Reverence and Nature

The articles by Phillipe Thiebault and Choi Chang-jo both offer insight into the ways in which society, as a function of the organization of individuals, brings itself to approach the issue of ecology and the environment. For Thiebault, the environment plays a fundamental role in the interactions between individuals in society and reflects the vital and necessary innocent traits of nature that are so important to modern society. By revering nature in its most basic forms, Thiebault argues in favor of restoring compassion and preserving the natural realm from human destruction. Existing in harmony is the natural state by which humans should evolve to match and instead, Thiebault argues, society is not governed by reverence and love with nature but by immoral base actions and the inability to allow nature to thrive. It is through an ecological approach to society's interactions with the environment that humanity can achieve harmony and balance and, as a result, maintain a world in which all living creatures are capable of growing and fulfilling themselves.  Chang-jo's article, on the other hand, focuses on the p'ungsu, an approach to organizing human life so that it exists in a state of harmony with nature. Reflective of traditional Chinese fengshui, Chang-jo offers many ways to place villages, cities, and even entire nations in physical locations to create the greatest level of harmony. For Chang-jo, the physical and the mental are one and the same; through a connection with the land, human society is capable of creating and molding the very idea of harmony. 

Thiebault, basing his analysis of culture and the environment of the Chinese Yijing, argues that not only is man intrinsically linked to his environment but that the “environment” itself is part of the broader universe in which all things exist. Not limited to merely the forests and oceans and skies, the Chinese universe and environment is one that encompasses all matter and all beings into one great world. As such, the universe exists in a state of harmony, and any discord present in that system will eventually be flushed out and repaired. Mankind, therefore, exists inside the universe and operates on the basis of both achieving and maintaining that beautiful harmony with nature. Both action and inaction are part of this, and judging the proper course of behavior for a particular task is focused around the idea of modesty and harmony. Through the Yijing and Thiebault's analysis, we see the importance of modest action and appropriate reaction to create harmony and balance in the universe. Chang-jo's text is in agreement with the analysis of Thiebault, showing the classical Eastern philosophy of harmony with nature as a fundamental function of man's interaction with his environment. Despite the similarities in philosophic approach, Chang-jo's article makes far more of an effort to understand the spatial relationship between the physical world and the harmonious nature of the universe—by stressing the importance of mankind's organization on the world, we see the significance of spatial relations as it pertains to maintaining harmony in the universe. 

The articles raise the question of whether Thiebault's analysis differs in the importance placed on spatial relations as seen in Chang-jo, and the extent to which philosophical differences between the Chinese and Korean sources mentioned (Yijing and p'ungsu) are relevant in the dialogue between the authors.