Trumpeter (1990)
ISSN: 0832-6193
Shibusa:
An Aesthetic Approach to Ecosophical Education
Michael T. Caley is a free lance writer, epistemologist, ecophilosopher, theoretical biolotist and Tai Chi practitioner. He has held a variety of academic and nonacademic positions but at the moment is in between appointments. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Alberta in Science Education. A devout listener to jazz, he can sometimes be found lost in the spontaneous orders and resonances of the rhythms of mind and Nature.Daiyo Sawada is a Professor of Elementary Education at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta. There he manages to entertain himself with items which might seem to have little to do with elementary education: poetics, epistemology, eco- aesthetics, language games, Eastern thought, multiculturalism, reflexivity and mathematics education. In his spare time he likes to write.
Nature manifests itself through the medium of human beings.
Muraoka and Okamura (1973, p. 125)
Introduction
The West perceives Japan as a monolithic economic/cultural unity: Japan Incorporated. This perception has been created and maintained by Japan's overwhelming ability to produce and market consumer products with unparalleled global success. In contrast to its economic impact, there is a silent dimension of Japan that has had far less impact on our society or education. This is Japanese aesthetics. True, there have been aspects of Japanese aesthetics implicit in some of the Japanese products marketed in North America; we are perhaps familiar with Japanese paper folding (origami), flower arrangement (ikebana), miniature trees (bonzai), cinema (Kurasawa), martial arts (aikido, ju jitsu, karate), spirituality (zen), wall dividers (shoji screens), and we may own some Japanese pottery (perhaps even a Bizen pot). Nevertheless, it is likely that we are only vaguely aware of the sense of the aesthetic that implicitly pervades Japanese life. More particularly, we are likely unfamiliar with the Japanese word "shibusa" as the highest expression of Japanese aesthetic attainment (Yanagi, 1972).
Shibusa, as expressed in craftsmanship, is fundamentally different from the quality in mass manufactured products: Stereos can be easily imported with little acknowledgement of the country of origin. In contrast, aesthetics is a way of being that is difficult to uproot or transplant. In this paper we attempt to reveal the texture and tone of shibusa as a way to ecosophical education. Such a way may provide orientations which are different from and counter to the "High Tech" syndrome so pervasive in North American society and in Japan Incorporated. As such, it may bring us to a postmodern realization of education in North America (and in Japan) founded upon a very old, yet revealing, way of living.
Shibusa
The irregularity of forms, the openness to/of Nature, the roughness of textures, and the naturalness of daily life are all aspects of shibusa. It is seen in Japanese architecture (the Katsura Palace near Kyoto is a prime example), in Japanese folk crafts (Yanagi, 1949), in haiku poetry and painting (Zolbrod, 1982), in Japanese gardens (Itoh, 1973), and in countless everyday aspects largely taken for granted in Japan (for example, an ikebana flower arrangement on a street corner in crowded downtown Tokyo).
The word "shibusa" (adjectival form: shibui) is used by both scholars and the humblest of lay people. Yet, because the concept is so unique to Japan it is most difficult to translate into English. Indeed, even Japanese fluent in English find it all but impossible to translate "shibusa". More surprising, scholars of Japanese aesthetics rarely use the word. It is as if the word is so deeply ingrained in the everyday lifeworld of the everyday Japanese, it is too commonsensical for serious (scholarly) treatment. However, explicating the idea can reveal a new way of being sensitive to ecosophical education.
Drawing upon the work of Yanagi (1972) and Young (1965), shibusa may be explained in terms of seven aspects of being: simplicity, implicitness, modesty, silence, naturalness, roughness and normalcy. We will discuss each of these in turn.
Simplicity
Simplicity (austere, unadorned, plain, unfigured) occurs for example in the simple joy of sitting on a tatami mat after a hot relaxing bath, with a bowl of rice and some fish. Such simplicity brings a sense of deep well-being and of communion. We in the West rarely savour the simple joys of everyday activity that might bring an inner relaxation and peace to our day. Simplicity dwells in the interior of the traditional Japanese dwelling, where the many sliding shoji panels, if removed, open the space enclosed by roof and posts: the natural and the human-made merge.
In contrast, Western schools (and dwellings) are often constituted of walls which in their massiveness act as boundaries for separating the learning space from living space in rather empathic ways. There is no intent that the walls be an invitation for that which is outside to come inside nor for the inside to venture outside. Even the windows in the walls do not function in this way. Indeed, the outside is often interpreted as a distraction, and every effort is made to exclude it from classroom deliberations (children caught gazing out the window with their eyes or with their mind are likely to be sharply reprimanded).
In the same way, interior walls are often construed as barriers so that partitions within buildings separate functions (e.g., science in the science room, music in the music room, movement in the gymnasium, sitting still in the classroom). A school of this kind can be interpreted as a collection of boundaries for defining spaces that separate activity; a way of emphasizing the duality of inside/outside. In this connection, it is interesting to note that the appearance in the 1960s of open schools was anomalous; such schools came close to embodying aspects of simplicity. However, the separation mentality was so overpowering that open schools had little chance of surviving. Today, the many open schools built in North America no longer exist as such; partitions and other boundaries have been erected to define spaces which are more resonant with a compartmentalized sense of well-being, a sense of being that is pervasive in modern Western society.
Implicitness
Implicitness works together with simplicity: In simplicity there is always an implicit complexity that imbues the deeper meanings which produce the simplicity. Implicit in implicitness is wholeness which is valued in and of itself and which reflexively participates therein (Caley & Sawada, 1986). The universe itself is an implicit whole within which everything exists and participates. From this perspective it is both unnecessary and redundant to make objects explicit by removing them from the wholeness they constitute; doing so destroys both implicitness and simplicity. Nevertheless, the Western weltanschauung with its reification of language (naming), draws attention to linguistic distinctions which, in defining objects, carve Nature up into a complication of parts. In shibusa, such analytic complication is not seen as inherent in Nature; rather it is an imposition of a mind that destroys simplicity through language. It is as if we wish to own the world through naming it, not realizing that the world that is thereby named cannot be reconstituted by integrating the names: integration in education becomes a desperate attempt to recapture the wholeness that was lost through naming.
In Western education, implicitness is often looked upon as weakness, as sloppiness, as imprecision. It is not surprising that, in contrast, the explicitness of precisely stated objectives (reified objectification through language) is valued. Within such valuation, accountability is easily reduced to the mastery of the parts with the concomitant neglect of anything that is not easily particularized. Curriculum guides, in precisely specifying the content to be covered, have through omission removed implicitness from schooling: Only the instructional objectives that have been linguistically excised from the parent disciplines are taught and tested; nothing else need be covered. In covering the curriculum, teachers often produce a complication of parts which students find difficult to re-form. We might ask whether such difficulty is inherent in the subject (e.g., mathematics) or whether we have artificially produced the difficulty by reducing the subject to isolated skills and procedures which, even if mastered, remain in the student's mind as isolated parts?
Yanagi (1972, p. 110) puts this more poignantly:
What is the beauty that a man of erudition sees as he holds a fine pot in his hands? If he picks a wild flower to pieces, petal by petal, and counts them, and tries to put them together again, can he regain the beauty that was there? All the assembly of dead parts cannot bring life back again. It is the same with knowing.
Modesty
Modesty underscores the quiet beauty of an unpretentiousness that does not assert its presence through striking design or bright colors. The personality of the artist or teacher does not dominate; it is unsaid. The virtue here is understatement: If the surroundings are simple and unassertive, even a tiny flower brings forth the world. Children are like tiny flowers that, in some classrooms, never feel the sun or hear the rain.
In Western education, the personality of the teacher is often dominant: The detailed organization and arrangement of teaching spaces and learning experiences shout the identity and presence of the designer, the teacher. This is "Mrs. Brown's" Grade 1 class, and obviously that is "Mrs. Smith's" Grade 2 classroom. But where is Erin's place? Is there any space for Kim or Megan? That desk has "Brandon" written on it, but is that really space for Brandon, or is it a boundary within which Brandon is kept? Who decided that Brandon would sit there? When everything is made explicit by the teacher for the child there is very little space for the child to be or to become. The tiny flower may wither away. As Muraoka and Okamura (1973, p. 121) observed:
One can say that beauty is the manifestation of freedom; it is freedom that establishes the form.
Silence
Silence (tranquillity, composure, sobriety, calmness) is perhaps felt most meaningfully in the quiet of the Japanese tearoom which attains a serenity of spirit through the stillness of gently simmering water and the hush of the swishing tea brush: For a moment we dwell in the silent eternity of the universe. Silence is the ideal of understatement; in saying nothing, everything is invited. It is an invitation to become, to bring oneself into being. The granting of silence in the tea ceremony is the ultimate acknowledgement of respect for the being of the other; each partakes of the freedom of mutual respect. The participants are invited to be with the eternity of each other in the universe.
In Western classrooms, silence during a lesson is not often an invitation; usually it is an imposition of the will of the teacher upon the space of the students. The command to be silent issues a boundary over the classroom and over each individual student, which is not to be transgressed without the teacher's permission ("put up your hand" if you wish to break silence). In this sense, the command to be silent is the antithesis of an invitation. Rather than inviting students to actualize the void ("mu") through their becoming, the command is to confine each student within the bounds of silence. As a boundary to keep students within, this kind of silence is the negation of becoming, of living. It is not surprising then that, when silence is not the wish of the teacher, it is avoided like the plague. Even a few seconds of an unintentional silence seems like eternity. Teachers generally feel highly uncomfortable with unintended silence, and, as research shows, such silence is tolerated for only a matter of seconds: very soon the silence is filled with teacher speech. Paradoxically, the teacher's speech fills the silence and again the space for becoming is occupied; once more there is no space for pupil becoming.
Naturalness
Naturalness expresses the spontaneity which arises in being in harmony with Nature. Shibui art, for example, is not deliberately designed and produced as a product; rather, it is an emergent property of daily living. The true craftsman does not produce pottery for the sake of producing pottery; rather the pottery is an emergent aspect of ongoing relations with Nature. In Japan, Raku pottery comes close to being a realization of such natural production. The concept of production through emergence is a most significant yet most difficult concept to appreciate, when we are continually shown that the way to produce something is to know the specifications of the product and then to produce according to the specifications.
The technological mind likes the explicitness of direct production (Barrett, 1979). Implicit production would be uncertain, perhaps even chaotic, like the deterministic yet unpredictable patterns of mathematical chaos that seem to relate so well to the roughness of Nature (Mandelbrot, 1982). In this sense, the penchant for behaviorally stated objectives is a prime example of unnaturalness. Objectives stated in this way are operational specifications of criteria which define the production of the desired products. Production of this kind is a linear technical task and as such is best done by machines. As Marcuse (1964) recognized more than two decades ago, the preference for direct production in education reduces living beings to the one-dimensionality of machine operation. In this context, the criteria for successful machine production are often embodied in the course of studies which some teachers follow technically (religiously?) so as not to contaminate the process of production (instruction) that leads to the realization of the precisely specified objectives. Such objectives provide teachers with reasons for everything they do. This kind of rationality can exclude naturalness. As Yanagi remarked (1956, p. 123):
Once there were three people who took a walk in the country. They happened to see a man standing on a hill. One of them said, "I guess he is standing on a hill to search for lost cattle." "No," the second said, "I think he is trying to find a friend who has wandered off somewhere." Whereas the third said, "No, he is simply enjoying the summer breeze." As there was no definite conclusion, they went up the hill and asked him. "Are you searching for strayed cattle?" "No," he replied. "Are you looking for your friend?" "No," again. "Are you enjoying the cool breeze?" "No," yet again. "Then why are you standing on the hill?" "I am just standing," was the answer.
Roughness
Roughness in conjunction with naturalness, indicates that the irregular textures in Nature (the bark of a tree, a moss-covered stone, small pebbles embedded in clay, the jagged edges of a leaf) are beautiful in their imperfection. The reader may anticipate that an aesthetics that values naturalness and implicitness would also value roughness. In contrast, machines may produce nearly perfect pottery, but such pottery would not be shibui. It would simply be perfect in a technical sense (or nearly so), according to the criteria embodied in the specifications.
As an example, McDonald's produces "perfect hamburgers" by the billions, and for fast-food hamburgers this may be both desirable and appropriate. Schools produce "educated" (well-rounded) adults by the millions, but is such production desirable and appropriate? While in a certain sense such perfection has a beauty of its own, it is a beauty that in the commercial world is largely confined to the smooth regularity of glass, steel, porcelain, plastic, and hamburger buns. In the educational context, it is beauty created by the smooth regularity of basal readers, mimeographed worksheets, standardized tests, and programmed lessons. These machine- produced materials are the antithesis of Nature, the opposite of roughness, the exclusion of the natural. They embody a beauty contained in a precisely specified system of production. In contrast, as the evening sun settles over the crackling campfire, hamburgers, somewhat dirty and rough, emerge with the conversation as hikers gather around to relax in the glowing twilight of dusk. In their imperfection, such hamburgers can be very shibui. At McDonald's, they would be rejects.
In Western classrooms, roughness is largely seen as something that needs to be made smooth or well-rounded. The pebbles need to be removed from the clay or else the clay is no good for pottery. Likewise, children's everyday experiences, in their rough irregularity, are likely to clog the system. Such experiences do not meet 'input' criteria (readiness programs must first be implemented). Preference is given to the smoothly processed experiences contained in textbooks or videotapes or workbooks. Experiences directly from the child's world are too raw, too chaotic, too unmanageable; textbook problems are much smoother. However, if we remove the roughness are we not removing both the meaning and the richness of daily experience? In this connection the so called "Language Experience" (Whole Language) approach is a notable exception—the roughness of the child's everyday experience is highlighted and enhanced in this approach to language: by welcoming her experience we bring forth the child.
In shibusa, the roughness of daily life is beautiful in its irregularity. Removing roughness removes the beauty of life. A shibui post-modern education would retain and honor such roughness.
Normalcy
Normalcy is reflected in the healthiness and endurance of everyday life. Shibui art, because it emerges from the ordinary experiences of ordinary people, has a utilitarian strength that serves daily needs. A good example is folk art created for everyday use by unknown artisans; it is rough and robust, not the work of schooled genius. Rather, it is the work of simple honest people who toil close to Nature. As such, anything too complicated, ornate, or luxurious is abnormal. The criterion of normalcy actualizes the aesthetic dimension at the level of common folk. Normalcy in education brings forth the aesthetic dimension out of the everyday studies of the everyday pupil.
In this sense, a shibui ecosophical education is not exclusively reserved for the artistically gifted, for the exceptionally creative, or for the academically talented; it is the province of students who live their education as a natural expression of daily life. This contrasts with the usual role of aesthetics in education wherein aesthetics is largely confined to school art. Having separated aesthetics from the rest of the subjects, there is no expectation that science, language arts, social studies, mathematics, or the rest of the curriculum be aesthetic in any significant way. They are subjects to be taught; they are not normal in the sense of being the realization of the aesthetic in everyday life.
In ecosophical education, subjects would not be separated out for individual glorification; knowledge would constitute the everyday epistemology of the everyday experiences of the everyday student, who does not leave Nature behind when entering school.
Epilogue
In a self-referential sense the present paper in its own organization is a counter example of shibusa: In the paper, shibusa has been explicitly presented as seven artificially separated aspects. To alleviate this countervailing character, allow us to suggest a way of bringing forth shibusa within one principle. This is the principle of the unfinished. Shibusa, in having no mechanical regularity or quantitative precision, invites participation by the observer because it suggests rather than commands; it emerges within a reciprocity of respect; it opens up new possibilities because it is inherently unfinished. As Okakura (1956, p. 46) noted:
In art the importance of the same principle [the unfinished] is illustrated by the value of suggestion. In leaving something unsaid the beholder is given a chance to complete the idea and thus a great masterpiece irresistibly rivets your attention until you seem to become actually a part of it. A vacuum is there for you to enter and fill up to the full measure of your aesthetic emotion.
The principle of the unfinished can be contrasted with an opposite principle in traditional pedagogy in which anything left unfinished is seen as a weakness or a deficiency: homework not done, a lesson left hanging, or instructions not followed. In a shibui education, the unfinished is a call to participate, an invitation to become, not a cause for reprimand. It is a call for students to actualize themselves as a center wherein the everyday experiences of others can find a resonance that brings forth humanity in Nature. It is a call for teachers to do likewise; for them to listen, for in truly listening, we encourage the shibusa dwelling in others.
We suggest that the principle of the unfinished is central to ecosophical education; it holds within itself an attitude of humility which allows emergent production (as in folk art) to unfold within Nature. In this sense, ecosophy is always a concern for the emergent aspects of unfinished evolution.
Shibusa as a way of ecosophical education would reject a separate course (part) to be added to the curriculum; additions of this sort presume that the present curriculum is satisfactory in its own right. Shibusa as a way of teaching would imbue all courses with ecosophical awareness. In this way, the unfinished becomes the way to education, a medium for ecosophical being. Perhaps in this way, and as suggested by Bernard Leach in his introduction to Soetsu Yanagi's classical work Folk Crafts in Japan (1949, p. 97):
Here, in the relationship of truth to beauty, maybe Japan makes its greatest contribution to world culture.
In a small way, this paper issues an invitation for others to embrace shibusa as a way of ecosophy.
References
Barret, W. 1979. The Illusion of Technique . Anchor Books, Garden City.
Caley, M. and Sawada, D. 1986. Recursive complementarity. Cybernetica . 29:263-275.
Itoh, T. 1973. Space and Illusion in the Japanese Garden . Tankosha, Tokyo.
Marcuse, H. 1964. One-Dimensional Map . Beacon Press, Boston.
Mandelbrot, B. 1982. The Fractal Geometry of Nature . Freeman, New York.
Muraoka, K. and Okamura, K. 1973. Folk Arts and Crafts of Japan . Weatherhill/Heibonsha, Tokyo.
Okakura, K. 1956. The Book of Tea . Charles Tuttle, Tokyo.
Yanagi, S. 1949. Folk-Crafts in Japan . Kokusai Bunka Shinkokai, Tokyo.
Yanagi, S. 1972. The Unknown Craftsman . Kodansha, Tokyo.
Young, D. 1965. The Origin and Influence of Shibusa in Japan . University of Hawaii, Honolulu.
Zolbrod, L. 1982. Haiku Painting . Kodansha, Tokyo.
Copyright retained by author(s)
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