Can we still be at home? Agnes Heller and China

Aesthetic involvement in Chinese culture

At first sight, the claim that Agnes Heller was involved in Chinese culture may appear strange. We do not notice such an involvement when we read her writings, as I first did systematically from 2001 to 2004. However, the very possibility of this connection between Heller and China occurred to me when she wrote the preface to my published doctoral dissertation, A Study of Agnes Heller’s Thoughts on Aesthetic Modernity, in 2005, prior to its publication in 2006.

In the preface, she clearly expressed her relationship with Chinese culture, writing, ‘It is difficult to write a preface to a book which discusses one’s own philosophy. I normally refuse to do it. This time I make an exception for two connected reasons’ (Heller, 2006: 3–4). Heller then passionately portrays her love of Chinese art: ‘First because the book is in Chinese and I entertained for a long time a love relationship to traditional art.’ To my surprise, she used the words ‘Chinese’, ‘Chinese art’ and ‘Chinese culture’, suggesting her particular recognition of the uniqueness of Chinese culture. My dissertation is written in Chinese and was published in traditional Chinese characters, making it very difficult even for modern Chinese readers to read. Further, it is difficult to purchase the dissertation in bookstores; therefore, I planned to re-publish it in modern Chinese characters. Furthermore, Heller uses the words ‘for a long time’. In my estimation, she had been interested in Chinese culture for at least 30 years. She mentioned that whenever she visited the Metropolitan Museum in New York, she always spent time in the company of Chinese art. As we know, she left Australia for New York in 1986, and the Met was for her another home. She was always, differently, at home.

Heller uses the words ‘love relationship’ and ‘unrequited love’, which deserve a more detailed interpretation in terms of aesthetics. In many of her writings, such as Everyday Life, A Theory of Feeling, On Instincts, and An Ethics of Personality, she discusses the meaning of love from the perspectives of ethics and aesthetics. For her, love is ethical and at the same time aesthetic. However, Heller’s love relationship with Chinese culture is primarily aesthetic; for instance, she points out that her ‘relationship to Chinese culture has been so far aesthetic in character’. Heller’s involvement in China was primarily associated with Chinese culture – not all kinds of Chinese culture, but aesthetic Chinese culture, here meaning Chinese high art. Chinese high culture belongs to the sphere of absolute spirit and offered Heller a kind of home with diverse, intensified meaning. While examining Chinese high culture such as traditional Chinese painting and novels, she was not in a hurry, but rather engaged in disinterested, prolonged contemplation.

Heller remarked that she loved 18th-century Chinese hanging scrolls and landscape paintings. Although she did not analyze the basic features of these paintings, she was interested in the most important genre of Chinese traditional paintings: landscape painting is the most successful and representative genre of Chinese painting. Hills and rivers are typically portrayed in simple forms, leaving a large expanse of blank space and expressing a rich experience that cannot be spoken in words. Such paintings truly create a space of freedom for viewers and also satisfy us as moderns. Heller felt that while these paintings were modern, her encountering of Chinese paintings was nevertheless spontaneous rather than involving effortful expertise. Chinese painting scholars typically regard landscape paintings from the Song Dynasty and the Yuan Dynasty as the peak of Chinese landscape painting. Heller’s spontaneous experience is aesthetic intuition through which she was able to find something essential. Most importantly, she established a love relationship with the paintings and found a home with them. Through contingent encounters, she could transform them into her loves, into her own intimate others, into her destiny; in György Lukacs’ words, she could be lifted into her human wholeness.

Heller expressed to me the view that her favorite Chinese novel was The Story of Stone, which is called Hong Lou Meng in Chinese. After reviewing almost all of her writings, I was not able to find further information than the details she gave in the preface. However, through our discussions and her mood and gestures, I understood that The Story of Stone was her favorite. She loved the story of the hero, Jia Baoyu, and the heroines, Lin Daiyu and Xue Baochai. These typical characters had made a deep impression on her. In my view, this story reveals the pluralistic relations of love. The love relationship between the younger boy and girls is beautiful, the characters are beautiful, and the story is beautiful. All of this beauty establishes an expanse of location like the garden, which serves momentarily as a home for the reader of the novel.

In her writing, however, Heller gave more attention to the traditional Chinese classical novel The Journey to the West, or Xi You Ji in Chinese. In her book Can Modernity Survive?, published in 1990, Heller approached this novel from the perspective of modernity or postmodernity. She began with Freud’s speculation about the myth of Moses. Although she disagreed with Freud’s interpretations, she considered the implications of Freud’s method, that is to say, the proposal that ‘there was, there had to be, a complete fit between mythological language and historical truth’ (Heller, 1990: 160). In this context, Heller introduced the hero of The Journey to the West, Hsüan-tsang. Heller read the novel in English; she listed The Journey to the West in her notes as translated and edited by Anthony C. Yu and published by the University of Chicago Press in 1977. Heller described the hero’s two stories in detail. She wrote that in the novel, the hero travels from China to the Western Heaven where he is presented to Buddha in the heavenly court. There he receives the Scriptures and becomes a Buddha himself. However, Heller takes more interest in the hero’s birth. She writes that he was born to Lady Ying, an unfortunate woman whose husband was murdered by a knave who then immediately usurped the husband’s place, threatening to kill the lady’s unborn child if she was unwilling to succumb to his desires. When the boy was born, Lady Ying fastened him to a plank and put the plank in the river to save the child’s life. She also cut his little toe and her little finger and pinned a letter, written in her own blood, to the boy’s garments. The river delivered the boy to a monastery where he was raised by monks. As a teenager, he searched for his mother, found her, and then avenged the murder of his father. I am amazed at Heller’s talent for storytelling. She could grasp key plot points and vividly reconstruct this wonderful fiction. Certainly, Heller makes the novel mythic or, in the well-known modern writer Lu Xun’s words, at the very least a mysterious novel.

The second story is the real story of Hsuan-tsang. Heller relates:

Hsuan-tsang was born into a family of high Chinese officials. He became a Buddhist monk and decided to travel to India (to the West) in order to get hold of certain fundamental Buddhist scriptures. Since the Emperor did not give him permission to leave, he embarked secretly on the journey. After spending sixteen years in India, he returned home, and – with his nineteen translations and many original writings – marked a new beginning in the story of Chinese Buddhism. (Heller, 1990: 162)

Regarding the consciousness of postmodern modernity, Moses is still wandering in the desert and Hsuan-tsang has not yet arrived in India. Heller’s examination of the Chinese novel is notable; her interpretation provides a new understanding of the novel. It is a pity that Heller neglected the author of the novel, Wu Cheng’en, who lived in the late Ming Dynasty, almost 700 years after the hero’s time in the Tang Dynasty. If we cannot differentiate between the hero’s history and the history of the author’s narration, we cannot finally grasp the real meaning of the novel, and its interpretation is fictional. Heller takes that risk.

Heller’s examination of Chinese culture is primary, elemental and aesthetic. It is a love relationship, the home of absolute spirit. This kind of home is utopian and dreamlike. Can it become true?

Visiting China and real presentation

Until 2007, Heller’s relationship with China was imaginary and aesthetic. In 2007, she traveled from Hungary to China for the first time, staying for one week from 28 June to 5 July. Trans-cultural communication provided a good opportunity for Heller to experience the reality of China and discuss her ideas with a Chinese audience. Her journey also exposed the Chinese world to a new visitor and allowed Chinese scholars to watch as this printed-word thinker transformed into a real speaker, a present actor. Without a doubt, her first visit deepened the relationship between Heller and China.

Heller’s China was experienced through her association with Chinese culture and life. She visited a variety of cultural spectacles, traveling from Beijing to Shanghai and then to Chengdu. Upon arriving in Beijing, she visited Tiananmen Square; The Great People’s Hall, characterized by its Soviet style; and the Imperial Garden and the Imperial Palace in the Forbidden City (Gugong), representing traditional Chinese architecture. Heller maintained an aesthetic attitude towards these great cultural spectacles, which are remarkable symbols of national culture. She was aware of the harmony and complexity of Chinese architecture. She then flew to Shanghai, where she enjoyed a highly international, metropolitan city that allowed her to experience the new Chinese modernity. Two places of especial interest were on her schedule: the Bund and the Shanghai Museum. In the Bund, she learned about the development of Shanghai from the early 20th century to the beginning of the current century, which was strongly influenced by Western modernity that was then transformed into a Chinese alternative modernity. From a series of older Western-style buildings, it can be seen that Western modernity remains, while the many new skyscrapers that are erected opposite to the Bund allowed Heller to recognize the city’s motivations toward contemporary modernity. The Shanghai Museum presented Heller with traditional Chinese cultural materials. While examining the ancient period to the present and viewing aspects of remote peoples’ everyday lives and high-quality paintings, Heller maintained an aesthetic attitude and refused excessive explanations. There, Heller grasped a history of Chinese culture through its own authentic materials. Her experience was rich, combining aesthetic elements, real history, and ethical life. From this, Heller developed a stimulating first image of China from its earlier history to the present.

After staying in Beijing for one day and in Shanghai for two days, the rest of Heller’s time was spent in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, which is located in southwestern China. Here, she experienced another kind of cultural spectacle. She was invited to the theater to appreciate a variety of styles of plays, such as Sichuan plays in which actors change their masks and wear frightening costumes and Shadow plays that involve only an actor’s fingers and a large curtain, like Plato’s cave play. After watching the plays, she reviewed them in the local newspaper and expressed her surprise at the performances. Although the plays had not been performed in English, there was a close communication between Heller and the performers; the local plays transcended the language barrier. Heller then ate hot pot with my family, and this provided her with an authentic experience of a Chinese home and specialty spicy foods with special Sichuan sauce. She loved hot pot and even ate special small, round peppers that are eaten by Chengdu locals during wet weather. Heller preferred white wine, which is seldom purchased in Chengdu, where most people drink red wine.

Heller visited several significant places of interest in Sichuan province. Of course, the lovely pandas that are a symbol of China and Sichuan province were her favorite. She visited Sanxingdui Museum, which is an hour’s drive away from Chengdu City. She also visited the minorities museum that displays local ethnic cultures’ religious beliefs and magic rituals. She learned about the origins of the ancient Shu Kingdom (Sichuan province) and its cultural relics. She was surprised at the freakish bronze mask with protruding eyes and a towering bronze holy tree that had emerged more than 3000 years ago, which appear in mysterious and strange shapes. Leshan Giant Buddha, a world cultural heritage site that was built about 1500 years ago, interested Heller, reminding her of the long history of Chinese Buddhism and the Chinese novel The Journey to the West. Emei Mountain exceeded Heller’s preexisting imagination of the Chinese landscape and Buddhism. The mountain is a center of Chinese Buddhism, with many old Buddhist temples located on its slopes. This region displays the harmonious unity of Buddhism and the landscape, which is one of the most important characteristics of Chinese culture that is expressed through poems, paintings, and music. Heller also went to Qingcheng Mountain to learn about Daoism, which emphasizes the unity of life and nature; Daoism is natural and anti-artificial. When she visited the Temple of Marquis Wu (Wu Hou Ci) in Chengdu, she felt the loyalty, wisdom, and diligence of the old Confucian Marquis Zhuge Liang. Thus, in Sichuan province, she experienced a rich combination of three key Chinese traditional cultural spirits: Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism. She observed the diversity of Chinese culture, including not only Chinese philosophy and arts, but also customs, social arrangements, and everyday life. The power of the colorful culture, beautiful landscape, delicious food, and friendly welcome established a relationship of love for her, inviting her to a new home.

Heller’s journey to China aided the reception of her thoughts, especially her aesthetics and her theory of modernity, among the scholars of the country. Through a series of interesting and dynamic speeches, she directly presented her theories to Chinese audiences. At the China Academy of Social Science, she spoke about the significance of new media, the emergence of which has changed people’s ideas and thinking patterns in everyday life. We communicate with each other through media, advancing the plurality of life. Scholars in the fields of journalism and communication were in the audience and interacted with Heller. At Fudan University, she gave the keynote speech, ‘Artistic Autonomy and the Dignity of Artwork’, to hundreds of Chinese literary theorists. Her lecture drew attention from various philosophical scholars of Marxism. In Chengdu, she gave several speeches, such as ‘What Is Post-modern? The Role of Emotion in Artistic Reception’. Hundreds of students listened to her passionate speeches, and she made a lasting impression on her audiences. Two important conversations were organized, the first of which was an interview about Budapest School Aesthetics, in which Heller introduced the situation of aesthetic thinking from the school and her history of work on aesthetics, including her own translation of Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Judgment. The other conversation was an informal dialogue in a small tea house. Several well-known scholars from Sichuan University participated in this dialogue, which concerned the situation of Chinese Marxism and social development, scholarship and institutionalization, and art and institutions. Heller’s speeches were energetic, argumentative, critical, and creative. These conversations will soon be published in Chinese. I maintain that her thoughts throughout her visit produced a relationship with the Chinese audience, and therefore found their home in China.

Heller’s first visit to China enlarged her influence in China and deepened her understanding of the reality of the country and its culture. During the visit, she established a love relationship with China, allowing her to feel at home in the country. However, the dialogue between Heller and Chinese audiences was only at its beginning stages: while she spoke at great length and with considerable animation, the audience did not always know how best to offer sufficient responses. This part of the conversation will have to be followed by other means.

Construction of an academic community

Since Heller’s books were translated into Chinese, beginning with On Instincts in 1988 and Everyday Life in 1990, Chinese scholars have read her works and entered her world, but only very tentatively. Several papers on Heller have been published in China, mainly concentrating on Everyday Life. The first doctoral dissertation on Heller was finished in 2004 and concerned Heller’s thoughts on aesthetic modernity from Renaissance Man in the 1960s to A Theory of Modernity at the end of the century, presenting something of the breadth of Heller to Chinese audiences. In 2005, A Theory of Modernity was translated and published by one of the most important national presses, the Business Press. Heller’s visit to China in 2007 drew the attention of Chinese scholars to her thought, and more and more papers and dissertations followed. Many of her important books and papers were translated and published, such as Can Modernity Survive? A Theory of History, A Philosophy of History in Fragments, and An Ethics of Personality. Several sympathetic academic networks were established across China involving more than 100 scholars, from distinguished professors to graduate students, from the fields of philosophy and aesthetics to cultural theory, politics, and ethics.

This receptiveness constructed an excellent foundation for the possibility of an ideal communicative community. The November 2018 event at Chengdu was outstanding because of Heller’s active and creative participation at the age of 89. This remains an academic milestone for us, that may well not be exceeded. However, before I discuss the community, I offer details about the two conferences in 2016 at Sichuan University. These conferences gathered together many young scholars in China as well as Peter Beilharz and Sian Supski from the Thesis Eleven journal in Melbourne. The journal has become an important platform on which to publish Heller’s papers and research on Heller. Thus, through these conferences, Sichuan University established a space for Chinese scholars and overseas scholars to discuss each other’s ideas about Heller and her culture and contribution. The result of these discussions was published by way of summary and prospectus in Thesis Eleven in 2017 (Fu and Beilharz, 2017). This was the first time that work from this newly emerging international community revolving around Heller was published. The conferences showed participants’ common interests in Heller and their strong capacity for trans-cultural communication.

All of these events laid the foundation for the 2018 climax. A series of academic spectacles were created at Sichuan University by scores of international scholars, but the star was without doubt Agnes Heller. Around Heller, a series of academic communications were sponsored by Sichuan University and the Thesis Eleven journal. All of the events were also supported by an important academic platform, the China National Social Sciences Fund Key Project ‘Bibliography and Research of Eastern European Marxist Aesthetics’ (15ZDB022). Heller was one of the team members of the key project, actively joining the international community. She was the dynamo. She offered six papers for the events: ‘The Origins of Modernity and the Situation of the Present: Remarks to the Lectures by Hans Jonas on the Ontological and Technological Revolution’; ‘Are There Obligations without Rights?’; ‘Backup of Autonomy of Art or the Dignity of the Artwork’; ‘Reflections on the Dynamics of Personal Identity in Modernity’; ‘Lukács and Tolstoy’; and ‘The Beauty of Morality’. Her serious preparation shone brilliantly at Sichuan University and her stay in China from 10 to 22 November inspired the community to interact reciprocally. I will detail these events by dividing them into three parts.

The first part was Heller’s lecture on ‘Autobiographical Memory, Collective Memory, Cultural Memory’, held in the evening for an open public. Her topic was penetrating and thought provoking. Almost all of the international scholars joined as listeners, as well as many young students from the university. They not only thought together, but also enjoyed the thinking itself. In addition, Heller listened carefully to Peter Steiner’s lecture ‘What Is Central Europe?’ and highly valued the Chinese audience’s challenging questions in and outside sessions.

The second part was the two-day workshop on modernity and civilization. Heller was deeply involved in direct dialogues in the workshop, which was divided into eight sessions with eight sponsors in turn from China and Australia. A variety of issues were introduced and discussed, such as the comparison of Western and Chinese modernity, the paradoxical relationship between civilization and modernity, the complicated relationship between civilization and culture, Chinese modernity and culture, and the elements of modernity in traditional Chinese culture. Each introduction was brief, interesting, creative, and challenging, and evoked a series of further discussions. Although the discussions were full of differences, contradictions, and disagreements, they were well-developed and abided by ethical and formal norms and rules, with the fruitfulness of sharing differences. In every session, Heller listened carefully and responded quickly to sponsors. Her presence warmed all of the discussions. The workshop was an immersion in a community thinking about modernity, full of inspiration and insights.

The third part was the international conference ‘Eastern European Marxist Critical Theory’, which lasted two days and was co-sponsored by Sichuan University and the Thesis Eleven journal. Scores of scholars who took an interest in the field were invited to participate in the conference. Heller’s keynote speech, ‘Lukács and Tolstoy’, started the opening ceremony and set the mood for further events. It drew the respect of scholars from China, Australia, the UK, the USA, the Czech Republic, Poland, Mexico, and India. Her speed of speaking was often normal, but at times suddenly accelerated, driven by her incredible enthusiasm. Her speech was powerful, passionate, and constant, without any pauses. Although she held a paper in her hands, it seemed that she had completely forgotten about it as she engaged with Lukács’ world of thought. She recollected a complicated history of his thoughts throughout his life. The scheduled time for her speech was 30 minutes, but it had to be stretched out to one hour. All of the participants felt inspired not only by what she had said, but also by her formal and serious gestures and posture and by her elegant discourse. Her listeners were distinguished professors from China and overseas as well as PhD students, master’s students, and undergraduates. Everyone who was present is certain to agree with me that her performance was full of original reflection; it was an artwork with significant content and form. Her speech was an integrated whole that was full of meaning and imagination.

In the following days, Heller was always present during each scholar’s presentations, and worked hard in private conversation not least with the youth. More than ten papers were presented on Heller’s work and thought. It was clear that she felt more excited and stimulated and more closely concerned when attending presentations about herself. As a listener, Heller was serious, critical, and interactive. In the closing ceremony, Heller concluded a successful conference and the scholars gave gifts to each other, said many thanks to each other, and embraced each other. This conference, with good speakers and listeners and fantastic results, constructed an excellent academic community with common consensus and differences. It was a spectacle in which all of the participants felt at home.

Agnes Heller established different types of relationships with China. From the imaginative intoxication of Chinese novels and arts to Chinese cultural spectacles and then to Chinese academic communication, Heller grasped multiple dimensions of Chinese culture, social life, and academic thinking, even though all this too was just a beginning. Her experiences were a combination of imagination and reality, of tradition and modernity, and of the private sphere and the public sphere. These love relationships offer us the opportunity to reconstruct many different types of homes in an age of widespread homelessness. These are some of the many gifts and legacies she has left us; it is up to us to set them now to work.