{"id":8980,"date":"2019-01-13T04:50:58","date_gmt":"2019-01-13T04:50:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/green-liberty.org\/circlesandsquares\/?p=8980"},"modified":"2019-01-13T04:50:58","modified_gmt":"2019-01-13T04:50:58","slug":"the-chinese-concept-of-propriety-li-as-the-key-to-new-ecological-awareness%ef%bb%bf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/green-liberty.org\/circlesandsquares\/2019\/01\/13\/the-chinese-concept-of-propriety-li-as-the-key-to-new-ecological-awareness%ef%bb%bf\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThe Chinese concept of propriety (\u201cli\u201d) as the key to new ecological awareness\u201d\ufeff"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Circles\u00a0and\u00a0Squares<\/b><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Chinese concept of propriety (\u201cli\u201d) <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

as the key to new ecological awareness\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Emanuel Pastreich<\/p>\n\n\n\n

January 13, 2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Chinese tradition of \u201cli\u201d \u793c has a broad significance as a set of rules that set standards in behavior\nthat create harmony between individuals, and between the institutions of human\nsociety. Li, both in general sense of manners and propriety, and in the narrow\nsense of rituals of life (birth, marriage, funerals, ancestor worship and\nofferings to Heaven), was the foundation for society and defined family\nrelationships and encouraged responsibility and accountability within the\nfamily, the community, the nation and the realm. Li was seen as foundations for governance, for international relations and for all family relations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the narrow sense, \u201cli\u201d refers to the offering up of\nfood and other valued objects as sacrifices to the ancestors of a clan, the former emperor or king, or to heaven,\nor other deities. It served as periodic affirmation of the indebtedness of the\nindividual, of the family and of humanity\nas a whole to the ecological cycles that produced the food that we consume and\ngave deeper significance to foodstuff, and the act of eating in a manner that\nencouraged an awareness of the centrality of agriculture and the importance of\nthe ecosystem.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLi\u201d in the sense of \u201cpropriety\u201d defines a set of complex rules that governed conduct between people and created a healthy order in\nsociety through the reinforcement of\nmoral imperatives in daily life. \u201cLi\u201d in the sense of greeting family member in\naccord with their position within the family (and thus making social relations\nexplicit, and therefore acknowledged) had profound symbolic value and real\nethical power as well. \u201cLi\u201d in the sense of propriety grew directly out of \u201cli\u201d as ritual in that periodic rituals defined relationships and assured that everyone, even the\nemperor, is neatly woven into a larger hierarchy of things human and natural so that no\none can imagine himself or herself to be standing alone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this sense, \u201cli\u201d as propriety and ritual reinforced a sense of balance\nbetween humans that was intimately connected to the larger balance between the\nhuman realm and the natural realm. Chinese felt deeply liberated in the process\nof modernization in that they gained freedom from these ritual acts which\nseemed to restrict their actions so severely, but that meant that they no\nlonger felt tied to each other or to the natural world. The result was the\ngrowing exploitation of fellow humans in an alienated society and the\ndestruction of the natural environment. Although the socialist revolution in\nChina tried to set right the radical exploitation of labor, it did so within a\nMarxist framework which did not affirm human relations with the natural\nenvironment. More recently, the gap between rich and poor in China, and the\nworld, has gone far beyond what Confucians would have tolerated and the\ndestruction of soil, water and mountains has become a tremendous tragedy\nprecisely because the intimate connection constantly repeated in \u201cli\u201d has been\ndestroyed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ritual is not limited to Confucianism. It has strong foundations in Buddhism, in Daoism and in shamanism in East Asia, and for that matter parallels in\nChristianity and Islam. Perhaps one of the greatest weaknesses in contemporary\nideology is our loss of a language to describe ritual. That is to say that\nalthough we pretend that we have moved beyond the rituals of the past into a\nmodern age of self-expression and directness, in fact ritual is deeply imbedded\nin human culture and cannot be overcome. Rather, modern society consists of\nmany rituals that citizens are not aware of as rituals (like the rituals of\nshopping and of consuming). At the same time, citizens lack awareness of the\npower of ritual to connect citizens together and to increase their awareness of\nthe environment and to create a political and spiritual commons. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Confucian ritual tradition, especially after Zhu Xi\u2019s (1130-1200)\ncodification and standardization of ritual practice during the Southern Song\nDynasty, and his linkage of ritual with a metaphysical totality, gave family,\ncommunity and state rituals a new intellectual import. The importance of the\nrelationship between the underlying metaphysical order of things, the ecosystem\nand the human realm the dates back to ancient times,[1]<\/a> but\nit had never been put together in such a systematic manner. Suddenly man\u2019s ties\nto nature in his every action were made explicit, and intellectually involved. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zhu Xi unambiguously mapped out the significance of\nrituals and wedded them directly to an imbricated metaphysical order that lay\nbehind every act in the family rituals.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tremendous potential of the Confucian rituals is\nthe manner in which they affirm the relationship between the individual and\nnature, between the consumption of food and the awareness of its origins, between\ndaily life for the citizen and the ecosystem as a whole. Those rituals, if they\ncan be reinterpreted for our age, offer the potential of a solution to the most\nserious threat to our society, the growth of mindless consumption as the\nprimary ritual of daily life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Modernity, consumption and family rituals: The Korean case<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I married my Korean wife twenty two years ago, I\ndiscovered that her family practiced the most strict and carefully orchestrated\nConfucian rituals at the time of the Autumn Harvest and the traditional new\nyear\u2019s for the ancestors, and also on the days of the deaths of ancestors. The\nentire family would come from across Korea, or even from abroad to be at the parents\u2019\nhouse for the events without fail. They would cancel other engagements and sit\nthrough hours of heavy traffic to be present.  The elder boys spent considerable time laying\nout the meat, peeled chestnuts, persimmons, apples, wine and other foods in the\nappropriate places, and in the appropriate dish or bowl. All was done in accord\nwith the careful diagrams in books the family treasured. Those diagrams were\nbased directly on Zhu Xi\u2019s instructions for the family rites (jiali \u5bb6\u793c) in Zhuzi Jiali<\/em> (\u6731\u5b50\u5bb6\u793c). At that\ntime, I was attracted to the solidarity of the family and the commitment to\ntradition in her family, and I was honored to be included in the rituals as a\nnew member of the family. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the years, however, the members of my wife\u2019s\nfamily have taken far less interest in the rituals; often her brothers do not\ncome at all, saying they are too busy with work. The children also go out to\nplay with their friends, or show up just for a few minutes to show their\nrespects and then rush out the door. So also the placement of the food and\nother objects on the table for the ceremonies has become far more sloppy since\nmy wife\u2019s father passed away. Often there are only a few people helping to set\nup the offerings\u2014sometimes only me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I fear that the Confucian rituals will not be carried\nout at all by the next generation, perhaps not after my wife\u2019s mother\u2019s\ngeneration passes away. It is hard to imagine my children, granted the\nseductive consumption culture that they have grown up in, carrying on such a\ntradition. The loss is considerable, but not much different from what we have\nseen in Vietnam, Japan and China. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Increasingly we hear tales of aged parents who are abandoned\nby their children, and also of children who are discarded, or neglected, by\ntheir parents. The decline of Confucian ritual is not the only cause of this\ntransformation of Chinese and Korean society, nor are the changes entirely\nnegative, but overall, the result has been the growth of a narcissistic culture\nfocused on the immediate, on the self, on image (as opposed to values) and\nunconcerned with future consequences. Confucian rituals served as a constant affirmation\nof the common roots that tie people together, and a demonstration of our mutual\nethical obligations. The rituals had significance far beyond any effect that\npleasing the ancestors might have for the fortune of the family. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The greatest\nassault on ritual comes from commercial advertising. Rather than adversisements\nthat encourage cooperation and concern for those who have had fewer advantages,\ncurrent adversiings is vacuous and indulgent, the equivalent of pornography in\nterms of its ethical content. Selfishness is held up as an ideal and it makes a\ngrotesque appeal to the appetite, to the unreasoning instincts of the brain\nstem. Such advertising is violation of the sacredness of food and of clothing,\nof everything in our daily lives. By contrast, Confucian rituals affirmed the\nrelations between members of society and a spiritual aspect in daily life.
\n
\nWe should be encouraging people to value every grain of rice, every drop of\nwater, and it is unethical to suggest to our citizens that they should treat\nbinge eating as something to be emulated. Our climate has been turned into a\ndesert, and our society has been turned into a desert by TV programs that deny\nwhat is the best in the Confucian tradition: the ethical imperative for\npersonal frugality and a deep respect for agricultural production. 
\n
\nThe failure of citizens to wrap their minds around the threat of nuclear war,\nof climate change, of the rapid concentration of wealth and of other dangers is\na direct result of a new anti-intellectual culture. We no longer employ\nrigorous scientific approaches to the analysis of contemporary society, or even\nto our private lives. But that anti-intellectual trend is\na result of our failure to relate our actions to the larger society because we\nno longer have rituals that bind us together.
\n
\nTraining our citizens to control and moderate their desires was considered to\nbe essential in traditional Korea and China. As I witness\nso many highly educated people lost in frivolous amusements today, I wonder\nwhether we should see those past f rituals as representing not so much an\noppressive ideology as an ethical imperative to affirm commitment to each other\nthrough practice.
\n
\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Food, society and the environment<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The affirmation of the value of food in a social and environmental sense was a critical part of ritual , from ancient times, and\nespecially after Zhu Xi. Affirming the\nimportance of food in our lives, and our ties to our ancestors and our ties to nature serves to increase our awareness of the importance of food, even adding\na spiritual dimension to the daily eating and drinking of food and beverages. In the face of climate change, such a shift is absolutely necessary. We do\nnot have to go the some advance Western country to find such awareness. We can\nfind it in the Confucian past. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is in this respect that ritual has so much potential power.\nRitual in the Confucian tradition affirms a spiritual essence within the\neveryday objects, especially in food. In ancient times, this concept can be\ntraced back to a belief that all objects, like food, have an essence which is\nspiritual (and which feeds the ancestors or nourishes heaven) and an essence with is material (and\nnourishes us in this material world). The implication for later generations of that view\nwas that food offered up in ritual was a confirmation of the value of\nagriculture and the maintenance of the environment as a means of producing\nfood, and an affirmation of a spiritual essence within food. The ritual act was\nalso a sign of respect for the process, stretching over hundreds and thousands\nof years, by which humans and agriculture formed a whole. <\/h1>\n\n\n\n

In a traditional view of the world, man exists primarily as the farmer who\ntills the fields and then he consumes the food, and finally he lies, buried,\nbeneath those fields. In the end, his body becoming part of that Earth again\nand contributed to the process. The food that nourishes us, and will nourish\nfuture generations, is literally the product of the ancestors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Confucian ritual does not refer explicitly to such a process, but such an\nunderstanding of the link between the human and the natural realms is buried not\nfar below the surface. After all, as the ancestors passed down to us the skills\nof farming, they also gave life to us and created our environment not only\nthrough their wisdom, but also by becoming a part of the soil. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the last hundred years, the process by which our world is formed by the\nevents of the past, and our actions impact future generations has been\ncompletely lost, leading to profoundly self-destructive acts such as the\nconsumption of plastic products and the use of food as a source of pleasure and\ndistraction, rather than a means of nourishment. The separation of the human\nrealm from the natural one, through sealed buildings with air conditioning, has\ncreated an absolute break with the natural world, and a mistaken belief that\nhumans are somehow separate from other animals. That process has been forgotten\nby the present generation, leading to a radical cultural discontinuity with the\npast, and also to a glaring ignorance about where food comes from, how it is\nproduced and what impact that process has on our lives. The destruction of the\necosystem and its long-term impact on food is a taboo topic which is never\nmentioned.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From early times, and especially since the Song Dynasty, ritual became a\nmetaphysical experience for the individual, for the family, and especially for\nthe intellectual that reaffirmed the organic connection of humans with food,\nwith the environment and with a larger historical and ecological order of\nbeing. Of course there were narrower interpretations within the popular culture\nwherein ritual events served as opportunities to bring good fortune, or to\nsolve immediate worries of women of the household. Such understanding was no in\nconflict with the metaphysical significance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The consumption of food after the offering to the ancestors, or to heaven, especially grains and other agricultural produce made\nritual a celebration of the process by which human experience is linked to the\nfood that provides nourishment, and thus confirmed the intimate interplay of\nearth and food, water and food<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That critical space of ritual in the lives of Chinese that\nmade clear how one\u2019s daily life was tied to others, and to the earth was\nsubject to a powerful intellectual assault from the late 19th<\/sup>\ncentury as the new ideology of modernization and industrialization took root in\nChina. Confucian rituals were dismissed as a backwards superstition that\nimpeded the radical transformation of China into a modern nation[2]<\/a>. Two generations of Chinese intellectuals made it a top priority to stamp\nout the lingering traces of an\noppressive feudal society. Those events ceased to be a means of affirming man\u2019s\nconnection to nature and to each other, or to agriculture, for them. Ritual was\nperceived as a barrier to the development of factories, trains and automobiles,\nfinancial institutions and a modern global culture. Modernity was something\nthat was required and it could only be achieved by severing attachments to\nothers, and to the natural world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remember when I first studied Chinese history at\nYale University in 1983. In the course I heard at length about the tragic story\nof how backwards-looking bureaucrats failed to modernize China because they\nadhered to rigid Confucian concepts of government, and of technology, which\nhobbled them and rendered them incapable of embracing the obvious step forward\ninto modernity of mass production, coal-fired trains and factories and the\ngrowth of massive cities. I was taught the tragic story of how China fell pathetically\nbehind the West because of such backwards thinking. The implication was that was\nsomething essentially flawed about the Chinese cultural tradition, for all its\nglory, which demanded that essential principles from the West be imported in\norder to move on to the next, inevitable step of cultural evolution. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But now that we are witnessing  the catastrophe of climate change and see\ndirectly the horrible distortions in our economy and in our society that have\nresulted from the use of coal and petroleum to drive factories, trains and\nautomobiles\u2014not the mention a lethal new generation of weapons\u2014can we continue\nto cling to that narrative?  It is a hard\nmyth to abandon as it is linked to every aspect of our modern ideology, both\nideologies of the right and the left. Yet we must ask whether or not a system\nin which the engagement with the environment, the focus on agriculture (and\nspecifically food) and the demand for a human-centered economic system in which\nethics outweighed profits or scale of production was not superior to the modern\nsystem we have imported in which the natural world, and humans as well, are\nsubjects for constant exploitation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The She and Ji rituals (\u793e\u7a37) performed\nby the Chinese emperor in Beijing (and the Korean kings of the Joseon Dynasty) served\nas a unique combination of the assertion of political authority at the highest\nlevel in the promotion of the well-being of ordinary citizens with the\nrecognition of the critical importance of the ecosystem for human society. These\nrituals paralleled the rituals of the family at the highest level. The \u201cShe\u201d\nritual was intended for the god of the Earth, a spiritual presence who guards\nthe soil so critical to nourishing the crops which nourish the people and\nundergirds the entire political economy. The \u201cJi\u201d ritual was intended for the\ngod of the crops, the spiritual presence who protects plants and assures that\nthey mature so as to provide food without suffering from pestilences, insects\nor droughts.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The emperor\u2019s offerings were not mere superstition, but\nrather an explicitly political and spiritual representation of the essential\nties between the earth, and the plants that grow in it, and the political and\neconomic activities of humans. Such awareness in the political realm of ecology\ncreated a balance between human settlements and the natural world. But that\nbalance has vanished from modern society. There are numerous rituals carried\nout in party meetings in China today, and the hosting of foreign dignitaries,\nbut none of them affirm the importance of the biosphere or the centrality of\nagriculture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The loss of an awareness of\nthe importance of nature for human\nsociety in the modernization project has had extremely serious consequences for modern\nChinese society. We no longer have any symbolic representations to remind the\npeople of the importance of nature and domestic agriculture to their physical\nand spiritual wellbeing. We have no symbolic representations, or ritual\nexpressions, of the ties between the earth, water plants and our civilization. People are concerned about the environment in an abstract sense, but give\nno thought to how every plastic object they throw away impacts the environment.\nWe are bombarded by images of modernity defined in terms of highways, high-rise\nbuildings, automobiles, computers and landscapes completely devoid of plants of any type. It is\nassumed in the commercial imagination that plants, and specifically crops, are interchangeable\nand that they can be bought and sold from around the world without any impact\non our civilization. Farming is considered a backwards\nindustry of the past. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But a civilization cut free from all awareness of the\nproduction of food from the soil, all understanding of the effort required to feed people, is a\ncivilization that is in danger of falling head first into a dangerous cult of consumption and complete disregard\nfor our ecological future. It is a dangerous and destructive\ncivilization indeed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Song Confucianism, especially as embodied by the\nteachings of Zhu Xi, provided the basis for the She and Ji rituals and other\naffirmations of the importance of agriculture and the environment in the lives\nof all people. The focus of Zhu Xi on the metaphysical significance of man\u2019s\nposition in the natural world set the groundwork for an embrace of ecology in\nan intellectual and spiritual sense within the Confucian tradition, going\nfurther than Buddhism in the criticality assigned.[3]<\/a>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zhu Xi described a complex moral psychology, limned\nthrough ritual practice, wherein the relationship of the individual, and\nsociety, to the natural environment was identified as central to the search for enlightenment. The process of becoming aware of one\u2019s environment was established as a significant goal in\nself-cultivation and in active practice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Song Confucianism argued that if\nwe connect to our inborn nature we will see no separation between ourselves and\nnature and therefore we must treat nature with appropriate reverence. Zhu Xi\nrefers to a mental state of \u201cmaintaining reverence\u201d (chi jing<\/em>\u6301\u656c)\nthat was the central condition for self-cultivation. This mental state grew\nfrom the adherence\nto rules of propriety and a care for the human and natural world that was taught to young people, but also was meant to be\ndeveloped to a higher degree in adulthood. Reverence required discipline,\nfocused thinking and mindfulness that opened the mind to the way. The final\nstage of humaneness, or the final sagehood, required a full\nembrace of one\u2019s inborn connection to nature and to the entire natural world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zhu Xi\u2019s essay \u201cA treatise on Humaneness\u201d (Renshuo \u4ec1\u8bf4) assumed that there was no\nseparation between the human and the animal world. He saw a commonality not\nonly of experience, but of existence itself between the two realms.[4]<\/a>\nZhu Xi explained \u201cthe person of humaneness regards Heaven and Earth and all\nthings as one body. To that person there is nothing that is not oneself.\u201d The\nenlightened one feels a deep affinity for plants, grasses and trees as living\nthings. For Zhu Xi it was human selfishness and hubris that blocks the\nawareness of this deep connection and therefore endless effort is required.\nReverence was not only reverence for ancestors and Heaven, but also for nature\nitself and a deep awareness of one\u2019s impact on the environment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A\nlandmark report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change convened by\nthe United Nations entitled \u201cGlobal Warming of 1.5 C\u201d<\/a> [5]<\/a>was\nreleased recently that presents a far more shocking vision for the\nimmediate future than the corporate media was willing to acknowledge before.\nThe report suggests that humanity faces catastrophic consequences of its\ncarbon-centered economy and makes a clear break with the previous assumption\nthat carbon trading schemes are sufficient to address the problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report avoids much of the far more pessimistic predictions of many experts,\nbut goes further than any mainstream report so far. And yet the ultimate\nimplications of the report have been swept under the rug by a modern society\nstill in deep denial. The problem is not carbon emissions from factories and\nautomobiles, nor it the problem the use of technologies. It is rather the full\nembrace of an ideology, a mentality, which holds that the consumption of goods\ndefines the significance of one\u2019s human experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That destructive ideology underlies most of the assumptions of our modern\nsociety and determines the priorities of our citizens to a remarkable degree.\nYet the traditions of the past, and especially the close connection between\nhumans and the environment represented by food as described in the rituals of\nthe Confucian tradition, offer an alternative to us. We do not know yet how\nthat Confucian tradition can be reinterpreted for the modern age, and for the\nentire world, but the potential is most certainly there. After all, Zhu Xi\u2019s\nwritings on ritual were successful in Korea precisely because they emphasized\nuniversality, not specificity. They made the ritual part of the process of\nenlightenment, something that anyone could participate in. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or we could say that Zhu Xi brought the individual act together with\nuniversal principles in a powerful manner. Such a skill is most precisely what\nwe need most desperately today. Every action by the individual, every choice by\nthe individual, is critical to protecting our environment. We can find the\ninspiration for a new practice in our daily life to address the climate change\ncrisis, and the food crisis, in the Confucian tradition.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/a> The critical\nterms are \u201ctian\u201d (heaven \u5929), \u201cdi\u201d\n(earth \u5730), \u201cren\u201d (man \u4eba), better known as \u201csancai\u201d (\u4e09\u624d). But\n\u201ctian\u201d refers not simply to the heaven above, but to the underlying principles\nof the universe. \u201cDi\u201d is not simply the ground, but the entire ecosystem that\nhumanity must live in harmony with. \u201cRen\u201d refers to humans and the totality of\nhuman civilization. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2]<\/a> This intellectual revolution brought on by the work of\nvarious Westerners in China is detailed in Jonathan Spence\u2019s study To Change\nChina: Western Advisors in China (Penguin Books, 2002).   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

[3]<\/a> B.C. Keenan. \u201cReverence and\nCheng-Zhu Ecology.\u201d Dao, 2018, pp. 187-201.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[4]<\/a> IBID, p. 199. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

[5]<\/a> The full report\nis available at http:\/\/www.ipcc.ch\/report\/sr15\/<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Circles\u00a0and\u00a0Squares \u00a0 \u201cThe Chinese concept of propriety (\u201cli\u201d) as the key to new ecological awareness\u201d Emanuel Pastreich January 13, 2019 The Chinese tradition of \u201cli\u201d \u793c has a broad significance as a set of rules that set standards in behavior that create harmony between individuals, and between the institutions of human society. Li, both in … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9296425,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[786],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/green-liberty.org\/circlesandsquares\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/green-liberty.org\/circlesandsquares\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/green-liberty.org\/circlesandsquares\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/green-liberty.org\/circlesandsquares\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9296425"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/green-liberty.org\/circlesandsquares\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/green-liberty.org\/circlesandsquares\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8980\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/green-liberty.org\/circlesandsquares\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/green-liberty.org\/circlesandsquares\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/green-liberty.org\/circlesandsquares\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}