-- A translation from Chinese of Part III-2(2) of the book:
Where is the Mankind Heading for:
Contests and realignments between ideologies in the new century
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the ending section of 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
III. Revive Eastern Philosophy to Resist Ideological Hegemony (continued)
III-2. The five-way Yin-Yang correlation in human civilization development: A non-linear conception of history (continued)
III-2(2). Encounter of civilizations in cycle of alternate Yin and Yang
As witnessed by the history and current reality of the world, the human cultural system is a huge complex one with mutually interpenetrated, mutually generating and constraining multiple levels and branches. And people’s way of thinking, as an important mark of a specific spiritual culture, fundamentally speaking, can be generalized into two basic types: either organic holism or mechanicalism. The former promotes Yin-Yang balance in individual humans’ state of mind and behavior and in social order, while the latter triggers imbalance, either Yang prevailing over Yin (as seen in Buddhist or Daoist hermits) or vice versa (as seen in individuals’ or in general social mentality spurred by atomistic individualism or monolithic collectivism). These two ways of thinking are usually intermixed in individual thinkers, in various schools of thought and in different cultures, with either one playing a leading role. And the specific approaches adopted and results in researches achieved by users of either way of thinking can be mutually used for reference and complemented by each other, thus weaving a colorful fabric of ideological culture with Yin and Yang aspects penetrating, constraining and reinforcing one another on multiple levels.
In the horizontal perspective of comparing different existing civilizations in the world today, human culture can be seen as roughly divided into two major branches: one in the West and one in the East:
HUMAN CULTURE:
CHINESE:
Main Stream：Organic holism represented by Huang Di-Laozi (Daoist-Legalist) school of thought
Alternative：Mechanic (atomistic/monolithic) perspective in view of macro society – e.g.,Confucanism
WESTERN:
Main Stream：Mechanicalist philosophy/science
Alternative：Elements of Organic holism: Religious "mysticism"
Dialectics
Modern theoretical physics
Systems theory
In the vertical perspective of looking at human history the evolution of human culture as a whole is as follows:
HUMAN CULTURE VIEWED IN FIVE-WAY CORRELATION BETWEEN YIN AND YANG
(Sorry, impossible to paste the diagram -- The New Leglist editor)
In the above “twin-fish” diagram representing the Taiji unity of Yin and Yang is shown the four phases of the history of human civilization with alternate rise and fall of Yin and Yang aspects, with “metal”, “wood”, “water”, and “fire” symbolizing the four turning points while “earth” commanding the whole in five-way relations of mutual generation/constraint (the green lines representing generation whereas the red ones constraint).
Here is an interpretation of the five-way relations in two aspects:
The generative aspect:
1) “Earth generates metal”: At the beginning, humans were differentiated from other animals and from nature, and started to be conscious of the distinction between “self” and “non-self”, between man and nature, and between all things in the world (The Pangu Legend), and to learn to make and use tools (“metal”) in order to partially reform nature to obtain resources for human survival and multiplication of the race.
2) “Metal generates water”: The use of tools helps humans improve water irrigation of farm land and develop an agrarian civilization. A typical farming society laid great emphasis on harmony based on a balanced relationship between man and nature by conscientiously following the latter’s course in doing farm work and everything else and a balance in all major social relationships in economic, political and cultural activities as well through conscientious and timely government adjustments of such relations. That is why Eastern agrarian culture as represented by traditional China led the world for over a millennium till the end of the 18th century, leaving much countering impact on Western nomadic and water-borne maritime culture characterized by a predatory tradition. In the latter tradition, the ability to use tools feeds human arrogance to such an extent as to ignore the interdependent oneness of all human beings and between man and nature and stir up conflicts everywhere and all the time: conflicts with nature and with each other so as to be able to fish in the troubled water. The mechanical way of thinking they espoused threatens to deluge the world and drown it in the flood water of deceptive ideologies. So, water can either serve as the lifeblood for mankind or facilitate predatory practices and spell disasters.
3) “Water generates wood.” The Western nomadic and maritime tradition was initially left with marks of a savage “culture” typical of the jungle world, from which they had just come out not long ago. On its first encounter with Eastern civilization, it adopted much of the latter’s material culture embodied in inventions of paper-making technology, art of printing, compass and explosive powder, etc. but failed to understand and assimilate the broad and profound wisdom of an organic holistic way of thinking underlying the latter’s spiritual culture. One striking example was its misinterpretation of Laozi’s idea of “non-self-assertiveness” (无为) as laissez-faireism, thus reinforcing its “Yang overpowering Yin” tradition with this misunderstood “rationale”. And the result was acceleration of the historical process of two mutually promoting aspects, i.e., outward expansion into foreign lands and into nature and internal unification into nation-states. This has been a process of ever-intensifying aggravation of Yang aggressiveness under the name of “liberation of the individual” and marked by “the Renaissance”, “the Enlightenment Movement”, “the Industrial Revolution”, global colonial expansion, imperialist wars, and global hegemony of capital. It has developed the Yang principle of “wood” (the jungle law) to the extreme, and pushed Europe and the world to today’s critical conditions with serious imbalances in social and man-nature relations.
4） “Wood generates fire.” As things will develop in the opposite direction when they become extreme, Yang’s rise to the highest top is the beginning of its decline. Today, all people with good conscience are carefully reflecting and more and more of them are attracted by ancient traditions of the East. Meanwhile, just as there have been non-mainstream mechanical trends of thought in China (Yang inside Yin), Western culture also contains alternative elements of organic holistic thought (Yin within Yang). When Chinese and Western cultures are integrated through an all-round encounter, the result will be like a “fire” that gives rebirth to the legendary Phoenix symbolizing a new life growing out of the debris of an old world.
5) “Fire generates earth.” As successors to the Chinese civilization, we have the responsibility to introduce to the world what is precious in our tradition frankly and discreetly while learning from what is good in Western culture. It is not an easy job but the prospect is bright. So long as we persist in enlightening ourselves through character-cultivation and practicing what we learn through the enlightenment, we will live on together with Heaven and Earth and continue enjoying the light form the sun and the moon. A harmonious human society based on dynamically balanced multi-dimensional relations is foreseeable with the organic holistic worldview gradually winning the hearts and minds of an ever-increasing number of people, even if as individuals we may not see it. That will be a return of mankind to Mother Nature (“earth”).
The above mutually generative aspect of the five-way relations are intermingled in a complementary way with a mutually constraining aspect as follows:
“Metal constrains wood.” Use of tools helps humans live on their own labor and break away from the jungle law with the strong preying on the weak.
“Wood constrains earth.” The jungle law with the strong preying on the weak destroys harmony on earth.
“Earth constrains water.” The natural law of balance and harmony between Yin and Yang keeps the mechanical ways of thinking from flooding, which maintains the jungle law in human society.
“Water constrains fire.” The flooding of the mechanical worldview drowns the fire of life, that is, the organic holistic worldview.
“Fire constrains metal.” The organic holistic way of thought regulates human use of tools, machines and scientific technology.
The above describes in a symbolic way the five-way relations between Yin and Yang in human civilization.
Nor only human history as a whole but also all the local parts on all social levels in all historical stages have undergone and are undergoing numerous similar cycles of alternate Yin and Yang on varying scales. That is to say, The development of human history is not a simple and uniform linear process but like a huge spiral containing within it many smaller spirals on a lower level, each of which also contains many more still smaller spirals on still lower levels, etc., etc. Such a multi-level process of multi-scale spiral-like developments does not only extend itself in space but in time as well. If we look at a segment of a spiral curve, we may see a kind of “progress”, just as we see a plane flying parallel to the earth’s surface without turning or descending, which is actually returning along a curve to where it took off but looks like moving forward along a straight line.
As a matter of fact, the above description of how human history develops is also applicable to that of everything. This is a non-linear view of history based on the Eastern philosophical principle of multi-dimensional dynamically balanced whole. We wish that the curve along which the present-day world is evolving will lead humanity out of the general crisis engendered by capitalist globalization to a prospect of minimum peace and hopefulness. We believe that, no matter how many twists and turns humanity will have to go through, history will start a new page sooner or later.
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