It is unclear just how the “Man from Song” (Songren) acquired his reputation, but classical literature is replete with stories of his stupidity. These stories were commonly used in early China, as they appear in more than one text and serve more than one purpose. For instance, the story of the Man from Song who spent three years fashioning a mulberry leaf out of precious material (some say ivory, some say jade) appears in the Liezi, Hanfeizi, and Huainanzi.
The story relates that the end product was so delicate and lifelike that it could not be distinguished from actual mulberry leaves. The Ruler of Song was so taken with this work that he granted the Man from Song royal patronage and a generous salary at public expense, allowing him to continue making his precious leaves. For Liezi, this story illustrates how foolish it is for humans to waste time trying to replicate dao through their own efforts. For Hanfeizi, the story illustrates the foolishness of a single person trying to produce a result unilaterally when such results emerge from a conglomerate of forces. For Huainanzi, the story illustrates how oblivious humans can be to the relations of scale in the transformations of tian. For a Mohist, the story would probably illustrate the foolishness of government waste.
Any single Songren story can be used to make a variety of philosophical points. The same can be said for other literary allusions in early Chinese texts, such as those drawn from the Shijing or the Shujing. What is noteworthy about the Man from Song stories, however, is that everyone who uses them, regardless of philosophical perspective, agrees that the Man from Song is stupid. His stupidity is generic in kind, something that transcends or precedes different philosophical schools and their agendas. As a universal emblem of poor thinking, the Man from Song represents habits of thought that are generally frowned upon in early China. In this respect, he provides an avenue through which to think about “wisdom” in the tradition. Rather than pursue a positive account of “wisdom” through terms like zhi or ming, each of which has a range of meanings in different texts, one might begin with the Man from Song’s shortcomings and then look for “wisdom” in the opposite direction. If “wisdom” represents anything in this tradition, it likely represents the contrary of whatever the Songren is doing.
Upon examination, I find that the Man from Song stories suggest that early Chinese “wisdom” is similar to what John Dewey called “intelligence”. For Dewey, intelligence involves the coordination of means and ends in effective action, and this is what the Songren consistently lacks. Aristotle’s notion of “wisdom” (sophia), that is, the static contemplation of fixed ends, is not particularly helpful in understanding the shortcomings of the Songren. In fact, such “wisdom” might only perpetuate his failings. Aristotle’s notion of “ prudence” (phronesis) is more helpful, but it offers no real advantage over what Dewey calls “intelligence,” or so I will argue.
On a practical level, to spend years fashioning an object out of ivory or jade only to have it become virtually identical to something that one can pick up off the ground is simply foolish. It is a purposeless waste of time. The Man from Song is known for his engagement in such fruitless pursuits. Sometimes these take the form of failed business plans. In the Zhuangzi, we learn that the Man from Song invested all his money in caps to sell to the inhabitants of Yue, only to learn that people in Yue don’t wear caps. The inverse of such bad thinking is also his. We learn in Zhuangzi of members of the Song clan who sell their family hand-lotion recipe to an anonymous itinerant for a hundred pieces of gold. The itinerant, in turn, presents the formula to the king and is rewarded with a fortune many times greater. Zhuangzi uses this story to illustrate what it means to be oblivious to “using the big” (yongda), only intending to show that two parties can use the same thing in different ways.
The actual stupidity of the Songren is not used didactically in this case. If it were, it might illustrate the foolishness of fixating on short-term ends, not realising opportunities to their full potential, or losing sight of the big picture.
The Man from Song is generally seen as oblivious to key features of his situation. Hanfei tells the story of the Man from Song who struggles with a wine-selling business. He has an excellent product, fair prices, conspicuous signage, and courteous service. Still, no one buys his wine. Having no clue what the problem is, he asks a village elder why his business fails to attract customers.
The elder tells him that the problem is his dog. “He’s too fierce,” the elder tells him. He reveals that the dog bites children when they are sent to pick up wine for their parents. The Man from Song had no idea that this was happening right outside his shop door.
Generally speaking, the Man from Song is someone who lacks the ability to act in ways that are effective and productive. His failure, however, takes two forms. In carving jade leaves and selling his family recipe, he fails to convert his energies into a means to some worthy end. By ignoring his vicious dog and overlooking the aversion of certain people to wearing caps, he fails to achieve his ends by ignoring some inadequacy in their means. Instrumentally speaking, the Man from Song is a disaster case, in terms of both ends and means. He might rashly take hold of some goal as an end-in-itself and force the issue, only to destroy any means to achieving that goal. In the Lüshiqunqiu for instance, we find the Man from Song wishing for his carriage to be pulled by a horse. When his horse does not pull the carriage, he beheads it and casts the head into a river.
He proceeds to get another horse. When that horse does not pull his carriage, he cuts its head off. He gets a third horse, and does the same thing. He also makes the inverse mistake. The Man from Song will take up some means and boldly propose a fantastic end that cannot possibly be realised through their use. In Hanfeizi we find him promising a king that he will engrave a female ape on the edge of a thorn. The king supports him in this undertaking, but the product never materialises. A retainer finally reminds the King that, “as a rule, the instruments of engravers must always be smaller than their objects.” In other words, there is no way that the means at his disposal can achieve such ends. This time, rather than a horse losing its head, the Man from Song is on the receiving end. The king executes him for not carving the ape.
Structurally, the Man from Song stories point out types of stupidity that result when a working relationship between means and ends breaks down. On this basis, we can consult these stories to understand what “wisdom” might mean in the Chinese tradition. At least since Aristotle, “wisdom” (sophia) has been associated with the proper choice of ends. Aristotle teaches that wisdom involves the use of reason to apprehend universal truths about what the world is and what we should aim for. This faculty, for Aristotle, is separable in principle from the particulars of human activity. In fact, it is best enjoyed as disconnected from the means of productive activity, since “this activity alone would seem to be loved for its own sake; for nothing arises from it apart from the contemplating, while from practical activities we gain more or less apart from the action”. “Prudence” (phronesis), on the other hand, has to do with proper deliberation with respect to human activity and its results. This being so, it concerns itself not only with ends but also with the particular means through which ends are realised. For Aristotle, prudence is not “concerned with universals only – it must also recognise the particulars; for it is practical, and practice is concerned with particulars”.
Ideally, prudence maintains continuity between its ends and its means – or, as Aristotle sees it, its “universal” and “particular” aspects. In contrast to “wisdom” (sophia), prudence focuses on “the latter [particulars] in preference to the former [universals]”.
Aristotle has a lot to say about the proper relationship between means and ends in activity, but his bifurcation of sophia and phronesis renders him a less than ideal pathway into Chinese thinking. Generally speaking, Chinese thinkers are not found reasoning about universal truths in isolation from practical activity. Mozi represents one exception, as his notion that “heavenly intention” (tianzhi) furnishes an unvarying “standard of appropriateness” (yizhifa) invites us to look outside human experience for that standard. Aristotle’s notion of “wisdom” (sophia) may be of some use in understanding what Mozi was driving at. The fact that Mozi is regarded as unorthodox in both Confucian and Daoist quarters, however, only underscores his eccentricity.
This is where John Dewey becomes helpful, because, unlike Aristotle, he initiates no separation between “wisdom” and practical activity. Following convention, Dewey also identifies “wisdom” with the proper formulation of ends. “Wisdom,” he writes, “is the ability to foresee consequences in such a way that we form ends which grow into one another and reinforce one another”. Unlike Aristotle, however, Dewey does not mean by “ends” objects that are fixed and finished in the nature of things, separable in principle from activity. Ends for Dewey are not apprehended through sophia or theoria, but rather arrived at through activity and experience.
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It probably would not matter to the Man from Song if we charged him with a lack of “wisdom” or a lack of “intelligence”. His stupidity, however, is more suggestive of a lack of “intelligence” than a lack of “wisdom” (sophia). As I have argued, means and ends are always coming apart for the Man from Song, and this signals behaviour lacking in intelligence. As Dewey says, “The cases in which ends and means fall apart are the abnormal ones, the ones which deviate from activity which is intelligently conducted”.
As the Man from Song stories illustrate, the opposite of intelligence manifests itself in many ways. Generally, however, these failures take two forms: means separated from ends, resulting in aimless and pointless behaviour; and ends separated from means, resulting in heedless and abrupt behaviour. Dewey recognised both. The Man from Song exemplifies each.
Extract from Lessons in Stupidity, by Jim Behuniak, from Wisdom and Philosophy, 2016, reprinted with permission from Bloomsbury.
