Haft’s Incommensurability Principle

(Scraps from a Sinological Scrapbook 漢齋閒情異誌, fragment 2)

Many people have heard at least vaguely of what physicists call Bohr’s Complementarity Principle, but so far hardly anybody has heard of Haft’s Incommensurability Principle. If the great Danish physicist’s principle implies that a phenomenon may have, may even require, two apparently incompatible explanations, my own hitherto unsung contribution simply states that Chinese words do not in any realistic sense ‘mean’ the same thing as their supposedly ‘correct’ translations into English. The whole Chinese conceptual world is organized so differently to our own; the background of assumptions, emotional associations and conditioned social implications of the words – the ‘setting’ or ‘discourse’ in which the words operate – is so fantastically unlike our own, that it can never be assumed a supposedly ‘same’ word means the ‘same’ thing. Nor, on the other hand, does it ‘mean’ something different in our terms. What it ‘means’ cannot be fitted into the framework of ‘our terms’ at all. It is a meaning which, for us, does not exist.

        Hundreds of words could be adduced to support what I am saying, but surely the most important is that most central of all words in Western culture and life...the pronoun ‘I.’ (Undoubtedly if I were turning this around and starting with a Chinese example, most people would expect me to mention first the verb ‘eat’...) In Chinese culture and life, this oh-so-tiny-looking word does not ‘do’ anything like the same crucial and life-determining things it ‘does’ in the West. Nor has it ever.

        I need to keep these Scrapbook Scraps short, so I will not now immediately go on to write a whole book on this. Actually, it has already been done, many times. I have not yet compiled my list of Underground Must-Reads in Sinology, but when I do, one of the authors near the top of it will be Chad Hansen. In an article titled ‘Philosophy of Mind in China,’ he points out that in much of ancient Chinese thought, the ‘subject’ is ‘in the world, not in the mind.’ In the same article, he says that in the prevalent old Chinese view, ‘the social-historical tradition, not individual psychology, grounds meaning.’ One more quote, again pointing to a Fundamental Divide, a Great Gulf Fixed, between East and West: Hansen says that most of the ancient Chinese philosophers ‘did not regard experience as a mental concept in the classic Western sense of being a subjective or private content.’

        Well, if the ‘subject’ is not in ‘the mind’ at all, let alone in MY individual mind...if my ‘meaning’ has nothing to do with ‘psychology’...and if my ‘experience’ is not ‘subjective’ at all...then in what sense does the word ‘I’ still mean ‘I’?

        What we are looking at here is a perfect case of Incommensurability.

        An aside at this point: is it mere coincidence that in English, ‘I’ and ‘eye’ sound the same? (Answer: yes, it is the merest coincidence. Only a poet would think it is deeply meaningful.)

        Chad Hansen’s article is still out there:

        http://www.hku.hk/philodep/ch/mind.htm

March 6, 2011

On the ‘difficulty’ of the Chinese language

(Scraps from a Sinological Scrapbook 漢齋閒情異誌, fragment 1)

One often hears it said that Chinese is ‘difficult’ to learn. This never fails to amaze me. I have been involved with, struggling with, wrestling with, exasperated with, and at my wits’ end with Chinese for almost 44 years now, and I can truly say that in all that time, I have never found it in the least difficult. Learning Chinese isn’t at all ‘difficult’ – it’s simply impossible!

         I remember once many years ago when my colleague the Polish sinologist Zbigniew Słupski was asked by a British editor how much time he would realistically need to write a decent scholarly article on one of the great traditional Chinese novels. Zbigniew took a sip of vodka, peered meditatively into the distance, and said: ‘Three lifetimes. One to learn Chinese, one to read the whole novel, and one to write and revise the article.’  

March 5, 2011

Nieuw Verbond: Zes Epistellezingen

...

door de Wet, vol verboden

in de vorm van menselijke verordeningen,

buiten werking te stellen,

om de twee met inzet van zichzelf

te herscheppen tot één nieuwe mens

...

- Efezieërs 2: 15, Naardense Bijbel

 

I.

     Kolossenzen 1: 24-27 en 1: 14-19

Wij lijden om een wordende,

om in ons vlees het lichaam te vatten

waar gerucht in gloedt:

dat wie wij worden

hier en in ons wordt:

gloed van de geboorte

waar alle wond in opgaat:

want wie wij worden is het

die aan de dood ontstorven

in vreugde overaardt.

II.

     2 Korintiërs 12:9

Wie wij worden is het

die zegt in mij: ‘Jij bent

in overvloed bij mij.

Van ons is nu de afgrond

waar licht in zal blijken’. –

Want waar ik ook wijk,

ik kom in een licht uit

dat onderkomen blijkt

voor wie wij worden.

III.

     Efeziërs 4: 7-13

In ieder van ons

is volte vrijgegeven:

vol van wie wij worden,

van wie is geschreven: ‘Verrezen;

omvangt die gevangenen waren,

omklemt die waren beklemd’ –

want wat is verrezen anders

dan onder en mede geweest?

rakend tot aan volte,

tot lichaam dat wij worden

waarin wij staan volledig,

kenners van ons kindschap

in liefde, tot heel ons lichaam samen is

en wij liefdes leden.

IV.

     1 Korintiërs 13:12

Wij spiegelen ons aan duister,

noemen het Nu,

zeggen nog niet de naam,

kennen geen naam voor een later,

wijder gelaat: Wij,

wij dat wij zullen bekennen

waar wij in alle leden zijn gekend.

V.

     Filippenzen 3: 10-12

Moge ik mij weten

in opgaan begrepen,

lid in ons wijdere lijden:

dat ik voortkom

uit wie wij worden,

deelheb aan een dood

die samenbrengt. Want worden

brengt samen uit een dood;

wij raken de wij in alles wat ons raakt.

VI. 

     Kolossenzen 2: 9-12, 14

In wie wij worden

vindt de volte van de levende

haar wonen en haar worden

waarin ook jij

tot leven komt volledig:

boven begin,

buiten benoem,

niet door het vlees te verlaten

maar in óndergaan

dat opgaan is:

uitgewist elk mensenwoord

dat ons verbood.

--Lloyd Haft (verscheen eerder in Liter 16, maart 2001)

Psalm Poems (1-5)

(1)   After Psalm 1

Would I have come a better way

if I had never thought He ought –

you ought – to be?

if wanting you to be were not

the day and night of me?

Was missing you the sin that made me me?

Better to be a tree,

standing not thinking,

rooted cool in water

not in hope like me?

Who can tell me, who besides

my self came this way?

I was an only hoper, not maker,

not knower of the trees. They answer you

where no one ever heard you ask.

Their whispering, their leaf was here

before me on your way. Which is

a long before. I say it is

your way. It is.

(3) After Psalm 3

Scared of what’s in me:

thoughts of a skull

that sees you never,

says: there is no One.

But if there is no One, who helps?

Who is it here that holds my head,

bears my bones upright?

Over the mountains of your hiddenness

a voice traces: mine.

Wherever among the thousand thoughts

is one of you –

I know I’m one who waits for One.

(4) After Psalm 4

At times I thought

I could be sure of you.

Now once again in need I voice,

I say you be. I am, and so

you must have wanted me.

I say, and in the chambers of my heart

I’m heard. I speak of us

together, call us here together

in this voice of need.

Not that it is the home I would have chosen

but you choose to leave me here,

alone but for your silence.

And silence is enough,

if this be you.

(5) After Psalm 5

I who am supposed to be

your image. I seek.

Do you seek too?

And as you do or don’t I am.

The voice they say you made me with

is here: I say I need,

hear me I say.

Hear me not wait:

the day my bones can still be in

is short.

Many may be louder

but I stand for you.

They rage against;

I say discern me yet.

Like them I am in falling

but I stand for you.

--Lloyd Haft

uit Anthropos 2 (gedichten)

(1)   Oogst

Terwijl tussen de vormen onze lichamen

doende zijn onder een traag leren

te zamelen, bereiden zij hun amen

door al het komende hier te honoreren,

wind de ijzelbrengende te nemen,

’t vallend wit dat handen hier verbijt

te vatten in vaten nog zo weinig lemen

zij barsten, amper vol. Waar elk splijt

laat het zijn lading aan het water over,

een kring, een iris in het wit kringend

alsof weerspiegeld in het ijzig lover

een oog was, hagel en heup doordringend

dat zag, in die zo laat gevormde lissen,

de volte die zij hadden moeten missen.

(2)   Bij het kampvuur

Was het mijn zwakte, dat mijn oog zag

hoe rook boven de lichamen uit klom?

slecht, dat mijn lichaam met de dag

brandde om soortgelijk te rijzen, om

zwakte deze wereld in te dragen?

Is zien zwak? Zal de wolf te middernacht

’t slapende lam eerst moeten vragen

wáár de tand mag komen in zijn vacht ?

Weten was niet zwak, dat mij omvelde

strakker dan jakhalshuid het jakhalsbeen.

Warmte te weten boven de asvelden

leidde mij door het lichtloze heen:

het lang traag ander hier streven.

Gras welkte, ik wacht bij leven.

(3)   Bewaarplaats

Waar gaat oud licht heen?

Als golven tegen de schemer op de baan

van zicht uitkomen, en eindelijk uiteen

en onbelemmerd ieder opengaan

ligt er een blaken boven. Komen alle

de sintel die zij voerden overdragen?

Of laat de gaande zon zaden vallen

die branden waar zij worden omgeslagen?

Spiegelend in elkaar opgenomen

paren water en vuur één seconde

in goud dat schittert op hun loskomen.

Heeft één meeuw die gloed teruggevonden ?

Zien is ontvangen. Licht is niet te vinden.

Zie de golf, zie de vleugel zwinden.

--Lloyd Haft (uit Anthropos, Querido 1996)

from Anthropos 1 (poems)

(1)   Yield

Our bodies bearing ever in this cold

are gatherers, assembling amen

from yes a hundred, no ten thousandfold,

slowly learning to be wide again,

take on wind the sleet-bringer’s burden,

raft the falling white that weathers hands

in vessels earthy and so little earthen

they break growing to hold. As each disbands

it leaves its freight to float upon the water,

a ring ever expanding in the ply

of hip and hail, river and bone matter,

resembling the reflection of an eye

above, that might in greater light have been

upon it, seeing what here it could not win.

(2)   By the Campfire

Was it my weakness that I did discern

where smoke half witnessed in the body curled

and pointed? Daily did my body burn

to find room for that weakness in this world!

Is want weak? Should smoulder be forgot?

Is marrow carried into sunset years

less load by night, the wolf’s eye not

keenest then on the very fire he fears?

Bright the body burned, while the fang,

following in and after me, cried

white to the open wind, hungering sang.

This the flesh avails: to abide

the long slow seen here strive.

Weeds withered alive; I wait alive.

(3)   Hoard

Where does old light go?

When waves to west at sunset, gladdening

to rise at last unhindered, break into

the road of sight there is a reddening

or goldening upon them as they fall.

Is it their own, an ember each must give

at going, or does sun’s red seedball

ending widen, scatter that they should live?

Mirroring over each other, seen not got,

fire and water marry but not long.

Where does their gold remain – or does it not?

Are gulls seeking after seeking wrong?

Light is the treasure, sight itself the thing.

See the wave. See the fading wing.

(4)   He Leadeth Me

There is a knower, but he bears my name.

He is not other to the pores or eyes

that measured out or in all path I came,

not beyond the clovers as they rise

to bear me up along all meadow’s edge.

What urges in my shoes is not debris

but sharer, comer down and into knowledge

that is the walk I’m helping him to see.

Light is no foreign thing. Whatever sees

goes in the colors that my iris shows,

tents here in eyelid canopies,

faint with me but far in what it knows.

Heat in my heels spreads. He’ll not escape

that bramble blaze. His light will take my shape.

--Lloyd Haft (from Anthropos, Querido 1996)

from Atlantis 3 (poems)

(1)   Knoll: In Place of Elegy

Held together

and to haze over the meadows

by pain’s prick of oneness

we waver,

keep lips moving,

ask weeds what they were.

Like pierced hawks sewn to last light’s

cloud circle, seeking place to fall

tethered and back into the boulders’ rest

we stay unable to stop seeing

bent poppies, crumbling and cow parsley,

plants loose, even in name hapless,

that we had so much wanted

to call our mountain:

song standing, word one.

(2)   Hurt Big Bird

High fliers hurt – tallest maybe

nastiest when beak breaks,

gullet comes back cut.

Syllables their pain’s told in sound

stiff, rasp like tall gaunt

shrubs they grazed

weeping from wind’s fastness and

(nettle to eyes) sharp song rising:

smoke wrung of earth’s stunt.

When their blood drops touching what is

under it is not to mark, write,

prettify some wry stand of sumac,

help some dwarf thing shine.

They bleed because they could not help

finding: taking far things’ cry.

Not bewildered: hurt. Bright

is their knowledge of the drear they breathe:

sky from which, to which they fly.

--Lloyd Haft (from Atlantis, Querido 1993)