In the Fields of Shennong:

A Cultural Ecology of Early and Medieval China

(Prof. R. Sterckx)

 

 

Chinese attitudes towards the management of natural environments and resources have received little attention by historians of China. Yet examining the impact of human activity on the natural world and the ways in which communities interacted with their natural environments in a historical perspective is pivotal to our understanding of some of the environmental issues China has faced past and present. One of the greatest misunderstandings about traditional China is the idea that while the West sought to conquer and exploit nature, Chinese society sought to live in harmony with it. To some, this insistence on unquestioned harmony with one’s environment would also explain why the Chinese desisted from questioning political authority.

 

In reality, however, the Chinese state has consistently attempted to harbour natural resources and mould nature. It has done so, for instance, by mobilising populations for collective labour projects, often on a vast scale and with a high degree of compulsion; but also, ideologically, by asserting the primacy of the collective over the individual and by overriding local concerns in the name of the supposedly broader interests of empire. Throughout Chinese history the state has continuously redefined notions of progress and welfare against conflicting tensions between agriculture and trade, moral justice versus the pursuit of wealth, or individualism versus the role of the collective.

 

This project seeks to examine the interaction between philosophical, religious and socio-political ideologies and practices related to human and natural environments and state policy in early and medieval China. Attitudes towards natural environments in traditional China were deeply influenced by court-based ideologies and policies. For the mainstay of the period in question this ideology consisted predominantly of varying incarnations of Confucian, Buddhist and Daoist thought.  While some of these philosophies presented themselves as a-political in theory, their impact on socio-political attitudes was nevertheless profound.

 

It is the aim of this project to investigate how ideologies promoted, impeded, and were shaped by the ways in which humans interacted with natural environments. We are interested in the ramifications of religion, philosophy and political ideology on the actual management of natural resources, perceptions of human progress – both social and technological -- social ecology, and human poverty and deprivation.

 

The project adheres to a broad understanding of the notion of “environment”. We do not merely mean to study Chinese understandings of climate or natural events such as floods or droughts or think of nature simply as that part of the world left untouched by human action. Environment includes agriculture, fauna and flora, forestry, water management and the movement of human and natural resources. Likewise environment includes issues such as the management of natural disasters, famine, as well as diseases and epidemics effecting humans as well as animals and plants.

在神農的田園──中國上古與中古時期之文化生態

早期中國對自然環境和資源之管理所抱持的態度較少受到中國歷史學家的關注。其中對傳統中國最大的誤解如當古希臘追求勝利，從科學的角度來看，開發自然的同時，上古時期的中國卻僅追求與自然合諧相處的看法。對某些學者而言，此種認為 “天人合一” 毫無爭議的堅持亦可以解釋一些現象，比如戰國秦漢時期中的許多思想家避免質疑政治權威。

然而事實上，中國朝廷一貫試圖依存於天然資源，並且試圖改變自然。比如透過人口移動來進行集體勞動計畫，通常規模龐大且具有高度的強制性。在意識形態上，主張大我重於小我，並以朝廷可期的更大利益之名凌駕於地方關注之上。舉例來說，秦朝和漢朝持續地重新定義一些概念：在農業和商業緊張衝突下的發展和福祉、道德正義與財富追求，或個人主義與群體的角色等。

此書試圖檢驗哲學的、宗教的和社會政治的意識型態三者之間的互動、與人類和自然環境有關的實例，以及戰國時期、秦漢和中古時期早期文獻中的朝廷政策。早期中國對於自然環境的態度，受以朝廷為基的意識形態和政策影響甚深。關於上述時期的思想支柱，意識型態主要包括儒家、佛家，以及道家思想的演變。雖然其中的某些哲學家理論上表現出不關心政治之貌，他們對於社會政治態度的影響卻是很深的。宗教派別、哲學和政治體系對於自然資源的實際處理方式、人類進步的觀念──包含社會及科技兩方面──社會生態、人類的貧窮與匱乏，均是我們有興趣研究的課題。

此書支持對於“環境”概念的廣泛理解。筆者指的不只是研究中國對於氣候或天然現象如水災或乾旱的了解，或者單純認為自然僅是世界上人類活動未觸及的部份。環境包括農業、動植物、山林、水資源管理以及人類活動和自然資源。同樣地，環境涵蓋的議題包括對於天然災害和飢荒的處理，以及影響人類和動植物的疾病和流行病。

 

 

 

Wealth and poverty in Traditional China (Prof. R. Sterckx)

 

Ideas about the creation of wealth, social progress, poverty and exclusion are historically contingent in China and elsewhere. This project seeks to examine changing perceptions of wealth, profit, and poverty, and innovative efforts to overcome structural obstacles to wealth creation in early China.

 

Debates about the acquisition of wealth and the boundaries between moral values and material welfare can be traced back to the writings of China’s classical period. Warring States philosophers were uniformly agreed in their diagnosis of human nature as coveting profit and material wealth. Yet they all chose their individual style and metaphors to describe the universality of a desire for profit. Chinese historiography often depicts the development of society through stages: from agricultural autarky, through a stage of minimal division of labour, to the fully multi-purposeful economy consisting of agriculture, manufacture and trade.

 

Political power and authority in early China were intimately linked to the ability to be seen to give and share wealth with others. This demonstration of symbolical and material largesse was a means to insert oneself into a social network in which hierarchical relations were expressed through the medium of giving and receiving. Inferiors would duly or symbolically suffer from not being at the receiving end of the moral and material generosity of superiors. Likewise a ruler or superior could not express his superiority when deprived of the opportunity to give and share. Sharing was an indirect way to appropriate power among what appeared to be equal relationships. Reticence to receiving objects or gifts likewise expressed a resistance to the power relationships expressed in them.

 

This project examines the interplay between moral and material values in early China and the ways in which these manifested themselves in the interface between economics, ritual, and religion.