Thinking the Non-Conceptual in Zhang Ailing's "Love in a Fallen City"

Thinking the Non-Conceptual in Zhang Ailing's “Love in a Fallen City”

Zhang Ailing's technique of uneven contrast can be thought of as a model for non-identity thinking. Specifically, uneven contrast bears a striking resemblance to Theodor Adorno's negative dialectics. In order to analyze this similarity, and further to contribute a synthetic development which is a true advance on the already existing works in their mutual separation, the particularities of Zhang's use and understanding of difference will be conceptually isolated and then critiqued. First, the capability of uneven contrast to think the non-conceptual will be analyzed, along with the same capability of negative dialectics; then these two will be brought into critical tension and analyzed from the other's perspective; finally uneven contrast and negative dialectics will be applied to the question of causality, which makes a prominent appearance in the ambiguity of the title of Zhang's story “Love in a Fallen City” (alternatively translated as “Love that Fells a City”).


The primary task of modern philosophy is to think the non-conceptual, to deal with that which is outside it, that which is outside itself. Adorno wrote, “Dialectics represents the attempt to incorporate into philosophy whatever is heterogeneous, philosophy's other... [I]t wishes to import the non-conceptual into philosophy” (Lectures on Negative Dialectics 57). There are those equations of disparate elements, such as Hegel's equation of thinking and being, which seek to avoid the problem. The non-conceptual, though, cannot be done away with one and for all, if the method of this vanquishing is simply the repeated conceptual proofs showing the problem to be a non-problem. Rather, the things which are disparate must be shown to be such, in line with their immanent objectivity. Form must follow content, and only thereby can substance be retained. But the question of the necessity of thinking the non-conceptual is easy to resolve, in contrast to the question of how to do so. Objectivity must be retained, hand in hand with rigor, while continuing to observe non-concepts and making space for them within the descriptive scheme of thought. Uneven contrast is a literary method that points to just this possibility, the deconstruction of concepts by their opposing concepts and the eventual decomposition of the conceptual itself.

Zhang says of this, “...I still use the method of uneven contrast to show the reality in the emptiness, the simplicity in the ornamentation, of contemporary people” (“My Writing” in Modern Chinese Literary Thought 439). The emptiness of the concept, known so well by Hegel in his initial being-nothingness derivation, is here put forth as the false, the non-real. It is that which is to be taken back up into reality, to be revitalized by unevenness. The sterility of the self-same concept, the endless analytical tautological system of deduction, the logical equivalence of disparate entities, must be cast aside if the reality is to be found beneath the layers of abstraction and of abstractness. That the even contrast of pure opposites denotes an unacceptable level of abstraction is apparent in the ideological “ornamentation” of reality by grand theories of the pure concept. This occurs not just in the obvious case of German idealism, but even in philosophies claiming anti-idealism, such as Heidegger's. The symbolic realm of language is the very sphere whose existence necessitates the problems of concept-object contradiction. Language thus cannot be the level at which the problem is resolved, at least as a theoretical object, and at most as a restrictive horizon of pseudo-activity. The key is the uneven, the heterogeneous, the multiple-level, that of the multiplicity and of compulsive reaching-past. Thought is content neither with its external demarcations nor with those self-imposed barriers to fluidity that constantly seek to reduce the movement of thought to binary opposition. The logical negation of a so-called proposition is, without the non-conceptual, the same thing as that original proposition, as of course is clear in Hegel. What is different is the non-conceptual, and to get to that no amount of formalism can help us. Substantive philosophy as well as sound literary theory need what cannot be had, the unthinkable.

In what is perhaps the most powerful example of uneven contrast, Zhang writes, “Countless thousands of people dead, countless thousands of people suffering, after that an earth-shaking revolution... Liusu didn't feel there was anything subtle about her place in history. She stood up, smiling, and kicked the pan of mosquito-repellant incense under the table” (Love 167). To use an almost too obvious example, the logical negation of “countless thousands of people dead” is “not countless thousands of people dead” or something equivalent. The difference, however, the heterogeneity of the two predicates, cannot be thought in a formalism. Unevenness cannot be captured in a structure that does not reach past itself. The problem is the spuriousness inherent in any negation that is not a logical negation, leaving unevenness to the random. A striving for escape from the confines of the concept pushes Zhang's narrative into something which appears distorted from the conceptual standpoint, but which is really the unfolding or reconstitution of what was always already deformed. Reality as the uneven, that which seeps into conceptual categories and undoes their self-declared legitimation, is the very stuff of a negative dialectics.

Concept and object are thus related in a fundamentally uneven way. On this Adorno writes, “Due to the inequality inherent in the concept of mediation, the subject enters into the object altogether differently from the way the object enters into the subject” (Adorno Negative Dialectics 183). Furthermore, everything may be an object without being a subject, but the reverse is not the case. The asymmetry is introduced in and through consciousness, and it is important to keep the unique nature of abstraction in mind when dealing with that asymmetry. Nothing remains simply as it was in the beginning, either, for “Mediation must, of course, take place” (Marx 171). What this means for unevenness is that the heterogeneity of the elements is not a simple difference that can be decided or outlined by a process of elimination. Indeed, the other cannot be filled in at all. It's asymmetry all the way down, without any gaps. Taking the other into the structure of the original problem doesn't solve anything, because there is yet more asymmetry, this time between the new structure and yet another other. In fact, that asymmetry is the very direct result of the process of structuralization itself. The Bergsonian concept of virtuality, the heterogeneous multiplicity “behind” the actual, describes the process quite well, although from a non-dialectical standpoint (Deleuze). The importance of this phenomenon, and the mechanism whereby nothing is self-identical, is, as previously noted, well described in Adorno's works.

The determination (of concepts, subjects, objects, etc.) is always mutual, always two-way, and always acausal. Here the importance of the double-movement, concepts entering into objects and objects entering into concepts, is paramount. Both are the active, and both the passive. The one is never truly isolated from the other, no matter what kind of distortions the structure of their interrelations undergoes. The system is always deconstructed by the non-formalizable, but at the same time there is an equal striving for system itself. System is never truly escapable, but it is at the same time never complete and self-contained. The systematic impulse is systemic. In Zhang, this takes the determinate form of the striving for relation between the non-relatable, formalized as much as possible within the straight-jacket of language.

The simplest relation of naïve ontology is that of cause-and-effect between homogeneous unchangeable substances. This, I believe, is what Zhang seeks to critique, although her writing has much broader applicability. Specifically, Zhang writes, “Hong Kong's defeat had brought Liusu victory. But in this unreasonable world, who can distinguish cause from effect?” (Zhang, Love 167). This is compounded quite powerfully by the ambiguity in the translation of the title of the story. As one scholar noted, “...the original Chinese phrase for 'love in a fallen city' can also be read as 'love that topples cities'...” (Wang). This beautiful inversion of cause and effect is not only that, not only a simple reversal, but an uneven reversal, a veritable repudiation of cause and effect in the philosophical sense. A systematic inversion, one dealing with the structure, and not simply with the terms contained within that structure, as an uncritical reversal would be. At this point, a more in-depth look at cause and effect is in order, especially as it relates to this deconstruction.

Cause and effect are names for the relations into which pure isolated substances enter. The thing stands on one side, unaffected in its essence by neither the other thing nor by the peculiar operation of the relation itself, and certainly not by the combination of thing and action. This is not to say that nothing changes in a cause and effect view of the world, but rather it is to say that what changes is separate from the relation into which that changing thing enters—in other words, separate from cause and effect. The change is left to the ephemeral, to the appearances, whereas substance is itself impervious. This means that there are homogeneous elements, things, which interact homogeneously with other things in something we might call a causal chain. This is a mechanical, reversible process that most certainly does not reach past itself and most certainly does not create structures which think the non-conceptual. The external relationships put forward as ubiquitous by the cause and effect view of reality lead to the straight-jacket of formalism, that kind of bad philosophy upheld by the post-Wittgensteinian “philosophers of language”.

The mutual determination of concept and object precludes the causal relations which are the hallmark of homogeneity. Instead, dialectics puts forth the heterogeneity of elements, meaning they cannot be subsumed beneath such a simple and uncritical schema. Not just the relation, not just the particular arrangement of elements, of causes and of effects, is under scrutiny, but also the very concepts themselves. The concepts whose movement generates such friction are not just any concepts, however, but our concepts, created and utilized in our world, that of capitalism and, especially in Zhang's case, of imperialism and colonialism. It may sound silly, but the importance of reality in the formation of our concepts cannot be overstated. As Adorno has so rightfully observed, “Wrong life cannot be lived rightly” (Minima Moralia 39). This means that, by virtue of the way things are at the current time, we cannot have “correct” concepts in a substantive sense. Our consciousness is reified, and no amount of individual criticism can truly pierce the veil. Thus, the failure of Kantian epistemology may be identified as the misunderstanding of this very factor. The non-coincidence of concept and object is, as far as we are here concerned, inherent in system itself, inherent in language, in thought, and in living. And again, “True thoughts are those alone which do not understand themselves” (Adorno, Minima Moralia 192). Those thoughts which are of this world cannot be rational, because this world is not the rational. Therefore, the truth of thoughts is to be measured not by their rational coincidence with reality, but by their deconstructive properties against that reality. What lays bare the incoherence of society, in other words.

Zhang's refutation of cause and effect is ostensibly one that is akin to Jung's theory of synchronicity. The epistemological aspect of the problem, as in “who can distinguish” cause from effect, is however not the defining aspect, at least defined narrowly. The problem of exactitude in science is here paralleled by the problem of abstraction in thought in general. Where does one thing end and another begin? Substance can here play no part, being only an artificially abstracted reified thing from the sea of relations the nexus of which forms the false standard of ontological judgment. Synchronicity is obviously an aspect of Zhang's critique, the meaningful connection of love and the fall of Hong Kong being prominent on the face of the narrative. However, Zhang does not stop there, as the uneven contrast comes into play. There is nothing uneven about synchronicity, and in fact it may exist alongside cause and effect even in the rigorous philosophical sense. Synchronicity is therefore purely epistemological, and the meaningful connections it produces are simply that. Uneven contrast struggles to give voice to the ontological as well as epistemological violence present in the act of systematizing.

The outcome of a denial of system, however, is not as clear as might be hoped, even after Adorno's work on the topic. The double-movement of systematizing/deconstructing is one that leads to an uncertain outcome. Zhang, however, has a positive interpretation, one that stresses the epistemological, synchronous aspect, as seen in the final line, “...oh! Why go into it?” (Zhang, Love 167). An asynchronous movement producing synchronicity in the epistemological sphere may seem quite strange, but it is indeed Zhang's perspective. Opening up a hermeneutic space, Zhang answers the challenge of meaning through the subjective experience and conclusions of Liusu. But as noted, the deconstruction is itself not simply a subjective process, but an actually-existing one as well. Need the subsequent re-construction (whatever that might be) base itself only on the subjective? Have we missed something in the structure of uneven contrast that might answer this question?

Every positivity is also a negativity and vice versa. Negation is determination, as the saying goes. The very critique of the bad through the negating movement of concepts is a (however small) form of positivity, but this is quite mundane and not what concerns us at present. Rather, the deconstruction of concepts is the more objective the more those deconstructed concepts are real abstractions. A true grounding of interpretation is thus the analysis of those categories that govern society though they are not thoughts, thought they are non-conceptual. These non-conceptual categories, or real abstractions, are explored most prominently by Alfred Sohn-Rethel and Isaak Illich Rubin. Real abstraction is a phenomenon that arises in capitalism due to the abstract nature of human labor within that system. Multifarious concrete labors are equated only insofar as they are treated abstractly by the capitalist mode of production and exchange. In the exchange of a commodity for money, the abstract labor contained in one is equated with that in the other (see Marx's labor theory of value). Other prominent real abstractions under capitalism are the Newtonian worldview and its corresponding Kantian epistemology (Sohn-Rethel). These types of abstractions are objective, non-conceptual, real, and to use Hegelian terminology, they are the self-abstraction or self-knowledge of capitalism as a mode of production, as a system.

This new level of objectivity brings with it the possibility of interpretation that is not simply a hermeneutic exercise, a subjective deconstruction of the ideology of capitalism. Rather, this cuts much deeper. It is an objective deconstruction of not only the ideology of capitalism, but of the objective regulatory categories of capitalism itself. Zhang's deconstruction of cause and effect becomes comprehensible, as the categories making up cause and effect are seen to be real abstractions, or immediately derived therefrom, or at the very least they function here as metaphors. The cause-and-effect view we have previously considered, wherein homogeneous unchangeable substances enter into relations with one another, closely parallels the logic of a capitalist economy. Unchanging commodities, according to Sohn-Rethel, enter into relations with other commodities, the most prominent of which is money (while not actually a commodity, fiat money stands in for the universal commodity). In fact, commodities must be assumed to be identical, unchanging in the act of exchange, and equal in terms of value/price for capitalism to work at all. In other words, cause and effect is the epistemological or superstructural product (not in a causal sense!) of generalized commodity production and exchange.

While all concepts may be shown to be false, may be deconstructed by uneven contrast and by negative dialectics, it is only those real abstractions which through their deconstruction yield something more than a simple negative positivity (if that phrase may be forgiven). This product of capitalist categories themselves is nothing other than that recognized quite clearly by Zhang and explored by her in the course of her work “Love in a Fallen City”. It is not simply a negative positivity because the object of its deconstruction is not something merely existing in the ideological sphere, where it would be unclear as to its real connections, but rather it is something directly real, something which exists through the self-abstraction of the capitalist system itself. Uneven contrast is like the deconstruction of the ideology of a person, except instead of a person it is the ideology of reality. Thus, the self-understanding of society, that of philosophical cause and effect (in this case; the critique could easily be extended), is demolished, and dialectical acausality is shown to be of ontological priority. We would do well here to remember Joseph Dietzgen's work on abstraction, which in essence asks the question about the boundaries of objects being the product of mental activity. Inside and outside are mental constructions, and with Zhang they are effectively deconstructed.

The ability of uneven contrast to think the non-conceptual is its great contribution to thought, closely paralleling that of Adorno's negative dialectics. This ability becomes all the more powerful and useful when it is applied to the deconstruction of society's own self-understanding, on a non-individual level, as in the deconstruction of real abstractions and their immediately traceable products.




Works Cited

Adorno, Theodor. Minima Moralia: Reflections From Damaged Life. Trans. E. F. N. Jephcott. London: Verso, 2005. Print.

Adorno, Theodor. Negative Dialectics. Seabury Press, 1973. Print.

Adorno, Theodor. Lectures on Negative Dialectics: Fragments of a Lecture Course 1965/1966. Cambridge: Polity, 2008. Print.

Deleuze, Gilles. Bergsonism. New York: Zone Books, 1988. Print.

Marx, Karl. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Vol. 1. Trans. Ben Fowkes. New York: Vintage, 1979.

Sohn-Rethel, Alfred. Intellectual and Manual Labour : a Critique of Epistemology. London: Macmillan, 1978. Print.

Xiaoping Wang. "Eileen Chang's Cross-Cultural Writing and Rewriting in Love in a Fallen City (《倾城之恋》)."Comparative Literature Studies 49.4 (2012): 565-84. Print.

Zhang, Ailing. “My Writing.” Modern Chinese Literary Thought :Writings on Literature, 1893- 1945. Ed. Kirk A. Denton. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1996. 436-442. Print.

Zhang, Ailing. Love in a Fallen City. New York: New York Review Books, 2007. Print.