-- A translation from Chinese of Parts II-3(1 & 5) of the book:

Where is the Mankind Heading for:

Contests and realignments between ideologies in the new century

EDITOR’S NOTE: Here are two excerpts from the author’s book in Chinese on philosophy and social theories published in 2013. The book partially summarizes the results of the author’s decades-long exploration in the realm of ideology and is rich in ideas both old and new at the same time – new expositions in modern terminology of traditional Chinese thought as applied to social issues and ideologies of the world today. Any comment and criticism and any offer to help improve the English translation of the whole book will be welcome and appreciated. For a list of contents of the book with links to other translated parts, please see:

Where is the Mankind Heading for: Contests and realignments between ideologies in the new century: List of content

THE TEXT

II. Human Society: A dynamically-balanced multi-dimensional whole (continued)

II-3. Dynamic balance of multi-dimensional whole

II-3(1). Essence of multi-dimensional wholeness: Comprehensive dynamic balance

The human-perceived world, i.e., the world as we humans see, no matter whether it’s the natural world or the human society, or any one level of the society or one social community, which may contain in itself many levels or many aspects and itself is only a part of a higher level of existence – each of the above is a relative whole.

 Between Heaven and Earth there exist an infinite number of things on an infinite number of levels. Between each one whole and each of its temporal-spatial parts there exist complicated relations of mutual reinforcement and/or counteraction in all directions. Conversely, each and every thing functions as an integral part and, together with other things in complicated relations of mutual reinforcement and/or counteraction, jointly constitutes a larger whole. This larger whole is again in still more complicated relations of mutual reinforcement and/or counteraction with all its parts, with all further divided parts of each of such parts, and still further divided parts, and so on to include all that are infinitely small, and also in such relations with the still larger wholes on all higher levels with all their parts on infinitely many levels, the highest being the infinitely large whole of all existence.

To sum up, all differentiations, whether in terms of levels or in all other terms, should not be understood as absolute separation between things. But, because of the limitedness of our cognitive structure and ability, we can only get to know the world and human society part by part and level by level and, therefore, have to split up the target of cognition and study things in temporary and expedient separation. However, as the world is an essentially inseparable whole, we should keep a clear head and be conscious of the above fact at all times, and try our best when possible to look at the separated parts or levels against the broader background of a larger whole on a higher level, that is, to keep in mind the wholeness of all existence.

By “wholeness” is not meant being monolithic. Essentially it means a dynamic and comprehensive balance between all different parts on all different levels internally and externally. It is understandable that, under specific circumstances, it is neither possible nor necessary to know about certain specific things in all its relations with all other things on all levels. The proper breadth and depth of such studies should be determined by the need and possibility under the specific circumstances at specific times. So long as one is conscious of the multi-level, multi-dimensional balanced wholeness on a macro scale, one would not make the mistake of seeing things mechanically as isolated and static on the whole and arriving at conclusions too far from what is true.

Dao De Jing says: “From the Dao emerges One. From One emerge Two. From Two emerge Three. From Three emerge all things. All carry the opposites Yin and Yang, approaching harmony through moderation.” (Chapter 42) The Book of Change has it that “The Dao manifests itself in the alternate growth and decline of Yin and Yang.” (“一阴一阳之谓道” -- 《系辞上》) Both indicate that the dynamic balance between Yin and Yang is the law of nature independent of any one’s will. The phrase “dynamic balance” implies that balance is always relative, or ephemeral, while imbalance is absolute, or the constant state of things, so that things are always in a dynamic state of tending towards balance out of imbalance. Imbalance on any level of existence may spill out onto a lower or higher one. An imbalanced state on a certain level of human society, if not tackled in time to guide the situation towards a balance, would trigger off imbalance and chaos on ever higher levels and in ever larger areas till massive and destructive wars or natural disasters break out. If, out of ignorance of or impiety towards the Heavenly Dao, the humanity fails to comply with it, or even insists on aggravating existing imbalances, they would definitely be dynamically “balanced out”, i.e., extinguished in the natural process of restoring super-macro balance.

II-3(2). Inward absorption-dissolution or outward extension-shift of social antagonisms: The Chinese vs. Western tradition

(See The Way towards Future: Chinese & Western social evolution patterns compared)

II-3(3). Confrontational thinking: Common to the Right and the Left

(See Balance-Oriented or Confrontational Thinking: Daoist-Legalist Socialism vs. the Right & the Left (II - IV): Capitalism / Traditional socialism)

II-3(4). Balance-oriented thinking: The seven major relationships in contemporary world

(See Rule of Law in the Heaven-Earth-Human Dynamic Whole (III-3 - IV))

II-3(5). “Yin-Yang balance” vs. “unity of opposites” (“one into two”)

What is essentially meant by “balance” is that between Yin and Yang. In traditional Chinese discourse, the antithesis between Yin (facing against the sun) and Yang (facing the sun) originally represented the alternation between day and night, light and dark, and warm and cold seasons, and later the symbolization was further extended to cover the alternate growth and decline of two opposing while also mutually complementary tendencies in everything, i.e., the way of all existence. Therefore, Yin and Yang tendencies exist in all things but are not representative of or identical to any substantial entities as defined in Western intuitive-empiricist or empirical-positivist modes of thinking. The Dao of alternating rise and fall of Yin and Yang is also something different from the law of unity of opposites in materialist dialectics which originated in the West.

First of all, although both ideas talk about two opposites being mutually dependent while contradictory and about their reciprocal transformation, the general orientations they respectively signify are not quite the same: While the discourse about the unity of opposites is usually focused on “development” or “progress” or replacement of the “old” by the “new” as the purpose or the aim of antagonism between opposites, the interaction between Yin and Yang is generally understood as ultimately oriented towards an overall balance, though not totally excluding the use of such concepts as “struggle”, “development”, “progress” and “new vs. old” in specifically given contexts of some limited time-space in the sense of striving for and trying to maintain an overall balance in human social and man-nature relations.

In the human-perceived world, the topmost-level opposition is between man (as part of the whole existence) and nature (as the all-inclusive whole of all existence), or that between mind (or consciousness, with man as its carrier) and matter (as the object of human consciousness). While as regards mind-matter relationship the law of the unity of opposites in materialist dialectics takes matter as primary and mind as secondary, in handling man-nature relationship, however, its believers place man (either the liberal individualists’ individuals or the collectivists’ human collective, though only a tiny part of nature and carrier of the “secondary” mind) in the center or the primary position. This is an apparent self-contradiction in terms of logic. Words like “unity” or “dialectics” are only high-sounding rhetoric used to cover up the inconsistency and sophistry in the discourse. Never before people came to realize not long ago the seriousness of the ecological crisis confronting mankind, had there ever been heard of such teaching, with the exception of traditional Chinese thought, that human beings should conscientiously curb their “mind” when possessed with excessive desires so as to conform to nature on the whole and stay in harmony with it, should feel grateful to nature for every benefit obtained from it and be cautiously watchful lest they should harm it – this should be the way of action that would match the materialists’ verbal postulation of the material world as “primary”. What has always been advocated, however, is to tamper with and conquer nature, to develop “productive forces” (that is, in its true sense, man’s ability to exploit nature) without limits with a view to satisfy man’s insatiable desires. Such materialists see nature as passively waiting to be conquered and utilized by people and their purpose to know about nature is to overcome it and, so, actually they put humans and their desires in the primary or central place while disguising their approach as “dynamic counteraction” and “dialectical”. It is this desire to take whatever one wants from nature, the ambitious goal of distributing “to each according to one’s needs”, that has become the motivating force for “struggle”, “development” and “progress” and the criterion for judging what is outdated and what advanced, or what is right and what wrong.

Taking a branch (either the human mind or the human-perceived world) for the root (of all existence – infinite possibilities of mind-matter oneness) in the general world outlook inevitably leads to distorted views of any part of partial existence. So long as the ideology is “materialist” in name but anthropocentric in nature, no matter whether it is “dialectical” or not, it would definitely indulge material worship, the fallacy of “first importance of economic development”, “productive-force-centrism”, etc. Though dialectical materialist social theories on the relations between productive forces and production relations and those between economic basis and superstructure, still mechanical in the conceptualization as they are, may hold some truth on the practical level of social management, however, a blind extension of this mechanical understanding of the material-spiritual divide on the human-perceived physical and human-social level to a worldview on the topmost, metaphysical MindMatter-as-One level would incur endless risks: for instance, ancient Chinese principles and practices in economic activities of maintaining harmony with nature and of regulating capital for balanced social interest relations would be rejected as obstructing the development of productive forces, to be replaced by the “advanced culture” believing in “man’s conquest of nature” and development of “advanced productive forces” without restraint. Obviously, without man’s due deference to and compliance with nature on the topmost level of all existence as the paramount principle, the approach to any other pairs of opposites on lower levels would definitely go to extreme. In man-nature relations there is only one-way dependence, not as reciprocal as in all other pairs of opposites, because nature is independent of man’s will. Human beings can sometimes change nature in a limited way or have to do so, for instance, at times of natural disasters, and we can talk about “advanced” and “progress” (in terms of technical skills) in this limited sense; but this cannot change the general situation in which man has to tide with nature’s tendency towards an overall balance, which may even involve severe harm to human beings in purely natural, i.e., not man-made, disasters, as a consequence of nature’s balancing acts. Only a step from the state of ignorance to one of awareness of this situation can be most significantly dubbed as “progress” and an earlier awareness as “advanced”. Without recognition of this truth, there would be no unity, but opposition only, between man and nature.

Hence, the kind of “unity of opposites” that is “materialistic” in name but “human-intended” and, thus, “idealistic” in essence is based on the anthropocentric premise of opposition without unity between man and nature on the topmost level. Anthropocentrism is the extension of individual or ethnic egocentrism -- all being egocentrism on different levels. This is why, no matter whether in ancient or in modern times, the “unity of opposites” in Western countries have been based on conflict (“opposition”) of interests only, without integrative “unity”, with alien ethnic peoples or, in other words, internal “unity” (and “democracy”, “freedom”, “human rights”, “welfare” and what not) has been dependent on external confrontation (“opposition”) in a much larger area (involving domination, war, enslavement and plundering), that is, externalization of internal antagonisms. Therefore, in the final analysis, there has been opposition only and no unity in mainstream Western tradition. That is because there could be no unity without balance. To find unity, one has to turn to the East and look into Chinese tradition.

“Unity of opposites” has another version, which is more concise and colloquial and betraying its extreme nature more apparently – “one (split) into two”, even with “unity” omitted. To counter this extremity, some other people put forward the antithetic concept “two (combined) into one”. As a matter of fact, as mentioned above, the world is originally a formless oneness and appears as a mixture of innumerable tangible things only because of artificial differentiation by man. So, there is no need for “combining” at all. This antithetic argument is but another example of extreme thinking. And, so, still others proposed to unify the two opposite postulations into one -- both “one into two” and “two into one” at the same time, which seems to be more balanced but is still a mechanical “unity of opposites”.