6/23/2023 0 Comments The analects book 1![]() ![]() ![]() One tries to achieve harmony and beauty in one's actions. Ritual can be seen as a kind of aesthetics of daily life. ![]() In the Dao of the kings of old, This was the beauty." (1.12) Li is translated usually as ritual, but this is ritual considered broadly. Still, all of this can be done in an aesthetic way, understood more broadly.Īnother passage that concerns aesthetics: "In the practice of li, Harmony is the key. It is sufficient to conduct oneself well, speak carefully, and choose friends who follow the dao. But this is not necessarily literal love of reading and writing. "If a person is apt in conduct and cautious in speech, stays near those who keep to the dao and corrects himself thereby, he may be said to love learning." The alternative to the narrow aesthete is someone who loves learning. "A junzi is not concerned that food fill his belly he does not see comfort in his residence." (1.14) The junzi is no crude aesthete in the sense of being concerned with good food and a comfortable home. ![]() "To be poor but joyful to be wealthy and love li." (1.15) The junzi achieves joy through this process of self-creation in which the civilized arts (li) are encountered with love. He polishes himself, creates himself as a work of art. The junzi (noble human) is as a sculpture, chiseled, carved, polished. "As though cut, as though chiseled, As though carved, as though polished" quote from the Poetry. ![]()
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