Fundamentación del modelo

Let us continue to follow the relationship between nature and morality initially suggested by Tang’s earlier text and trace it through A Green World Tour. In order to avoid the following account venturing towards the descriptive or anecdotal, I will

92 _{This assessment is not only based on numerous written sources, but was expressed repeatedly to me}

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focus on the chapters dealing with the United States, with material on other countries woven in when they strike a chord with the general argument.

Tang and Marks start off their tour when they are invited to give a talk at Principia College, a Christian Science Academy in Saint Louis, Missouri. America- As if I had walked into another world. (美国 -- 好像走进了另一个世界 (AGWT 1997 quote from 1993:193) Tang takes the opportunity to contemplate the relation between nature and morals:

After arriving at the academy, to tell the truth, I quite envied these people not only for the beautiful [natural] environment, but also for the wonderful world of communal spirit they were living in. [This world] is composed of the rivers, the forests, the flowers, the tolling of bells, the strive for academic achievement, humanity's love, and the God that exists inside one’s soul. When the [natural] environment is beautiful, then man's soul is even more beautiful. (AGWT: 193)

This passage invokes images we have encountered in the earlier article discussed above; it establishes the same reciprocal relationship between the intactness of the natural world and that of the social moral system. The border between the two realms, nature and society, vanishes in the passage quoted above, so that the natural world (flowers, rivers, forests) merges with the signs and activities of the human world to form a wonderful harmonious one. Pristine nature and good social life become inseparable, and it is hard to discern from this passage which element presupposes the other. As Tang’s stay continues, the connection between the two is fleshed out even more clearly. The visitor from China marvels at the accommodations provided for him and his wife (whose interior furniture and decorating have – as he stresses – not been bought, but have been donated by alumni and donors), and notices the absence of locks, which he takes as a sign of the superior ethics of his American hosts:

As we arrive at the office and the teaching rooms, we discover that they are just like the rooms in our hostel: At night the doors are not locked, and at day everything is wide open. It seems as if there are no thieves around here, and nobody tries to profit at another's expense. As I put it, everything is up to God. I am not a religious man, but I do like religious people - devout and honest religious people; I do not believe in God or

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any other deity, but I believe that in their hearts there is a God. Should this be the God embraced by hundreds of millions of people, then his origin would be mankind’s intuitive knowledge of morality (laizi renlei de liangzhi 来自人类的良知): that what calls man to perform charitable deeds, not to do evil. I am greatly distressed by some social phenomena in today's China: Confucius is gone, Lei Feng is gone, religious ethics and morals are gone; moreover the evil influence of the Cultural Revolution remains, mixed with the mold spread by the contemporary market economy, it has corroded the souls of so many people. The Chinese have an old saying: It takes 10 years for a tree to grow, but it takes a century to rear a generation of talented people (shinian shumu, bainian shuren 十年 树木, 百年树人). To cut down a forest is a distressing loss, but to destroy an entire generation's or several generations' spirit, that is truly horrible.

The Christian religion of his hosts, for Tang, is hence merely a substitute concept for public morality in general. In his lament on the environmental as well as social situation in China, any ethical system would be better than the current state of affairs. Traditional values (Confucius), or the advocacy for selfless sacrifice in the name of Communism (Lei Feng), are all better than nothing. It is notable that Tang does not mention the negative environmental legacy of neither Christianity, or traditional China, or Maoism. Confucianism traditionally regarded untamed wilderness with suspicion and distrust, and Lei Feng as a cultural icon is maybe most associated with the ideological furor of high Maoism and its relentless assault on China’s natural environment. Tang apparently does not see any contradiction between a system of ethics and environmentalism. In his account, selflessness and communal spirit are either an automatic result of mankind living amidst pristine nature, or it will lead to such a pristine nature. It is not always entirely clear in these passages whether it needs intact nature to create intact morality, or the other way around. A reading of all the texts of Tang suggests that the relationship is entirely mutual.

In a later chapter of AGWT describing the couple’s trip to Canada93_{, Tang Xiyang}

takes the opportunity to discuss the relationship between natural habitat and morals,

93 _{In the 1993 version, this chapter is entitled “From a country with many people to one with few}

people (“从人多的国家到人少的国家”). In CCC it is reprinted under the title “Many people amounts to disaster and few people is bliss” (“人多成灾和人少是福”) (317-321). The CCC version has been

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especially overpopulation. Tang elaborates this first basic observation into an argument that illustrates the difference in population density for a society: “My first feeling: If there are fewer people, then that gives people the freedom to live up to the fullest of their abilities. Here I have become aware of how precious a human being is, and that it’s unacceptable to waste a human being’s potential.”(306) Tang expresses pleasant surprise not only about how friendly everybody treats him and his wife, but he cannot but remark on the leisurely, relaxed atmosphere that pervades the airport. He contrasts this with his experiences from China where (as certainly anybody who has visited China in this lifetime) for example bus drivers constantly are shouting and abusing the passengers, a behavior Tang can sympathize with due to the larger pressure that must weight upon one single man forced to deal with so many passengers at the same time. “With a small population, [the individual] human being receives respect.” Again, this is derived from personal observation on his treatment at the airport. He gives numerous examples how he and his wife (who lest we forget are both elderly people at the time of writing) are treated with much courtesy. Again, this positive experience is immediately foiled by a reference to the dire circumstances of public morality in China:

“This sort of behavior might come natural to Canadians, but for a Chinese it is quite unusual. When I think about the situation at home, my heart bleeds. To be honest, I am not a man without national pride (minzu zizunxin 民族自尊心), but the real situation is quite painful: With so many people, there’s shoving, venting anger, quarrelling. China likes to think of itself as a land of propriety and righteousness, but nowadays there is no consideration for neither of the two, but only for getting ahead through guanxi and cunning. Other than that, it’s all about people bothering each other, making each other miserable, shoving, bullying, and cheating each other. How can someone give consolation so somebody if he or she

edited, although this is not noted, so that it is now shorter in some parts while other themes have been expanded on. Moreover, the text is now amended by short commentaries from other authors, printed at the margins of the main text. This has the effect of stressing certain themes of the text, as I will explain shortly. The text in the 2004 version reads more concisely because certain more mundane observations in the original versions have been deleted: In the 1993 original, Tang provides a lengthy account on the excellent service on the plane and the various entertainment features.

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herself is not at ease? How can someone who finds no respect anywhere respect somebody else?

At this point where the two versions deviate from each other in a rather small but rather meaningful way. In the original 1993 version, Tang in the following writes: “As the ancients say: He who respects others is constantly respected by them.” (古人 云: 敬人者, 人恒敬之.) To a reader with some knowledge on Chinese philosophy this quote, and especially the topic of the reciprocity of personal conduct, bears connotations with the writings of Mencius (372 – 289 BC), arguably the most famous Confucian after the master himself. Tang Xiyang here does not bother to provide the source for this quote, however. This is remedied in the 1997 (and the 2004) version where Tang re-states the argument much more forcefully supported by a more comprehensive quote. “Mencius said: ‘The benevolent man loves others. The man of propriety shows respect to others. He who loves others is constantly loved by them. He who respects others is constantly respected by them.’ (愛人者人恆愛之, 敬人者人恆敬 之.)94 By quoting Mencius, the author re-claims the ideals of propriety and righteousness for China, but not for today’s China, but that of antiquity. In Tang’s framing, it is now the Canadians in whose “proper” moral conduct the teaching of the revered sage are upheld, and it is the modern Chinese who are in defiance of their own heritage. This of course is a familiar argumentative strategy to evoke not only an emotional response from the audience, but also to show a way out of the dilemma by returning to long-established social patterns which are not foreign after all, but has been part of “the self” all along, albeit forgotten or disregarded.