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EDITOR’S NOTE: This self-appraisal was originally written in Chinese one year after the publication of the said book, also in Chinese, in 2013. It can actually serve as an introduction to the book.
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. Nearly all parts of the book have been translated into English by the author himself and uploaded onto this website. 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 the translated parts, please see:
Where is the Mankind Heading for: Contests and realignments between ideologies in the new century: List of content
THE TEXT
This book in Chinese published in 2013 is a systemic treatment of metaphysical philosophy and social theory put together as an integrated and consistent whole. Philosophy should be put at the service of human social life, not as a plaything for inhabitants in an ivory tower, i.e., not a playful juggling of sheer concepts. The very first substantial question put to the author by the ChinaValue website staff in an interview held on the publication of the book is: “You said the world is ultimately a formless and insubstantial oneness of undifferentiated mind and matter. Please illustrate how that concept can be applied to the functioning of social institutions.” It is a good question, which raises the issue of relevance of academic work to social reality. Actually, this kind of relevance is quite obvious and direct in the book. By tracing back to classical Chinese studies of the ultimate reality of the universe (or “ontology” as Westerners call it) and re-starting from there through an innovative illustration (Section I of the book), it blazes a new path in epistemology (Section II), which finally yields rich fruits in social theories (Section III).
I. Returning to and Developing Anew from classical Chinese ontology
What ontology is meant to do is to show how human beings should look at the world and orient themselves in regard with it, including how to view and change the society and human life so as to make them ideal one. In other words, it is to clarify the issue of human life’s anchor point and, therefore, a proper way of thinking.
In traditional Western philosophical discourse, ultimate reality is something either material or spiritual, such as water, fire, atom, or Plato’s “idea”, or the God, or Hegel’s “Geist” (absolute mind). Although the concept of “ultimate reality” was meant to comprehend everything, actual narratives about it have never been able to go beyond a split between mind and matter, i.e., never really covering all beings under one umbrella. Therefore, in modern times, as the scientistic trend of thought has developed to an extreme, it has come so far as to deny the existence of ultimate reality beyond the tangible material world, still less the need for an academic discipline called “ontology”. Contemporary humanistic schools of thought have tried their best to cross the dualistic chasm between mind and matter but never succeeded, either, in developing a new and self-consistent ontology.
The Chinese counterpart of the concept “ultimate reality” is called “Dao”, which is not an entity with substance, still less a material entity, nor a spiritual entity initially. It is formless and without determinate quality while omnipresent and omnipotent; it transcends all human experiences while inextricably penetrating the whole experiential world – transcendental but not detached.
The word “Dao” in traditional Chinese discourse, while denoting ultimate reality or the supreme being, it was also often used to mean the general law of the experiential world. For instances, whereas “from the Dao comes the one” (“道生一”) in Laozi means “from the ultimate comes the experiential world”, the word “Dao” in “Humans follow the Earth, which follows Heaven, which follows the Dao, which follows its natural course” (“人法地，地法天，天法道，道法自然。”) from the same book is referring to the general law of the experiential world. Another example of Dao used as the general law governing the experiential world is from The Book of Changes: “the alternate rise and fall of Yin and Yang is called Dao” (“一阴一阳之谓道”) . But in later-time Neo-Confucianism, the concept of Dao is mixed up with that of Li (理) and Xin (心, the mind) so that the concept of “man-nature oneness” which was hinged on “the mind” became the supreme reality.
In a word, what the Chinese, represented by the Daoists, understand as the ultimate reality, as is distinguished from what Westerners see, transcends and yet is not detached from all things but covers all existence.
In the book being commented on here, the “transcendental chaos” as the ultimate reality and the “human-perceived world” as the one we experience are related to each other as the general and the particular. This shows they are mutually penetrated while at the same time one transcends the other. The description of the ultimate truth about existence starts from the average person’s experiences and follows the average person’s line of thought using perceptual images the average person can visualize and words and terms familiar to average contemporaries, thus leading the reader to go beyond such mundane experiences and finally unfolding before him the chaotic reality of the ultimate. The narrative in the book both affirms the existence of the “transcendental chaos” and rejects modern Western substantialist view of the ultimate reality while inheriting the traditional Chinese worldview, which was symbolized by “Dao” and with no mind-matter split. In the process of such “description”, “narrative”, “leading” and “unfolding”, use is made in the greatest degree possible of “the average person’s” experiences, line of thought, perceptual images, and language, and greatest efforts made to reduce abstract speculation and uncommon concepts to a minimum. This was the result of adopting the Western empirical approach in making much of perceptual experiences, visual illustration and plain and straightforward narration, in an effort to combine it with the Chinese tradition which excels in ethereal intuition, holistic understanding and an allegorical way of expression; which amounts to an attempt at an integrative innovation in methodology. (In contrast, sophisticated speculations divorced from the average person’s experiences and obscure concepts and jargons are typical of contemporary Western humanistic thinkers and their copycats in China.)
What, then, does this ontological understanding signify for present-day social and personal life?
What the author understands and tells about the ultimate transcendental chaos is a narrative which he has never read about before and deems most nearly consummate. It is not only because the thought process leading to this understanding matches the average person’s perceptual experience and line of rational thinking but more importantly because against this spiritual background of ontological awareness the crux of all the problems facing humanity today is mostly clearly set off. All the ontological narratives in the world so far, except Daoist and Buddhist ones, are anthropocentric. In the East, “fundamental” Confucianism did not relate to ontology while later-time neo-Confucianism’s concept of “man-nature unity” pivoted on the human “mind”. Whereas in the Wes，both materialistic scientists and subjective idealists look upon the human race as the “paragon” and the master of all things in the world, while the spiritual origin in objective idealists’ ontological discourse is, ultimately speaking, the result and representation of the externalized human consciousness, thus also placing the human mind in the pivotal position in grasping and interpreting the whole existence. As to modern humanists, they generally attach great importance on man’s subjectivity and try to trace back to the ontological origin of all things in the process and result of such subjectivity being brought into play, so that the “unity of the subjective and objective realms” in their vision virtually revolves on human consciousness, or on its acts, or on the process or characteristics or results of such acts, or on man’s practice directed by his consciousness of subjectivity in transforming and controlling the objective world. It is only the transcendental chaos as demonstrated by this author that can set man off in his actual position in relation to everything else, putting in perspective the limitations of his existence, limitations of the structure and competence of his consciousness or mind, and the insubstantiality of the world it perceives.
Why, then, has not any of so many thinkers ever taken issue with anthropocentricism? There seems only one possible answer to this question, that is, man’s excessive desire, or such desire in the human “mind”. “Excessive” here means “beyond what is proper or reasonable”, or just “insatiable”. The core of such desires is that for material wealth, while those for fame and power serve as avenues for gaining wealth or substitutes when excessive material desire is temporarily not realizable. It is such excessive self-assertiveness that has inflated man’s self-image to that of The Conqueror while reducing the outside world to mere targets of his attempted conquest, this “outside world” including not only the lifeless and soulless material world but also other non-human life forms or even possible such forms in the outer space that might not be inferior or even superior to humans in intelligence and wisdom. (We tend to notice other life forms outside our bodies only but once the author suddenly hit upon a wild idea and said the following to his grandson: “Since there are within our bodies numerous microscopic living organisms, why is it not possible that we human beings are also parasites within the body of some other humongous and even more highly developed living organism(s), which is/are so large that we cannot be aware of it/them?”)
To protect the position and self-image of “The Conqueror”, anthropocentrists would not stoop to recognize the position of all other living organisms as subjects of consciousness (or quasi-consciousness? or supra-consciousness?), still less to recognize them as embodiment of the “mind” in the ontological sense (in the same way as, on a lower level, believers of Western religions and “universal” values would deny those of other religions or non-religious values their human rights to free thinking and to survival and are bent on conquering them as aliens, or “evils” belonging to “inferior” civilizations).
In a word, so long as man is unwilling to give up his extravagant desires, he would never willingly deflate his much aggrandized self-image to the original tiny little “drop in the ocean”. Then he must be either idealistic, i.e., placing his acquisitive mind above all else or believing that his mind can determine the fate of all matter; or materialistic, i.e., placing all external material things at the service of his own material body, or believing that, without material things as his central concern, everything else comes to nothing, or that the existence of his material body determines the reasonableness of his craving for material gains. This is not an etymological issue of which belief is right or wrong, but an ontological one revealing the same underlying intent of both philosophical beliefs.
It can be said that anthropocentrism with all other forms of self-centeredness under its protection is the root cause on the ontological level for the present-day human survival crisis. In this perspective, later Confucians’ view of the mind as the bearer of Heavenly moral principles can serve as a contrast to and sort of rectification of all the above forms of self-centeredness, except that their methodological idealism prevents them from reaching the Daoist ontological height of man-nature unity which transcends the mind-matter split, and that some of them went to such an extreme as to call for indiscriminately “extinguishing human desires” to “maintain heavenly principles”, which, at least in letter, pits all human wants against heavenly principles and excludes the satisfaction of basic human needs from the latter (although the former is part of the latter), and which, when implemented in real life, virtually led to institutional practices of suppressing human satisfaction of normal physical desires, amounting to deviation from heavenly principles to the opposite extreme.
In contrast, the Daoist Zhuangzi proposed a soul cultivation method (“心斋”) by which to reach an undisturbed state of mind (“坐忘”) in oneness with the Dao. The Legalist Guan Zhong of ancient Qi state went further to practice both inner-cultivation (“内业”) and outer adjustment (social management) in line with the Dao. His goal of inner-cultivation is to “get rid of worry, elatedness, anger and desire” (“去忧乐喜怒欲利”). Just because he attained to the Daoist height of inner sageness and external kingliness (内圣外王), he, through assisting Duke Huan of Qi and by instituting the rule of law in state management, succeeded in bringing about a comprehensive Yin-Yang balance of all major social relationships and internally making Qi a prosperous and powerful state while externally leading and allying with other states in procuring a considerably long time of peace during that chaotic and warring period of ancient Chinese history.
Obviously, philosophical ontology is not dispensable. What matters most is that any ontological understanding of the ultimate reality has to go through repeated tests and revisions by human historical macro-level practices so as to come gradually closer to internal coherence and external consistency in the understanding, and help improve the well-being of mankind.
II. New and Unique Epistemological Approach
The new interpretation of traditional Chinese ontological wisdom by this author is not only of pivotal significance to an updated understanding of the status of mankind in the cosmic existence and thereby correcting his attitude towards it, but also plays a major guiding role in further developing epistemological theories.
What is epistemology? It is the philosophical study of the essential nature and the process of development of human cognition. Any epistemological system of thought must be based on a specific ontology. The nature of the latter determines that of the former.
This author’s epistemological narrative is determined by his ontological understanding in the following three ways:
1) His ontological discussion makes clear the limitations of human existence, i.e., that the human world, as well as each and every human being, is only a very much limited and insignificantly tiny part of ontological existence, which appears in the form of the human-perceived world. Accordingly, humans need to be self-conscious and prudent all the time about a true understanding of their existential status, about how they are related to their macro and micro environments and about the meaning and value of their own existence and the way to realize its potential value. Only thus can they live a serene, self-contained and meaningful life in a peaceful and prosperous society. In this sense, a human being is not a totally passive existence but a relatively independent entity with a role to play. This kind of role defined by the ontological oneness of man and nature is but one side of the coin, the other side being man’s necessary submission to the irresistible way of Heaven (the Dao). The implications of such a role will be discussed later.
2) Showing the limitedness of man’s existence amounts to putting him back into the objective status as only one of infinitely possible kinds of living things with consciousness, that is, not the only possible intelligent species. So, the empirical world as the object for human cognition is actually a particular appearance of the transcendental chaos as the ultimate reality through the prism of man’s consciousness, i.e., only one possibility out of an infinite number of particular forms of appearance. It is neither a purely objective world independent of human consciousness as alleged by materialists, nor the only possible form of appearance of the ultimate reality. In other words, this object in man’s view has already been shaped by him, which means that it bears special imprints from man’s special structure of consciousness. Of all such imprints or specialities, the most significant one stems from the following third aspect of man’s ontological limitedness:
3) The limitedness of human existence also determines the limitedness of human consciousness structure and cognitive capability. It leads to another fact, i.e., that the appearance of the human-perceived world to the human senses does not happen all at once but piece by piece, aspect by aspect, level by level, and perspective by perspective, to be further understood also piece by piece, aspect by aspect, level by level, and perspective by perspective. This separateness, partialness, and phase-by-phase gradualness further lead to the discreteness of the object and outcome of cognition. The separateness, however, does not indicate actual unrelatedness between things, between parts and aspects of things, and between different phases of a process. Some of the distinctions and relatedness might not be as obvious as others, so that people may fail to see for some time certain important distinctions and relatedness. Among many causes of the failure, a quite important one lies in the human consciousness structure.
Therefore, epistemology should answer at least the following questions:
A. In what ways does the limitedness of human consciousness structure finds expression? For instance, the expressions of limitedness can first be distinguished into physiological and psychological ones, and then further into ones shared by all humans due to their roughly common physical structure and ones belonging to different social groups, such as due to different perspectives stemming from their different social statuses, or due to different psychological structures shaped by their different ways of production and life style in different natural environments, or duo to different ways of thinking dictated by specific ontological beliefs typical of different civilizations people belong to…
B. In what ways would the outcomes of cognition be restricted by the limited human consciousness structure? How would such outcomes impact human social life? And how would such impact in turn enlighten man’s understanding of the ultimate reality and line of thought?
The study of and answers to the above questions would call for the adoption of an analytic approach in the spirit of science, in which Westerners are more skilled, and also for initiative from humans as active agents.
The said book covers all those issues mentioned above while attaching pivotal importance to two kinds of limitations in human cognition with overall implications, from which are derived the following two conclusions of epistemological significance:
Conclusion A: Tendency towards a Yin-Yang balance of the human-perceived world.
As said above, man starts knowing about things piece by piece and builds up his understanding of the whole world on an expansion from such piecemeal knowledge, thus dividing up the essentially indivisible world into an infinite number of fragments and tending to look upon the world as a mechanic piling up of such fragments. Although people do have some awareness of the relatedness between things, including human individuals and groups, they are usually not so much impressed by such relatedness as by their distinctions because the former is almost never as obvious and impressive as the latter.
Ancient Chinese sages were aware of this cognitive pitfall and hence adopted the two concepts of “Yin” and “Yang” to accentuate and call people’s attention to the two aspects of everything, i.e., their relatedness as well as distinctions, internal and external, as determined by the limitedness of human cognition: “Yin” signifying the external relatedness between all things and people’s awareness of it and acting accordingly, while “Yang” relative independence of each and every thing as an entity playing its specific role and people‘s awareness of it and acting accordingly. Obviously, Yin and Yang do not signify any intrinsic quality of anything but the two opposite tendencies in all things relating to one another, just as Laozi described “All things embrace Yang against a Yin background” (“万物负阴而抱阳”— Trans. by the author).
As all things are inherently inseparable from each other, the world is always balanced on the whole between Yin and Yang. But, what humans do, due to the limitedness of their existence and knowledge, often upsets the balance in the local area where they are. Hence Laozi went on to say “The two aspects [of Yin and Yang] interact to achieve harmony (“冲气以为和”) .” Other uses of the Yin-Yang concept are all extensions of the above basic connotation.
Therefore, when people are conscientiously following the tendency towards Yin-Yang balance and dynamically push all social relationships towards a balance in the same way as pushing the boat along with the current, the society and people’s life will become peaceful and enjoyable. Otherwise, i.e., when people’s excessive desires grow to be incessantly disruptive of the Yin-Yang balance in all areas, disasters would fall on the society and on the individuals involved.
Conclusion B: Multi-dimensional multi-level nature of the human-perceived world.
This is because of the multi-level gradation in multiple dimensions of both the structure and the outcome of human consciousness. Simply speaking, people cannot take in the whole world at one glance even by the naked eye and mind’s eye combined, but have to know about things first within a limited range (in multiple dimensions) and then extend the experience to an understanding of things within a larger area, thus going further and further in stages (PP. 37-43).
Similarly, the different levels are also both distinguishable and essentially related at the same time and thus may be either balanced or imbalanced between one another. That is to say, to know about a large-scale society, one should follow a “3D” thinking pattern, so to speak, not a linear or “flat” line of thought, to avoid distortion. Moreover, the extension in stages of “viewing” range, i.e., from a smaller or more limited level to larger or less limited levels, should be in multiple dimensions, not only in the intuitive dimension of space or/and time but in more abstract senses with the help of imagination. In Section 2 of Part II of the book, under the heading “Human Society: Multiple dimensions and levels”, a dozen pivotal dimensions were cited. Without an awareness of the multiplicity of dimensions and levels with a tendency towards a dynamic balance between different levels on each of the different dimensions, an understanding of the global society will be critically distorted and defected, leading to crises of varying severity or even huge disasters.
This is the philosophical view of the world and human society, generalized and presented in the book as a “dynamically-balanced multi-dimensional whole”, which is based on an ontological view of the ultimate reality as a formless and insubstantial mind-matter oneness.
The way in which the above view has been generalized and presented in terms of verbalization is itself a manifestation of new development in epistemology stemming from the new ontological narrative. Mentioned above, among other things, is the acknowledgement of man’s subjectivity, or active role, deduced from the said ontology. Now is the time for discussing the epistemological significance of this acknowledgement, designated here as the following third conclusion.
Conclusion C: “The people [not the top ruler] representing the way of Heaven while conforming to it”, or the collective people as the subject in the cognitive process.
Professor Zhang Shiying (张世英) of Beijing University says: “The basic question in philosophy should not be limited to the ‘subject-object’ thinking pattern but deal with how human beings are related to the world and how they should approach it. The answer to this question has been provided on roughly two levels in three stages. The two levels are: the ‘man-world’ structure and the ‘subject-object’ structure. The three stages: 1st, ‘man-world integration’ without the ‘subject-object’ dichotomy in traditional Chinese philosophy, which can be called ‘pre-subject-object integration’ ; 2nd, the ‘subject-object’ structure in modern Western philosophy; 3rd, ‘man-world integration’ with the ‘subject-object’ structure sublated (i.e., assimilated but transcended) in contemporary Western humanist school of thought, which can be called ‘post-subject-object integration’.”（《新哲学讲演录》, 广西师范大学出版社，2004, PP.37-40）
Professor Zhang holds that Chinese tradition did not pay attention to the distinction between the subject and the object, thus not attaching importance to the subject’s role in understanding and controlling the object and to epistemology and methodology, which tradition was ideologically rooted in the dominating ‘pre-subject-object integration’ thinking pattern and obviously not favorable to the development of science. And, therefore, he thinks, China, given her own philosophical tradition, should assimilate discriminatingly what is reasonable in her ‘pre-subject-object integration’ thinking pattern and combine it with the Western ‘subject-object’ model to cultivate a philosophical approach of ‘post-subject-object integration’ with her own national characteristics.
This author thinks that Prof. Zhang’s generalization and argument hold some water, although whether his three-stage proposition is a truthful generalization of the development history of world philosophy and whether his thesis-antithesis-synthesis pattern is a logical necessity in epistemology are subject to further deliberation. And this author also agrees with him in that China’s mainstream tradition, especially the long-time dominating Confucian school of thought, did not pay much attention to theoretical epistemology and methodology. As a matter of fact, in ancient China’s civilization which stood out in the world for thousands of years till the 18th century, the Daoist-Legalist school did achieve brilliant results in both self-cultivation and statecraft as seen in hundreds of years of peace and prosperity at a stretch during several major dynasties – this shows that their understanding and handling of social affairs were excellent. Obviously, without an awareness and guidance of “epistemological” and “methodological” perceptions (even if they did not use these terms), such achievements would not be possible.
It also shows that the Daoist-Legalist belief in man-nature integration did not impair their active role and initiatives in relating to the objective world, not discouraging them in making broad and deep scientific explorations into the society as a relatively “objective” target.
Furthermore, it also shows that the cause for China’s “lagging behind” and being bullied in later times has not been her underdevelopment of science (traditionally, the Chinese, as compared with Westerners, laid more stress on inner exploration for spiritual enhancement as a guarantee for sage-kingcraft than on external explorations for satisfaction of material desires, which tradition, in view of today’s severe crises confronting humanity, should not be considered in any way as a defect or weakness) – the real cause for lagging behind in self-defense being the fact that Daoist-Legalists’ successful theory and practice with their epistemological and methodological perceptions failed to stay continuous in history as the guide to state affairs because Confucianist disciples, who were more keen on abstract conceptual speculation and empty moral preaching, weak in administering public affairs, incapable of grasping overall situations and short of practical experiences (said to be “unable to do physical work nor distinguish the five kinds of grain”), had been dominating the scene for two millennia, serving either as the political facade to camouflage Daoist-Legalist practice (“儒表法里”) or as the political big stick to repel or demoralize actually capable Daoist-Legalist statesmen, thus weaving a history of repeatedly alternating order and chaos till finally inducing Western invasions in modern times. In other words, those schools of thought with successful epistemological and methodological perceptions were in general no match for Confucianist scholars without such awareness. The search for the root cause for modern-time failure should start from here.
Here is the result of the author’s search：The root cause for Daoist-Legalists to lose to Confucianists is not in the “man-nature as one” ontological view hampering man’s active role but in the top ruler being considered as the representative of Heaven/nature, the so-called “son of Heaven”. That was why, even the Legalists, not to mention Confucianists, could not break through the “ceiling” of a fatuous or self-indulgent king or emperor’s authority for implementation of any law abiding by the Dao. An exception was Guanzi of Qi in the Spring and Autumn period of China. He was lucky enough to serve as the prime minister under Duke Huan, who was a wise ruler, neither fatuous nor self-indulgent. This was a favorable external condition for Guanzi’s successful implementation of his Legalist policies, which made Qi a powerful and yet peace-loving state of that time.
When and how it got started that the top ruler was chosen according to blood linage instead of the virtue and capability needed to understand and practice the way of Heaven? This actually changed “man conforming to the Heavenly way” into “common people conforming to the will of the (hereditary) top ruler as Son of Heaven” or “Son-of-Heaven-centrism”, which was even more marrow-minded than anthropocentrism. (Hence, it should be an important topic for cultural historians to work upon.)
Therefore, the key to the solution of China’s problem does not lie in the combination of the two patterns of “man-nature as one” and “subject vs. object” as modern Western humanists have advocated (as a matter of fact, they have not yet transcended the divide between the subject and the object to reach the man-nature-as-one status and thus it is too far-fetched to say about “the combination of the two patterns”) – the key lies in “the people representing the way of Heaven while conforming to it”, which should be the right interpretation of “man-nature-as-one”.
Now we are back to Prof. Zhang’s three-stage proposition. This author believes that, so long as “man-nature-as-one” is interpreted as “the people representing the way of Heaven while conforming to it”, it would not be a problem to bring into play their activeness and initiativeness within the large “man-nature oneness” framework and to raise their epistemological and methodological awareness, including a scientific understanding of the world, of the society and of human life, for better serving the material and spiritual wellness of the whole mankind. The mechanic three-stage proposition is neither in keeping with historical reality nor necessary for the development of philosophical theory and its application to the society.
The above three conclusions put together constitutes an epistemological approach which, while restoring the original Chinese tradition, blazes a unique trail for interpreting it in terms of new historical conditions, a line of thought with the collective people (including those rulers and social elites not serving special interests but sharing a same fate with the common people) as the active agent in the cognitive process and the “dynamically-balanced multi-dimensional whole” worldview as the guiding principle.
III. Blossoming out into Social Theories
If the thought system unfolded in the said book is compared to a grown-up tree, then the ontological narrative with the transcendental chaos and the human-perceived world as the two sides (the general and the particular) of one big picture should be the root or base of the tree and the epistemological principle of a “dynamically-balanced multi-dimensional whole” worldview the main stem. And from such a root and stem would grow branches and flowers blossoming out into rich fruits in the form of social theories, which would, while critically inheriting and assimilating all the intellectual wisdom from the East and the West, ancient and modern, contain many more newly generated and regenerated results. Here is a list of the core ideas constituting a consistent link between the root, the stem, the branches and the fruit-bearing flowers:
A. The root: The transcendental chaos, a boundless sea of infinite potential possibilities.
B. The stem: The human-perceived world, one of infinite possible particular forms of appearance of the transcendental chaos, a dynamically-balanced multi-dimensional whole.
The two key points in the new and unique epistemological approach are: awareness of multiple levels (vs. “flat” and linear thinking) and balance-seeking way of thought (vs. confrontational thinking).
C. The fruit-bearing branches:
a) The human society as a multi-dimensional, multi-level network of social groups (vs. atomistic individualism and monolithic collectivism).
b) A “love-hate threesome” relationship between Legalism, Confucianism and Western liberalism in the three-level holistic system of culture, politics, and economy.
c) The controversy between Heavenly Dao/justice and human desires/interests as a reduction of multiple levels of reasonable human desires/interests into one single level of unreasonable “human desires/interests” as one extreme being pitted against“Heavenly Dao/justice”as the other, in spite of the fact that“Heavenly Dao/justice”is the embodiment of a dynamic comprehensive balance between multiple levels of “human desires/interests” in multiple dimensions.
d）A theory of three sources of value as an application of the multi-level approach to the theory of political economy.
e) New narrative about “productive forces”, which include “production relations” and “superstructure” as different levels of such “forces”, instead of mechanically pitting them against one another.
f) New conclusion about whether capitalist productive forces are “advanced” as viewed in a multi-dimensional multi-level perspective.
g) New conclusion about “democratic socialism” as viewed in a multi-dimensional multi-level perspective.
h) A tentative multi-stage election system as an application of a multi-stage perspective in viewing the structure of human consciousness.
i) Basic difference between Chinese and Western traditions: Balance-oriented vs. confrontational thinking in pursuit of inward absorption-dissolution vs. outward expansion-shift of social imbalances.
j) Confrontational thinking as the common epistemological approach shared by Rightists and Leftists.
k) Distinction between the Chinese concept of “Yin-Yang balance” and the Western one of “unity of opposites”.
l) Five-way correlation (五行) as the basic dynamic pattern of Yin-Yang balance.
m) “Balance-seeking orientation”: Line of thinking running through non-assertiveness (无为) and initiativeness.
n) A modern interpretation of “inner sageness externalized in kingcraft” (内圣外王): Being both materially and spiritually proletarian (not owning nor seeking to personally own means of production).
Almost all of the above ideas either partially or totally contradict presently prevailing liberalist or Marxist or traditional Chinese convictions due to their different ontological and epistemological roots.
(The end. 12/11/2015)
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