Harmony: A Delicate Dance of Symmetry

Harmony is a concept that plays a pivotal role throughout Chinese history (Li, 2008 ) as much as love does in Christianity. Also similar to love in Christianity, much good as well as evil has been done in the name of harmony. It is important therefore to delineate the basic structure of this root metaphor in order to differentiate between optimal and suboptimal versions of harmony. This chapter shows how casting harmony in the framework of symmetry (Chap. 1 ) will help us in this endeavor. Harmony may be defi ned as an aesthetic emotion, a pleasure derived from the pleasure of attaining multiple goals at once. Aesthetic emotions are defi ned by Deacon ( 2006 ) as “essentially emotional relationships between emotions” (p. 51). As such, harmony entails two essential elements—relations between terms, and awareness of the relations between terms. The topic of awareness, especially secondorder awareness (pleasure of pleasure), will be briefl y mentioned but not explored here, as it will be treated more fully in later chapters (especially Chap. 10 ). This chapter focuses on only one of the key elements of harmony—relations between terms. My investigation is divided into three parts: First, a structural analysis suggests that harmony is a high dimensional complex system that is invested in symmetry maintenance. Second, I examine cognitive styles and associated strategies that serve the purpose of symmetry maintenance. Third, I put forward the argument that there are two factors that tip the balance between optimal and suboptimal versions of harmony—avoidance of symmetry breakdown, and lack of cognitive complexity.