‘Angry fish’ and ‘dying fish’ matter in the Zhuangzi Too: Political analogies in the ‘happy fish’ dialogue

ABSTRACT

The ‘happy fish’ dialogue is one of the best-known and heatedly debated passages of the Zhuangzi. Scholars have constructed different interpretations of the dialogue. Some argue that this dialogue expresses the idea of living at ease and enjoying life as it is; some refer to the idea of anti-anthropocentrism, while others reconstruct the dialogue as certain epistemological debates. This paper examines the connotations of ‘fish’, ‘water’, and ‘river’ in early Chinese political discourses and reads the political connotations in the dialogue between Zhuangzi and Huizi. This can lead to an alternative interpretation, which is that, at its core, this passage is a dialogue between these two men on politics and their political careers.

KEYWORDS:

• Zhuangzi
• Hui Shi
• fish
• water
• early Chinese political discourse

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Carine Defoort, Roger T. Ames, Philip J. Ivanhoe, Paul D’Ambrosio, Hans-Georg Moeller, Markus M. Haselbeck, Xiaowei Wang and Yao-Cheng Chang for their useful suggestions on earlier drafts. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers for the incisive comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. My translation is based on Ames and Nakajima (1998, p. 219), Graham (2001, p. 123), and Ziporyn (2020, pp. 141–142).

2. Placing the focus on ‘happiness’ is also valid because ‘happiness’ is an important topic in Chinese philosophy (cf. Ivanhoe, 2013, 2017).

3. This line of interpretation is not grounded solely on the word ‘zhi’ in the passage but also on the scholars’ overall assessment of skepticism and relativism in reading the Zhuangzi (Kjellberg & Ivanhoe, 1996).

4. D’Ambrosio (2022) provided a succinct summary of the existing interpretations. The existence of different interpretations of the ‘happy fish’ story demonstrates how challenging the Zhuangzi is for modern interpreters. As the Zhuangzi is a collection of fables, allegories and satires that contains scarce references to factual events, its fragments are open to all sorts of interpretations. Accordingly, and interpretation of the Zhuangzi may inevitably be projection of the interpreter’s own academic background, research interest and prior understanding of Zhuangzian philosophy or early Chinese philosophical debates. This, however, does not imply the invalidity of the attempt in trying to restore the possible textual meaning of some specific passage of the Zhuangzi. For a discussion on different tasks of interpreting Chinese philosophy, see Ivanhoe (2012).

5. This paper draws on the political discourses from early texts of divergent natures to show that the ‘river’, ‘water’ and ‘fish’ political analogies may be widespread in ancient Chinese folklore. I do not suggest that the passages of the texts share opinions or topics by resorting to the ‘water’ and ‘fish’ analogies.

6. Readers who are more interested in getting to know my alternative interpretation and prefer skipping the arguments (analyses of political discourses that refer to fish, water and so on) can move straight to the third section.

7. De Reu (2015) demonstrated that while Chapter 26 of the Zhuangzi may appear to be ‘a ragbag of odds and ends’, it is coherent in terms of its themes and verbal connection. The current paper follows his insight in assuming that the ‘Autumn Floods’ is more or less a coherent chapter.

8. I am aware of the ‘authenticity’ issues of the Spring and Autumn Annals of Master Yan (Milburn, 2015, pp. 3–67), and some of the other texts I cite in this paper have similar issues. Some scholars tend to be cautious about and refrain from conducting intertextual analyses that engage with certain texts that might possibly have been authored, composed and edited in different periods or might have been ‘forged’. This approach is understandable. However, my interpretive methodological assumption is that including as many texts as possible could make the interpretation better because it can explain more; that is, an interpretation than can makes sense of the existence of a forgery may be better than one that cannot make sense of it. Examining an early intellectual milieu in a ‘sterile room’, according to my methodological assumption, is akin to observing the political trends and public opinions in a state without considering information that may likely be rumors or fake news.

9. My translation is adapted from Sawyer and Sawyer (1993, pp. 40–41).

10. My translation is adapted from Ziporyn (2020, p. 220).

11. As I have argued elsewhere, many Zhuangzian criticisms of Ru-Mo 儒墨 (often translated as Confucians and Mohists) or Kongzi may very likely insinuate the Mengzi (Lee, 2014, 2017). The Shiji 史記 (Records of the Grand Historian) suggests that Zhuangzi was contemporary to Mengzi and wrote essays to criticise and ridicule Ru-Mo, who traveled to different states to promote themselves and seek offices (Sima, 1969, p. 2144). The Zhuangzi probably uses the word ‘ying’ to mock Mengzi or political careerists of his time.

12. For a more detailed analysis of ‘ren-yi’ as a strategic term for war unifying all under Heaven, see Lee (2017).

13. Translation adapted from Graham (2003, pp. 113–114).

14. For a discussion on the ancient debate about the idealistic idea of ‘war to end all wars’, see Lee (2023).

15. The story of Hui Shi being expelled and traveling to the Chu is recorded in the Zhanguoce 戰國策 (Stratagems of the Warring States) (Liu, 2000, pp. 169–171).

Additional information

Funding

The article has been funded by the project ‘Confucian Just War Theory: The Case of Punishment Theory’ (MYRG2022-00194-FAH).