The Ruler of the Southern Ocean was Fast (Shu), the Ruler of the Northern Ocean was Furious (Hu), and the Ruler of the Center was Chaos (Hundun). Shu and Hu were continually meeting in the land of Chaos, who treated them very well. They consulted together how they might repay his kindness, and said, 'Men all have seven orifices for the purpose of seeing, hearing, eating, and breathing, while this (poor) Ruler alone has not one. Let us try and make them for him.' Accordingly they dug one orifice in him every day; and at the end of seven days Chaos died.
The interpretations of this last story from the seven Inner Chapters of Zhuangzi are usually dominated by mythology-based readings, taking it as reflecting cosmological metaphysics on the principium of creation as creatio continua or natura perpetua infinita. Such religious speculations, in turn, have lead to political readings of the text as ancient Chinese ‘cultural critique’. The reading presented here show how the narrative allows for diverse appropriations and reconstructions of its meaning. All of them, however, deal with it as a depiction of a downfall and therefore as a tragedy, and none of them see it, at its core, as a parody of a cosmological tale and thus as a comedy. In order to appreciate the story’s humor, one has to first accept that the tale of Hundun in the Zhuangzi, while centered on a well-known mythological characters in Chinese literature, is not a myth, and much less a cosmic – rather, it is a parody of a myth . . .
Hundun is mortally pierced by the seemingly gracious procedure providing him with a face. The emperors thought this was a good idea, and Hundun –who was not well versed in the art of life –did not disagree. Unlike a sudden death by a tiger’s claw or a soldier’s spear, Hundun died a protracted death by socialization: the imposition of a face illustrates the ‘Daoist’s perspective’ that ‘face’ and ‘name’ are the fatally deceptive characteristics of a fallen human nature that accepts the values of human culture as ontologically definitive and normative.’ Put more simply, the story illustrates how one perishes from accepting an identity. The emperors, Hundun’s ‘friendly’ social environment, form Hundun into another social persona. They wish to transform him from an evasive, shapeless, and impersonal entity into a sincere and honest member of society (one who has a designated social role and matching actuality) – which is how they see themselves. He dies because he lacks the art of avoiding social identification. He not only dos not avoid it but also makes the mistake of inviting it. At the moment when his identity is complete, he perishes. In other words, his error consists in lack of immunity against and the ensuing verification of the social identity that is imposed on him.
The perfidy of Hundun’s death, its insanity, and the ensuing difficulty to avoid it – a difficulty that turns out to be harder to avoid than deadly stabs in the midst of rhinos or warriors – lay in the cloak of sincerity in which it is dressed. In a sociopolitical context, one is not in danger of being pierced and ten eaten by a tiger. Here, one is penetrated by and then amalgamated into careers, positions roles, functions. The art of being ‘good at holding on to life’ in such circumstances, too, consists of being capable of moving freely around in an environment without getting attacked by and then devoured by such predators. And the most present danger is to fall prey to the sweet pretense of sincerity that follows the call for identification with one’s social face and the corresponding beliefs and values.
Hundun is described as the most kindly entertaining the Emperors of the North and South. But as soon as one invited social rank home, as soon as one commits to it or ‘treats it as a guest’, one also creates an attachment that diminishes one’s capacity to move around lightly and unbiased in one’s social environment. The Hundun allegory uses the term dai to connote all these meanings. Zhuangzi regards dependence (dai) as an undesirable condition to overcome, but at the same time, freedom from dependence is attained not by withdrawal from interaction with things, but by emptying oneself of a fixed identity so that one an depend on –follow along with, ’go by’ –the intrinsic self-positing value of anything that comes along. By receiving a face, or a ‘fixed identity,’ Hundun, the one who was too fond of hosting, created ‘dependence’ and finally lost is goodness at ‘following along with.’
As a failed Daoist sage, Hundun is not a model to be emulated but a character one should distance oneself from. He made the fatal mistake of falling into the trap of sincerity and allowed society to impose an identity upon him. As soon and this identity became his, as soon as he verified it with his face, he was destroyed. Read as a parody, the story of Hundun makes fun of an impossible personal verification of social roles and values. It distances us from the very attempt of such verification and thus implicitly encourages genuine pretending – a playful approach to one’s role or roles in society.
“We injure our bodies internally be means of likes
and dislikes, constantly going by what is self-so without adding to life.”-
Zhuangzi
Genuine Pretending; On the Philosophy of the Zhuangzi by Hans-Georg Moeller & Paul J. D’Ambrosio, Columbia University Press, N.Y. 2017; pages 78-9, 84-5.
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