The Journal of School & Society 2 ISSN 2575-9922 6(2) 2–14 ©Author(s) 2019

Somaesthetic Harmony, 自誠明，謂之性。自明誠，謂之教。誠則 Creative Democracy, and 明矣；明則誠矣 Understanding born of creativity (cheng 誠) is a gift of Moral Imagination: our natural tendencies (xing 性); creativity born of un- Intercultural Philosophy as derstanding is a gift of education (jiao 教). Where there is creativity, there is understanding; where understanding, Educational Artistry creativity.

Zhongyong3 Kyle Greenwalt Michigan State University Teaching is always an intersectional experience of bodily labor and intellectual work, but this Joseph Harroff fact of division need not entail a dualistic meta- Penn State University physics of body/mind nor an antagonistic and oppressive internalization of a capitalist class structures. Zane Wubbena Teachers can be creative agents of social Texas Education Agency transformation and democratic amelioration when they facilitate the growth of similar crea- Rather than an interaction between a distinct body and tive potentials in their students. Sometimes such mind, we have a transactional whole of body-mind. How- processes have to start with just “unlearning” the ever, this fundamental ontological union of body-mind disciplinary biopolitics of regimented experience does not entail that a satisfactory degree of harmoni- mirroring a fascist imaginary that promotes doc- ous unity in our behavior as body-minds is always guar- ile bodies—bodies that are easily governable and anteed or achieved. Dewey’s forward-looking, melioristic made to be slavishly consumeristic in passively pragmatism sees body-mind unity less as an ontological “receiving orders” from a generalized Führer given in which we can smugly rest than as a desired, pro- principle, or, which might be the same thing, an gressive goal of dynamic, harmonious functioning that we “invisible hand” of neoliberal economics that should continually strive to attain. tends to fetishize a very narrow and dehumaniz- ing concept of efficiency. 1 Richard Shusterman Living—and hopefully always breathing, with some degree of mindfulness—in their class- Experience is emotional but there are no separate things rooms, teachers know what they are up against called emotions in it. on any given day—and classroom teachers of young children come to know this experiential 2 John Dewey reality especially well. One bends over to tie

1 Richard Shusterman, “Dewey’s Somatic Philoso- 3 Roger Ames and David Hall, Focusing the Familiar: A phy,” Revue internationale de philosophie 245, no. 3 (2008), Philosophical Translation of the Zhongyong (Honolulu: The 293 - 311. University of Hawaii Press, 2001): 105. 2 John Dewey, Art as Experience (New York: Penguin Group, 1934/2005): 43. The Journal of School & Society 3 ISSN 2575-9922 6(2) 2–14 ©Author(s) 2019

shoes, or to hear a child who talks softly. Perhaps is, to ensure that the student’s body remains inert there is the need to get on hands and knees so as and passive: seated, quietly, with as little bodily to clean or remove vomit, or mucous, or blood. movement as possible, seen but not heard—all One reaches out to restrain an angry child, or to in (desperate) hopes of activating active minds. console a sad one. One This, often under the aus- stands tall to gain attention, Teachers can be creative pices of some vain hope of or to project excitement, or achieving so-called “No even to instill a sense of agents of social Child Left Behind” indica- fear. transformation and tors of standardizing test Experienced teachers democratic amelioration results with a heavy STEM have “eyes in the back of focus—often leaving out their head” as they move when they facilitate the art, the humanities, and re- about the classroom space, growth of similar creative ligious education that seeking to support, cajole, potentials in their might promote a more ho- praise, and survey. And listic education for realiz- good teachers always re- students. ing creative democratic main “in the trenches,” as it personhood outside of a were, fighting battles against ignorance, social in- reifying, disempowering, and coercive model of justice, or even the most well-intentioned crea- “education” as a rude discipline into neo-liberal tive forms of maladjustment to fascist social and neo-conservative agendas. structures that might manifest at times as student Early in his career, John Dewey noticed the misbehavior. sorry states of bodies in far too many class- All of these embodied practices of educators rooms. As Dewey recounts in School & Society: are bodily labors. Some are admirable, while oth- ers are less so. What we urgently need is the cre- Some few years ago I was looking about the ation of democratic ensembles of intimate caring school supply stores in the city, trying to find practices—those that might be involved in the desks and chairs which seemed thoroughly suit- day-to-day struggle of cultivating anti-fascist able from all points of view—artistic, hygienic, character traits amongst the future generations and educational—to the needs of the children. We had a good deal of difficulty in finding through a creative somaesthetic awareness that what we needed, and finally one dealer, more in- always seeks to optimize the relational and edu- telligent than the rest, made this remark: “I am cational potentials of persons in situ, as opposed afraid we have not what you want. You want to any misplaced ideals of creatio ex nihilo fantasies something at which the children may work; these of begetting autonomous individuals ready- are all for listening.” That tells the story of the made into the world. Indeed, it is the deeply role- traditional education. Just as the biologist can encumbered normativity that teachers embrace take a bone or two and reconstruct the whole an- on a daily basis that serves as a beacon of hope imal, so, if we put before the mind’s eye the or- as they continually transform a world for into a dinary schoolroom, with its rows of ugly desks better, more democratic future. placed in geometrical order, crowded together so While some bodily labor serves the needs of that there shall be as little moving room as pos- sible, desks almost all of the same size, with just children and young adults, much other labor is space enough to hold books, pencils and paper, simply a by-product of the ways schools are hap- and add a table, some chairs, the bare walls, and hazardly (and even nefariously) organized: that possibly a few pictures, we can reconstruct the The Journal of School & Society 4 ISSN 2575-9922 6(2) 2–14 ©Author(s) 2019

only educational activity that can possibly go on united in intellectual pursuits in any genuinely vi- in such a place. It is all made “for listening”—for talist and creative learning environment: simply studying lessons out of a book is only an- other kind of listening; it marks the dependency As every teacher knows, children have an inner of one mind upon another.4 and an outer attention. The inner attention is the We could start by giving of the mind without reserve or qualifica- tion to the subject in hand. It is the first-hand realizing better schools and and personal play of mental powers. As such, it classroom dynamics where is a fundamental condition of mental growth. To be able to keep track of this mental play, to rec- students can practice ognize the signs of its presence or absence, to embodied and relationally know how it is initiated and maintained, how to test it by results attained, and to test apparent re- constituted role-focused sults by it, is the supreme mark and criterion of “occupations.” a teacher. It means insight into soul-action, abil- ity to discriminate the genuine from the sham, Here, Dewey laments the lack of space and con- and capacity to further one and discourage the cern for ergonomic design to enable active (bod- other.5 ily) pursuits of creative learning in the traditional school, modeled as it is on a unilateral and disci- Dewey, addressing the bodily alienation of learn- plinary conception of regimenting a certain form ers, calls attention to the soul-destroying dual- of passive embodiment—not to mention the isms and class-based stigmata that marked the sorry state of an overall classroom dynamic that majority of classrooms in his day—and that all- might be suitable to achieving creatively demo- too-tragically continue to mark many more in cratic, aspirational goals. our day as well. But there is more. A pragmatic solution? The surest way to assess “mental play” is the Perhaps we could start by realizing better ability to join it with various modalities of “bod- schools and classroom dynamics where students ily play.” To understand minds at work, teachers can practice embodied and relationally consti- must see bodies in some sort of continuous and tuted role-focused “occupations”—such as educationally-creative play. Play is always an en- cooking, building, and gardening—and these gagement with the potentialities inherent in any could serve as vital entry points into the more somaesthetic stylized situation—that is, the lived socially organized bodies of experience that get immediacy of experience. As such, playing with recognized as educational “subject-matter” or children should and can serve as an important class “content.” ethical foundation for any educational undertak- In his general reflections on teacher educa- ing. Pedagogical wisdom, as Stephen J. Smith has tion, Dewey contrasted the joyless and docile in this way argued, is built upon “a sympathy for body of the student in the traditional classroom the activity of children and a responsiveness to with the “soul-action” of the teacher and student

4 John Dewey, The School and Society (Chicago: The Uni- National Society for the Scientific Study of Education, edited by versity of Chicago Press, 1900/2017): 48. Charles A. McMurray (Bloomington: Public School Pub- 5 John Dewey, “The Relationship of Theory to Practice lishing Company, 1904): 13-14. in the Education of Teachers,” in The Third Yearbook of the The Journal of School & Society 5 ISSN 2575-9922 6(2) 2–14 ©Author(s) 2019

the course that their activities could most fruit- optimal potentials of experience in any singular fully take.”6 situation. Each sort of body has the potential to There is no uniform way to go about optimizing a teacher’s educational capabilities—though practices such as yoga and tai chi would surely be an improvement on the many alienating and disempowering forms of neoliberal contemporary teacher education. Good teaching, then, challenges us to re-ac- reveal something new about what is possible in quire and re-enact a beginner’s mind—as we call the situation near at hand.8 to mind Shunryu Suzuki’s foregrounding of “be- Surely it is important that we foreground ginner’s mind” (初心) in any creative act of bodily experience and bodily affect as most reli- learning—as we work in concert to achieve the able indicators for when educational potentials potentials of the as-of-yet “uncarved block” and are being optimized or stifled in any given situa- “undyed silk” of experience.7 tion. Such an attunement of relational affect re- Paradoxically, the ability to access our begin- quires a sustained reflection and cultivation of an ner’s mind requires a trained and attuned body— embodied moral imagination. The idea that the one that is able to “keep up with” and “make “one thread” of Confucian pedagogy is summed sense of” what is happening with and for and to up by “doing one’s utmost” (zhong 忠) to “em- children. For in doing what children do, it is pos- pathically imagine otherness” (shu 恕) is surely a sible for teachers to remember and recollect correlative dipolar value dynamic to a project of what it is like to be a child. We teachers connect continual retrieval and reconstruction of a Dew- with our sense of human possibility as we ac- eyan faith in creative democracy—that is, a faith quire not only a beginner’s mind, but a practi- in the relational potentials of communicating cally accessible beginner’s body. communities to reconstruct themselves in ever There are all sorts of bodies in this world, more intelligent ways without appeal to any met- and each is abled in a radically different manner. aphysical foundations or natural givens.9 Therefore, each can also serve as a unique path- There is no uniform way to go about opti- way—one opening up onto different aspects of mizing a teacher’s educational capabilities— the human experience—to realizing the vital and though practices such as yoga and tai chi would

6 Stephen J. Smith, “Physically Remembering Child- Imperialism—the “Reflections on Things Close at Hand” hood,” Phenomenology + Pedagogy 10 (1992), 85-106: 86. 《近思綠》. See Wing-Tsit Chan, Reflections on Things at 7 See Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind: Informal Hand (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967). Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice (Boston: Shambhala 9 For the “one thread” (一以貫之) uniting Confucius ed- Publications, 2011). For “uncarved block” and “undyed ucational ideals, see Analects 4. For the project of contin- silk,” see the Dao De Jing. ually reconstructing and rediscovering the relevance of 8 And in this special issue of the Journal of School & Society, John Dewey’s democratic theory for current predica- which is part of a centennial celebration of Dewey’s edu- ments, see Melvin L. Rogers, The Undiscovered Dewey: cational mission to China, we should recall the primer of Religion, Morality, and the Ethos of Democracy (New York: which Dewey himself surely would have encountered in Columbia University Press, 2012). intimate conversations with even his most progressive and reformist-minded of concerned Confucian interlocu- tors at the eve of concomitant Japanese and American The Journal of School & Society 6 ISSN 2575-9922 6(2) 2–14 ©Author(s) 2019

surely be an improvement on the many alienat- Working with pragmatism as a post-linguistic- ing and disempowering forms of neoliberal con- turn field of discourse, and as an anti-metaphys- temporary teacher education. What all of this ical philosophical movement of culture express- does most decidedly entail, then, is that the ing profound skepticism towards any sacrosanct body—(my) body—must be intentionally mined first principles or any variations on the myth of for what brings it joy, what brings it pain, what “the given”—while simultaneously drawing brings it awe, what brings it sorrow, and what upon diverse East Asian philosophies that don’t brings it anxiety. This can be fruitfully done in bear any of these philosophical stigmata—Rich- mindful play with children. ard Shusterman urges us to continue on with an- other important cultural “turn” by highlighting Contents of This Issue the central role of the lived body—that is, the soma and its aesthesis—in all broadly conceived

In the second of two issues devoted to an ongo- melioristic pursuits. ing and ever-new Deweyan-Confucian conversa- Moving skillfully and fluidly between Amer- tion, we at the Journal of School & Society are very ican Pragmatism and several East Asian philos- ophies (here, predominantly Confucian and pleased to be sharing seven articles that provide much to think about on several variation on the Daoist sources), Shusterman argues that somaes- themes of bodily engagement and creative edu- thetics, understood as a way to say and do phi- cational practice with the lives of children and losophy otherwise than a historically Western canon that has so frequently denigrated bodily young adults. All of these essays touch on the centrality of experience, especially the transcendental pre- moral imagination and creative intelligence as a tense or the myth of the givenness of the fully social good—a good only realized and main- autonomous, rational, able-bodied, cis-gen- dered, white male as normative, business-as- tained in the fragile horizon of intergenerational communicating communities—including forms usual kind of philosophizing, allows us to be ac- of communication that go beyond verbal dis- tively decolonizing and rethinking the very pos- course to gestures and profound expressions of sibilities of philosophical practice and education going forward with a “second Enlightenment” emotion. So it is with a sense of great pleasure project—if that isn’t too tall of an order. and Confucian “musical joy” (le 樂) that we pre- Instead of reductively and distortingly reduc- sent for your reading appreciation the following ing thinking to a disembodied and purely rational ensemble of stellar contributions to the field of affair, Shusterman constantly foregrounds the intercultural comparative philosophy of educa- importance of vital practices such as creative tion, striking a keynote of mutually enriching res- self-fashioning and bodily-affective attunement onance between Deweyan pragmatism and Con- in diversifying philosophies of education. Devel- fucian educational visions of somaesthetic and oping a recurrent theme in his always evolving social-political harmony. and provocative oeuvre, Shusterman finds am- In our first featured article, Richard Shus- ple resources in East Asian thought to corrobo- terman reflects upon his trailblazing work in the rate and expand upon his theoretical insights emergent field of intercultural comparative som- within the horizons of inter-cultural somaesthet- aesthetics—a style of doing philosophy that ac- ics as a way of living philosophically in the pre- tively seeks to compensate for the historically sent. regnant Western tendency to denigrate the body in the activity of philosophical thinking. The Journal of School & Society 7 ISSN 2575-9922 6(2) 2–14 ©Author(s) 2019

In this essay, Shusterman predominantly resolute focus the meaning-making activities of draws from classical Confucian and early Daoist an always provisional intergenerational commu- sources of thinking about ritualized comport- nity of interpreters. ment and a somaesthetics of personal cultivation So rather than some idealist conception of (xiushen 修身) and the significance of carefully “truth” as a fated agreement at the end of inquiry, guarding the unique relational potentials we have we have the constant renegotiation of agreed- so as to be creatively transforming with cosmic upon, working values so as to fashion a reservoir processes (shou shen 守身). In this way Shuster- of culturally-embodied, moral imagination in in- man makes a strong case for giving primacy to tergenerational conversations that don’t have an such thinking through the body (shenti sixiang 身 end—in the sense of seeking some “final vocab- ulary.” Philosophical creativity, then, is a matter 體思想 ) in the present age. of learning to be “making this life significant” to- Shusterman also provocatively considers gether in collaborative projects of deferential ap- some likely Chinese deposits left in Dewey’s preciation with others—and not some technique thinking after his eventful sojourn in China. By for discovering a pre-determined “meaning of exploring Dewey’s non-exclusive or non-anthro- life,” as the solution to some ultimate existential pocentric humanism as a general theory of truth riddle. as deployed in his Art as Experience, Shusterman It is in the Asian philosophers’ “wise respect puts Deweyan aesthetic theory into conversation for the body” that Shusterman finds a kind of with classical Chinese thinking about ritual, mu- refuge for his uncharacteristic methodological sic, and exemplary forms of stylized embodi- penchant for foregrounding body in a profes- ment. He convincingly argues that such somaes- sional discipline that seems to promote brains in thetic stylization always already has profound vats and that can make appeals to educational resonance with critical democratic theory—since, theories that might, ultimately, give license to after all, it is only unique individuals that can be routines of standardization and rote-memoriza- making creative contributions to communicating tion. What somaesthetic education offers is a communities as ends-in-view ideals for social life. way of conceiving creative intelligence as a phil- And within this productive conversation Shus- osophical project of securing values emergent terman makes space for a host of classical Chi- from unique narratives of self-stylization within nese thinkers and their unique pragmatic philos- lived traditions—this requires an always imagi- ophies of language that is most intriguing. native performance of bodily subjectivity that Building upon the works of A.C. Graham, transforms the “fact of association” in social in- Chad Hansen, Roger Ames, and others who stitutions like family, school, city, state, and have made distinctive versions of the claim that world into communicating communities of in- it is not ontological-epistemological reference that terpretation aiming at a more convivial and sus- is guiding classical Chinese thinkers, but rather a tainable cosmopolitan flourishing. kind of somaesthetic concern for relational defer- In our second featured article, reprinted with ence that is motivating the classical Chinese phil- permission from the Frontiers of Philosophy in osophical concern with “getting names right” China,10 Roger Ames appeals to Chinese pro- (zhengming 正名)—all as part of an ongoing and cessual categories and a correlative philosophical collaborative process of bringing into more sensibility to think through the complex

10 See Roger T. Ames, Frontiers of Philosophy in China 10, no. 2 (2015): 167–180. The Journal of School & Society 8 ISSN 2575-9922 6(2) 2–14 ©Author(s) 2019

relationships of mind, body, and heart—or, differing and deferring from and for each other in “bodyheartminding”—in a context of theorizing a shared narrative project of intergenerational persons as relationally-constituted and unique communicating community. individualities capable of exerting a quotient of In other words, as an adventure of becoming creativity in an always provisional and thor- more fully human—understood as a resolutely oughly contingent cosmos. somaesthetic achievement rather than some Working with insights from the Chinese tra- metaphysical given—the ideal rational construct dition, American Pragmatism, and more recent of a transcendental end of some supposedly in- developments in somaesthetic and democratic exorable historical dialectic is replaced with an theory, Roger Ames shows us a way to realize imminently reasonable task of way-making ever more creatively integrated stances towards within the cultural repository and triadic inter- persons as mind-body narrative transactions in play of “heaven,” “earth,” and “human” as historical and future-oriented communicating “three powers” (sancai 三才) for realizing crea- communities. Such a correlative, communica- tive intelligence together—or not at all. What we tive, and role-encumbered mode of theorizing have are radically contingent practices and sensi- persons can provide a resolute focus that greatly bilities that can, in better or worse ways, contrib- enhances the likelihood of achieving the hard- ute to the transmission and creation of truly won fruits of day-to-day educational labor. democratic values. Such a process might include Indeed, educators work best by “focusing a Confucian “Democracy of the Dead”—one the familiar” affairs of the day—what in the Chi- that would allow us to theorize persons in a role- nese tradition can be called “consummate con- focused register of a ritually-and-musically at- duct” (ren 仁), a term settled upon by Ames to tuned communicating community, deferentially approximate the philosophical insights of a Con- ordered around virtuosic communicators (sages fucian vocabulary that in his earlier work he had and worthies), in an ongoing process of (re)au- rendered “authoritative conduct.” Ames consid- thorization of authoritative personhood and ex- ers how the contested—because so often will- emplary conduct. fully misunderstood—philosophical placehold- In a creative synthesis of Deweyan and Con- ers of “Pragmatism” and “Confucianism” can be fucian insight, Ames considers how embodied put into productive conversation as both being sensibilities are “complexes of habits that both modes of thinking that decidedly abjure episte- create and are created by habitats and that pro- mological certainty or totalizing metaphysical mote specific, personal manners of in-habiting a system-building; instead the philosophical kin- world.” And since these embodied sensibilities ship of these two philosophical sensibilities can are profoundly cultural, they are “not easily ex- be found in a tendency to pursue adventures in pressed through the analysis of social, economic, the “pathless wastes” of an always changing or even political institutions.” Rather, such sen- world that requires a refined sensitivity and sibilities “reside in the prominent feelings, ideas, brave moral imagination—one up to the task of and beliefs defining the culture.” 11 Ames goes “theorizing persons” in a truly relational way— on to reflect upon the significance of Confucian- that is, in a way that recognizes that unique indi- ism as a “meliorative aestheticism” that can help viduality can only be an achievement of persons with the “recovery of philosophy” in a post-

11 Roger T. Ames, “Confucianism and Deweyan Pragma- tism: A Dialogue,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 30, no. 3&4 (2003), 403-417: 404. The Journal of School & Society 9 ISSN 2575-9922 6(2) 2–14 ©Author(s) 2019

Deweyan age, wherein the need to reconstruct disposition to act rather than a framework of experience entails a reformation of culture ideas and beliefs, the construal of knowing as an through a holistic ritual and musical educational epistemology of caring—of trust rather than vision of resolutely developing persons in a reli- truth, the prevalence of correlative (rather than giously expansive context of an intergenerational dualistic) thinking, the pursuit of self-realizing as communicating community always seeking more authentication in practice, the familial nature of all relationships, the centrality of family and filial optimal forms of social flourishing and unique deference, the high value of inclusive harmony, democratic individuality in diverse cultural con- the priority of ritual propriety to rule or law, the texts. role of exemplary modeling, the didactic func- Thinking with Confucian “meliorative aes- tion of sage as virtuoso communicator, the ex- theticism” can help in providing a philosophical pression of sagacity as focusing and enchanting grammar by which to engage in edifying educa- the familiar affairs of the day, a recognition of tional conversations aimed at realizing a more the continuity between humanity and the numi- convivial cosmopolitan culture without having nous, and so on.12 to rely upon a provincial notion of the ultimate good or a fixed ideology as an ethically exclusive We agree, but this still leaves the always-unfin- “comprehensive doctrine” that must seek ra- ished work of achieving our educational ideals as tional and universal agreement. While Ames cer- creative democracy in philosophical translation tainly recognizes that no translation can or that seeks to ameliorate familiar habits by mak- should serve as a final vocabulary—in the sense ing translational space for thinking through per- of achieving a conversation-ending end of in- haps unfamiliar assumptions in a new intercul- quiry—and we therefore need to be sensitive to tural horizon. the historical contingency of things, he exudes a In considering how Dewey was really pour- confidence that there should be, by now, no ing new wine into the old concept of “individu- point in arguing about the relative appropriate- ality”—moving away from quantitative equality ness of conceiving the distinctive nature of the- and autonomous discreteness, towards a more orizing persons in a Chinese process-oriented expansive and dynamic conception of persons as cosmology as socially-stipulated and role-en- creative projects—Ames moves us thrillingly cumbered bodies of creativity. into an intercultural hermeneutic horizon by ask- ing us to fully appreciate the Chinese difference In this way, Ames argues there should be: in such classical Confucian terms as “consum- minimal dispute with respect to our understand- mate conduct” (ren仁), “bodyheartminding” (xin ing of notions such as the symbiotic relationship 心), “non-analytic affect” (qing 情), and “symbi- that obtains among the radial spheres of per- 和 sonal, communal, political, and cosmic cultiva- otic harmony” (he ). In foregrounding the un- tion, the process of self-cultivation through ritu- common assumptions in this particular Confu- alized living, the centrality of communication cian constellation of concepts, Ames is like both and the attunement of language, the inseparabil- Confucius and Dewey: “warming up the old, in ity of the cognitive and affective dimensions of order to realize the new” (wen gu er zhi xin 溫故 experience, an understanding of the heart-and- mind (xin) (or “thinking and feeling”) as a

12 Roger T. Ames, “Becoming Practically Religious: A Yong Huang (Albany: State University of New York Deweyan and Confucian Context for Rortian Religious- Press, 2009): 262. ness,” in Rorty, Pragmatism, and Confucianism, edited by The Journal of School & Society 10 ISSN 2575-9922 6(2) 2–14 ©Author(s) 2019

知新), in a broad vision of cultural reformation cooperative values necessary for imagining a sus- as ameliorative philosophical praxis. tainable and convivial space of cosmopolitan From Tung-Yi Kho, we get a provocative community in late-stage hyper-capitalism and a argument that many of our most pressing global nihilistically-destructive modernity. And it is for crises can be traced back to some basic failures this reason that he turns to his intersectional of an all-too-pervasive, body-denigrating ten- work as a sports trainer, intercultural philoso- dency in reductionistic-functionalist approaches pher, and ethnographer in developing a more to education. Kho urges us to embrace a more holistic and creatively integrated account of edu- holistic and integrated approach to somatic char- cation-as-growth in personal potentials. acter education, one grounded in a dynamic In articulating an exercise of collaborative unity of mind and body, and he demonstrates “mini-tennis” (playing a back-and-forth game of how tennis as sport can be used as a site for such maintaining a volley in a reduced portion of the integrated and holistic educational practice. court), Kho considers how a kind of somatic Kho shows how an “ethos of competitive in- communication occurs between the participants dividualism”—so necessary for the “functional- wherein the entire situation calls for an “undi- ism” of capitalism and business-as-usual in the vided attention to the task immediately on fields of education, physical training, and hand”—which in turn requires a sustained com- sports—is a terrible way to think about the rela- mitment to keeping the ball moving (a kind of tional potentials and values inherent in sport and somatic conversation) wherein a “deep, medita- physical training. Kho also turns to the body in tive concentration” or absorption in non-dual terms of ethical cultivation (xiushen 修身)—as a and shared group activity can be sustained. With potential resistance to the saturation of this cooperation and joy of keeping the ball in knowledge-production in terms of functionalist, play, it is, of course, more fun than individual utilitarian, and pecuniary fungibility and to the pursuits. loss of wisdom as a non-translatable good in a Kho makes productive use of the Great global stage of commodity fetishism—by think- Learning 《大學》ideals of unbounded but ing about the relational potentials of non-alien- properly ordered growth, starting with things ated cooperative and shared educational experi- close at hand and moving outwards into a cos- ence. mopolitical expansive canopy (tianxia 天下). We Drawing upon Alfred North Whitehead, might also wish to rehearse here some Mengzian John Dewey, Ivan Illich, and a pervasive vitalism insights about the compounding nature of inherent in Confucian-inspired theories of shared musical experience and the intensifica- whole-person education—wherein the “co-op- tion of somatic pleasures and social joy (tong le 同 erative, co-respective, co-existence” and “con- 樂) in such relationally-practiced physical train- vivial possibilities” of learning communities are ing. The win-win infinite game of learning to co- juxtaposed to the “antagonistic, competitive, operate, care, and share has obvious palliative and individualistic beggar-thy-neighbor” zero- implications for the stigmata of a religious fun- sum, finite-game ideologies—we find a question damentalism grounded in autonomous individu- motivating Kho’s theorizing: how do we effec- alism and an all-consuming, capitalist profit mo- tively educate beyond functionalist paradigms of tive as ultimate concern. competition and possessive individualism? Building upon Ivan Illich’s vision of “de- The emphasis on the how question motivates schooling society,” Kho considers provocative Kho more than any felt need to justify the ways in which cultivating skilled somatic The Journal of School & Society 11 ISSN 2575-9922 6(2) 2–14 ©Author(s) 2019

practices—productively blurring the boundaries from Kho’s provocative theorizing, we get a between physical training and sport—can allow glimpse of how the holistic and processual as- for the unleashing of creative potentials of per- sumptions of a Chinese correlative cosmology sons to contribute ever more effectively to more allow for an effective critique of unjust and un- sustainable and valuable ways of convivially re- sustainable global economic structures by think- lating in a world marked by increasing precarity ing with things “close at hand” (jinsi 近思)— and predicaments of apocalyptic proportions. By things like tennis training. critiquing the “functionalist” model of educa- Joshua Rosen writes from his Bronx class- tion—as stipulating insular means and fixed room, explaining how exemplarist moral theory ends, wherein all values are subsumed within an might better bring us into contact with the lives antagonistic structure of competition based in and developing democratic aspirations of his atomizing individualism—Kho offers a provoc- students. He does this by helping students ex- ative and practical account of how a more som- plore what actions, characters, and persons pro- aesthetically-focused educational model can of- voke admiration, and what, on the contrary, elic- fer hope for a future to be possible. its disapproval, repugnance, or critical resistance Drawing primarily from early Confucian to the ongoing legacy of racism, police brutality, sources and Roger Ames’ role ethical vocabulary, economic oppression, and educational neglect in one might also detect the spirit of a Zhuangzi the lives led by the students he teaches and the telling stories of effortless action in this Confu- adults who have come before them. cian plea for the centrality of graceful bodily Rosen’s starting point for theorizing educa- presence in ritual performance (lizhi da ti 禮之大 tional experience and its creatively democratic 體). And with the urgent critique of capitalism, potentials comes from his experience with a Kho’s suggests that we return to the classical “wall of [moral] fame” wherein he—together economists—Ricardo, Smith, Marx—to make with student’s electoral and deliberative poli- sense of our current entanglement of global pre- tics—decides on who should go up or come dicaments. down from the wall, and in this way offering an (Why, after all, would corporations care exemplary portrait of contributing to the unfin- about a future if their bottom-line profit margins ished business of “achieving our country.” and accountability to shareholders are always Mr. Rosen’s American history classroom is a shorter-term than any single person’s lifespan? history of the present and a promise for crea- And how has austerity and debt-inflation been tively democratic futures. In choosing “fighters, used to create an unsustainable world wherein poets, musicians, philosophers, and Americans the global 1% continues to rapidly extract wealth of every background,” this Bronx classroom is a from the planet and redistribute upwards?) portrait in courage, seeking to teach and learn With all this in mind, we might also want to American history differently from the all-too- return to read a classical Chinese Marxist whose common whitewashed “great man,” textbook first published article would seem to have a ra- model. ther haunting relevance here—Mao Zedong’s Drawing upon Linda Zagzebski’s work in “A Study of Physical Education.”.13 In any event, moral exemplarism,14 Rosen finds the affective

13 See the Selected Works of Mao Tse-Tung, Volume VI (Pe- 14 Linda Zagzebski, Exemplarist Moral Theory (Oxford: Ox- king: Foreign Languages Press, 1917/2004), ford University Press, 2017). https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/se- lected-works/volume-6/mswv6_01.htm. The Journal of School & Society 12 ISSN 2575-9922 6(2) 2–14 ©Author(s) 2019

dynamics of “admiration” to be a productive av- autonomous rights-based thinking and the more enue for thinking about the kind of moral per- role-encumbered notion of ceremonial rites as ception and judgment going on in the intergen- the relational fabric of moral community in a erational hermeneutic task of both: (1) deliberating Confucian context. In turning again to Deweyan upon who should and shouldn’t be on the wall ideals of “creative democracy” as a task still most (John Brown and Abraham Lincoln both serve certainly before us, Rosen thinks about the future as an interesting test cases wherein there was vo- of the wall in an increasingly global horizon and cal disagreement and even affective surprise be- how one of his students—Thomas, a promising tween teacher and student responses to these and pious student from Ghana—will be able to historical persons); and (2) deciding how the his- see what he can be in such an expansively global tory classroom should be appreciating the figures educational horizon. depicted in this pantheon of American exem- From Steven Fesmire we have an urgent plars. call to be thinking through and beyond an “eth- In reflecting upon how his “students find ics for moral fundamentalists” wherein he clari- more salience in stories from the Bronx,” Rosen fies how it is he is working against the tides of realizes that “exemplarism is ineffective if stu- moral fundamentalism in our society by cultivat- dents cannot see themselves in the exemplar.” ing habits of epistemic humility amongst his stu- This insight into the limitations of “admiration” dents. Fesmire asks us to imagine what moral as a catch-all moral emotion can critically expand fundamentalists are really saying through their upon the metaethical theory of exemplarism to actions and attitudes in the context of ostensible be more inclusive in imagining processes of ad- “debate,” which really amounts more to a set of miration—and the complex emotional fields strategies for sabotaging the “back and forth” di- that surround such feelings. We might think of alogical interchange involved in any truly com- the Bronx native member of “the squad,” Con- municating community. He goes on to provide gressperson Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and hes an ensemble of creatively democratic pedagogi- creative democratic plea to always remember not cal activities that can help get classes beyond a only that “you can’t be what you can’t see,” but “pledge” of moral absolutism, wherein there is also that “we can be whatever we have the cour- presumed to be one and only one right axiological age to see.”15 framework for adjudicating all morally salient sit- This essay concludes aporetically and con- uations. summately by opening up onto further educa- Instead, Fesmire asks us to entertain a much tional and theoretical work to be done in think- more invitational moral horizon wherein the all- ing about how to make the wall more global and pervasive complicity with what he calls “moral cosmopolitan—while recognizing the distinctive jetlag”—a cultural phenomenon akin to what cultural values at play in shaping the imagination Alistair MacIntyre indicated as a kind of post- of admiration as a moral-political affect. For ex- modern “incoherence” of the ensemble of lan- ample, in thinking about the Chinese political guage games and evaluative practices called dissident and Nobel Prize winner, Liu Xiaobo, Rosen highlights the incommensurability of

15 Eoin Higgins, “‘We Can Be Whatever We Have the https://www.com- Courage to See’: New Video From AOC Envisions a mondreams.org/news/2019/04/17/we-can-be-what- #GreenNewDeal Future,” Common Dreams (April 17, ever-we-have-courage-see-new-video-aoc-envisions- 2019), greennewdeal-future. The Journal of School & Society 13 ISSN 2575-9922 6(2) 2–14 ©Author(s) 2019

“ethics”16— and “moral fundamentalism” can pose for Ghiloni is whether or not we can follow be ameliorated by way of more inclusive and plu- Dewey so far as to reject any “two realm” or ralist habitudes that invite real collaborative in- “two world” dualistic categories of speaking quiries and a recognition of the sheer diversity about experience that would obfuscate and (su- and irreducible complexity of moral life in the per)naturalize the social reality of unintelligent or present age. As an example of this pluralistic oppressive forms of association. moral theorizing, he invites students to imagine That is, can we as philosophical educators if there are not more productive ways to engage endorse Dewey’s naturalist stance—yet still fully in conjoint social improvement and better values appreciate the functional and creative role of to be foregrounded in our imagining of what is “supernatural” beliefs and practices in ordinary possible in democratic educational praxis. experience? It would seem that by getting us to From Aaron Ghiloni, we are offered a pro- question the supposedly stable sacred/secular vocative series of pedagogical and theoretical re- divide—a divide so central to modernity—that flections on the potential democratically-enliv- Ghiloni’s archaeological-genealogical method of ening roles that “supernaturalism” might have in unsettling the present is a most fecund way to the classroom and beyond. Challenging Dewey’s expand the moral imagination of students and to overly critical rejection of supernaturalism as facilitate a more engaged democratic sensibility eroding social and naturalistic inquiry, Ghiloni, in the classroom. writing from his undergraduate religious studies From Sor-hoon Tan, we have a sustained classroom, explores what can be gained by help- inquiry into the intercultural horizons of a Dew- ing students to evaluate belief in the supernatural eyan- and Confucian-inspired conversation in a more nuanced and sympathetic manner. A about the relative importance and mutual entail- number of very interesting methods for evaluat- ment of “custom” and “law,” or li 禮 and fa 法. ing student engagement with the content of a In considering how Dewey only briefly refer- course—content that moves fluidly from fairies ences Chinese philosophy in his collected works, to deep democratic faith are in this way pre- even after his momentous experiences in the sented in the context of a sustained defense of country, Tan shows how Dewey perhaps missed religious and spiritual “overbeliefs” that can ani- an opportunity to put his dynamic notion of per- mate a more empathic narrative imagination in sonal habits and social customs—as necessary students as they prepare to become participants ingredients for any communicating community in a twenty-first century global citizenry—a cen- construed as the art and religion of creative de- tury that Ghiloni reminds us is “full of real mon- mocracy—into productive philosophical con- sters.” versation with the Confucian insistence that any A benefit of reading this essay is that one and all statutory codes (fa 法) can only be suc- comes away with a new sense of urgency to bring cessfully implemented in a broader framework some clarity—after we give up on any quests for of relational deference and ceremonial customs certainty—to the project of distinguishing be- (li 禮). The attunement of emotions to accord tween democratically acceptable forms of over- with ethically and legally salient situations, as belief that are variously identified as mystical, well as the general social grammar of experience, magical, superstitious, paranormal, supernatural, are the only checks against a rampant and or just plain ecstatic. A question that we might

16 Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (University of Notre Dame Press, 1984, 2nd edn.), 2. The Journal of School & Society 14 ISSN 2575-9922 6(2) 2–14 ©Author(s) 2019

shameless litigiousness that disrupts social har- dynamic intercultural conversation—one mony in the pursuit of private profiteering with wherein Deweyan ideals of “communicating violent and exploitative measures. community” and Confucian visions of convivial If we conceive of li 禮 and Deweyan habitus cosmopolitanism (tianxia 天下) can find produc- as the “embodiment of culture” and as an en- tive resonance in thinking about the ways to go semble of social-cultural structures that serve to about cultivating a robust embodiment of crea- “canalize action” into normatively prescribed tively democratic cultures. patterns of evaluation and interpretation, then it should be readily obvious the importance of Invitation and Acknowledgement foregrounding this aspect of non-coercive power in theories of ethical education and even And it is in the context of this special issue of the civics classrooms. An important implication of Journal of School & Society that we can consum- Tan’s political theorizing here is the need to mate the proceedings with Sor-Hoon Tan’s call think in-between, or rather beyond, any polariz- to think with Dewey and Confucius about all ing dichotomies that trade in East-West dualisms “aspects of culture” from the “political, eco- like “liberal enlightenment” vs. “oriental despot- nomic, international” to the “educational, and ism;” “rule of law” vs. “corruption;” “procedural artistic, [and] religious.” democracy” vs. “authoritarianism;” etc.—while It is only with such an expansive view of cul- all of these epithets surely have their appropriate ture and the vital importance of education be- application, the tired cultural essentializing and yond the mere reproduction of skills for an op- arrogant ethical chauvinism involved in the very pressive labor market or the internalization of possibility of positing a radical disjunction of po- fixed dogmas—be they nationalistic, xenopho- litical cultures is most happily not to be found in bic, or forms of religious bigotry—that we can Sor-hoon Tan’s novel theorizing. hope to sustain the fragile conversation that is a Analects 2.3 is a locus classicus for the pragmatic world culture of creative democracy going for- distinction to be drawn between: guiding with ward. “edicts” (fa 法·) and keeping in line with “pun- As the editor of the Journal of School & Society, ishments” (xing 刑); or, guiding with “exemplary Kyle Greenwalt would like to extend his most and charismatic virtuosity” (de 德) and keeping fraternal appreciation to Joseph Harroff, the co- in line with “rites/customs” (li 禮)—and it is editor on this project that has explored Deweyan only in the latter register of a non-coercive and and Confucian transactions. Joe is an exemplary open-ended cultural conversation of ritual and person, one whose conduct in both life and re- music institutions (liyue zhidu 禮樂制度) that we search tends towards consummate action and re- can hope to find a shared experience of affective lational flourishing for those around him. He has resonance wherein an appropriate sense of a generous soul, a keen mind, and learning from shame and genuine desire for relational flourish- him has been to my great advantage. ing guides and keeps us in check in all social roles It is my sincere hope that the readers of our emanating from family-born experience and ex- journal will, upon reflection upon the contents tending imaginatively to the furthest divine of this issue, feel likewise. reaches of ecological sustainability. Tan’s political theorizing offers a method for getting beyond static dualisms of East-West cul- tural binaries and invites a more nuanced and