中国审美：自然与法的协调 Chinese Aesthetics: The Unity of Regularity and Naturalness

中国美学中有两个看来相反但必须协调的观念：自然与法。

唐朝律诗，是要遵守许多法则的，平仄，押韵，字数行数对齐工整，等等，可是我们读诗人李白，杜甫，王维这些诗人的诗，感觉上或是自由奔放，浑成天然，或是刚雄浩大，总之是无斧凿之痕，一派自然的情态。

可见法与自然，是没有矛盾的。其实就是自然之法。自然之法是活法，不是死法。活法随时代而改变。所以不同时代的艺术家都尽情地追求他们自己的活法和创造梦想。

石涛说：“至人无法，非无法也，无法而法，乃为至法。”就是说艺人进入艺术创造的最高境界，无所束缚，可以从心所欲，不逾矩。

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Extracted from 'An Intercultural Perspective on Chinese Aesthetics' by

Karl-Heinz Pohl: Traditional Chinese poetics and art theory give weight to two seemingly contradictory notions: to naturalness (ziran) and regularity (fa).

The stunning aesthetic effect of this unity of opposites can best be observed and studied in the so-called “regular poems” (lüshi), flourishing in the golden age of Chinese poetry, the Tang dynasty (6th-10th cent. AD). These poems have to follow a strict set of rules concerning length and number of lines, tone patterns, parallelism and the like. And yet, reading the works of not only the greatest poets of that time, such as Du Fu, Li Bai or Wang Wei, one gets a feeling of absolute naturalness and ease, recalling Goethe’s dictum, that “true mastery only reveals itself in restriction” (In der Beschränkung zeigt sich erst der Meister).....

The concept of unity of naturalness and regularity – in terms of following the rules of nature – was...... elaborated on by juxtaposing the notion of “living rules” (huo fa) against that of “dead rules” (si fa).....the Chinese traditional aesthetic ideal of a great work of poetry or art: that of a living, organic pattern, not dependent on rules derived from “orthodox” models or periods but following the rules of nature.

Such works come alive, creating their own rules, in each new period with each new poet-artist who is stirred by the world and its affairs. In painting, it was the influential unorthodox monk-painter Shitao (1641-1717) who pinpointed this idea with his famous notion of “no-rule” being the “ultimate rule” (wu fa er fa, nai wei zhi fa).

啊！狗肉，北京奥林匹克关你什么啦？.....Dog Meat Off the Menu During Beijing Olympics

七月十一日，Msnbc.com报导北京在奥林匹克期间，所有指定餐馆禁止出售狗肉。北京旅游官员也奉劝其他餐馆务必劝阻顾客点叫和狗肉有关的菜式。

有人就认为这是中国为了讨好西方和对中国文化没有信心的一种表现。

在西方，吃狗肉一般上是社会禁忌。其实，西方也有吃狗肉的历史。法国人在饥荒时就吃狗肉。德国人在十八世纪开始吃狗肉，直到1986年才被禁止。在瑞士，人们吃狗香肠，还有人认为狗香肠是其中最健康的。

美国人不吃狗肉，而且吃狗和宠物的肉是社会的禁忌。

可能中国人吃狗肉的历史最久。据说从新石器时代开始中国人就食用狗肉。这种文化在古代东亚被广泛传播。佛教传到日本以前，日本人也吃狗肉。

中国少数民族布依族对吃狗肉有一个传说：古代有一个低洼的地方，在插完秧之后许多人突然瘫痪。巫师占卜后说必须找一只狗来祭祀祈禳方可安宁。祭祀之后杀狗煮肉，每人一碗狗肉汤，果然病全好了。从此布依族才吃起狗肉来。而在这之前布依族不吃狗肉是因为传说狗从天上取来谷种，狗对人有恩，受到尊重。

《史记。越王勾践世家》记载，范蠡从齐国回来后给大夫文种留下一封书信说，鸟没有了，人们就把良弓藏起来，而兔子打完了，主人常常把猎狗杀来吃。越王脖子长，有一张鸟嘴，这种人只能与你共患难，而不会与你共欢乐的，趁早一走了之罢。这就是今天我们知道的“兔死狗烹”成语的来历。

《孟子。梁惠王上》说：“鸡豚狗彘之畜，无失其时，七十者可以食肉矣。”就是说，鸡猪狗这类的牲畜，不要错过它们繁殖的季节，这样七十岁的人就可以有肉吃了。

战国时侠客聂政，汉高祖刘邦的心腹樊哙，勇刺秦皇的荆轲和其好友高渐离，据说都曾经以杀狗为生的。

谈了这么多，并不是说我喜欢吃狗肉。相反，狗肉当前，可能还真的吃不下。只是说，人向来有吃动物的习惯，吃不吃某种动物的肉，和个人及某个族群的传统，喜好，过去经验，价值观念，宗教信仰，等等有关。硬说吃某种动物的肉是不文明的举动，这本身可能就是一种不可取的沙文主义吧。

Msnbc.com's Dara Brown reported on 11 Jul 2008 that dog meat has been struck from the menus of officially designated Olympic restaurants, and Beijing tourism officials are telling other outlets to discourage consumers from ordering dishes made from dogs.

Some people say that the ban on sale of dog meat during the Olympics is mainly to please the West as the consumption of dog meat is generally viewed as taboo in Western culture, and in the US, it is considered a social taboo to eat dogs or other animals traditionally considered to be pets or companion animals.

It is believed that dog meat has been a source of food in parts of China from at least the time of Confucius, and possibly even before.

Wikipedia: "In France, dogs were widely eaten during famines. Dog meat has been eaten in every major German crisis at least since the time of Frederick the Great, and is commonly referred to as "blockade mutton". Since 1986 dog meat is prohibited in Germany. Dog sausage and smoked dog jerky remains a staple in the Swiss cantons of St. Gallen and Appenzell, where one farmer was quoted in a regional weekly newspaper as saying that 'meat from dogs is the healthiest of all. It has shorter fibres than cow meat, has no hormones like veal, no antibiotics like pork.'"

However, this is not the first time that the dog meat is banned during Olympics. I found the following in Wikipedia:

"During the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, Korea's capital city, the South Korean government asked its citizens not to consume dog meat to avoid bad publicity during the games. The controversy surfaced again in 2001 during the 2002 FIFA World Cup. The organizer of the games, under pressure from animal rights groups such as PETA, demanded that the Korean government re-address the issue."

艺术形似说: 画鬼容易画人难............ It is Easy to Paint Ghosts and Demons because.....

我们知道韩非子中国法家的集大成者。
在魏晋以前，他的一个故事是相当有名的。这个故事记载在《韩非子-外储》里：
客有为齐王画者，齐王问曰：“画孰最难者？”

曰：“犬马最难。”

“孰易者？”

曰：“鬼魅最易。夫犬马，人所知也，旦暮罄于前，不可类之，故难。鬼魅无形者，不罄于前，故易之也。”
他说：“画鬼怪最容易。狗、马是人们所熟悉的，早晚都出现在你面前，不可仅仅画得相似而已，所以难画；鬼怪是无形的，不会出现在人们面前，所以容易画。”
可是，魏晋以后就没有什么人引用他的这一典故了。这是因为自魏晋以来，中国艺术观念改变，写实和形似不再被尊崇。魏晋人重玄学，受庄子美学思想的影响而追求神逸的意境。
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During the Spring and Autumn and the Warring States periods, the Chinese artists actually saw the world with realist eyes and tried to imitate the external appearance of objects in their works. This had led Han Fei Zi to say that it was easy to paint ghosts and demons, but difficult to paint dogs and horses, since people had never seen ghosts or demons, but saw dogs and horses every day.
However, after the collapse of the Han Dynasty, the idea of shen (神) emerged in the paintings due to the influence of Zhuangzi's philosophy and remarks of Gu Kaizhi (顾恺之). Eventually, this idea was widely accepted by the artists in China.
Shen means "spirit"or "soul", thus the artists are by implication capable of conveying the soul or spirit of the object.

啊！自由：若为自由故，两者皆可抛............ Give me Liberty or Give me Death

西方人崇尚自由，那是不容置疑的。在中学读书时，这首匈牙利爱国诗人裴多菲所写的诗，给我留下深刻印象，几十年不忘：
生命诚可贵 , 爱情价更高。 若为自由故, 两者皆可抛。
诗人写这首诗和所表达对自由的追求，自有其特殊的环境和背景。历来西方伟大人物，无不称颂自由的重要和可贵：
[美]帕特里克·亨利：不自由，毋宁死。
[美]本杰明·富兰克林：哪里有自由，哪里就是我的祖国。
大概没有多少人会对自由的理念有异意。问题在于达到自由的手段。所以，不少人也对自由有了感叹和警惕：
[美]米尔顿·弗里德曼：对自由的严重威胁在于权力的集中。
[法]罗兰夫人：自由啊！自由！多少罪恶假汝之名而行！
中国孔子一辈子提倡道德自由：“七十而从心所欲不逾矩”，这应该算是站在个人的角度，划出了个人自由与社会自由之间的界限。可见，中国人有史以来就有自由观念。可是孔子的这个理念从来没有经过制度化，所以未能建立在合法的基础上。有人把这种精神领域的中国式自由称为“散漫的自由”、“一盘散沙的自由”。尽管它随时随地都存在，然而也随时随地都有丧失的可能。

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There is no doubt that many people in the West think that it is extremely important to have Freedom/Liberty. Here are some quotations about freedom and liberty:

Sándor Petõfi, a Hungarian poet: Liberty, love! These two I need. For my love I will sacrifice life, for liberty I will sacrifice my love. (The Chinese version says: Life is dear, love is dearer. Both can be given up for freedom.)

Patrick Henry, a US orator, patriot, & politician in American Revolution (1736 - 1799): Give me liberty or give me death.

Benjamin Franklin (1706 – 1790), one of the founding fathers of the United States of America: Where there is liberty, there is my country.

I think very few people would argue against the importance of freedom. However, there may be some disagreements on the ways and means to achieve freedom and liberty. There are therefore people who comment on the threats to and express their disappointment on the misuse of freedom:

Milton Friedman (1912 - 2006), an American economist: The great threat to freedom is the concentration of power.

Marie-Jeanne Roland (1754-1793), a French writer and political figure: O Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name!

In China, it can be said that Confucius mentioned the idea of freedom when he said: "At seventy I could follow the desires of my mind without overstepping the boundaries of what is right." However, such an idea has never been institutionalised, and up till today, it remains a dream to be fulfilled by individuals.

西方理性思维的源头：单一世界秩序 Inside the Western Mind: Single-ordered World

学者一般认为：理性思维是西方文明发展的基石，而东方文明的基石是审美思维，或者叫联想思维。

郝大维与安乐哲指出，西方宇宙学说中的一个重要的假设是认为世界是个单一的整体。这个假设令很多人否认多元世界秩序的存在。所以，西方人很难接受语言，风俗习惯和文化的多元性。为了要达到他们周围社会的稳定，他们希望看到的是和谐，秩序和一元化，而不是不和谐，混乱和无秩序，无政府状态。其结果是，在寻找全球性原则与规范中，和谐，秩序与一元化成为选定的概念。

在西方，无论是从社会或哲学角度，人们对于无秩序/无政府状态的概念存有恐惧。可以这么说，在哲学上，西方人不能忍受知识上的无所以依据，他们需要一个单元有秩序的宇宙作为稳定知识的依据。

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Extracted from "A Philosophical Evaluation of Western and Eastern Civilization from a Whiteheadian Perspective" by

Wang Shik Jang: It is often pointed out that while the advancement of Western civilization has been based on a rational way of thinking, that of Eastern civilization has been based on an aesthetic way of thinking......

According to Hall and Ames, one salient characteristic of the Western cosmologies lies in their presumption of the world as “a single-ordered whole.” With such a presumption of the world as a single-ordered whole, many people in the West deny that there are many world orders. For example, it has not been easy for the Westerners to accept plurality of languages, customs and cultures. Therefore, in order to achieve social stability in their surroundings, they favor harmony, cosmos (i.e., order) and unity rather than discord, chaos and anarchy. As a result, harmony, cosmos, and unity have become the selected notions that are sought in an attempt to discover universalizable principles and standards........
Some people may ask why a single-ordered world, i.e., cosmos has always been preferred in the West to the diffusing plurality of the world, i.e., chaos. An answer would be that the notion of anarchy, whether it is social or philosophical, has been feared in the West. Or, philosophically, it can be said that people in the West could not bear an epistemological uncertainty. Therefore, in order to arrive at a tolerable degree of epistemological stability, they needed the concept of unified world, i.e., universe.

审美距离：今日忽从江上望，始知家在画图中 Aesthetic Distance

今天，为大家抄录一首我所喜爱的小诗：清代女诗人郭六芳的《舟还长沙》：

侬家家住两湖东，

十二珠帘夕照红。

今日忽从江上望，

始知家在画图中。

人生很多的美只有在离开后的回归才能欣赏。诗人也是离开后的回归中发现自己湖边的家是如此如诗如画般美丽。
这里讲究的是整体的，与自然交融一体的美，这样的审美效果，只有通过一定的距离，通过“隔”的视觉效应，才能把握，反过来也正反映了这种整体观，自然观和与自然的合一观。这与西方美学不同，一位西方哲学家美学家说，一个艺术品从山上滚到山下，还是美的，把艺术看成一种独立的东西。
这首诗也很好的体现了审美中所谓的距离效果。因为隔江相望，有了空间距离，并且是透过江上烟波相望，平常的景物就变得格外美丽了。

The term "aesthetic distance" was coined by Edward Bullough (1880-1934) in 1912.
According to Bullough, a person is "over-distanced" when their perspective becomes too "cold" and "withdrawn" - resulting in a failure to be sufficiently involved with the works' emotional appeal to properly understand or relate to it. On the other hand, a person can become "under-distanced" when their view becomes too "subjective," thus resulting in a failure to be able to appreciate any of the larger issues involved with the work or any larger messages the work is trying to convey. Thus, proper aesthetic distance means finding some middle ground between the ways in which a work of art makes you feel and the ways it makes you think.

子曰：三十而立 Confucius said: At thirty, I could stand.

在中学读到孔子这句话时，自然而然的就把它解释为：人到了三十岁，就应该成家立业了。‘立’就是‘立业’的意思。这种说法对吗？
“三十而立。”三十岁孔丘就可以“立”了。
孔丘说：“不学礼，无以立。”《论语·季氏》。又说：“立于礼，成于乐。”《论语·泰伯》
冯友兰认为‘立’就是懂得了行事为人的准则。所谓“非礼勿视，非礼勿听，非礼勿言，非礼勿动”《论语·颜渊》，立就是学礼已经达到一定的程度，那么视、听、言、动，都可以循规蹈矩，不至于违反周礼，可以站得住。
李泽厚《论语今读》说：“‘三十而立’，有人强调与‘立于礼’有关，是指人从六岁‘习礼’到三十岁才算完全掌握熟练，但后世注疏多不拘泥于学礼，而泛指人格的成熟，更佳。”
南怀瑾《论语中的名句》说：“立就是不动，做人做事处世的道理不变了，确定了，这个人生非走这个路子不可。”
杨伯峻《〈论语〉译注》的译文：三十岁，懂礼仪，说话做事都有把握。
蔡尚思《孔子思想体系》也说：“‘三十而立’，也就是学有所成。”这个学有所成，不单纯指知识和学问，还包括一个人的人生观、世界观、价值观，包括一个人的人格。
举了这么多学者的注解，大家明白了吗？
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Confucius said: "三十而立 San Shi Er Li" .

How to translate this into English? Here are some translations that I found on the Internet:
"Be successful by thirty"
"At thirty, I could stand."
"At thirty, I stood firm."
"At 30 I firmly took my stand."
"At thirty I had a place to stand."
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Let's talk about 立 first. Here li (立) means to establish, that is to say, our knowledge and learning, including our life philosophy, world view, sense of worth and personality have become mature and established when we are 30.

It also means to stand, to make a stand.

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Now the question is: What actually do you want to establish? What 'stand' do you want to take? There are many possible interpretations here. This is because Confucius did not elaborate on the What. Many scholars interpret What to mean li (礼) by quoting Confucius' own words: "Take your stand ie li(立) in the li (礼)." (立于礼 li yu li). Confused?

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Now, let's talk about 礼. According to Confucius, li (礼) is defined as proprietary rites or good manners. The concept of li determines how you act in a given relationship. In other words, li can be viewed as a person's morality. A person's morality is responsible for how they act or react to certain situations as well as how they view the world. Confucius advocates the necessity of li as a stepping stone to social harmony. li is interpreted quite differently throughout Confucian philosophy.
Fung Yu-Lan: "Confucius also said: 'Take your stand in the li (rituals, ceremonies, proper conduct).' (Analetcs VIII, 8) Again he said: 'Not to know li is to have no means of standing.' (XX, 3) Thus when he said at thirty he could 'stand', he means that he then understood the li and so could practice proper conduct.

新加坡：成功使它成为代罪羔羊....... Singapore: Success Makes It a Scapegoat

7月21日海峡时报刊登的一篇题为‘成功使它成为代罪羔羊’的评论，很好的解释了为什么西方的非政府组织和媒体喜欢对新加坡指指点点，认为新加坡虽然富有，可是没有吸引力。

为什么新加坡会被批评？因为新加坡小，因为世界上有很多国家认真的看待新加坡的治国模式，更因为新加坡很成功。

这样，新加坡的成功便成了他的最大问题。他不是亚洲唯一在经济和政治上有令人瞩目的大改革的国家，可是在亚洲各国中，唯有他的知识分子和政治家能够融入西方的知识圈子。这就使到他在国际上的可见度比他的国土大得多了。

令西方非政府组织烦恼不安的是，新加坡模式对其他发展中国家所其带来的启示。过去十年，苏联，中国和中东国家，都明确的表示希望学习新加坡的模式。这就令西方的非政府组织不满了。他们认为新加坡输出的模式正在挑战他们所珍惜的发展设想：所谓的‘华盛顿共识’- 这个共识规定‘好治理’，包括那些粉饰的民主，是经济繁荣的先决条件。

评论指出，新加坡人其实可以从这种情况中获得满足感。首先，他们成为国际好奇的目标，正好说明他们的制度行得通。他们被详尽的研究，正表示新加坡模式有更大的应用空间。

所以说，这是一个‘批评就是最诚恳的赞美’的情况，虽然会被叮入骨髓。

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On 21 Jul, the Straits Times published Jonathan Eyal's article entiled 'Success makes it a scapegoat' and I quote:

"..... Reports from a variety of non-governmental organisations (NGO) and international media sources periodically portray Singapore as a wealthy yet less than attractive state......

To a large extent, success is Singapore's biggest problem. It is hardly the only Asian country to undergo a remarkable ecomonic and political transformation. But it is the only Asian nation whose academics and politicians are completely plugged into the current Western intellectual circuit. So, Singapore's international visibility far outstrips the country's actual size......

...some international NGOs fret about what Singapore means for the development of other nations. Over the decade, countries as far apart as China, Russia and the Gulf states have explicitly praised the Singapore model as the one they wish to follow.....

Western NGOs resent Singapore because they see it as an exporter of a model which challenges their cherished assumptions of development, the so-called 'Washington consensus' which decrees that 'good governance' - by which they mean all the technical trappings of democracy - are a prerequisite for economy prosperity.....

Yet Singaporeans can also derive satisfaction from the current climate. First, they are the subject of international curiosity because theirs is a system which works.

And they are being scrutinised precisely because people suspect that the Singapore model does have wider applications.

So, this is one instance when criticism may be the surest mode of flattery. Regardless of how much it stings."

创作与灵感 What is Artistic Inspiration?

灵感存在于一切艺术创造中，书法亦然。
许多书法学习者，苦练书法多年，觉得没有进步和突破，直到在一个偶然机遇，令他‘悟’出了要突破的那一点，从此书艺大进，达到了一个新的境界。传说唐代大书法家张旭就是看了公孙大娘的舞剑器才悟出了写好书法的道理。

西方为了给艺术灵感下定义而争论不休，看下面英文的叙述就知道了。这是他们的可爱处。可中国人从来不给灵感下定义，盖言不尽意也。

灵感是需要寻找和追求的。许多人看到书法精品，可是没有感触，不能从中领悟出什么东西。为什么呢？因为他没有去追求。灵感有法可寻吗？这是个大问题。我们的老祖宗也没有明确的告诉我们。就从古人的诗歌中寻找吧：

众里寻他千百度，蓦然回首，那人却在，灯火阑珊处。

In the crowd for a thousand times, I failed to look for my love. Suddenly she turned her head and appeared in the corner, where lights were sparse and somber.

明白了，学书法不但要有追求，而且要‘寻他千百度’，蜻蜓点水式的学习是不行的。寻找是每一个学书法的人必须走的路程，走够千万里，路途由生而熟，所谓熟能生巧，那时还要谈灵感吗？

People often thinks of artistic inspiration arriving in a sort of thunderbolt moment of creativity.

The truth is, almost nothing is created out of thin air. "Great works of art set a standard, set the bar," says Clint Brown, author of Artist to Artist: Inspiration and Advice from Artists Past and Present. "Although they can be humiliating in a certain sense because they're powerful… they can give you new ideas and help things connect in your own work."

Wikipedia on Inspiration: Inspiration in artistic composition refers to an irrational and unconscious burst of creativity. Literally, the word means "breathed upon," and it has its origins in both Hellenism and Hebraism in the west.

In Greek thought, inspiration meant that the poet or artist would go into ecstasy or furor poeticus, the divine frenzy or poetic madness. He or she would be transported beyond his own mind and given the gods' or goddesses own thoughts to embody.

In Christianity, inspiration is a gift of the Holy Spirit. Saint Paul said that all of the Bible is inspired by God, and the account of Pentecost records the Holy Spirit descending with the sound of a mighty wind.

In the 18th century in England, .... John Locke's model of the human mind suggested that ideas associate with one another and that a string in the mind can be struck by a resonant idea. Therefore, inspiration was a somewhat random but wholly natural association of ideas and sudden unison of thought......Romantic writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson (The Poet), and Percy Bysshe Shelley saw inspiration in terms similar to the Greeks: it was a matter of madness and irrationality.

Sigmund Freud and other later psychologists located inspiration in the inner psyche of the artist. The artist's inspiration came out of unresolved psychological conflict or childhood trauma. Further, inspiration could come directly from the subconscious. Like the Romantic genius theory and the revived notion of "poetic phrenzy," Freud saw artists as fundamentally special, and fundamentally wounded.
Materialist theories of inspiration again diverge between purely internal and purely external sources. Marx did not treat the subject directly, but the Marxist theory of art sees it as the expression of the friction between economic base and economic super-structural positions, or as an unaware dialog of competing ideologies, or as an exploitation of a "fissure" in the ruling class's ideology........

In modern psychology, inspiration is not frequently studied, but it is generally seen as an entirely internal process. In each view, however, whether empiricist or mystical, inspiration is, by its nature, beyond control.

西方学者谈中国的男人主义 Let's Talk About Sexism

还没有机会读郝大卫与安乐哲的名著《汉哲学思维的文化探源》，虽然闻名已久。在网上却找到了Saniba Knight 一篇评论该书的文章。文章中提到的《中国男人主义》(Chinese Sexism) 部分引人注目。

作者认为，在男人支配的西方社会，虽然在个人事业发展和社会地位方面给于的男人很多特权，女人至少还有机会达到男人同等的社会地位。可是在中国，由于传统阴阳观念强调阴阳调和，男女互补，所以男女平等这颗种子根本就没有机会被播种，更不用说开花结果了。老子《道德经》提出阴性地位只是为缓和男女间极度不平衡而下的解毒药。

结论就是：中国的男人主义其实十分残忍，它根本就没有给于妇女一个做人的可能性。换句话说，汉代人并不把妇女当作人来看待。

这个看法和结论令我十分困扰。男女平等是一个怎样的概念，并不是我们这些凡夫俗子所能讲清楚的。可是强调阴阳调和，男女互补，依我看，倒是一个十分实际的对待社会现实现象的办法。

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I have not had a chance to read David Hall & Roger Ames's book entitled 'Thinking From the Han: Self, Truth, and Transcendence in Chinese and Western Culture'. However I have found on the Internet a review article on the book. The article, published in Fall 99 issue of the China Review International, was written by Sabina Knight.

The section on Chinese Sexism caught my attention and I quote:
"In Western cultures male dominance has led to definitions of personal achievement that privilege masculine gender traits, and the hegemony of dualistic categories means that women can at best achieve the status of honorary males. In China, emphasis on complementary pairings means that a realized person achieves a harmony of human traits and dispositions, balancing both yin and yang characteristics. The fundamental hierarchy of these relations, however, means that no basis exists for gender equality. The authors thus argue that the Daodejing’s rehabilitation of yin characteristics and feminine traits is merely an antidote to excessive imbalance, not a privileging of these characteristics as some earlier scholarship has argued.
Chinese sexism is thus profoundly more “brutal” insofar as it denies women the very possibility of becoming human. Whereas the Western tradition guarantees a woman an essential human nature even as it forces her to resign her difference to achieve it, the Han tradition views becoming human as a cultural achievement and offers no guarantee about the sanctity of human life. The tradition thus esteems fully realized, authoritative humans who are more cultured and better educated while likening less cultured people to animals. This qualitative hierarchy has historically led to a reluctance to view women as fully realized persons and at times even been invoked to justify abuse."

I am disturbed by the statement that "Chinese sexism is thus profoundly more “brutal” insofar as it denies women the very possibility of becoming human." I really do not understand what is wrong with the idea that man and woman are a complementary pair and that a realized person achieves a harmony of human traits and dispositions, balancing both yin and yang characteristics. As a Chinese, I am definitely not aware that our ancestors had in any way denied women the very posibility of becoming human.