Editor’s Note
This essay is published by kind permission of Xian Ji, an architect, independent essayist, and critic of contemporary art and cultural life.
Formally trained in architectural design yet deeply anchored in Chinese intellectual history, Xian’s scholarship operates at the intersection of aesthetics, philosophy, and cultural critique. His oeuvre systematically interrogates the structural tensions between artistic integrity, collective psychology, moral frameworks, and the existential repercussions of modern cultural production. Synthesizing Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist intellectual currents and rigorously engaging with contemporary artistic practices, his essays occupy a critical space between speculative philosophical reflection and cultural diagnosis.
Owing to its conceptual density and scope, On Artists, Suffering, and Fame will be serialized in three installments. Conceived as a continuous meditation, each part unpacks a distinct thematic dimension: the metaphysical origins of desire, the degradation of artistic culture within systems of celebrity and utility, and the enduring problem of reconciling material existence with interior freedom.
— Concinnitas Journal
On Artists, Suffering, and Fame
I have lived in seclusion in Chongqing for many years. Cold and heat return in endless succession; the cycles of time repeat themselves. If one were to take falling leaves as a measure, then the rustling gains and losses beneath heaven amount to nothing more than an indescribable vastness of feeling. The traces of human existence are, in truth, inconsequential: birth, aging, sickness, death; suffering, accumulation, cessation, and the Way. When, in the present moment, you imagine the edge of time and space, and allow that sensation to diffuse back into immediate experience, a single fallen leaf is enough to clarify the peace and completeness of life. To contemplate sentient beings is inevitably to drift, in a single thought, between what is real and what is illusory; perhaps it is best to speak in provisional terms.
Part Ⅰ The Naturally Fissioning Relationship of Supply and Demand
To live in this world, one must rely upon resources for survival; in this regard, humans are no different from beasts. Animals mostly seek food when hungry and water when thirsty. However, there are also beasts that, once satiated, toy with their prey for amusement. In this, they resemble human entertainment, and perhaps within it lies the budding of desire itself.
In the process of pursuing resources, human beings expand the quantity of resources through instinct, reason, and desire. Yet humans are also capable, through reason, of consciously limiting resources to the level necessary for natural needs. Naturally, individuals differ greatly in what they require.
Let us provisionally grasp this through the sayings of ancient Chinese sages. The Analects contains many discussions concerning human desire. For example:
“Wealth and rank are what men desire; yet if they cannot be obtained in accordance with the Way, one should not dwell in them. Poverty and lowliness are what men detest; yet if they cannot be avoided in accordance with the Way, one should not flee them.”
And again:
“Wealth and honour acquired unrighteously are to me like floating clouds.”
From this it is clear that Confucius himself did long for wealth and honour, but sought to pursue them through what he believed to be a righteous path. He endeavoured to infer others from himself and himself from others. Under the illumination of “righteous principle,” he discoursed endlessly upon self-restraint and moral values.
Thus, he praised Yan Hui:
“With a single basket of rice and a single gourd of water, living in a mean alley, others could not endure such hardship, yet Hui never lost his joy. Worthy indeed was Hui!”
All of these passages, from different angles, express the core of Confucian thought: the value and practical extension of ren (benevolence).
Confucius may truly be said never to have crossed the prescribed boundary, practicing constant self-examination until, as he himself claimed, he attained the state of “following the desires of the heart without transgressing the bounds.” Of course, this was his own account; we cannot verify it.
By the time of Mencius and his theory of the “Four Beginnings,” the Confucian system was expanded and elaborated to its fullest. Yet the Confucian ideal of “inner sagehood and outer kingship,” grounded in benevolent governance, ultimately failed to find a stable realization. Its most conspicuous failing was its inability to consciously resist collusion with Legalist power-seekers. Thus, it became manipulated by those with sinister intentions. In other words, Confucianism won little more than the reputation of saintly chastity. In substance, it became merely a lasso and honeyed bait used by schemers to control the mediocre masses.
Certainly, the positive moral effects of Confucianism upon certain individuals throughout history cannot be denied. Yet the ethical structure of ruler-subject, father-son, and hierarchical obligation ultimately rendered its ideals barren. The moral integrity and self-restraint of a very small number of individuals never truly disturbed the rigid decay at the heart of those institutions, much less brought forth any harmonious order.
Historians are perhaps somewhat more objective, though they too cannot escape the limitations of individual judgment. Sima Qian’s famous line:
“All under heaven bustle for profit; all under heaven scramble for gain.”
Was it a broad literary summary of human nature, or a sigh of disdain toward the greed of the masses? It is difficult to judge precisely. Yet one thing is certain: those who truly believed in the Confucian spirit all took utility and pragmatism as standards of conduct.
The authentic transmission of Confucianism may perhaps be found only in Confucius, Mencius, Zengzi, and Wang Yangming, individuals whose theory and practice, inner and outer selves, remained consistent. The rest are scarcely worth mentioning, hybrids of appearances and hypocrisy. A very small number of individuals, though untouched by the core of Confucian thought, nevertheless maintained decent personal conduct.
Without a conscious recognition of inner moral value, it is difficult to possess genuine strength of will. This is why Confucianism advocates the “gentleman,” yet everywhere produces pretenders.
I believe the chief problem lies in Confucianism’s promotion of practical striving. In the course of its active and utilitarian pursuits, the interaction between flesh and spirit keeps human desire perpetually alive. A single lapse is enough to sink one beyond recovery.
Confucianism speaks solemnly of the “Way”:
“To hear the Way in the morning and die in the evening would suffice.”
But if one does not die by evening, perhaps by the next day, one no longer wishes to die at all, instead continuing to study diligently and strive upward. Immersed in the ferment of human desire, how fragile benevolence and righteousness become!
We cannot entirely deny the existence of martyrs possessing genuine independence of spirit. Yet Confucian sacrifice for righteousness — “giving up life to preserve virtue” — is almost always a decision made under ethical pressure, or for the sake of winning a reputation before and after death.
Thus, after long observation of Confucianism, I often experience a bodily and spiritual reaction that might be called: “partial admiration, universal nausea.”
Why did Confucianism arrive at such an outcome? In my humble view, once people consciously and actively pursue fame and profit, they easily lose control within the inertia of human nature. It becomes a form of self-awareness saturated with danger. The ethical doctrines Confucianism advocates often entangle individuals within the tedious utilitarian web of the masses, where they become endlessly enmeshed with one another, eroding both personality and aspiration.
Daoism, by contrast, is far freer in its appreciation of life through the idea of the “equalization of things.” Daoism regards the self and all beings as fundamentally undifferentiated; everywhere is the Dao. The meaning of life lies in a mode of existence transcending bodily life and death.
(Here, one must distinguish Daoism from organized Daoist religion. Daoism's religion is a syncretic institution seeking physical immortality.)
Within this metaphysical insight, Zhuangzi’s “dream of the butterfly” becomes a silent poetry of wandering freely within the transformations of existence. One dwells within the great transformation itself, facing all things with a serenity that transcends time and space. Zhuangzi was not only the butterfly in the dream but also the fish in the Hao River. Mountains and rivers, grasses and trees, flowers, birds, fish, and insects, all become temporary vessels of being.
From the standpoint of constructing cultural order, Daoism may seem passive. Yet its way of appreciating life played an indispensable moderating role against Confucian utilitarianism during the formation of Chinese culture. It indeed became something close to the spiritual genetic code of Chinese literati art.
Buddhism’s renunciation of worldly existence is even more thorough than either Confucianism or Daoism. Fundamentally speaking, every Buddhist school regards life as illusory and without inherent meaning.
Since Buddhism entered China from India, it has been continuously absorbed, transformed, and localized. Chan Buddhism, perhaps more than any other school, carried this process to its extreme: casting aside all scriptural explanations and pointing directly to the human mind, transforming meditative concentration into sudden enlightenment.
As I presently understand it, Buddhism is the teaching most capable of allowing one to live at peace with reality.
I am not advising people not to marry, not to eat meat, not to make money, or not to live and die. Only corpses abstain entirely from such things. Desire has no universal standard. Let each follow his own path and bear his own consequences. We all exist within causality and retribution.
(In Part II, we turn to the illusory pursuit of prestige within the art world, examining how collective consensus obscures individual meaning, degrades artistic conscience, and reduces the sublime pursuit of beauty into a sterile transaction of supply and demand.)