The Liji and a tragic theory of ritual

Michael D. K. Ing
• 1 This essay is an expansion of the “Concluding Reflections” in
Ing 2012b, 204–218. For an explanatio (...)

1This article will draw from three parts of the Liji 《禮記》 in an
attempt to construct an early Confucian theory of ritual. This
theory, in short, depicts a tragic consciousness experienced in
ritual performance where ritual agents cope with vulnerability,
ambiguity, and rupture with the past. In constructing this theory, I
will refer to and build on a larger project that I published as a
book entitled The Dysfunction of Ritual in Early Confucianism. My 1

purpose in this article is to demonstrate that ritual often involves

the coordinated enactment of conflicting moral desires such that
ritual is in part a performance of ambivalence. Ritual performers
reaffirm their desire to model the past, but recognise the
demands of the present. They also mobilise the resources of
vulnerability to care for others and to turn ritual performance into
an embodied confession of their hopes and limitations in
confronting a threatening world.
• 2 I would like to thank Colin Klein for encouraging me to clarify this.

2The latter half of this article will situate this tragic theory of ritual
in the broader discourses of ritual studies and contrast this theory
with non-tragic portrayals of Confucianism. This essay is more
creative than historical; meaning that it aims to tease out the
normative (and more often functional) claims of ritual
performance as articulated in the Liji. It does not attempt to
provide a historical account of specific ritual performances;
neither is it exegetical in the sense of situating my claims within
the complex of issues associated with interpreting early Chinese
texts.2 In other words, this essay elaborates on the exegetical
work done in The Dysfunction of Ritual and offers a constructive
interpretation of the Liji for the purpose of bringing it into
dialogue with contemporary theories of ritual.

The “Liyun” 禮運
• 3 For a more in-depth look at the “Liyun”, see pages 105–128 in Ing
2012b.

3In the opening scene of the “Liyun” chapter, Confucius, after

witnessing a ceremony performed in his home state, lets out a
sigh. His disciple Ziyou 子游, hearing him sigh, asks what went
wrong. Confucius responds with a lengthy description of two
utopian periods in early human history; both of which, he
explains, were preceded by a pre-civilised era when human
beings lived in caves and ate the raw flesh of animals. Confucius
laments that he hoped that the world might again attain the
greatness of these two utopian periods, yet, as evident from the
poor performance of the ritual just witnessed, such a desire will
not be realised.3
4This opening scene, in general terms, provides a narrative for a
tragic reading of early Confucian ritual. Confucius explains that in
the earliest period of human history, humanity lived in uncivilised
conditions. In this period, human beings did not know how to
construct homes, cook food, or make clothing; and as such,
human beings lived in caves, ate the raw flesh of animals, and
wore the feathers of birds. Fortunately, profound people, or
“sages”, appeared on the scene and taught people to build simple
homes, to use fire in preparing food, and to spin hemp and silk.
The sages also organised simple human relationships such as
parents in relation to children. This act of civilisation, the “Liyun”
explains, marked the beginning of the ritual tradition. Society –
meaning interpersonal relationships, material implements and
structures, and institutions such as government– is built by means
of ritual practices. The “Liyun” also goes on to report that as
society became more complex so did the ritual practices that
supported it.
5Sometime after this period of savage conditions, the “Liyun”
contends, a fundamental shift occurred in the development of
human civilisation. While human beings originally lived in caves
and drank the blood of animals, they came to live as one unit –
treating everyone as family, living in simple homes, and cooking
their food. In this era, which Confucius calls Grand Unity
(datong 大同), human civilisation lived in accordance with the
Great Way (dadao 大道). The text explains:
大道之行也，天下為公．選賢與能，講信脩睦．故人不獨親其親，不獨子其子
，使老有所終，壯有所用，幼有所長，矜寡孤獨廢疾者，皆有所養．男有分，
女有歸．貨惡其棄於地也，不必藏於己；力惡其不出於身也，不必為己．是故
謀閉而不興，盜竊亂賊而不作，故外戶而不閉，是謂大同．

• 4 Lau 1992, 9.1. All translations are my own, unless noted.

The Great Way moved [throughout the world]; and everything under the
heavens was commonly shared. Those in positions of authority were
chosen because of their abilities. Trust was emphasised, and solidarity
was cultivated. As such, people did not only treat their parents as
parents, nor only their children as children. The old were allowed to live
their lives to the fullest. The able-bodied were employed, and the young
were raised into adulthood. The widowed, the orphaned, the childless,
and the sick were all cared for. Men had proper allotments of work, and
women were married into good families. When crafting goods, people
disdained not putting them to their full use; yet they did not need to store
up [goods] for themselves. When working, people disdained not exerting
themselves to the fullest; yet they did not [work] simply for themselves.
As such, deceitful plans were curbed so that they did not arise; and
thieves, robbers, and malcontents did not come about. Because of this,
[people] did not [even] shut the outer gate to their homes. This is what is
called Grand Unity.4
6In the era of Grand Unity, humanity thrived in simple conditions.
Later, however, in the era Confucius calls Modest Prosperity
(xiaokang 小康), human beings concerned themselves with more
distinctions, such as distinctions between one’s parents and the
parents of other people, as well as distinctions between the
people of one’s hometown and the people from other towns. The
world, due to these distinctions, was no longer seen as one
family, but the virtuous leaders of the time cultivated these
distinctions in the form of a ritual tradition so that society
continued in accordance with the Great Way. In conjunction with
these social distinctions, the “Liyun” explains, people in society
were able to create more complex physical structures such as
moats and city walls, as well as more complex institutions that
fostered the distinction between rulers and ministers, among
others. In this age, human civilisation thrived, and attained a level
of sophistication and prosperity that could not be attained to in
the previous age. Yet, in my reading of these passages, humanity
also lost several things in this transition.
7For one, in the era of Grand Unity, ritual was simple and
unadorned. It provided for basic needs such as food and shelter,
and it fostered a minimal number of social relationships. It could
not, however, bring about a prosperous world. Creating the
conditions of prosperity entailed building on, and in some
regards, deviating from, the foundational acts of the sages.
Because of this, ritual performers in later times have been torn
between a desire to maintain a strong connection with an ordered
past and a desire to render ritual meaningful in a more complex
present. This ambivalence, rooted in an awareness of the
necessity of enacting ritual and the necessity of varying from
earlier tradition, is a key component of the tragic consciousness
associated with ritual.
• 5 Oxford English Dictionary, online entry “complicate.”

8Secondly, the growing complexity of the world entailed an ever-

growing and interdependent infrastructure to manage the process
of development. In the time before the era of Modest Prosperity,
rituals worked, but the social world they created was also a simple
world. In later times, a more complex social world required more
complex rituals. However, this growing complexity led to an
increase in the number of participants required to successfully
perform ritual. Each participant relied on the proper performance
of the other. If anyone failed to properly perform his role, the
ritual could fail. Ritual success, in this light, became complicated
in the etymological sense of the term “complicate” –the agencies
involved in the event are “entangled” or are “folded
together.”5 The growing complexity of the social world, as such,
led to more interdependent rituals where successful ritual
performance was contingent upon a growing number of agencies;
thereby obfuscating causality in ritual success and failure.
9Lastly, the formation of a ritual tradition also created ritual
agents who saw themselves in more distinctive ways. People in the
age of Modest Prosperity, according to the “Liyun,” became self-
interested and became capable of constructing alternative
traditions that could compete with the ritual tradition. The “Liyun”
explains that with the emergence of more social distinctions came
an awareness of those within one’s social group (such as a city)
and those beyond one’s social group (those from another city).
Defence fortifications arose in this early period, and weapons
emerged in an attempt to overtake those from other social worlds.
Ritual, as such, is always vulnerable to those agencies that affect
the situation –be it competing state institutions or co-performers
of the ritual. Because of this, ritual performances are anxious
performances. The ritual agent is concerned with his performance
of ritual, and anxious over the fact that agencies other than him
can determine the success of his performance.
10What this reveals is the contingent nature of the ritual world.
Ritual success, in other words, is vulnerable to incompetent ritual
performers, people from other social worlds wielding military or
other kinds of power, as well as natural disasters and death.
These dysfunctional forces impinge themselves on the ritual world
with a kind of brute force. In short, the world ritual is meant to
construct is set against the backdrop of a dysfunctional world.
Ritual performers project their hope onto the dysfunctional world
while recognising that their hope will sometimes be in vain.
• 6 I borrow the term “experiments in paradigmity” from Antonio Cua
who uses it to describe the ways in (...)

11Thus, the “Liyun” chapter discusses at least three aspects of

what I am calling a tragic consciousness of ritual performance.
The first is the realisation among ritual performers that ritual
cannot be done as it was done in antiquity; despite the fact that it
worked in antiquity. The second is the ambiguity associated with
interdependent rituals performed in a more complex world. And
the third is the fragility of the ritual world in relation to the
dysfunctional world. Summarised another way, the rituals of
antiquity do not always work in the present, so living in an era of
prosperity requires transforming the efficacious rituals of the
past. Yet altering the rituals of antiquity does not guarantee ritual
success. Ritual agents, in this light, perform “experiments in
paradigmity” where their best efforts in altering ritual work in
most cases; however, in this vulnerable and interdependent world,
their alterations are never guaranteed to work.6 Part of the tragic
nature of this narrative is the possibility that humanity might
actually be able to return to the kind of world that existed in the
era of Grand Unity; but rather than returning we choose to live in
a prosperous, yet also a vulnerable, world.
 • 7 For more on anomy in the context of religious studies see
Berger 1990, 23, 26, 49–50, and 90.

12The “Liyun” presents us with a view where ritual minimises

dysfunction and projects a hope of order onto the dysfunctional
world; yet ritual does not prevent all dysfunction. The work of
ritual is to build an ordered world; and ritual performers enact
ritual over and over again to construct this world, but they never
fully eliminate the threat of failure. Ritual performance
understood as world construction is therefore taken in a tensive
sense. Said another way, the ritual world never fully becomes the
only world human beings experience; rather, dysfunction
continues to linger on the edges of society. Indeed, it seems that
one of the messages that the “Liyun” teaches its readers is that
we, human beings, inhabit a world occasioned by both order and
anomy.7

The mourning rites

• 8 Lau 1992, 3.69.

13The Liji contains many discussions of mourning rites. These

rites, covered in nearly two thirds of the chapters in the Liji, also
highlight the tragic consciousness associated with ritual
performance. Some of these rites include the calling back
ceremony (fu 復) where shortly after someone has died, a mourner
climbs up to the roof to call the deceased’s spirit back to the
body; as well as the practice of putting objects into the tomb of
the deceased that do not quite work –zithers, for instance, are
placed in the grave but their strings are not properly tuned; and
this, the Liji tell its readers, is because the dead are no longer
alive, yet, in its view, neither are they fully gone.8 The portion of
the rites I would like to focus on begins after the calling back
ceremony and before the burial. In this section of the rites, we
might call the funeral procession, mourners follow the carriage
carrying the body of the deceased to the grave. The Liji explains
that mourners should do this as if the deceased were still alive.
The chapter entitled “Asking about Mourning” (“Wen sang” 問喪)
describes this as follows:
其往送也，望望然、汲汲然、如有追而弗及也．其反哭也，皇皇然若有求而弗
得也．故其往送也如慕，其反也如疑．求而無所得之也，入門而弗見也，上堂
又弗見也，入室又弗見也．亡矣！喪矣！不可復見矣！故哭泣辟踊，盡哀而止
矣．心悵焉、愴焉、惚焉、愾焉，心絕志悲而已矣．

• 9 Lau 1992, 36.1.

In following [the funeral procession to the grave], mourners were

expectant and anxious as if they sought to follow [the deceased] but could
not quite catch up to him. When returning, they wailed; and were
hesitant and uneasy as if they sought after [the deceased], but did not
find him. As such, when mourners follow [the funeral procession to the
grave] it is as if they long to see [the deceased]; and when they return, it
is as if they are bewildered [in not being able to find him]. Regardless of
where they sought him, he could not be found. They entered the door to
his home, but did not find him there. They ascended into the main hall,
but did not find him there. They entered his personal quarters, but did
not find him there. Alas, he was gone; only to be mourned, and never to
be seen again! This is why mourners wail, shed tears, beat their chests,
and falter. They stop doing these things only after they fully exhaust their
sorrow. Their hearts are despondent, morose, perplexed, and aggrieved
to the point that they lose their focus and there is nothing but sorrow. 9
14This portion of the Liji maintains that mourners should follow
the funeral procession to the grave as if they were travelling to
catch up to a person who was still alive; and after not finding him,
they are to return to his home and call for him, hoping to find him
there. When failing to find him at home, mourners “exhaust their
sorrow” by wailing and shedding tears. The sorrow of losing a
loved one reaches a heightened pitch as mourners fully confront
the absence of the person. They are despondent to the point that
“they lose their focus and there is nothing but sorrow.” What is
interesting here is that the Liji does not make the argument that
these rites are effective in bringing the dead back to life; rather,
the mourners should not fully expect the rite to alter the course of
death.
15In the mourning rites, mourners come to recognise the
vulnerability of their hoped-for world to forces beyond their
control. Indeed, what we see in the mourning rites are a series of
practices meant to confront this vulnerability. Mourners project
their hope on to the dysfunctional world, knowing that it might
not change things. They perform the rites to demonstrate their
awareness of the fragility of their social world. The mourning
rites, as such, become a means of navigating the tension between
the desired world and the dysfunctional world. They become a
kind of performative therapy for dealing with dissonance.
Following this view, ritual is done to display one’s understanding
that one’s best efforts are often frustrated by the dysfunctional
world –that people do in fact die, but if it were up to us, they
would remain.
• 10 Parts of this were inspired by Cole 1985. On page 9 she
comments: “Tragedy is an imaginative model (...)

16The mourning rites are particularly apt for demonstrating this

point. The death of others presents a kind of ambivalence for
many human beings.10 Our desire to accept the finality of death
conflicts with our hope for continuing a meaningful relationship
with the deceased. Mourning rites, as such, become an important
means of coping with ambivalence –they allow us to live in a world
of hope and fear. The intrusion of the dysfunctional world into the
social world becomes an occasion for the creation and
performance of ritual. Yet ritual does not dissolve the tension
between these worlds; instead it provides a way of navigating the
tension.
 • 11 For more on the relationship between ethics and vulnerability
see Schofer 2010, 183–190.

• 12 Schofer 2010, 183.

17Part of what makes the world created by ritual meaningful is the

possibility of intrusion. The dysfunctional world is dangerous. It
kills indiscriminately. It is savage. The vulnerability of the ritual
world to dysfunction means that everyone living in the world of
ritual lives with risk. Yet this risk itself partially renders life in the
ritual world worthwhile. If relationships lasted forever, there are
fewer reasons to cultivate relationships now. If ritual completely
ordered the dysfunctional world, there are fewer reasons to
transcend parochialism and the narrow confines of traditionalism.
The threat of loss can lead to morbidity and depression, but it can
also inspire the virtuous treatment of others.11 The possibility of
impingement can lead to retrenchment and fundamentalism, but
it can also prompt a healthy reappraisal of tradition. The
uncertainty of the ritual world, in this sense, “mobilizes [the]
energies” necessary for the appropriate treatment of others and
for a reflective engagement with tradition.12
• 13 Lau 1992, 43.1.

• 14 Jennifer Wallace elaborates on this in the context of tragedy and

Sigmund Freud’s theory of child d (...)

18Said more generally, the ritual world as a vulnerable world is a

kind of evanescent domain where fragility serves as a motivating
factor in the ongoing construction of society and as grounds for
the seriousness with which human beings might live their lives
and reflect on themselves as well as their relations with others.
Zhu Xi famously substituted the character xin 新 (renewing)
for qin 親 (drawing near) in the opening passage of the “Great
Learning” (“Daxue” 大學). In a reversal of sorts, we might blur the
distinction between qin 親 and xin 新 in a later passage of the
“Great Learning” for the purpose of highlighting the role of
reflecting on relationships in an evanescent world. The passage in
question reads, “If one day [you] renew [it], renew [it] day after
day; indeed, renew [it] daily” 茍日新，日日新，又日新.13 By
substituting qin 親 for xin 新 we get, “If one day [you] draw near to
[someone], draw near to [them] day after day; indeed, draw near
to [them] daily” 茍日親，日日親，又日親. While this passage of the
“Great Learning” does not require such a rereading, blurring the
notions of qin 親 and xin 新 highlights the role of repetition and
attachment in the context of renewal. Through repetition we fulfil
our existing relationships, and through attachment in the context
of renewal we confront the loss of current relationships as we
form new ones. The ritual world, in this view, is built through the
repetition of rites that foster closeness and cope with loss among
human beings. Since relationships will not always endure, we are
compelled to render them meaningful now. Relationships require
not only daily renewal through repetition, but also total renewal
through reattachment as one person is lost and a new relationship
is formed. This process of closeness, loss, renewal, and
reattachment seems central to many aspects of human experience
ranging from games that infants play to rituals such as those
described in the Liji.14 It does not seem too implausible to
suggest that such a process is a central part of the Confucian
notion of the continual generative and regenerative process of the
world (sheng sheng bu xi 生生不息 or sheng sheng zhi wei
yi 生生之謂易).
19In the mourning rites discussed throughout the Liji, the failure
of the ritual world to fully transform the dysfunctional world such
that death does not occur, is integral to the success of the
mourning rites themselves. Proper performance is a vulnerable
performance where the more genuine one’s hope of finding the
deceased still alive when searching their home, the more genuine
one’s sorrow when confronting their absence.
20These rituals, as mentioned in other portions of the Liji, must
push the performer to the brink of madness. The
“Jiyi” 祭義 chapter speaks of this in the context of sacrifices made
for the deceased.
孝子將祭，慮事不可以不豫；比時，具物不可以不備；虛中以治之．宮室既修
，墻屋既設，百物既備，夫婦齊戒沐浴，盛服奉承而進之．洞洞乎，屬屬乎，
如弗勝，如將失之．其孝敬之心至也與！薦其薦俎，序其禮樂，備其百官，奉
承而進之．於是諭其志意，以其慌惚以與神明交，庶或饗之．庶或饗之，孝子
之志也．
• 15 Lau 1992, 25.9-11.

Before a filial son offers up sacrifices [to his deceased parents], he is

concerned with preparing all the affairs [of the sacrifice]. If the time [for
sacrifice] arrives, and all the implements are arrayed and everything is
prepared, [he is able to] empty his heart and mind; and in the proper
order, [he] performs the rite.15 Once the temple chamber is clean, the
walls and roof are repainted, and all the ritual implements are ready, the
son and his wife –having fasted and washed themselves– enter the
chamber wearing the sacrificial attire and carrying the sacrifices. So
engrossed and sincere, they move as if unable to bear [the weight of the
sacrifices], and as if they are on the brink of dropping them. [As such],
are their hearts not completely full of reverence and filial piety? The filial
son displays his focus by ordering the sacrificial vessels, by arranging the
rite and its accompanying music, by training the ritual participants, and
by [appropriately] entering the chamber carrying the sacrifices. Because
of his lost abstraction of mind [huanghu 慌惚] [when entering the
chamber] he communes with the spirits, hoping that they might partake
of the sacrifices. The aim of the filial son is to express his hope that the
spirits partake of the sacrifices.
• 16 I translated huanghu 慌惚 as “lost abstraction of mind” following
Legge 1885, Part IV, 214.

21The filial son is at first concerned with preparing for the

sacrifice. He ensures that all the necessary implements are
available and that the area where the sacrifice is to take place is
clean. When the ritual is performed, however, this concern is
replaced by an attitude of huanghu 慌惚, translated above as “lost
abstraction of mind.”16 The passage describes this attitude as
“engrossed” and “sincere.” It seems that when the ritual agent is in
a lost abstraction of mind he is pushed to the brink of failure –the
participant brings in the sacrifices as if he cannot bear their
weight and moves as if he is on the verge of dropping them. The
ritual agent, this passage explains, must be in a lost abstraction
of mind in order to commune with the spirits (shen 神).
• 17 Being deeply dedicated to his father employs “crazy” in the
sense of “being crazy about something.”

22Another, more pedestrian, way of understanding the notion

of huanghu 慌惚 is by translating it as “crazy.” The ritual agent, in
this scenario, is so focused on the loss of his father that he goes
crazy in the multifaceted sense of the term –he is both bewildered
by the circumstances of the loss and deeply dedicated to his
father.17
• 18 Olberding 2011, 160.

23The notion of huanghu 慌惚 can be understood in terms of

vulnerability –the death of someone meaningful is what
precipitates the ritual agent to reach this state; and the ritual
agent must focus on this person, and their relationship, during
the rite to ensure its success. The ritual agent, as such, takes
upon himself the risk of going beyond the brink. This kind of
flirtation with failure enables the success of the rites. In
performing the mourning rites, a state of vulnerability is preferred
over a state of invulnerability. Stated more broadly, human
beings, in this view, should not render themselves invulnerable to
relationships that are contingent on the erratic nature of the
dysfunctional world. These relationships, at least partially,
constitute a meaningful life. As Amy Olberding suggests with
regard to the Analects, “The ethical potency of grief resides… in
the willingness to lead a life that courts certain species of pain in
order to achieve higher order values, and these values reside in
our relations with others.”18 The real possibility of the
dysfunctional world impinging itself on the ritual world opens up
opportunities for deep engagement with other human beings. It
provides motivation to care for others, allows one to fully
experience human sentiment (qing 情), and creates space for
continued reflection on the question of what constitutes a
meaningful life.

The “mubeng” 墓崩 passage

• 19 For a more in-depth discussion of this vignette see Ing 2012b,
152–174 and Ing 2012a.

24The sixth passage in the “Tan gong, shang” 檀弓上 chapter

describes Confucius’ performance of the burial rites for his
parents, as well as the collapse of his parents’ grave during the
rites.19 I believe that this passage is particularly apt for
demonstrating the tragic consciousness of ritual performance and
in tying together the themes of the previous passages mentioned
above. It reads:
孔子既得合葬於防，曰：「吾聞之：古也墓而不墳；今丘也，東西南北人也，
不可以弗識也．」
Upon completing the joint burial [of his parents] in Fang, Confucius
remarked, “I have heard it said that the ancients built graves but not
burial mounds. But now there is me –one who [travels to] the north,
south, east, and west. [And I] cannot afford to not recognise [the grave].”
於是封之，崇四尺．孔子先反，門人後，雨甚；至，孔子問焉曰：「爾來何遲
也？」
Thereupon [Confucius] built a mound four feet high. Confucius then left
[Fang], with his disciples to eventually follow. Heavy rains fell. [When his
disciples] finally caught up, Confucius asked, “Why did you arrive so
late?”
曰：「防墓崩．」
They replied, “The grave at Fang collapsed.”
• 20 Lau 1992, 3.6.

孔子不應．三，孔子泫然流涕曰：「吾聞之：古不修墓．」20
Confucius did not respond. [They repeated this] three times. Tears welled
up and fell freely [from Confucius’ eyes]. He [finally] responded, “I have
heard that the ancients did not fix their graves.”
25There are several things worth noting in this passage. For one,
Confucius, in contrast to the practices of antiquity, constructs a
mound on the grave of his parents. He does this because he lives
in a time different from antiquity. His age is perhaps more
complex –requiring him to travel around the kingdom and to
employ others (i.e., his disciples) in completing the mourning rites
for his parents. He needs the mound to help him remember the
grave. Confucius, we see in this passage, is spatially and
temporally displaced from the past –he cannot remain in the
location of his parents, nor does he live in the same conditions as
the ancients. The mound, as such, serves to bridge the
displacement. The complexity of building a mound also requires
him to employ his disciples in maintaining the grave. Varying from
the rites of antiquity, it turns out, increases the vulnerability of
the rite. Rains fall, the mound gets saturated, and the grave
collapses. It is not clear who is at fault for the collapse. It may be
the fault of the heavens for causing it to rain, the fault of
Confucius for deviating from antiquity, or the fault of his disciples
for incompetently maintaining the grave.
• 21 I developed the idea of a commiserating community in reference
to David Hall and Roger Ames’ interp (...)
26For its readers, this passage serves to evoke their tragic
sensibilities by presenting them with issues of ambiguity, rupture
with the past, and vulnerability. Confucius is depicted as being
concerned with the proper burial of his parents, and the text
presumes that its readers are also concerned with the proper
treatment of their parents. Confucius was concerned with
deviating from tradition, and the presumed readers of the Liji are
likewise concerned with deviating from tradition. Confucius
sometimes confronted situations where the dysfunctional world
overpowered the ritual world, and so do the readers of the text.
Passages such as these connect the world of the text with the
world of its readers. Confucius is shown as living in a world where
one’s hope of what ritual might accomplish does not always
cohere with the experience of ritual performance. The readers of
the text inhabit the same world. As such, readers feel along
with Confucius and he feels for us. At the same time, in texts such
as the Liji, Confucius serves as more than a stand-in for
what might happen to its readers. Additionally, the text sets out
to establish a kind of commiserating community where we feel for
others because we care for them.21 Passages such as these serve
as reminders and comforts that the readers of the text are
intimately connected with figures such as Confucius. Stated more
broadly, once we, the readers, accept the proposition that our
hope for what ritual might accomplish and our experience with
what ritual actually brings about are not always reconcilable, we
then find the world we live in a more frightening, but also a more
familiar, place.
• 22 I borrowed the notion of “honesty” from Wu 1991, 252.

27To draw a few larger conclusions, what we see in these parts of

the Liji is that the kind of justification that ritual provides for its
performance need not be about the eventual triumph of the ritual
world. Rather it can sometimes justify itself by providing a kind of
honesty about the world.22 It reframes the world such that we
learn to accept that there are things we do not know, and powers
that we cannot control. Ritual, as such, can be seen as an
embodied confession of our own limitations. It is a way of
enacting our vulnerability and coming to terms with uncertainty.
Depicting the failure of paradigmatic figures such as Confucius to
adequately construct an ordered world allows readers of the Liji to
establish a peculiar continuity with the past. While Confucius’
failure is set in the context of breaking with the past, the readers
of the text are connected with the past by means of Confucius’
rupture with antiquity. His vulnerability and his difficulty in
navigating his ambiguous world serve as a model for those
seeking to cope with similar circumstances.

Correspondence and
subjunctive theories of ritual
• 23 For the purposes of this article, I use single quotation marks to
designate technical terms, and I (...)

• 24 Eliade 1954, 21.

28In the next portion of this article, I will briefly situate this tragic
theory of ritual with two alternative theories that some
contemporary scholars of religion use to conceptualise ritual. The
first theory is cast in terms of ‘correspondence.’23 Ritual, in this
view, is meant to shape reality to correspond with a preexisting
ideal. This ideal is often represented in a complex system of
symbols (as argued by Clifford Geertz, for instance), or in myths
of an “eternal return” to conditions of paradise (as argued by
Mircea Eliade). Ritual, as such, is meant to create an ‘as is’ world.
In other words, ritual acts on the world, to change the world into a
new and better place. Paraphrasing Eliade, as was done by the
gods, so is done by human beings in the performance of ritual;
and as is done in ritual, so will be done in the
world.24 Interestingly, after mentioning this idea, which he takes
from a Vedic text, Eliade then notes, “This Indian adage
summarizes all the theory underlying rituals in all countries.”
• 25 Michaels 2008, 260–261.

29While more recent scholars have become increasingly sensitive

to universal claims about ritual, many continue to advocate
various correspondence theories of ritual and couple them with
the assertion that ritual performers do not believe that their
rituals change. Axel Michaels, a scholar of South Asian religions,
for instance, explains, “[I]f people identify themselves in rituals
with invariability and timelessness… they resist the uncertainty of
past and future, life and death. In rituals they become ‘eternal,’
related to something that has always been there, never changed
and detached from everyday life and profanity. Thus rituals are
staged productions of timelessness, the effort to oppose change,
which implies finality (and, ultimately, death)”.25
30When bound together, theories of correspondence and theories
of change-lessness lead to a significant problem for ritual
performers, especially when they are compelled to explain
situations where their rituals do not function as claimed. These
ritual performers must attribute failure to either their own
incompetence, or to the impotence of their rites and ceremonies.
Where ritual does not transform the world –creating an ‘as is’
world– there necessarily arises a crisis of meaning for the
performers of ritual. In short, if they did things correctly, there
can be no simple, or perhaps satisfying, answer as to why their
rituals were ineffective.
 • 26 Regarding ‘as if’ space, see Nicolas Standaert’s contribution in
this volume.

31To briefly compare this theory of ritual with what I have

described as a tragic theory of ritual, we see that in line with
correspondence theories, this tragic theory does make an ‘as is’
claim –ritual performers hope to order the dysfunctional world. On
the other hand, this tragic theory of ritual recognises that hope is
not always reconcilable with experience and that the ritual world
is still a vulnerable world. Ritual, instead of simply attempting to
create an ‘as is’ world, also creates a kind of ‘as if’ space where
performers enact a therapy of honesty in confronting a
bewildering world.26
32In perhaps sharper contrast with notions of changelessness, we
see that this tragic theory of ritual does not argue that ritual
should not change. Rather, early Confucians believed that even an
idealised antiquity was insufficient for creating a prosperous
present. Ritual performers build on, but also deviate from, the
foundational acts of the sages. Ritual change, in this view, must
occur but it is always done ambivalently –with one eye on the
past.
33The second theory of ritual that is worthy of attention comes
from scholars such as J.Z. Smith and Adam Seligman. Both Smith
and Seligman provide alternative accounts of ritual efficacy –Smith
highlights the awareness among ritual performers of the
disjuncture between the world of ritual and the ordinary world;
Seligman explains how ritual creates a “subjunctive” reality.
• 27 Smith 1980, 124–125. Italics removed. He also makes a similar
argument in Smith 1987, 109–110.

• 28 Smith 1980, 125.

• 29 Idem.
 • 30 Smith 1980, 127.

• 31 Idem.

34In his 1980 article, “The Bare Facts of Ritual,” Smith explains
that “ritual represents the creation of a controlled environment
where the variables (i.e., the accidents) of ordinary life have been
displaced precisely because they are felt to be so overwhelmingly
present and powerful. Ritual is a means of performing the way
things ought to be in conscious tension to the way things are in
such a way that this ritualized perfection is recollected in the
ordinary, uncontrolled, course of things.”27 In Smith’s view, ritual
is not meant to act on ordinary life; rather, ritual acts in
opposition to ordinary life. Ritual agents perform ritual to
demonstrate that they know “what ought to have been
done.”28 The ritual agent, in other words, recognises that ordinary
life will not necessarily be influenced by the performance of ritual.
Indeed, one of the reasons, according to Smith, the ritual agent
performs ritual is to demonstrate this very fact. The “gnostic”
element of ritual performance is significant for Smith.29 In
contrast to scholars whose theories lead to the crisis described
previously, Smith posits that ritual performers are aware of the
disconnection between a ritual performance and “ordinary life.” He
explains, for instance, that dramatising the kill of the hunt in
Siberian pre-hunting ceremonies is done to show that “the hunter
knows full well what ought to transpire if he were in control; the
fact that the ceremony is held is eloquent testimony that the
hunter knows full well that it will not transpire, that he is not in
control.”30 In Smith’s view, the ritual performer is aware of the
tenuous relationship between the ritualised hunt and the ordinary
hunt, and is able to explain why he performs the ritual despite the
rupture. Ritual, in short, does not manipulate the world; rather, it
“express[es] a realistic assessment of the fact that the
world cannot be compelled”.31
• 32 Smith 1980, 127. Smith restates this point in Smith 1987, 109.
According to Smith ritual “provides (...)

35The strength of Smith’s account is that it provides a non-

correspondence theory of ritual efficacy from an emic perspective.
Instead of depicting primitive actors unaware of the constraints of
changing the ordinary world, the performers are depicted as
rational agents acting out because of the constraints of changing
the ordinary world. In Smith’s view, ritual is done to demonstrate
an awareness of these constraints and to serve as a “focusing
lens” with which to view the ordinary world.32
• 33 Seligman 2008, 7.

• 34 The clearest explanation of sincerity comes from Seligman 2008,

103: “The alternatives that [sincer (...)

• 35 Seligman 2008, 22.

36Adam Seligman, Robert Weller, Michael Puett, and Bennett

Simon, in their book entitled Ritual and its Consequences, also
put forth a similar theory of ritual efficacy. In their view, ritual
creates an “as if” or a “could be” world rather than an “as is” world
as argued for in correspondence theories of ritual.33 According to
this group of scholars, ritual works to build a subjunctive social
world instead of what they call a “sincere” world where “authentic”
or “real” aspects of the self are sought and manifest in ritual.34 In
other words, ritual creates a kind of illusory world where
performers live “as if” they were living in a world of order, as
opposed to actually creating a world rooted in some notion of an
authentic self or an original tradition. Ritual, as such, frames the
world for ritual performers so that the illusory world becomes a
kind of reality, but the reality lasts only as long as performers
adhere to the illusion.35
• 36 Seligman 2008, 27.

37Similar to Smith, Seligman highlights the awareness that ritual

performers have about the disjuncture between the subjunctive
world and the “real world.”36 The subjunctive world, in the view of
ritual performers, is the preferred world. It does not seek to
transform the real world; rather it often functions in opposition to
the real world.
• 37 For more on the rise of these various competing worlds see
Ing 2012b, 105–128.

38In line with Seligman and Smith, this Confucian theory of ritual I
have described can cast ritual in a subjunctive sense. But unlike
Seligman and Smith, the world ritual creates is not understood in
terms of an “as if” world in opposition to the “real” world. Instead,
the ritual world is contextualised among other competing worlds
(perhaps all dysfunctional from the perspective of ritual
performers), each impinging on the other.37 In other words, the
ritual world is not taken as an illusionary world distinct from the
real world; instead it is taken as one of many real worlds
competing to define the human experience. Indeed, if we cast the
ritual world as a kind of ‘as if’ space, it is because the business of
ritual can be a risky business, where the odds are often in favour
of the dysfunctional world. However, dysfunction, as such, is not
understood as the true or genuine condition of the world. While
early Confucians saw themselves frequently living in a
dysfunctional world, they did not see dysfunction as any more
authentic to human experience than the ritual world.
39Said somewhat differently, where Smith and Seligman employ
the language of illusion rather than fragility in describing the
ritual world, they mask the ambivalent nature of ritual
performance. Ritual, at least in an early Confucian sense, is about
an apprehensive hope. Ritual performers anticipate the
transformative power of ritual, while realising that ritual is a
trepidatious act. Put most directly, the performance of ritual is
often the very performance of ambivalence.

Tragedy and ritual

• 38 All of this is not to say that tragedy is the only way to
understand ritual. Rather, this is to cha (...)

• 39 Steiner 2008, 30; Schopenhauer 1969, 254. Regarding China,

Steiner states, “Tragedy as a form of dr (...)

• 40 As quoted in Huang 2003, 58.

• 41 Hightower 1953, 120. Keightley has argued for instance, “The

Chinese narratives, when compared with (...)

• 42 Morreall 1999, 63, for instance, states, “Like all cultures, the
Chinese face mistakes, sickness, h (...)

• 43 See Perkins 2011; Huang 2003; Roetz 1993, 93–100. For others
advocating tragedy in China see Luk 19 (...)

40The purpose of comparing and contrasting the tragic theory of

ritual portrayed in the Liji with correspondence and subjunctive
theories is to show how this tragic theory of ritual might
contribute to broader discussions of ritual studies. 38The theory
of Confucian ritual portrayed here highlights themes of ambiguity,
vulnerability, and rupture with the past. While these tragic
elements might not reach to the level of George Steiner’s tragedy
as “ontological homelessness” or Arthur Schopenhauer’s tragedy
as “guilt of existence,” they do challenge popular perceptions
about the non-tragic nature of Chinese thought.39 Karl Jaspers,
for instance, famously remarked with regard to China, “[Tragedy
cannot occur] wherever man succeeds both in achieving a
harmonious interpretation of the universe and in actually living in
accord with it.”40 Scholars of China such as James Robert
Hightower, and more recently, David Keightley, have reinforced
the notion that China “lacks any concept of tragedy.”41 Scholars of
religious studies, such as John Morreall, and scholars of literature,
such as Richard Seawall, repeat these claims –with the latter
authoring an entry in Encyclopedia Britannica entitled “Absence of
Tragedy in Oriental Drama.”42 While other scholars of China such
as Heiner Roetz, Alexander Huang, and Franklin Perkins argue for
notions of tragedy in pre-modern China, their views are far from
dominant.43
41In contrast to the claims that China lacks any concept of
tragedy, the Liji often portrays a tragic world. Antiquity serves as
a beacon for those in the present, but the demands of the present
sometimes conflict with staying the course of antiquity. Rupture
with the past is tragic in the sense that creating a prosperous
present cannot be done without questioning the normativity of
antiquity. Continually transforming the ritual tradition entails
ambivalence: on the one hand, ritual performers desire to
perpetuate the way of the ancients, but, on the other hand, they
recognise the insufficiencies of antiquity in creating a flourishing
present. The Liji, as such, reveals a conflict between the security
of a simple past and the chance of a prosperous, but precarious,
present.
• 44 The language of blurring a distinction between agency and fate
comes from Felski 2008, 6.

42The complexity of the present complicates the agencies

involved in ritual success and failure –seeming to blur a
distinction between agency and fate.44 Ritual performances are
susceptible to forces that at least seem to be beyond the control
of the ritual performers. In this context, the Liji portrays the ritual
world as a vulnerable world, and human society as partially
founded on a shared recognition of vulnerability. In the era of
Modest Prosperity, people banded together to form cities so they
could protect themselves from the threat of war; and in the
mourning rites people band together to confront the gloom of
death.
• 45 The notion of an open window was inspired by Wu 1991, 252.

43The ambivalence of living in a vulnerable world at odds with the

past and rife with ambiguity serves to highlight the tragic
consciousness associated with ritual performance. This
consciousness also recognises the value of ritual: as a trepidatious
hope, it acts as an open window into which we question the things
that count.45 Ritual is also an open window into the lives of
human beings. It reveals that we are conflicted beings –we hope
for constancy and happiness but we also realise the inevitability of
suffering and failure. Ritual, as such, is an open window into the
irreconcilable nature of happiness and failure. It is an aperture on
the ambivalence of life.
• 46 On the prevalent nature of these conflicts (in the context of a
contingent world) I agree with Mart (...)

44Ritual provides a means of coping with ambivalences that arise

when two or more moral desires conflict with each other. In many
situations we are able to reconcile these desires, fulfilling them all
and leaving no remainder. Other situations, however, pose a much
more lasting conflict. These situations are tragic in the sense of a
permanent contradiction. Choosing one desire over the others
leaves behind feelings of grief or even regret. In these situations,
ritual can serve to work through the grief or regret associated
with unfulfilled desires. In other cases, ritual provides a means of
performing the ambivalence associated with tragic conflicts.46 In
this sense, ritual is therapeutic in that it provides an embodied
opportunity for enacting conflicting desires –an opportunity to
cope with (rather than resolve) dissonance.
45In the mourning rites, a desire to accept finality conflicts with a
desire to continue a meaningful relationship with the deceased.
To perform these desires mourners put implements into the grave
that do not quite work, and they pretend that the person is still
alive during the funeral procession. The wailing and tears shed at
the deceased’s home are at least partially an expression of
ambivalence; they are emblematic of the desire to accept a new
and different world, but also emblematic of the desire to continue
a relationship with the deceased. Later, when offerings are made,
the living enter into a lost abstraction of mind that enables a kind
of altered continuation of the relationship –the sacrificers
encounter the spirits of the deceased, yet they encounter them in
a state where things are not quite the same.
46The nature of ambivalence renders platitudes of comfort and
joy largely ineffective in explaining death and grief. In consoling
those in mourning (diao 弔), for instance, the Liji does not
advocate that we comfort them with assurances of better times,
but rather that we should comfort them by sharing in their
sorrow. We demonstrate that the pain of loss, which feels so
personal, might actually extend beyond the private seclusion of
the self (du 獨) and into a kind of commiserating community.
Ritual, in this sense, enables a shared hope in the possibilities of
human beings to construct a desirable world, but it also enables a
shared suffering in confronting the vulnerabilities of such a world.
In visits of condolence, the sorrow of the condoler demonstrates
that the loss is real, that the deceased is irreplaceable, and that
we, the living, want the mourner to remain among us as long as
he or she can.
• 47 Olberding makes a similar point in 2008, 147: “However, where
restorative therapy primarily is engi (...)

47The fact of vulnerability means that pain is inevitable. Living

life, as such, is not a matter of eliminating pain, and it is less a
matter of reducing pain as much as it is a matter of coming to
appreciate pain as an indication of the recognition of value. When
a loss hurts, it means that something was valued; and if that thing
(or person) was worthy of being valued, then pain is not only a
fitting sign of proper recognition, but a sign that one has lived
one’s life in such a way as to bring into relation those things that
are worthy of value.47 Mourning, as such, can become an
expression of a life full of meaning, or even a life rightly lived. The
rites (li 禮), to a certain degree, are about people being upright
(zheng 正). They not only produce ethical persons, but they enable
an aesthetic expression of ethical commitments. The performance
of ritual reflects the accumulated efforts of the agent in cultivating
these commitments.
• 48 This is building off of Cole’s notion of “embodied absence” in
Cole 1985, 9.

• 49 A more contemporary (and non-Chinese) example that stresses

the notion of vulnerability would be a (...)

48The presence of the deceased’s body during the mourning rites

(usually coffined but not buried before visits of condolence)
captures a kind of embodied ambivalence.48 A mother, a father, a
brother, a sister, a child, or a friend is there in the casket, but
they are not there. The person we knew is no longer present. The
body of the deceased becomes something that we simultaneously
want to draw near to but also something that we want to push
away. Mourning rites, in this sense, become a means of coping
with the ambivalent feelings associated with the deceased; and
the body of the deceased becomes a focal point for attending to
these feelings.49
49Ritual entails vulnerability, ambiguity, and rupture with the past
–elements that are both disturbing and empowering. The hope
and trepidation associated with ritual, give way to an attitude of
ambivalence. Ritual is the performance of ambivalence inasmuch
as it allows for the coordinated enactment of conflicted feelings.
In realising that ambivalence must be coped with, not eliminated,
ritual agents gain a tragic consciousness of ritual performance.
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NOTES
1 This essay is an expansion of the “Concluding Reflections” in
Ing 2012b, 204–218. For an explanation of what I mean by “early
Confucianism” see pages 16–17. For background on the Liji see pages
4–7 and 219–223. Throughout this article I discuss figures like
Confucius as literary rather than historical figures.

2 I would like to thank Colin Klein for encouraging me to clarify this.

3 For a more in-depth look at the “Liyun”, see pages 105–128 in Ing
2012b.

4 Lau 1992, 9.1. All translations are my own, unless noted.

5 Oxford English Dictionary, online entry “complicate.”

6 I borrow the term “experiments in paradigmity” from Antonio Cua

who uses it to describe the ways in which an ideal moral agent may
break from rules in living a life of “moral creativity.” See Cua 1978, 18.
For a more detailed explanation of the terms “ritual success” and “ritual
failure” see Ing 2012b, 18–78.

7 For more on anomy in the context of religious studies see

Berger 1990, 23, 26, 49–50, and 90.

8 Lau 1992, 3.69.

9 Lau 1992, 36.1.

10 Parts of this were inspired by Cole 1985. On page 9 she comments:

“Tragedy is an imaginative model of the paradoxical demands made on
human consciousness when confronted by death.”

11 For more on the relationship between ethics and vulnerability see

Schofer 2010, 183–190.

12 Schofer 2010, 183.

13 Lau 1992, 43.1.

14 Jennifer Wallace elaborates on this in the context of tragedy and
Sigmund Freud’s theory of child development in Wallace 2007, 176.

15 Lau 1992, 25.9-11.

16 I translated huanghu 慌惚 as “lost abstraction of mind” following

Legge 1885, Part IV, 214.

17 Being deeply dedicated to his father employs “crazy” in the sense of

“being crazy about something.”

18 Olberding 2011, 160.

19 For a more in-depth discussion of this vignette see Ing 2012b, 152–
174 and Ing 2012a.

20 Lau 1992, 3.6.

21 I developed the idea of a commiserating community in reference to

David Hall and Roger Ames’ interpretation of John Dewey’s
“communicating community.” Discussed in Hall and Ames 2003, 139–
147. See also Jürgen Habermas’ notion of “an unlimited communication
community” in Habermas 1986–1989, Volume 1, 85 and 227.

22 I borrowed the notion of “honesty” from Wu 1991, 252.

23 For the purposes of this article, I use single quotation marks to

designate technical terms, and I use double quotation marks in their
standard grammatical sense –to designate the words or terms of
others.

24 Eliade 1954, 21.

25 Michaels 2008, 260–261.

26 Regarding ‘as if’ space, see Nicolas Standaert’s contribution in this

volume.

27 Smith 1980, 124–125. Italics removed. He also makes a similar

argument in Smith 1987, 109–110.
28 Smith 1980, 125.

29 Idem.

30 Smith 1980, 127.

31 Idem.

32 Smith 1980, 127. Smith restates this point in Smith 1987, 109.
According to Smith ritual “provides an occasion for reflection on and
rationalization of the fact that what ought to have been done was not,
what ought to have taken place did not.” Smith, unfortunately, does not
elaborate more. He does not explain “reflection” and “rationalisation,”
nor how they contribute to (or comprise) ritual efficacy.

33 Seligman 2008, 7.

34 The clearest explanation of sincerity comes from Seligman 2008,

103: “The alternatives that [sincerity] often suggests are categories that
grow out of individual soul-searching rather than the acceptance of
social conventions. Sincerity thus grows out of abstract and
generalized categories generated within individual consciousness. The
sincere mode of behavior seeks to replace the ‘mere convention’ of
ritual with a genuine and thoughtful state of internal conviction. Rather
than becoming what we do in action through ritual, we do according to
what we have become through self-examination.”

35 Seligman 2008, 22.

36 Seligman 2008, 27.

37 For more on the rise of these various competing worlds see

Ing 2012b, 105–128.

38 All of this is not to say that tragedy is the only way to understand
ritual. Rather, this is to challenge other perceptions of ritual that do not
more fully take into account the nature of ambivalence. Seligman, for
instance, stresses the performers’ desire to pretend, and Michaels
stresses the performers’ desire to change the world. My point is that
ritual can be about the performance of multiple (and even conflicting)
desires.

39 Steiner 2008, 30; Schopenhauer 1969, 254. Regarding China,

Steiner states, “Tragedy as a form of drama is not universal. Oriental
art knows violence, grief and the stroke of natural or contrived
disaster; the Japanese theatre is full of ferocity and ceremonial death.
But that representation of personal suffering and heroism which we call
tragic drama is distinctive of the Western tradition” (Steiner 1961, 3). In
many regards, tragedy is seen as an essential characteristic of modern
societies; although this view itself is a recent development. For a
history of its development see Billings, 2014. Schopenhauer’s notion of
tragedy becomes important in early 20th century discussions of
tragedy in China. Wang Guowei 王國維 (1877–1927), in particular,
argues that the Dream of the Red Chamber (Hongloumeng 紅樓夢) is a
Schopenhauerian tragedy. See He 2013.

40 As quoted in Huang 2003, 58.

41 Hightower 1953, 120. Keightley has argued for instance, “The

Chinese narratives, when compared with the Greek, are remarkable for
the lack of dramatic complexity. They generally provide the essence of
the action; they are parables, sermons, lacking the kind of existential
irony and ambiguity that flows through critical scenes, such as the
slaughter of the suitors in Book 22 of the Odyssey” (Keightley 2002,
141). See also Keightley 1990, 44: “Greek epics derive much of their
complexity and dramatic tension from the frank recognition that
unresolvable conflicts exist in the world, that choices are frequently
made not between good and evil but between two goods. By contrast,
no early Chinese writing –with, as is so frequently the case, the
possible exception of the Zhuangzi– take a similarly detached and
complex view of the human condition.”

42 Morreall 1999, 63, for instance, states, “Like all cultures, the
Chinese face mistakes, sickness, hunger, and death; but that does not
prompt them to ask whether Heaven owes them something better.
Without a philosophy of suffering, tragedy just does not get started in
Chinese religions.” See also page 62: “In Chinese thought, too, the
universe is a harmonious unity in which each part reproduces the
whole. The human body is a microcosm of the universe –we know that
our blood circulates, for example, because we know that rivers flow.
The Chinese acknowledge that life has it[s] moments of need and pain,
but those are just part of the harmonious whole, rather than something
to be questioned, or, as in tragedy, something to be protested.” A more
recent and nuanced account, which acknowledges the possibility of a
cross-cultural category of tragedy but also repeats some of the same
stereotypes, appears in Wallace 2013.

43 See Perkins 2011; Huang 2003; Roetz 1993, 93–100. For others
advocating tragedy in China see Luk 1986, 24. Perkins, in short, argues
that tragedy as a concept can be found in China in the sense of
affirming a tension between human hopes about the world and human
experience in the world. Perkins stresses the following difference: “If
tragedy is absent in classical China, it is not due to a lack of pessimism
but rather this missing valorization of the will, the celebration of… ‘the
titanically striving individual’” (92). Huang develops a similar account of
tragedy in pre-modern Chinese dramas, adding that what distinguishes
Chinese tragedy is “isolation of the tragic character” in combination
with “the necessity and tyranny of Time” (61).

44 The language of blurring a distinction between agency and fate

comes from Felski 2008, 6.

45 The notion of an open window was inspired by Wu 1991, 252.

46 On the prevalent nature of these conflicts (in the context of a

contingent world) I agree with Martha Nussbaum: “[T]hat much that I
did not make goes toward making me whatever I shall be praised or
blamed for being; that I must constantly choose among competing and
apparently incommensurable goods and that circumstances may force
me to a position in which I cannot help being false to something or
doing some wrong; that an event that simply happens to me may,
without my consent, alter my life; that is equally problematic to entrust
one’s good to friends, lovers, or country and to try to have a good life
without them –all these I take to be not just the material of tragedy, but
everyday facts of lived practical reason.” As quoted in Felski 2008, 12.

47 Olberding makes a similar point in 2008, 147: “However, where

restorative therapy primarily is engineered to alleviate immediate
suffering, the aim of this more formidable version of mourning is to
discover in the pain of loss a richly aesthetic vision of life.”

48 This is building off of Cole’s notion of “embodied absence” in

Cole 1985, 9.

49 A more contemporary (and non-Chinese) example that stresses the

notion of vulnerability would be a wedding. The bride and groom, one
would imagine, have desires to protect themselves from emotional
harm and at the same time have desires to care for each other. It might
often be possible to fulfil both desires, but these desires can and do
conflict (especially since death is likely to leave one person coping with
the loss of the other, and we rarely know when and to whom death will
occur at the moment of entering into the relationship). A wedding ritual
creates the space for enacting both desires. In making the commitment
of marriage, the bride and groom simultaneously promise to care for
one another (a recognition of vulnerability and the desire to care) and
to protect themselves emotionally (hence the contractual nature of the
promise made in the ceremony). In this sense, ritual becomes an
opportunity to perform ambivalent feelings; and a chance to construct
a world that allows for simultaneous (yet conflicting) desires.

AUTEUR
Michael D. K. Ing