A Transdisciplinary Imagination of Asian Cultural Studies: Rooting Asian Semiotics

1.

Across the topics discussed during the conference, I identified three fundamental

underlying themes. First, anti-orientalism; second, digitisation and transhumanism,

and third, appeal to history as a source of identity.

“Orientalism” was firstly defined in Edward Said’s eponymous 1978 work, as

a style of thinking that underpinned depictions of “the East” in Western culture. Due

to internalised colonialism and remaining power dynamics, achieving a truly

post-colonial society is challenging and requires a radical transdisciplinary approach.

It is also important to consider changes in modes of communication and

force-majeur factors that can drastically affect the way we deal with these issues. For

instance, there is ample evidence that the Covid pandemic has negatively impacted

socio-economic inequalities as well as increasing the importance of digital as

opposed to physical interpersonal interaction. One of the negative consequences of

orientalism is the ongoing conflict between the oversimplified, generalised image of

“the East” and the experiences of people from the various cultures that make it up.

Some of the issues discussed during the conferences reflected this: the

fictionalisation of Confucius, discussion of liberal education in Asia, Characteristica

Sinica, and searching a unified identity for “Asian Semiotics”, all of which both

addressed and reflected the colonial view of the East as a monolith defined in terms

of Western Culture and subject to fetishisation.

Digitisation and transhumanism were another

issue that unified the themes discussed at the conference. Transhumanists see

human nature as a single point on an evolutionary pathway, believing that

technology can be applied to ourselves in a way that allows us to transcend the

limitations of our biology, making us transhuman (Max More, The Philosophy of

Transhumanism, 2012). In addition, social media and the internet in general can be

seen as an extension of the human, with so much of our identity being embedded in

the online space that it is no longer separable from us. The self, the human subject,

is not fixed - rather, self creation is part of what we do (de Grazia, 2018). While

transhumanism does have an unsavoury past with roots in eugenics (the term was

coined by J. Huxley in the 1960s), its ideas can be helpful in terms of decolonisation,

which is part of discovering a “true identity” or deconstructing a perceived “collective”

identity (such as Orientalism). Transhumanism is also very closely linked to Piercean

semiotics and his philosophical ideas: Pierce argues for the existence of an

ontological truth that is inaccessible to humans at their current stage of development.

In addition, his view on semiotics is that reality and the meaning of signs is situated

outside the human, which contrasts with Saussure’s more anthropocentric view of

semiotics.

The third theme was an appeal to history and a re-imagining of its meaning and

significance. History is a powerful tool in fostering unity, legitimacy and identity. As

our knowledge of the world and ourselves becomes increasingly advanced, our

perspective on the past, and the language we use to describe it, changes. One

example of this could be gender identity. Gender diversity and various sexualities

have always existed; however, the language (“gay”, “bisexual”, “transgender”) that is

used to categorise such identities is very new. The lack of appropriate language to

describe a transgender person in the 15th century, for example, does not change the
actual reality of that person’s identity. This is also an interesting example from the

perspective of transhumanism, as it poses the question of whether identity is

facilitated by technology. Zoe Belinsky, in “Transgender Marxism” (2021), argued, for

example, that the identity of a feminist is facilitated by the invention of birth control

technology. However, I personally disagree with this view: I do not believe that

language or technology changes one’s identity: rather, it facilitates one to enact this

identity much more conveniently. This theme was present in the re-examining of

Turkish poetry and the works of Konchalovsky. Another example of deconstructing

history is that of historical figures, who can become blank slates, or ‘boxes’, onto

which people project important aspects of collective identity to the point where they

are no longer representative of the actual personality of that historical figure. This

theme was present in the talk on re-imagining the figure of Confucius. It is also

important in the decolonization efforts by ethnic minorities in Russia and countries

that were part of the Soviet Union. Many historical figures, such as Pushkin or

Dostoyevsky, are seen as untouchable (not unlike Confucius, or other figures who

gain the epithet of “great”), and a re-examination of their legacy in terms of

colonialism, imperialism, fascism and human rights is often met with much

resistance. Interestingly, the act of deconstructing the fascism of Dostoyevsky, the

racism of Pushkin or the misogyny of Confucius, is almost an act of reversing a

transhuman transformation, separating the sociocultural schema that has come to

represent a historical figure.

In-depth analysis of “Confucius the Untouchable”

I was particularly interested in this lecture as it deals with the way we look at
historical figures, and in turn, this reflects the way we are still attached to vertical

hierarchies and top-down power structures. In their lecture, Hongbing Yu provides a

semiotic perspective on historicisation and on the way historical figures transcend

themselves and become symbols. Even though Yu states that Confucius is not an

arbitrary choice for this analysis, I do think that the approach Yu takes is applicable

to other idealised historical figures. In particular, I thought Yu’s approach was

particularly helpful to examine the resistance to a postcolonial, feminist and

socio-political re-examination of Russian literature and culture in light of Russia’s

expansionism, fascism and failure to become a post-colonial society. It was also

helpful to me in explaining why Abrahamic religion, but most notably Christianity,

cannot be reconciled with a feminist, secular-humanist world view and why, despite

overwhelming evidence, even radical approaches to social change are tentative

about deconstructing Christianity.

Yu describes the criticism of Ling Li, a scholar who published a book on

Confucius in 2007 with a very unflattering title that could be most accurately

translated as “Homeless Dog”. Despite the fact that the idea of a subject being

‘taboo’ or ‘untouchable’ is blatantly unscientific, this work was met with criticism that

was beyond that of disagreement based on a salient academic analysis of the work;

rather, Yu states that much of the criticism came from the kind of bias inspired by

religious figures (or cult figures): Confucius was indeed seen as ‘untouchable’ within

Chinese culture. While Yu mentioned that Confucianism is not a religion in the strict

sense as it lacks supernatural or metaphysical elements, it is often described as

being a philosophy that transcended into the status of a religion as it is a system that

venerates and elevates a person to a quasi-divine status (not unlike some atheist

denominations of Buddhism) and uses their teachings as a singular source of

guidance.

Once again, we are confronted by this concept of transcendence: Confucianism

transcends from being a philosophy to a religion (Fung, 1976, in “A Short History of

Chinese Philosophy”); Confucius himself transcends from a human to a symbol (or a

‘sign’: it seems that Yu uses this term as a stand-in for ‘symbol’). Confucius,

specifically, is both a sign (or symbol) of a growing need to reinstate a rigid

hierarchical order to mitigate the perceived confusion of modern life, of an

ephemeral, overgeneralized schema of “Chinese Culture”, and even a sign of

political disagreement: interestingly, there is a term - “yū fǔ” - commonly used in

modern China to describe an obsession with outdated virtue such as that outlined by

Confucian teaching. Confucius can be seen as a symbol of this struggle.

Yu emphasises that the semiotic perspective on Confucius is inevitable, as

historicization in itself is an embedding of a narrative, discourse, or a figure into

history, and that in itself is an act of semiotization, as history is a symbol in itself. To

categorise of Yu’s approach more specifically, it combines the Saussurean idea that

signs and symbols are situated within the human experience (Yu references Deely’s

(2010 [2005]: 32, 2018 [1990]:152) ‘semiotic animal’ and the animal symbolicum

(Cassirer 2021 [1944]: 26), as well as their own term “models” (Yu, 2021) which

simply mean the various signs that human beings use to interpret both their inner

and outer worlds. Yu (and Li, according to Yu) also takes an approach to Confucius

that is essentially Piercean in nature - arguing that a ‘true’ Confucius did exist, and

that in his desacralization can this truth be found. At the same time, Li’s description

of historical narrative as a system of codes echoes Umberto Eco, who stated that

these ‘codes’ created a ‘cultural’ world which is neither real nor even possible in an

ontological sense, but is very ‘real’ in a symbolic sense and the way it informs and
explains behaviours. Yu also indicated that Li takes a three-dimensional approach to

the semiotics of Confucius which is not unlike Pierce’s triad of semiosis (CP 5.484).

These three dimensions are the “physical representation dimension” (or narratives

about Confucius, Yu exemplifies the Analects), the “thinking dimension” (descriptions

of Confucius’ thoughts and understanding thereof) and finally the “contact

dimension” (the closest to reality - essentially, primary or contemporary sources

documenting encounters with Confucius the man, such as writings of his disciples).

Confucius is essentially an object (a dynamical one, at that) in the Piercean sense,

that is indicated by signs (‘representamens’). It turns out that it would be impossible

to access the object of Confucius directly without navigating the signs, as Peirce’s

notion of an object is, in itself, defined by the sign. This seems contradictory to the

idea of a ‘true Confucius’, almost paradoxical - indeed, Yu (2022) describes

Confucius as a kind of “Schrödinger’s Cat”, suspended in an existential limbo.

However, due to the quasi-divine reputation and cultural significance of Confucius

within its culture, signs that stem from myths and misinformation have mingled with

signs that reflect ontological truth. So while this approach seems contradictory and

downright paradoxical, paradoxes are, in essence, reflections of error. Essentially,

Yu’s conclusion is that while a true Confucius does ontologically exist, ‘reaching’ him

is impossible.

Indeed, many historical figures transcend from being human to becoming symbols or

signs, and when those signs become embedded in our identity as cultural capital,

they become a kind of blank screen onto which only positive features are projected.

This is one of the reasons why cults are considered as dangerous as they are: a

figure that becomes a symbol, a post-human entity, is devoid of the vulnerabilities

and limitations that define human beings, and hence come to occupy a space
outside of the value systems (law, human rights, ethics etc) that we expect humans

to operate within. In a Peircean sense, this transhumanism is simply a reflection of

the dynamical object being surrounded by a cacophony of representamens that

make it impossible, and often undesirable, to reach the ‘real’ nature of the object.

The system of models that plays into our sociocultural understanding of religious

and/or historical Cult leaders, religious figures does not only make it difficult to find

the ontological truth, but it also makes this truth irrelevant. The appeal of cult figures,

historical figures and transhumanism in general is, to a large extent motivated by

existential dread and a desire for escapism. Indeed, the worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien

were often mistakenly interpreted as extensive allegory, something the author

himself despised, stating that “fantasy is escapist, and that is its’ glory” - any

grounding of his work in ontological reality immediately rendered it irrelevant, as its

value inherently lies in its detachment from said reality. Indeed, in deconstructing

Confucius - or any other cult figure - we not only risk (if we suspend our disbelief and

think, for a minute, that finding the ontological Confucius, or Stalin, or Jesus, was

possible) unearthing the raw humanity and sheer mundanity of the person behind the

symbol, but we also rid the symbol of its power and legitimacy. This is the key to why

it is so important to deconstruct important cultural figures such as Jesus, Confucius

and Dostoyevsky.

One of the criticisms of Peirce is that a three-dimensional model is too restrictive;

however, this criticism is evidently not legitimate as the dimensions themselves are

highly complex and reflect interactions between what Yu (2022) called ‘models’.

Indeed, despite the fact that the three figures I outlined come from different cultures,

they are united in the fact that they are all transhuman symbols that are so far

removed from any ontologically ‘real’ figure, that they are a separate entity
altogether; they are all ‘untouchable’ due to their historicization and subsequent

semiotization, building them into their respective cultures as quasi-divine (or, in the

case of Jesus, actually divine, though many religious scholars do argue for a

divine-human duality); and they are all Trojan Horses for the continued legitimation

and enforcement of harmful patriarchal, fascist and chauvinistic values. Ewa

Thompson, a Polish-born slavicist, in her works “Imperial Knowledge” (1995) and

and “Slavic but not Russian: Invisible and Mute” (2016) argues, echoing Edward

Said on Orientalism and Imperialism, that Russian literature is based on ideas of

expansionist nationalism, Russian exceptionalism, patriarchy and racism, Pushkin

glorifying the subjugation of the people of the Caucasus, Lermontov writing

gratuitous poetry about rape as a weapon of war and Dostoyevsky being a

predecessor of Putin’s favourite philosopher Dugin, and even, in the words of

Russian literary critic D. Bykov (2022), the “father of Russian fascism”. Thompson

goes on to argue that the failure to deconstruct pro-imperialist, pro-fascist,

patriarchal and colonialist attitudes in Russian culture and literature played a role in

the failure of Russia to become a democratic, humanist, post-colonial society. In

terms of semiotics, the failure to realise the transhumanist, symbolic and inherently

fallacious nature of the sanitised, quasi-divine image of Russian culture has not

allowed russians and russophiles to truly begin processing the trauma of an

imperialist past.

The same can be said on a more global scale about Christianity; there is more than

plenty of evidence that Christianity is a symbolic projection of older texts (be that the

Pentateuch, the Torah, or the Old Testament) that can be similarly defined in multiple

dimensions, and further complicated by the lack of consistent historical sources,

taken up by patriarchal, colonialist power structures to bolster this very power.

However, since Jesus himself is a cult figure, an untouchable ‘blank slate’ (which is

even more dangerous than Confucius or Dostoyevsky as neither of those are

actually considered to be divine or Messianic, and neither of those are necessarily

seen as representatives of a supernatural, omnipotent and omnipresent agent of

paradoxical ‘good’, paradoxical as no Christian has ever come up with a convincing

argument for the ‘problem of evil’ that is not circular) that is also a representative of

divine benevolence, he is also used as a projection for positive ideals. Indeed, many

‘progressive’ Christians argue that bigotry, imperialism and misogyny are

‘misinterpretations’ of the ‘true’ message of Christ. Such a statement implies that

progressive Christians have found the ontological Christ. However, as Yu (2022)

indicates, this is impossible, and it is further impossible in light of the fact that this

claim directly contradicts much more legitimate signs in the ‘thinking’ and ‘contact’

dimensions (physical texts that are not considered pseudoepigraphical), that

arguably hold the greatest weight in forming the overall characterisation of a symbol.

This is a highly dangerous phenomenon as it not only makes the figure of Christ

‘untouchable’ - inherently a neutral term- it also renders him ‘undeniably benevolent’

- which is not neutral, but a positive statement, that normally would require a burden

of proof, which is denied by the symbol’s untouchable nature. This truly gives weight

to the words of Voltaire, who stated that unjust acts will often stem from absurd

beliefs (Voltaire, 1765, “Questions sur les Miracles”).