has always been there. This idea of simplicity in life is not a recurring theme - this idea of rejection or "exile" or "returning to the farm" as a form of social commentary is not the same. Feel free to browse Stephen Owen, The Poetry of the High T'ang to get an image, or Fuller's work on Su Shi. The general idea is since you cannot comment directly on the regime (the emperor is the son of heaven, therefore cannot be wrong) you use a rejection of the "world" as a form of social protest (or you adopt such a character). These elaborate allegories are quite expansive.

The Buddhist mentality, as anybody knows, is the notion of the movement away from the suffering of the world. Not an engagement with its simplicity (which is the LaoZhuang perspective). Even so though, such poems as those attributed to Han Shan have pretty much been ignored in China since the 10th century, with quite little research on them currently. This idea of disengagement has been contradictory to the mainstream of Confucian thought, which has more or less stressed responsibility and duty over the personal.


I don't know what you are reading (maybe just Cyril Birch), but sometimes you need to accept that maybe somebody knows a little bit more than you about something. You are painting this weird picture of the Chinese poet as somehow this reclusive nature loving moderate, which is hardly the case.

The typical Chinese poet would be a whore-loving polygamist rich boy with a good education, very much absorbed in the culture of the world (particularly the city in which they are writing). In terms of verse, there are very, very, few poets who are not associated with a major urban center, and the culture of urbanity. Nature, likewise, does not function as an actual thing in Chinese writing, but is more an artistic construct (see Ledderose, Ten Thousand Things), or look at any number of great books toward approaches to Chinese art that will tell you how long you are.

[miyako73]

Again, let's make this simple:

Tell me a book to read that says classical Chinese literature is all about whining and complaining. Enough of your circuitous justifications, dropping of names, myopic reading, and weird interpretive methods. Also check the textbooks in Asian art history and Asian literature if you can see complaining/whining as a common theme.

Read "The Clouds Should Know Me By Now: Buddhist Poet Monks of China"

My advice: write a book to replace the current ones used in universities that showcase nature and daily life as common themes.

I'm done.

[JBI]

I mentioned three. Sorry if you cannot read Chinese.

[feathereds]

Answering OP.

There is such a thing as a permeable gut... I'm going to shoot off on a limb and say that there is also a permeable mind.

That is: I perceive the world of text and the world of my reality as completely separate entities. Like bubbles that squish rather than pop when pressed together, holding their boundaries firmly in place. Murakami touches me deeply. But it takes written analysis (from me) to even become aware of how he's affected my thought processing... and the ways in which he has only relates to how I read other Japanese authors now. Not to how I experience a walk outside, time with friends, or my work. Or my social behavior.

I have a longtime friend who really absorbs the novels she reads, to the point where her mood and life outlook run along the currents of whatever hardcover's in her bag in the moment.

I think that for her, books have equal potential in either amplifying or decreasing social "naturalness". It would depend on how the book meshes with her beliefs about human behavior. If they contradict her beliefs, there might be an increase in social anxiety. Etc...

She would have a permeable (perhaps "imaginative" or "sensitive" would capture what I'm trying to get at) mind and thus easily swung either way. Those without a permeable mind would not be affected.

[tonywalt]

I study it at the advanced level, but it is undoubtedly depressing. People always misunderstand Chinese verse as being about aesthetics, but for the most part, it is a sort of clever form of complaining. Since politics were the main focus of Chinese literary culture, it is not surprising that the most noteworthy poets seem to all be political failures, or seem to be writing in a time of political or cultural hardship. In fact, the Qing historians that pretty much framed the tradition of Chinese literature from past to present made a point of searching for these things - so that a philosophical poet Ruan Ji becomes a big whiner against political injustices.

The only poet who really seems to not whine is Su Shi, until you realize he is using his positive tone as a sort of political criticism to show he is not "beaten" by the unfairness allotted to him in political factional disputes. in a sense, his optimism is a sort of metaphorical whining.

This is the frame we get from the classics, where the vast majority of poems are about failures, or complaints. Complaining is the Chinese literary world's backbone, as poetry functioned socially as well as politically, and almost all major poets except for Monks and Daoist Priests were politically involved, and as anybody who reads politics knows, everyone is always unhappy when a decision or compromise is made. If one compromises, one complains of the compromise, if one loses, one complains of the loss, if one wins, one complains it takes too long. And we have from the Song onward about 3000 poems per poet, mostly written for political or social occasions. Quite depressing.

You're still hardcore JBI - and I dig that the most! I wouldn't dream of taking you on in a 'discussion' You win, again.