Abstract
This chapter applies Glenn Albrecht’s notions of solastalgia and soliphilia, which he coined to describe the psychosocial impacts of environmental degradation, to an analysis of three eminent figures in early-modern Chinese thought: Yu Yue (1821–1907), Zhang Binglin (1868–1936), and Liang Shuming (1893–1988). It argues that all three of these staunch defenders of the traditional Confucian moral order shared a profound pessimism toward the social and environmental consequences of industrialization. Each articulates a prescient critique of the destructiveness they observed in Western modernity, as well as various spiritual, moral, and economic remedies to address these ills. While their views were criticized as outdated by many of their contemporaries, we today can learn much from their unflinching recognition of ecocidal dangers evident even a century ago.
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Notes
- 1.
“Global Warming Has Begun, Expert Tells Senate” New York Times (June 24, 1988).
- 2.
“Brannan: Exxonmobil On Notice.”
- 3.
Svante Arrhenius, Words in the Making.
- 4.
Yu Yue, “San dayou lun,” in Binmengji, vol. 6: 10a (Chunzaitang quanji, 1910, vol. 4). Robert B. Marks argues that an obscure Chinese scholar-official anticipated, by several decades, Europeans’ recognition of species extinction. In an official gazetteer of a county in Guangdong, this official describes the disappearance of various animals in Guangdong, implicitly recognizing the possibility of anthropogenic reasons for this. See Marks, “‘People Said Extinction Was Not Possible’: Two Thousand Years of Environmental Change in South Chin,” in Hornborg, McNeil, and Martinez-Alier, ed., Rethinking Environmental History, 41–59.
- 5.
Gong Xianzong, ed., Taiwan zhuzhici sanbai shou, 126.
- 6.
Yuan Zuzhi, “Hubei zhuzhici,” 2808.
- 7.
Liang Shuming, Wo sheng you ya yuan wujin, 351–3; Guy Alitto, The Last Confucian: Liang Shu-ming and the Chinese Dilemma of Modernity, 335–50.
- 8.
Albrecht, Glenn, “Solastalgia,” 95–98; http://www.psychoterratica.com/solastalgia.html
- 9.
Albrecht, Glenn, “Psychoterratic Conditions in a Scientific and Technological World” in Peter H. Kahn and Patricia Hasbach, eds., Ecopsychology, 241–65; http://www.psychoterratica.com/soliphilia.html
- 10.
Timothy Morton expresses some of this emotional complexity in his description of the “ecological thought”: “It has to do with love, loss, despair, and compassion. It has to do with depression and psychosis. It has to do with capitalism and with what might exist after capitalism. It has to do with amazement, open-mindedness, and wonder. It has to do with doubt, confusion, and skepticism. It has to do with concepts of space and time. It has to do with delight, beauty, ugliness, disgust, irony, and pain.” See Morton, The Ecological Thought, 3.
- 11.
The editors of the inaugural issue of Environmental Humanities follow the Australian philosopher Val Plumwood’s identification of two central tasks for the environmental humanities: to “resituate the human within the environment, and to resituate nonhumans within cultural and ethical domains,” 3. This essay similarly attempts to “resituate” intellectual and cultural history within a broadly environmental framework.
- 12.
Fairbank, John K. ed., The Cambridge History of China, 233ff.
- 13.
See Yu Yue, “Siyi nianbiao xu” in Chunzaitang zawen xu, vol. 2, 27–28.
- 14.
See, for example, Yu’s “Ziqiang lun,” in Binmengji, vol. 6, pp. 5–8; also see “Xinzhai Ding Gong jiazhuan,” in Chunzaitang zawen 6 bian, vol. 2, 10a–15a.
- 15.
Yu Yue, “Zhishuo xia,” in Binmengji, vol. 2, 1–7.
- 16.
Yu Yue, “Mi bing yi,” in Binmengji, vol. 2: 16ab.
- 17.
Yu Yue, “Linzhong hen” in Chunzaitang quanshi, vol. 33: 14a.
- 18.
Yu Yue, Chunzaitang shibian, vol. 20, 3.
- 19.
Huang Jie, in particular, echoes Yu Yue in his condemnation of the Ming Christian Xu Guangqi’s (1562–1633) advocacy of firearm manufacturing. See Huang, “Xu Guangqi zhuan” in Guocui xuebao #19 (1906), 11a.
- 20.
Viren Murthy, The Political Philosophy of Zhang Taiyan, 83ff.
- 21.
Zhang Binglin, “Yu xiansheng zhuan” in Guocui xuebao #44 (1908), 2a.
- 22.
Zhang Binglin, “Sun Yirang zhuan” in Guocui xuebao #44 (1908), 3a.
- 23.
Zhang Binglin, Guoxue gailun, 134.
- 24.
Zhang Binglin, “Zhina Yindu lianhe zhi fa,” in Zhang, Taiyan wenlu chubian, 40–41.
- 25.
Zhang Binglin, “Wushen lun” in Taiyan wenlu chubian, 262.
- 26.
Ibid., 260.
- 27.
Sun Jiang and Hu Minghui, “Did the Yellow Emperor Come from Babylonia?” in Minghui Hu and Johann Elverskog, eds., Cosmopolitanism in China, 1600–1950, 221–261.
- 28.
Zhang, “Da Tiezheng” in Taiyan wenlu chubian, 71–74.
- 29.
Zhang, “Zhina neixin xueshe” in Zhang Taiyan ji, 64.
- 30.
Ibid.
- 31.
Zhang Binglin, “Jianli zongjiao lun” in Taiyan wenlu chubian, 355.
- 32.
Zhang Binglin, “Sihuo lun” in Zhang Taiyan ji, 87. Zhang makes it clear in this passage that he is referring to the modern scientific meaning of the term “nature,” and not to the Daoist notion of “[things] as they are” (also ziran).
- 33.
See Shen Jinyao, Lu Xun zawen shixue yanjiu, 45ff.
- 34.
Needless to say, Darwin’s own understanding of evolution was far more nuanced than that of some of his interpreters. He reportedly adopted the phrase “survival of the fittest” reluctantly on the advice of a publisher. According to Timothy Morton,
[s]trict Darwinism is profoundly anti-teleological (Marx liked it for this reason). Individuals and species don’t abstractly ‘want’ to survive to preserve their form: only macromolecular replicators ‘want’ that…A vast profusion of gender and sex performances can arise. As far as evolution goes, they can stay that way. Thinking otherwise is ‘adaptationism.’ (See Morton, 98)
- 35.
For a brief overview of the relationship between Nazi racial theory and Social Darwinism, see “Victims of the Nazi Era: Nazi Racial Theories,” in Holocaust Encyclopedia. On neoliberalism’s debt to Social Darwinism, see Simon Springer, Violent Neoliberalism, 98ff.
- 36.
Zhang Binglin, “Sihuo lun,” 92.
- 37.
Zhang followed the standard Confucian practice in maintaining a strict separation between the human and animal domains, the latter representing bestial natures toward which humankind must remain perpetually vigilant. See Michael Nylan, The Five Confucian Classics, 9.
- 38.
Ibid., 94.
- 39.
Ibid., 89. Zhang disregards some of the more positive examples of lao in classical texts, probably because here he is addressing its imposition on the common folk, rather than its potential for spurring heroic actions or fostering unusual talents (e.g. in Mencius 12.15).
- 40.
Liang Shuming, “Cunzhi zhi ziyou” quoted in Li Qingyu, Zai chushi yu rushi zhi jian, 272.
- 41.
Li Qingyu, 42, 241. Liang noted late in life that while he had at first been impressed by Zhang Binglin’s Buddhist practice, he eventually concluded that Zhang’s knowledge of this subject was in fact relatively superficial.
- 42.
Liang Shuming, “Zhongxi xueshu zhi butong,” in Chushi yu rushi, 145.
- 43.
Ibid., 147.
- 44.
Ibid., 147.
- 45.
Liang Shuming, Zhongguo wenhua zhi mingyun, 210.
- 46.
Liang Shuming, Zhongguo wenhua yaoyi, 273.
- 47.
Ibid., 280.
- 48.
Liang Shuming, Xiangcun jianshe lilun, 287.
- 49.
Ma Yong, Sixiang qiren Liang Shuming, 184.
- 50.
Alitto, 214.
- 51.
Liang Shuming, Xiangcun jianshe lilun, 72.
- 52.
Yu Yue, “Wang Ganchen Gezhi guwei xu,” in Chunzaitang zawen liubian, vol. 7, 21.
- 53.
Liang Shuming, Zhongxi wenhua ji qi zhexue, 162.
- 54.
Ibid., 165.
- 55.
Ibid., 180.
- 56.
Zhang Binglin, “Jufen jinhua lun,” in Taiyan wenlu chubian, 49–56.
- 57.
Nyanatiloka and Nyanaponika, Buddhist Dictionary, 200.
- 58.
Angus, Ian, “The Myth of ‘Environmental Catastrophism.’”
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Roddy, S. (2019). The Nakedness of Hope: Solastalgia and Soliphilia in the Writings of Yu Yue, Zhang Binglin, and Liang Shuming. In: Chang, Cj. (eds) Chinese Environmental Humanities. Chinese Literature and Culture in the World. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18634-0_3
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