Flourishing Tree Book Club, Session Ten: Beauty Is a Force of Life

In this session of our book club, we take in the beauty of theory that Carolyn brings, the beauty of philosophy that Richard brings, the beauty of growth that Joyce brings, the beauty of life that Andy brings, and the beauty of the real that Wenzi brings.

Beauty is a force. It seeps quietly into the heart and awakens a resonance and a feeling that lie deep within us.

Business Cycles

Reader: Carolyn

Today I want to share Business Cycles, a book that traces the economic transformations of the years between 1700 and 1816. I have only read part of it, but I already have a rough sense of its overall architecture. The first half introduces a cast of historical figures who, over the span of a century, each put forward an important theory of their own, and who together advanced monetary theory — the modern theory of credit money in particular. Following that process, I felt deeply the beauty of theory.

The book unfolds a historical tableau in which modern money-and-banking and the English Industrial Revolution illuminate and drive each other. During this period one riveting event follows another, such as the Mississippi crisis. Under Louis XIV, France fell into fiscal distress under the crown’s enormous debts, and tried every kind of remedy — raising taxes, selling privileges, debasing the gold content of its coins. Yet these measures could only ease the problem in part. Just then an Englishman named John Law put forward the revolutionary idea of issuing paper money, and in the end the French crown adopted it.

John Law founded a bank in France and issued banknotes. Backed by high credit, these notes made money circulate more smoothly and so fostered commercial prosperity. But the very success of the notes touched off a large-scale issuance of paper money, which ultimately led to inflation and economic crisis.

The Mississippi Company was another of John Law’s grand inventions. By issuing shares and drawing in investors, he swapped the crown’s debt for equity. But as the company’s share price soared, people began to doubt its real value, and panic followed — capital fled and the economy convulsed. This sequence of events doomed France’s paper-money policy, while England, by keeping tight control over the issuance of paper money, succeeded.

During the French crisis, a man named Cantillon managed to sell out at the top, and he distilled the far-reaching effects that the velocity of money has on the economy. His theory inspired later economists, above all Quesnay, who advanced a theory of reproduction and stressed the great efficiency of a free-economy model.

Adam Smith was the towering thinker of this era. He put forward the famous theory of the “invisible hand,” holding that the market has its own regulating function and that government should intervene as little as possible. His free-economy thought profoundly shaped later economists, such as Henry Thornton and Say.

Henry Thornton, through his practice in banking and after living through several economic crises, articulated the relationship between monetary liquidity and interest rates, laying the foundation for modern credit theory. Say, arguing from the merchant’s point of view, held that money is merely the medium of the exchange of goods, and put forward the theory that “supply creates its own demand.”

The thought of these economists is like so many trickling streams that gather into the vast ocean of modern economics. Through their wisdom and insight we come to understand the importance, within an economy, of the issuance of money, the velocity of circulation, interest rates, and the relationship of supply and demand.

As I read, I was not merely leafing through a book; I was crossing time and space to hold a conversation of the mind with these great thinkers. Their wisdom and insight let me understand the essence of economics more deeply. This book not only taught me the course by which monetary theory developed; it also let me feel the challenges and the striving that humankind has undergone in its pursuit of prosperity.

At the next session I will go on to explore the second half of the book, and I look forward to sharing more of the wisdom of economics with you all.

A Biography of Kant

Reader: Richard

Today the book I want to share with you is A Biography of Kant. When Kant is mentioned, we usually think of that famous line: “the starry heavens above and the moral law within.” It comes from the Critique of Practical Reason, published in 1788. Kant wrote: “Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more often and the more steadily we reflect upon them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.” Perhaps you have all heard it.

Kant is called the father of modern philosophy, but what kind of man was he really? What were his theories? I chose to share this book because his name had long been familiar to me while I knew very little about him. Reading it, I felt that Kant’s life was at once a life spent in pursuit of philosophical truth and a life of refining himself in accordance with a moral ideal.

Kant was born on April 22, 1724, in Königsberg, Germany — a city that was ceded to the Soviet Union after the Second World War and renamed Kaliningrad, so that the old name can no longer be found on the map. Kant’s family was poor; his father was a harness-maker, there were five children, and they had also to support his mother-in-law’s household. As the eldest son, Kant was hard-pressed financially. Fortunately his mother was acquainted with a local religious leader, which allowed the eight-year-old Kant to enter the Collegium Fridericianum, a school run by the church.

After finishing there, Kant advanced smoothly to the only university in the region — the University of Königsberg. Prussia’s total population at the time was about four million, with only two universities and fewer than a thousand students in all; a university student was a rare thing. Kant majored in philosophy, and there were several reasons for the choice. First, philosophy was a required course for every field of study, and many students engaged Kant for private tutoring, which let him work his way through his studies. Second, philosophy was then a cross-disciplinary subject, spanning mathematics, physics, history, geography and more, and it trained generalists. Third, the intellectual world of Europe was then in ferment, and Kant hoped, by his own effort, to digest the new discoveries across the disciplines and rebuild the foundations of European philosophy.

Kant’s path in learning was not smooth, however. In his fourth year his father fell gravely ill and died, and he had to defer his graduation, going out to tutor the children of the nobility; only after saving up for a few years did he return to school to continue. Prussia’s poor transport meant that the latest scholarly works reached it only after long delay, so he had to work harder than scholars elsewhere. Even so, through decades of thinking and self-cultivation, unchanging day after day, Kant became in the end a great self-made scholar.

Kant’s way of living was strict and regular. After the age of forty he rose at five each morning, drank tea and smoked, and prepared his lectures; from seven he lectured four hours at the university; then he wrote his manuscripts; at one in the afternoon he took lunch with friends at a small tavern and exchanged ideas; at half past three he walked eight turns; at five he came home to read and think, and at ten he went punctually to bed. This life went on for forty years. Kant held that, through thorough reflection, he had established certain necessary maxims, and that these maxims made up his character and gave him a sense of freedom and calm.

Kant’s scholarly contributions are extraordinarily rich, and the most important of them is his epistemology. He held that empiricism and rationalism were each only partly right. There does indeed exist in the world an abstract, standard “apple” model, which he called the thing-in-itself. But with human capacity and intelligence there is no absolute certainty of grasping the thing-in-itself. What a human being can do is, by combining sensibility (the empiricists’ sense impressions) with understanding (the rationalists’ capacity for inductive reasoning), to produce a concept of the apple. Such a concept is incomplete, yet it fixes the world of phenomena. Our daily life and our scientific research both take place within the world of phenomena, while the thing-in-itself belongs to the noumenal world and is entirely free.

Kant held that, although we cannot grasp the noumenal world, there is still much we can do within the world of phenomena. Through diligent observation, record-keeping and synthesis, we not only identify the apple as a species but also work out how to grow and improve it. This complex process of groping forward and acting embodies the human being’s subjective will and most precious qualities.

Kant’s moral philosophy is concentrated in two books, the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and the Critique of Practical Reason. He put forward the concept of the moral law, holding that moral action should rest on reason rather than on feeling or outside influence. Kant stressed that morality springs from the free will of the human being, not from sensuous motives or external compulsion; that the human being is an end and should never be treated as a mere means; and that morality and happiness are not necessarily united, yet morality is the highest goal of human life.

Kant also offered original views on political ideas. He held that international politics should take peace as its goal, and that peace is the starting point of morality. History, passing through a series of twists and setbacks, would carry humankind toward ever broader prosperity and freedom. This was the ideal commonwealth in Kant’s mind.

Kant not only summed up the achievements of the Enlightenment but also laid the foundations for the further development of Western philosophy. The three core questions he hoped to answer were: What can I know? What ought I to do? What may I hope? These questions still hold deep inspiration for us today. I will end my sharing today with these three questions, so worthy of our reflection.

On the Road at Eighteen

Reader: Joyce

Today I want to share with you Yu Hua’s breakthrough work, On the Road at Eighteen. Through the eyes of a young person, this book probes his singular understanding of the world and shows the many emotions and experiences an eighteen-year-old undergoes as he moves toward adulthood. I have read only the first chapter, but two of its episodes left a deep impression on me.

In the first, the protagonist loses his way on the road home. He tries to find a vehicle that will take him back. Along the way he meets a driver and offers him a cigarette, hoping for help, but the driver refuses. This makes him anxious and angry, and he even speaks to the driver in rude language. Unexpectedly, the driver suddenly laughs and is willing to take him along. I had to read this passage twice to understand it. By offering the cigarette — an adult’s gesture — the protagonist hopes to be accepted, because in his eyes this is what adults in real life often do; yet in reality things do not always turn out as one wishes.

This made me think that in this book Yu Hua expresses a certain view: that violence in real life is an unspoken rule of the adult world. The violence here is not only physical but also a violence of behavior and of language. The protagonist’s rudeness and anger win the driver’s acceptance, which proves the legitimacy and effectiveness of that violence.

In another episode, the protagonist and the driver travel on and meet a crowd of children on the road, who block the vehicle and begin snatching the apples inside it. Seeing this, the protagonist grows frantic and looks everywhere for the driver, only to find him watching it all from a distance with a smile. In snatching the apples, the children display a kind of imitation of adult violence. The driver’s acquiescence in this behavior — even his approval of it — lets the children find a justification within their violent act.

This set me thinking that, through this episode, Yu Hua shows how pervasive and self-perpetuating violence is in the adult world. The children are imitating adult violence, and the driver’s response is a recognition of that behavior. This violence is not only the joy of the robbers but also the joy of the one robbed. In such a world, violence becomes a way of survival.

Seen from the protagonist’s point of view, he begins with a friendly attitude toward the world. He believes that so long as he gives, he will be repaid. But in real life the driver’s initial refusal and later acceptance give him a new understanding of the world. In his exchange with the driver he believes he has found a friend, yet when he sees the apples being seized, out of a sense of justice and morality he tries to stop it all — and fails.

This experience of failure moved me deeply. The protagonist’s sense of justice and loyalty prove so fragile in real life; the education he has received turns powerless in reality. When the driver and the children carry off his backpack, he feels betrayed and helpless. His red backpack stands for his faith and his understanding, and its theft means his defeat and powerlessness in the real world.

Through this absurd episode, Yu Hua lays bare the cruelty and unreason of the adult world. The driver represents a certain social reality — untrustworthy, full of violence and betrayal. The protagonist’s red backpack is his beautiful illusion about the world, and its theft symbolizes reality’s destruction of the dream.

In the second episode, the inn the protagonist comes upon symbolizes his search, in real life, for a place to belong and a home for the spirit. Through these episodes Yu Hua explores the problem of the absence of positive guides in a young person’s growth. In this process the protagonist finds himself lacking a clear direction and goal. He climbs aboard the truck and, though it drives back the way he came, his heart remains lost.

In growing up, young people need positive guides to serve as their mentors and teachers. Yet in reality such guides are often absent, leaving the young at a loss when they face a complicated society. Through the protagonist’s experience, Yu Hua gives voice to this profound social problem.

On the whole, in On the Road at Eighteen Yu Hua, through delicate description and profound episodes, shows the violence of real life and the complexity of human nature. Through a young person’s eyes he reveals the cruelty and absurdity of the adult world and explores the challenges and confusions that young people meet as they grow. This book is not only a critique of violence but a deep reflection on human nature and society. Reading it, we can better understand the complexity of the real world, and how, in the course of growing up, to face and resolve these problems.

How Do You Live?

Reader: Andy

I often reflect on the way I live and on the goals of my life. Once I wished to be like a bird flying free, able to cross mountains and rivers and take in the beauty of the world. Later I wished to live as a tree, swaying in the sunlight, full of vitality. And now I wish still more to be like a broad expanse of earth, bearing up the beauty and vitality of life and giving others support and happiness.

And so today I want to share the book How Do You Live?. Its author is Genzaburo Yoshino, who wrote this far-reaching work in 1930. Through the growth of a boy nicknamed Little Copernicus, the book explores the most important values and meanings of being human. Under his uncle’s guidance, Little Copernicus gradually learns to think independently, to experience himself truly, and to keep growing through exploration.

The uncle wrote many notes for Little Copernicus, and the first chapter is about how to look at things. The uncle told him that human beings are like molecules, moving and living within a vast world. Everyone is used to thinking and judging with the self at the center; but if one can do as Copernicus did and adopt a broader, more objective vantage, one can see the truth of the world. This way of looking at things taught Little Copernicus to examine every detail of life from a higher dimension, and to feel the beauty and the depth of each moment.

In another key chapter, Little Copernicus and his classmate Kitami go through a fight together. The incident lets Little Copernicus feel true courage and true righteousness, and understand how important real experience is to the growth of the self. The uncle encourages him to start from real feeling and to keep reflecting on its meaning, for only so can concrete experience yield profound insight. Kitami’s selflessness and bravery in this incident move Little Copernicus deeply and make him look anew at his own courage and sense of responsibility.

The book also tells of the contrast between poverty and wealth. Little Copernicus helps his poor classmate Uragawa and discovers the hardships and the resilience of a poor family. The uncle tells him that, although human society has made much progress, there is still a long way to go on the question of how to treat poverty and wealth. What matters is that everyone should live like a human being; whether poor or rich, one should have dignity and goodwill. Poor though Uragawa’s family is, their diligence and resilience let Little Copernicus see another kind of beauty in life.

The story of Napoleon, too, deeply inspires Little Copernicus and his friends. The uncle leads them to reflect that true greatness lies in advancing humankind, not in mere power and achievement. However great Napoleon’s successes in history, he later expanded in pursuit of power and in the end became a failure. The uncle hopes Little Copernicus will understand that only achievements of true benefit to humankind are worthy of respect and pursuit. The story of Napoleon lets Little Copernicus see that true greatness lies not in the height of one’s accomplishments but in one’s far-reaching influence on human society.

When tested by promise and responsibility, Little Copernicus, out of timidity, fails to step forward and protect his friend Kitami. Afterward he is racked with pain and self-reproach, and even falls ill. Encouraged by his uncle, he bravely apologizes to his friends and regains their friendship and his own confidence. This experience teaches him the importance of sincerity and courage, and lets him feel the profound lesson a mistake can bring.

At the book’s close, Little Copernicus resolves to become a truly good person and to contribute to the world. He feels that, whatever hardship he faces, so long as there is conviction and courage in his heart, he can find light and hope. He hopes that in the world to come everyone can be a good friend to everyone else, and that together they can create a good society.

This book is not only a boy’s coming-of-age story but a profound revelation for every reader. It makes us reflect that the meaning of life lies in the ceaseless pursuit of the true, the good and the beautiful, and in striving to become a person of nobility. Whatever stage of life we are in, we should face challenges bravely, treat others with sincerity, and use our own actions to influence and change the world.

Through this book I felt that the meaning of life lies in the ceaseless pursuit of the true, the good and the beautiful, and in striving to become a person of nobility. In sharing at our book club, I am not only recounting the book’s contents but exploring, together with everyone, the value and meaning of life.

Finally, I want to ask you all a question: what kind of life do you want to live? It is a question that seems simple yet runs deep, and I hope each of us can find our own answer in this book — and find the share of the true, the good and the beautiful that belongs to us.

The Works of the Writer Peter Hessler

Reader: Wenzi

At this session, with a heart full of excitement, I want to introduce to you a nonfiction writer I most admire and love — Peter Hessler. With his singular vantage and profound powers of insight, this American writer has recorded what he saw and heard in China and in Egypt, and has written many deeply moving works, of which the most famous is his China Trilogy: River Town, Oracle Bones, and Country Driving. These works reflect the transformations of Chinese society, and they also let us see Hessler’s singular vantage and deep feeling as an observer and a participant.

Hessler’s first book, River Town, records a stretch of his life from 1996 to 2007 as a Peace Corps volunteer in Fuling, Chongqing. Fuling — a city set in the heartland of the Three Gorges, more than a hundred kilometers from downtown Chongqing, poorly connected and relatively rough in its living conditions. Yet it was precisely in such a setting that Hessler, with his keen observation and sincere feeling, entered into every corner of local life and recorded the details of his days as a foreign teacher at the college there. Through delicate description he renders Fuling’s natural scenery, its historical changes and its human warmth in full, as if he were leading the reader along in his footsteps into that small city, at once strange and familiar.

Hessler’s writing is not merely a record of life but a profound reflection and realization. With a gentle, unprejudiced bearing he observes and experiences life in Fuling, playing the two roles a foreigner takes in a small Chinese city: both the outside observer and the participant who has entered deeply in. This double identity makes his vantage at once objective and sensitive, at once cool and full of warmth. He writes in the book: “In my days in Fuling, what I felt was not only the shock of a culture but the resonance of a shared humanity. The scenery, the history and the people there left me deeply captivated and moved.”

From 1996 to 2007, Chinese society underwent immense change. Through a foreigner’s eyes, Hessler recorded the countless small moments of this period and gathered these experiences into his China Trilogy. River Town, the first of them, moved me deeply. He then wrote Oracle Bones and Country Driving, continuing to explore China’s history, culture and society. These works are not only an observation and a record of China but an expression of Hessler’s deep feeling for it.

Yet in the period when Chinese society was living through the glory of the Olympics and the World Expo, Hessler chose to leave, going to another ancient and mysterious land — Egypt. He hoped to put down roots there anew and to experience Egypt’s history and culture. His experiences in Egypt came together at last in the book The Buried: Life, Death, and Revolution in Egypt. For now this book exists only in English, but the depth of its content and the singularity of its vantage still leave me deeply awed.

In Egypt Hessler lived through the Arab Spring and recorded the lives and fortunes of ordinary Egyptians. His attention was on those who were not directly caught up in the political struggle — ordinary people whose lives were shaped by social forces and a complicated history. As a journalist, Hessler dug deep into the stories of these ordinary people and, with a gentle and meticulous touch, presented one vivid fragment of a life after another. He recorded, for instance, the young man who collected the garbage in Egypt, who through the trash glimpsed the life of everyone in the community and revealed sides of people that no one else saw. This vantage, so close to life, fills me with admiration for his writing.

Besides recording the lives of ordinary people, Hessler also explored the Chinese who do business in Egypt. He found that the Chinese had opened lingerie shops in Egypt and met with great success. This seemingly conservative country in fact holds a yearning for color and freedom. With humor and a delicate touch, Hessler describes the scene of an Egyptian family shopping for lingerie, showing the commonality and the shared humanity behind cultural difference.

Beyond recording these engaging observations, Hessler’s work also probes deeply into social and political questions. He interviewed members of the Muslim Brotherhood and recorded their rise and their fall, showing the complexity and the volatility of Egyptian society.

Hessler’s experiences in Egypt and in China not only show what these two ancient civilizations have in common; they also let us see the differences in how different societies are governed. In Egypt the government’s influence over daily life was weaker, and the people relied on their own ingenuity to solve their problems. In China, though the system is more systematic, the social and political environment is also in constant change. This comparative vantage makes Hessler’s work all the more profound and thought-provoking.

To return once more to Hessler’s time in Egypt: he not only recorded these ordinary yet profound stories but, with his singular powers of observation, joined Egypt’s history to its present. He mentions more than once in the book, for example, the ancient Egyptians’ understanding of time — a conception of time that was not only cyclical but also still. The ancient Egyptians believed that the worlds that recur again and again follow some law, while still time stands for eternal existence. This understanding of time gave me a deeper apprehension and realization of the present world.

Hessler writes in the book: “The conduct of contemporary Egyptian political figures, and political events, always remind me of ancient Egypt’s dynasties and its age of temples.” This vantage, joining the modern to the ancient, let me see the continuity of history and the universality of human behavior. Hessler is not merely an observer but a chronicler who thinks deeply; through the contrast of history and the present, he reveals the complexity and the diversity of human society.

Hessler’s work lets us see one vivid life-story after another, and it also lets us see the continuity of history and the universality of human behavior. Through delicate description and profound reflection, he joins history to the present, so that in reading his work we can feel deeply the deeper problems and contradictions hidden behind everyday life.

Finally, I want to share a piece of news that saddens me. Hessler had hoped to bring his family back to China and continue his writing and his observing, but for various reasons he chose in the end to leave. Though he has left China, his work and his vantage still influence me deeply, and I hope they can influence more readers as well.

Thank you all for listening, on this lovely morning, to my introduction to Hessler and to what I feel about him. I hope his stories and his vantage can bring you more thought and understanding of this world. Hessler’s work is not merely a record of life but a profound reflection and realization. With a gentle, unprejudiced bearing he observes and experiences this world, and he has deeply recorded his own experiences as a foreigner in China and in Egypt.

Seeing

The beauty of theory that Carolyn brought showed the depth and wisdom of economics, letting us see how, in the long river of history, those thinkers who shine with the light of wisdom pushed forward the progress and change of society through an age of upheaval. Her sharing was like a grand historical scroll, tracing the trajectory by which economic theory developed, so that within the beauty of theory we felt the power of reason and wisdom.

The beauty of philosophy that Richard brought was like a lighthouse of the spirit, lighting up our understanding of the self and of the world. Kant’s thought is profound and vast; his philosophical inquiry touches not only human reason and morality but the very nature of our existence. His sharing let us, in thought and inquiry, feel the nobility and purity of philosophy, and stirred in us a tireless pursuit of and longing for truth.

The beauty of growth that Joyce brought let us see the trials and struggles a young person undergoes on the way to adulthood. Through Yu Hua’s brush she showed the inner world of an eighteen-year-old, so that in his confusion and bewilderment we saw the hardship and the beauty of growing up. Her sharing was like a mirror, reflecting the pain and the laughter each of us goes through in growing, and reminding us to face challenges bravely on the road of growth and to hold fast to our own convictions.

The beauty of life that Andy brought made us reflect on the meaning and value of life. In Yoshino’s book we followed the steps of Little Copernicus and explored the nature of life, feeling that innocence and that courage. His sharing let us, on life’s journey, discover that rare beauty and feeling, and encouraged us, in facing hardship, not to forget our original heart but to go forward bravely.

The beauty of the real that Wenzi brought let us see China and Egypt through a foreigner’s eyes; through Hessler’s words it was as if we ourselves had lived through that meeting of history and the present. Her sharing let us, in the real world, feel that plainness and that depth, and reminded us to keep, in everyday life, our pursuit of and love for the real.

In this session of our book club, through sharing and exchange with one another, we felt that force of beauty. May this beauty let us, on each ordinary day, find the poetry of life, and the resonance and the feeling that life awakens.