For the abstract and outline of the whole essay see:
Faith vs. Reason: A Critique of Rationalism in Ideologies (0): Abstract & Outline
For preceding installments of the text:
A Critique of Rationalism in Modern World Ideologies(I): Ultimate Rationality
A Critique of Rationalism in Modern World Ideologies(II): Ultimate Faith (1-3)
A Critique of Rationalism in Modern World Ideologies(II): Ultimate Faith (4-5)
A Critique of Rationalism in Modern World Ideologies (III-1): Mature Ultimate Faith in the Undivided “One”
A Critique of Rationalism in Modern World Ideologies (III-2)：Multi-Dimensional Balance out of Ultimate Intangibility
A Critique of Rationalism in Modern World Ideologies (III-3): Egocentrism in immature faiths
A Critique of Rationalism in Modern World Ideologies (IV-1,2): Faith Systems as Ideologies
A Critique of Rationalism in Modern World Ideologies (IV-3): Capitalism as ideology
A Critique of Rationalism in Modern World Ideologies (IV-4): Traditional Socialism as ideology (1-2)
A Critique of Rationalism in Modern World Ideologies (IV-4): Traditional Socialism as ideology (3-4)
A Critique of Rationalism in Modern World Ideologies (IV-4): Traditional Socialism as ideology (5-6)
Outline: V. Redemption of Mankind
V-1. Revelations from traditional Chinese culture
(1) Coherence between the metaphysical and the physical
(2) Balance-oriented political economy: Physical basis for all social theories
V-2. Go beyond “physical” short-sightedness and return to the metaphysical Ultimate
(1) Two major ideological impediments to the return
(a) West post-modernist anti-foundationalism
(b) Western cultural hegemony
(2) The Dao followers’ coping strategy
The Text
V. Redemption of Mankind
V-1. Revelations from traditional Chinese culture
After a full discussion in the previous text, the answer to the question put forward at the end of the last section, which is also the conclusion to this whole essay, should be clear. The way out for China and the world in terms of spiritual and ideological orientation should be found in a synthesis of Chinese Daoist-Buddhist-Confucianist faith tradition with compatible elements from traditional Western religious and secular faiths, with thoughts from revised Marxist political economy and from reflections on past experiences, both positive and negative, in socialist revolution and socialist construction, and with the wisdom critically assimilated from traditional Chinese Daoist-Legalist art of statecraft, all of which should be integrated into a brand new and self-consistent system of thought. As to the contemporary capitalist ideology, as a social system of thought characterized by moral and philosophical individualism, mammon worship, and indulgence of desire, it is essentially detrimental to the survival of our species and planet and outdated on the whole, only to be shelved in the museum of history as teaching material by negative example, except for bits of its social management theory and practice that might be useful and assimilated after being screened and adapted.
The groundwork for the above conclusion has been fully laid out right from the beginning of this whole essay. What more are necessary here are the following two brief generalizations: one about Chinese thought tradition and the other about how to update Marxist political economy, as the “physical” foundation for all other social theories, in line with the balance-seeking way of thought:
V-1(1). Traditional Chinese thought: Coherence between the metaphysical and the physical
The Chinese tradition of thought, spanning from the ultimate faith to the principle of governance and from theories to practical wisdom, constitutes a coherent, truthful and complete system and is the hope of mankind. No matter how the ultimate reality crowning all existence has been labeled, either as Shangdi (上帝, the Supreme God) , or the Dao, or “the Heavenly Way” or the ultimate “intangibility” (neither “being” nor “non-being”) or the “ultimate oneness” or, to use this author’s paraphrase in contemporary language, “infinite potentialities”, the whole thought system is a self-consistent unity between the metaphysical and the physical, between the spiritual and the material, and between the subjective and the objective. While not regarding the human–perceived world as “an objective one independent of man’s subjective will”, it looks squarely into the finiteness of human existence both as individuals and as a collective species, into the finiteness of human consciousness and capability, and into the consequence of this finiteness: the relative nature of distinctions between all things and the distorting fragmentation of the human-perceived world, i.e., being divided into multiple levels and dimensions. That is why this system attaches special importance to the “Yin-Yang balance” theory, to the balance-oriented way of thinking, and to their application to practice in social governance.
V-1(2). Balance-oriented political economy: Physical basis for all social theories
This new political economy should start from related Marxist theory but fix it up by following the traditional Chinese line of thought which aims at a general dynamic balance. It would involve the following five aspects:
a) Restate the relationships between productive forces and production relations and the whole economic theory in the man-nature balance perspective: A natural ecological environment is the primary productive force while human productive force is derived from it and hence secondary; man-nature relations are primary production relations while production relations between human beings are secondary. The secondary productive forces and secondary production relations must obey the primary productive force’s demand for a balanced and harmonious ecological environment.
The new political economy should put the theory about primary productive forces and primary production relations in the first place and be called “primary economics” in the sense that it should be treated as the guiding principles and the foundation for the whole discipline of economics. Scholars specializing in political economy and general economics should start doing some earnest work in this regard to facilitate human salvation from looming catastrophe. The ecological, economical, political and moral crises, which have been triggered by imperfect and erroneous economic theories and have reached a point of urgency that admits of no delay, are seriously threatening the survival of the human race.
b) Restate objectively and comprehensively: the role of capital in large-scale socialized production, both positive and potentially negative if not properly regulated such as under the capitalist system; the imbalanced relationship between capital and labor under the capitalist system; and the way towards a balanced one under a socialist system.
c) Review and revise the theory of commodity value and that of surplus value.
d) Based on the above, reassess the degree of legitimacy of the capitalist system in contemporary times against the background of current world reality.
e) Sum up the positive experiences and negative lessons in the economic construction and social management of the socialist countries since the last century, including Mao Zedong’s economic thoughts that were compatible with the principle of dynamic balance and the results of their application in practice.
The principle of dynamic balance runs through all realms of the human-perceived world. Therefore, the balance-oriented line of thought should be applicable to all areas of human activities. Besides theories of political economy, those of many other fields, such as socialist revolution, socialist reformation, socialist political and economic system, socialist moral thought and culture, socialist economic construction, and socialist foreign relations and world proletarian revolution, need also be reviewed and revised through a collective introspection and renewed practice. While the sense of ultimate rationality that is contained in traditional Chinese thought should be the metaphysical foundation for all the above social theories, a new political economy with Marxist theories as a basis but revised in the balance-seeking way of thought would be the necessary “physical” foundation for a coherently inter-dependent system of all social theories（not just co-existing but mutually independent social science disciplines）.
In a nutshell, what traditional Chinese culture reveals, in both theory and practice, are the following two essentially indistinguishable and mutually dependent and complementary aspects of one principle: a self-consistent faith in the ultimate reality and a sense of balance-oriented rationality in dealing with the phenomenal world; which revelation shows the way out for humanity to be: “Go beyond ‘physical’ short-sightedness and return to the metaphysical Ultimate”.
V-2. Go beyond “physical”short-sightedness and return to the metaphysical Ultimate
V-2 (1) Two major ideological impediments to the “return”
a) West post-modernist anti-foundationalism
Foundationalism and anti-foundationalism are a pair of concepts in the history of Western philosophy, the latter being a reaction to the former. Foundationalism has two connotations: either to regard some transcendental being beyond human history, such as material being, logos, idea, God, or objective spirit as the foundation of all other beings of the world and of human understanding; or to presume a certain aspect of a civilization such as religious culture or rationalist philosophy or science as the foundation of the whole culture. (张国清：《中心与边缘》，中国社会科学出版社，1998,P.192.) Both connotations identify some sort of “foundation” as the unconditional criterion and basis for human understanding and behavior. Post-modernists, however, deny the existence of any kind of “foundation” because they think that any kind of foundationalism would inevitably lead to the monopolistic rule of certain so-called “authoritative discourse”. This view matches some realities in a way and hence is reasonable in a certain degree, but it is also one-sided.
Post-modernist anti-foundationalism is actually a reflection in the realm of philosophy of the severe crisis in ideological culture in contemporary West and other areas of the world under its influence. In the history of Western thoughts, first theology, then philosophy and still later science took turns one after another like a merry-go-round in rising and dominating, posing as the “foundation” for all ideological activities, but then disintegrating and finally losing ground, till modern times when scientific rationality, being pulled up to the supreme height of intellectual authority while allied with capitalism, has brought about all sorts of crises and people’s faith in it has been shaking and falling. But so far, for many people, there have been found no new “foundations” as alternatives, not anything either metaphysical or “physical”. That is why post-modernists, in reaction against the one extreme of ideological hegemony, go to the other extreme of denial of any kind of objective authority in human spirituality and deny and cancel all choices altogether as the “foundation”, replacing certain indispensable and plausible supreme or ultimate rule, relative objectivity, certainty, or authority with such concepts as “pluralism” in the absolute sense, “synergy”, “uncertainty”, “randomness”, “poetic fuzziness”, and “relativism” (including moral relativism). Actually they are just drifting with the stream. The swing between two extremes is itself a reflection of the lack of some mature ultimate faith and ultimate rationality in Western thought tradition.
Therefore, both scientism as the modern mainstream Western thought trend and post-modernism as a reaction to it run counter to what is demanded by history, that is, that humanity should go beyond instrumental rationality of all kinds and return to a faith in ultimate rationality. The history of China proves that the diversification of ultimate faith (such as atheistic and theistic Daoism, Buddhism and Confucianism) does not mean that they cannot go on further exploring, debating and mutually assimilating and cooperating, while agreeing to differ, for an even deeper understanding and a more effective narrative about the ultimate. Nor would it necessarily lead to the monopolization of the realm of faith by any of them. During the long years before the invasion by Western powers in modern times, even if a ruler in China was personally biased towards a specific faith, there had never happened serious religious persecutions or wars or political strife rooted in religious disagreements (either between different religions nor between theists and atheists). Nor did the Chinese ever doubt that, behind what humans perceive and present about the unverbalizable and variously described ultimate reality, there is definitely some divine power that transcends human will and has always been in action, making whoever obeys prosper and whoever objects perish. It was just the perception of this divine power through a variety of different ways of self-enlightening practices followed by thousands of years long compliance to this power that has created the unique Chinese civilization that has been illuminating the whole world. The revival and spread of China’s traditional thought will help curb the extremity of post-modernism and reverse the wrong direction toward which modern capitalist civilization is heading.
b) Western cultural hegemony
Eurocentrist view of the world and of history has always looked at those areas outside of the capitalist core zone as primitive and backward, and presented Europe and modern North America as the model for the development of human civilization, and Western culture as the gospel for all humanity. This is the ideology of imperialist hegemonism, or ideological hegemony. It was framed up to match and serve European-North American colonialist and imperialist military expansion, aggression and domination all over the planet and is a form of spiritual violence backed by the material strength of world monopoly capital, not merely an expression of a conventional belief or faith. In other words, EuroAmerican-centrism is not only a form of ordinary great-nation chauvinism serving the parochial interests of certain nations, but a strategic weapon for paving the way towards a world order dominated by capitalist imperialism.
In a philosophical perspective, the capitalist-imperialist world order maintained by EuroAmerican-centrism is an utterly imbalanced one, which originated in the imbalances in capital-labor relations in the grassroots business enterprises in capitalist countries; out of which monopoly capital was born, and then gradually amalgamated and quickly expanded; which in turn gave rise to more imbalanced social relations – besides exploitation and oppression of laborers, it also bullies small non-monopoly capital, exploits the working people and local businesses of other nations, and unscrupulously plunders and destroys the natural ecosystem, thus having created all the crises and disturbances afflicting the world today.
In contrast, traditional Chinese thinking did not aim at temporary and local parochial interests, nor impose partisan ideology on others, but regard the restoration of an all-round balance and harmony in all relations under heaven as the supreme goal of all human activities, the balance-seeking way of thought as the core of ultimate rationality, and belief in the intangible oneness of everything, perceived and not perceived, as the essence of a mature ultimate faith. Obviously, this is in stark opposition to mainstream Western ideology. So, the latter would inevitably, backed physically by its powerful self-interested hegemonist promoters and by rejecting, vilifying or distorting China’s tradition, become the biggest hindrance to the revival and spread of traditional Chinese culture.
V-2 (2) The Dao followers’ coping strategy
The inheritors of Chinese tradition will meet with all challenges, whether well- or ill-intentioned, in the traditional approach: On the one hand, with firm confidence in our nation and culture, re-elucidate in words what is worth of inheriting and promoting in traditional Chinese culture while also pointing out what has been proved inadequate by history and reality, and continue peaceful communication and mutual assimilation on an equal footing with apologists of different cultures all over the world, including advocates and local critics of Western capitalist culture; and on the other, which is more fundamentally important, earnestly apply our ancestors’ wisdom to the practice of self-cultivation and of household and state management, merge with it Marxist criticism of capitalism and a creatively updated new version of the socialist ideal, and reflect on and draw from the positive and negative experiences in China’s and other countries’ socialist revolution and construction since the last century, to first of all build China into a new-type of great power that maintains generally balanced and harmonious social relationships, is prosperous, peaceful, stable and invincible against military attacks from any inimical forces, and at the same time, hopefully, a trusted example for all friendly nations to draw inspiration and practical experience from, being always vigilant against big power chauvinism in all forms and conscientious in getting united with all nations for the realization of world peace.
Chinese civilization never depended for the spread of its culture on military power but on the moral strength of its thought tradition. Military actions should be adopted for self-defense only, just to counter anti-Dao violence. Any thought or culture that attempts to impose itself on others would never belong to nor represent traditional Chinese civilization – it would just be an ideology. History has proved once and again that any thought, culture and civilization that embodies the ultimate moral justice would unfailingly be transformed sooner or later into undefeatable material strength which can resist or absorb any vicious force that runs counter to the Supreme Way, even though it might, possibly due to its own faults, be subjected to temporary setbacks by momentarily powerful enemies. Just as what Lenin once quoted from Krylov’s Fables, the eagle may sometimes fly lower than a chicken, but a chicken can never soar as high as an eagle.
（The end）
