The concept of a two-tiered society and ancient Chinese history
Li Yousheng
Abstract: This paper divides human society into genetically encoded primordial society and artificial secondary society, and examines ancient Chinese history based on this division. Unlike all other ancient civilizations, Chinese civilization began as a peaceful superpower, building its newly emerging secondary society upon numerous primordial societies. This ensured the long-term stability of ancient Chinese society at the primordial or quasi-primordial level. The author enumerates the unique characteristics of Chinese civilization to demonstrate that the emergence of a primordial society-like superpower before the Warring States period was not accidental. In contrast, Western civilization began as a typical secondary society of city-states, following a path of war-driven development. This paper rigorously demonstrates the feasibility of the primary social level of ancient China being a primordial society, and then presents six pieces of evidence, both positive and negative, to illustrate that pre-Warring States Chinese society was close to a primordial society, with reference to Western civilization for further discussion. Unlike other socio-cultural evolutionary stages, the classification of primordial society and secondary society is based on different levels, much like the difference between human cells, tissues, and organs such as the heart and lungs—an insurmountable distinction lacking in other socio-cultural classifications based on gradual change. This social stratification can help us understand the history of human civilization, especially in explaining the different philosophical thoughts of the East and West. The author speculates that the division of labor and connection between the left and right hemispheres of the human brain may be the neurological basis for the construction of a two-tiered society in humans.
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I. Natural Man vs. Man-made Man
A key difference between humans and animals is that humans possess language, while animals do not. The intergenerational transmission of human culture and the complex construction of society are inseparable from language. This is why wolf children raised by wolves behave exactly like wolves, exhibiting no behavioral traits other than physical appearance that suggest they are human. A 29-year-old werewolf, upon meeting a woman of similar age, feels no romantic feelings because he perceives her as a different animal. Humans are products of a language-based society and culture. When we are conscious, our minds are filled with continuous thoughts and ideas—what we call consciousness, referred to here as subjective consciousness—because these persistent thoughts appear in the form of “I am like this and that.” Julian Jaynes (1920-1996), a renowned American psychologist who taught in the United States and spent his summers and later years in Canada, believed that the emergence of human subjective consciousness presupposes language; therefore, subjective consciousness itself is a cultural construct based on language. [1, 2] Johnny argues that this lingering sense of “I am how I am” requires a temporal and spatial construction as a prerequisite, and this temporal and spatial field that allows “I” to wander freely in the mind is constructed by language. Johnny advocates that subjective consciousness emerges late. He believes that subjective consciousness first appeared three thousand years ago in the Mediterranean civilization. A people living in the primeval forests of South America have no words related to time in their language other than yesterday, today, and tomorrow. In modern society, children under the age of five have no concept of time at all. This seems to support Johnny’s theory of the late emergence of subjective consciousness. [32, 33]
Following this reasoning, modern humans are themselves a cultural construct, that is, humans themselves created through cultural traditions. This is precisely the understanding of human nature held by many modern sociologists, who believe that human nature is nothing more than a blank slate to be painted on, and that humans are, in short, what we make ourselves. [3, 4] The author felt that the term “man-made human” was inelegant and changed it to “human-made human.” [5]
The pre-Qin philosophers of my country seem to have had a clear understanding of this concept of “human nature.” Xunzi said, “That which cannot be learned or acquired, yet exists within humans, is called human nature. Human nature today is such that the eyes can see and the ears can hear.” Therefore, Xunzi referred to the ability to see and hear as human nature, essentially meaning a blank slate. Xunzi also said, “That which can be learned and acquired, that which can be accomplished through labor, is called artificiality.” Here, Xunzi is precisely referring to the concept of “human nature.” (Xunzi, “Human Nature is Evil”)
Gaozi said, “Human nature is like a willow branch, and righteousness is like a cup and a plate.” ( Note : Qi is pronounced Qi ; jue is pronounced Juan; a cup and a plate is a type of undecorated wooden plate .) (Mencius: Gaozi Part 1) In this sentence, Gaozi compares the relationship between human nature and Confucian righteousness to that between a willow branch and a cup and a plate, meaning that human nature is the material for making people into all kinds of people.
Zhuangzi first proposed the concept of the “True Person,” which later became the goal of Daoist cultivation, inevitably exhibiting an idealized tendency. Zhuangzi’s “True Person” is actually a concept opposed to the artificial (pseudo) person proposed by Xunzi and others; here it is called the “Natural Person,” in contrast to the artificial person. If the Natural Person is still the willow itself, then the artificial person is the cup and plate. The willow in nature transforms into wood in the hands of a craftsman, undergoing the arduous process of chiseling and carving, before becoming utensils like cups and plates. This is a continuous process, but the willow and the cups and plates are things at different levels, much like the relationship between Chinese characters and literature. Similarly, in human history, the evolution from the Natural Person to the Artificial Person may be a gradual process, but the social environments that cultivate the Natural Person and the Artificial Person can be at different levels.
When we divide human society into genetically defined primordial society and artificial secondary society, we find that they belong to different levels. [5] As shown in the following table of cosmic evolution: the biological world is divided into seven levels: DNA, cell, tissue, organ, human body, primordial society, secondary society. All animal societies belong to primordial society, and only humans build secondary society.
Cosmic Evolution Table
Physical World life culture consciousness
1. None
2. Yes
3. Elementary particles
4. Atom
5. Molecules DNA
6. Objects cell
7. Planet organize
8. Galaxy organ
9. Universe personal
10 primitive society culture subconscious
11 Secondary society civilization consciousness
12 Rational cognitive system
13 Spiritual and Aesthetic Pursuits
The transition from natural society to artificial society is a crucial step in the history of human evolution that has a global impact, but it is rarely discussed in modern social sciences. The Wikipedia entry on “Social and Cultural Evolution” lists dozens of periods of human society, none of which are related to the evolution of human beings themselves, reflecting the strong Eurocentric tendency of modern social sciences. All of these dozens of social periods focus on the gradual evolution of a certain nature; the primitive society and the secondary society are leaps between different levels, and their classification focuses on the impact of this leap on human nature and psychological experience. Cells cannot directly enter the organ level without leaving the tissue. Although humans can build secondary societies, the difficult course of human civilization history is enough to show that there is an insurmountable aspect between primitive society and secondary society. Eckerard’s research shows that the five thousand years of human civilization history is a history of escalating wars, accompanied by the continuous expansion of the empire’s area and social inequality, until the two world wars. [6] According to Chen Ping, there have been ten major destructions in Chinese history where more than half of the population died, and all of these major destructions occurred after the Qin and Han dynasties. None of them occurred during the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties, which were superpowers in the primitive society era. [7] This is the disaster of the chasm between the two societies, and it is also the disaster of the axe turning a willow into a cup or plate, which is unavoidable.
Confucianism discusses the good and evil of human nature, while Taoism proposes the concept of the “True Person,” indicating that pre-Qin philosophers noticed humanity’s betrayal of its natural instincts. This article intends to first clarify the boundary between natural and man-made societies, and then, based on the unique characteristics of Chinese civilization, deduce that the main social life in China before the Warring States period was a natural, primordial society, rather than a man-made, secondary society.
II. Primary Society and Secondary Society
If we divide all human societies from ancient times to the present into genetically encoded primordial societies and artificial secondary societies, and examine Eastern and Western cultures through this social stratification, it shows that ancient Chinese civilization was based on a genetically encoded primordial society, while the West took the path of artificial secondary societies from the very beginning.
From the definitions, we can deduce many fundamental differences between these two types of societies. The genetically encoded primitive society is the society that humans are born into. Human nature is clearly the pillar of harmony and function in this society; human nature itself is sufficient to make it stable. Because it is determined by heredity, there is only one type. Anthropological research shows that this primitive society has about 150 people, based on face-to-face interaction and the principles of equality and reciprocity. Because they live together face-to-face and daily, they have psychological and emotional communication. At a deep level of psychological and emotional consciousness, the primitive society is a unified whole, and each member is a part of this whole. The primitive society is governed by a leader who does not have the ability to force others to accept his intentions. He can only rely on persuasion and compliance with the will of the masses, which is the Daoist principle of non-action. He has no reliable means of punishment for those who disobey the leader.
A secondary society, being a man-made society, has a goal, namely, its ideological system. Simultaneously, the society has corresponding social structures adapted to this goal. If we consider the current secondary society as one focused on wealth accumulation, then the degree of wealth becomes the measure of social rewards and punishments, thus forming numerous classes and strata marked by the amount of wealth. Since a secondary society is a human creation, it naturally has countless possible forms; a society can only choose one form, blocking other possibilities. To prevent members from recklessly seeking other possibilities, legally mandated institutions of force such as the military, police, and courts are indispensable. In a secondary society, imposing predetermined intentions on people becomes possible and a necessary means of organizing large-scale social projects. In a secondary society, its members cannot engage in psychological and emotional communication with society. The unity of a secondary society depends on the consensus of all members regarding the society’s predetermined goals and direction.
The different mindsets of primitive societies and secondary societies in perceiving the surrounding world, especially the human world, lead to different cognitive paths and outcomes. Primitive societies lack the goals and utilitarianism of secondary societies. People don’t perceive the rabbit they chase as part of the world around them. They observe the world in their leisure time, combining their observations with their own feelings and past memories to form their understanding. Therefore, they see the entire world, including themselves. Just as a two- or three-year-old child might place their small pillow next to their large pillow and say, “The pillow wants to find its mother!”—that is, seeing the large pillow as the mother of the small pillow—this is a child inferring the surrounding world from their own experience, and then understanding themselves through observing the surrounding world—a state of oneness with nature.
Secondary societies have their own purposes, forming ideologies that are compatible with these purposes, and the cognitive subject of individuals is influenced by the social ideology. The cognitive process guided by purpose relies on the interaction between subject and object, leading to the situation where the object harms the subject, that is, the betrayal and transformation of human nature itself, becoming the artificial person of secondary society. Western civilization, which started with secondary society, holds negative criticisms of Chinese culture, including: Chinese thought does not focus on pure theoretical analysis and reflection of epistemology; the core value of Chinese culture and thought is human feelings; and the Chinese language and script, as the basic material or formal norm of culture and thought, are more good at lyrical poetry than at reasoning prose. [8] Ancient Chinese traditional visual arts depicted landscapes, flowers and birds, and also included figures, while Western visual arts, starting from ancient Greece, have long only used figures as the subject, until landscape paintings appeared in two coastal countries, the Netherlands and England, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. [9] The only explanation for this is that the diverse tradition of secondary society led to war and conflict between people, forcing human attention to focus on the people they were fighting with. The development of modern navigation enabled the Netherlands and Britain to expand outwards, come into contact with other traditional cultures, and have the possibility of escaping the military threat from the European continent by sea. This led them to return to the leisurely mentality of prehistoric society and broaden their horizons.
The human brain is divided into left and right hemispheres. People who have half of their brain removed in childhood due to illness can still have normal intelligence. They can still go to university and win championships in chess, which tests intelligence. Because the connections between the two hemispheres are limited, impressions and feelings obtained by the right brain may need to be encoded before they can be transmitted to the left brain, while the language center is located in the left brain, and rational thinking is also a function of the left brain. The author speculates that the division of labor and connection between the left and right hemispheres of the human brain may be the neurological basis for the construction of a two-tier society in humans, in order to explain the differences between different levels of the two-tier society. [2]
III. The Unique Characteristics of Chinese Civilization
The author has previously emphasized the uniqueness of Chinese civilization to explain why Taoist doctrines only appeared in China. [10, 11] There are six original ancient civilizations in the world: China, Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, Mexico in Central America, and Peru in South America. No higher civilizations existed among the neighbors of the original civilizations, with Mesopotamia and Egypt being the only exceptions. They were neighbors, but although they influenced each other, they developed into civilizations almost simultaneously. Neither can be considered a secondary civilization developed under the influence of the other, especially given their different writing systems. Ancient Greece and Judaism were two secondary civilizations, but later became the source of Western civilization. Among these eight ancient civilizations, Chinese civilization exhibits many characteristics that are distinct from other ancient civilizations. This article elaborates on the uniqueness of Chinese civilization from eight aspects, hoping to explain that the formation of ancient China as a peacekeeping superpower similar to today’s United Nations was not accidental.
(I) Distance from the Ocean:
When I first conceived of the concepts of genetically encoded primordial society and artificial secondary society many years ago, I initially imagined primordial humans as living on land, grounded; secondary society humans as living on the ocean, without land, needing an external reference point to determine their location. If they wanted to remain stationary, they would anchor to the seabed; if they were on a journey, they would have a destination as a reference. This destination is shared by all, and individuals have no say in it. Cao Cao, in his poem “Viewing the Sea,” wrote, “The autumn wind is bleak, the waves surge high. The sun and moon seem to rise from within it; the starry sky is brilliant, as if emerging from its depths.” When you gaze at the boundless, surging ocean, you feel its magnificent power and the mysterious unpredictability hidden beneath its surface, a feeling the earth does not evoke. The ocean seems to better inspire humanity’s need and yearning for a secondary society.
Prehistoric megalithic cultures were mostly distributed along coastlines, both in Europe and, reportedly, in coastal areas of Shandong and Zhejiang provinces in China. It’s also worth noting that numerous islands in the Pacific Ocean are renowned for their various megalithic cultures. This seems unlikely to be a coincidence. Dragging and erecting these massive stones, weighing several tons or even tens of tons, to form monumental structures or carve them into statues would not be an easy task even today. It would require a temporary secondary social structure to coordinate the relatively long-term efforts of hundreds or thousands of people.
According to Haveland’s anthropology textbook, of the six original civilizations he listed, five occurred in coastal areas, including the coastline, with the Xia Dynasty in China being the only exception. The Xia Dynasty was clearly an inland country. [12] The Dawenkou and Hongshan cultures, which may be related to the Shang Dynasty culture, both bordered coastal areas, and their subjects had generally seen the ocean. However, the Shang Dynasty was a later development of Chinese civilization, and we should not include later developments in our calculations, so the conclusion that Chinese civilization was the only inland civilization can be established.
The civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and India covered vast areas, extending deep into the interior. Secondary civilizations like Judaism and ancient Greece were situated on the coast in smaller regions. Similarly, the original civilizations of Central America (Mexico) and South America (Peru) were located along a narrow strip of coastline. One theory suggests that early humans migrated south along the coastline in rudimentary boats after entering the Americas from Asia. For example, the Olmec and Maya, among the earliest civilizations in Central America, were located on the coast, while the Peruvian civilization first emerged on the coastline, gathering shellfish from the beaches for food. We can say that the ocean played an irreplaceable role in the development of American civilizations. Perhaps this is why American civilizations are known for their megalithic culture: from giant stone carvings of human heads to pyramid-like structures built of stone. Whether these structures were made of stone or mud is not important; what matters is that they constructed a tall material idol as a source of social cohesion, enabling unified action in a secondary social structure. For prehistoric humans, these towering material idols may have evoked similar psychological feelings as the ocean, leading them to develop megalithic culture to express these feelings. This culture was later used by a minority and led to the establishment of secondary societies.
It is worth noting here that the adventurousness of maritime life is something lacking in land-based life. According to Thucydides, a Greek historian who lived in the fifth century BC, after the Minoan civilization emerged on the island of Correia, their kings controlled the Mediterranean around 1600 BC. For about a thousand years prior, piracy and banditry were a serious problem in the Mediterranean region, he said:
“In ancient times, when people knew how to reach each other’s settlements by sea, the Greeks living on the coast and islands, like barbarians, often relied on piracy for survival. They raided towns and villages without walls, and they made a living by this raiding. The inland areas were also full of bandits, and this is still the case in some Greek-inhabited areas. The fact that people living in tribes in the inland areas still carry weapons is a remnant of this ancient raiding habit. In ancient times, all Greeks carried weapons because their homes did not have sufficient defenses and interpersonal relationships were unsafe.”[13]
The oldest collections of poetry in humankind are the *Classic of Poetry* (Shijing) in China, the *Rigveda* in India, and the Homeric epics in ancient Greece. Generally speaking, these works reflect the thoughts and emotions of ancient peoples. The different frequencies of word usage reflect the different main images in the minds of these three ancient peoples, as well as the different social environments they lived in. The author statistically analyzed the word frequencies of these three works. To improve comparability, the author used English translations as the standard; the *Classic of Poetry* was presented in its entirety, while random sampling was used for the *Rigveda* and the Homeric epics.
The occurrence rate of the word “sea” or “ocean” is highest in Homer’s epics (0.14%, 74/53258), followed by the Rigveda (0.05%, 15/28017), and lowest in the Book of Songs (0.015%, 9/60856). This is directly related to the distance of the three civilizations from the ocean; ancient Greece, located on a peninsula, was closest to the sea. It’s worth noting that the English translation of the Book of Songs uses nine words related to the ocean, while the original Chinese text only contains seven. Six of these instances of “sea” mean distant, such as in “the four seas” or “sea nation.” Only one instance might refer to the ocean: the line “The flowing water of Mianshui, flowing eastward, like feudal lords paying homage to the emperor” in the Lesser Odes of the Kingdom (Xiaoya ) . However , the Book of Songs also refers to large lakes as “sea,” so the “sea” in “flowing eastward, like feudal lords paying homage to the emperor ” could also refer to a lake. The conclusion is that the authors of the Book of Songs likely never saw the ocean and did not understand its true meaning.
The frequency of the word “god” (or “goddess”) appears highest in the Rigveda at 0.87% (244/28017), while it is lowest in the Book of Songs at 0.072% (44/60856). This seems inconsistent with the aforementioned idea that the ocean stimulated a secondary society, but the frequency of other words suggests that ancient Greek society was more typically a secondary society.
The frequency of the word “battle” is highest in Homer’s epics (0.13%, 68/53258), followed by the Rigveda (0.096%, 27/28017), and lowest in the Book of Songs (0.028%, 17/60856). This aligns with the frequency of wars described in the ancient histories of these three texts. Similarly, the frequency of the word “anger” is highest in Homer’s epics (0.092%, 49/53258), lowest in the Rigveda (0.018%, 5/28017), and lowest in the Book of Songs (0.025%, 15/60856). The frequency of joy (joy/joyment/joyful) was lowest in Homer’s epics, at 0.0094% (5/53258); highest in the Rigveda, at 0.14% (38/28017); and in the middle in the Book of Songs, at 0.087% (53/60856). In terms of the frequency of anger and joy, the ancient Indians had more masculine emotions, which may be related to their emphasis on religious faith and relative peace. The ancient Greeks had more feminine emotions, which is directly related to their aforementioned life of maritime adventure. [14]
The remaining seven points further elaborate on the unique characteristics of Chinese civilization, but due to space limitations, they will not be discussed in detail here.
(ii) Under the impact of nomadic peoples, only Chinese civilization was spared: According to Mr. Zhao Lin, the first major invasion of the agricultural world by nomadic peoples occurred from the end of the third millennium BC to 600 BC. Ancient civilizations in Europe, Asia and Africa were all invaded by this nomadic people, with only Chinese civilization being an exception. [31] According to Demeau’s research, nomadic invasions caused by the same arid climate and desertification process also occurred in the Americas. [15]
(iii) Only in the early stages of Chinese civilization was there a more definitive matriarchal society stage: Wang Yuzhe listed seven detailed pieces of evidence to show that there was a relatively certain matriarchal society stage in the early stages of Chinese civilization. [16]
(iv) Preservation of Early Human Migratory Nature: Among the world’s major ancient civilizations, only ancient Chinese civilization preserved the migratory nature of its early hunter-gatherer ancestors until very late, likely disappearing only during the Warring States period. This contrasts sharply with the urban civilization of the West. Confucius mentioned three times in the Analects the importance of cultivating virtuous governance to attract farmers from afar, indicating that Chinese farmers in Confucius’s time still had the habit and freedom to migrate.
(v) According to the author’s research, the bidirectional brain phenomenon proposed by Johnny seems to be unique to Chinese civilization. [2]
(VI) Differences in Water Conservancy Projects: The four ancient civilizations—Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, and China—all emerged in river valleys, leading to the concept of the role of water conservancy projects in the formation of states, i.e., the theory of water conservancy engineering in the emergence of civilizations. Of the four ancient civilizations, three had irrigation projects, while China’s was solely based on controlling the floods of the Yellow River. Modern archaeological discoveries show that Central American civilizations, beginning with the Olmec civilization, had irrigation systems; South American civilizations, initially inhabited by people collecting shells along the coast, naturally did not require water conservancy projects, but later, after the emergence of states, they also had canals and irrigation projects; the Inca Empire, for example, had large irrigation canals. To some extent, among the six original civilizations, China is the only one that did not have major irrigation projects for a long period after the emergence of states. The promoting effects of irrigation and flood control on the origin of states are significantly different; the former is far more powerful than the latter.
(vii) The primitive nature of Chinese religious belief culture suggests the influence of early society: Please refer to Chapter VI.
(viii) Chinese civilization appears to be the only civilization without geographical limitations:
Carnero first proposed the theory of natural barriers to the development of human civilization, namely the role of circumscription in the development of civilization. This theory holds that war is a way to drive humans to spread in all directions, that is, if you do not spread to distant places, I will attack you. When humans have nowhere to spread, the violence of war has a long-term social cause, that is, the emergence of the state. Another expression of this theory is that those who want to escape state control and migrate to the surrounding areas suffer great losses, resulting in a significant decline in living standards. People endure state control and the inequality brought by the state in order to avoid suffering losses. [17] The civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, India and Mexico in Central America are characterized by irrigation systems. Whether or not irrigation is used can make a difference of several times in agricultural output. The Nile River in Egypt is surrounded by desert, and those who flee may lose their lives. The Peruvian civilization first appeared in the coastal area and lived by collecting shellfish from the sea. Leaving this geographical environment means losing their source of livelihood. So they all have so-called natural barriers, while the Chinese civilization has no natural barriers. As a result, they migrated constantly. By the Spring and Autumn Period, there were still large areas of wasteland between the states. Mencius, during the Warring States period, also advocated unifying China through benevolent governance, which required the free migration of peasants.
IV. The dual structure of ancient Chinese society and the superpower made primitive social life possible.
From the time of the Yellow Emperor and the Xia Dynasty, China adopted a two-tiered social structure, building upon existing primitive societies to create a new secondary society. This social form only changed during the Warring States period. Furthermore, because China was a superpower in the known world, without any equally powerful external rivals, this leads to an important conclusion in this paper: during this period, the Chinese people still lived in primitive societies, or in quasi-primitive societies similar to primitive societies. The feasibility of this conclusion will be discussed below.
Primitive societies are genetically encoded societies, and unless influenced by strong external forces, humans have a natural tendency to form primitive societies. The following is a key assumption established in this paper:
Under the following conditions, a primitive society or quasi-primitive society will automatically form:
1) The community size is within the hundreds; if the number of members exceeds a certain threshold, the community has the freedom to split into two.
2) Within the community, people interact face-to-face;
3) There was no contact with the secondary society, nor was there any cultural influence or ideological input from the secondary society;
4) There are no external forces threatening its survival.
This assumption is derived from the definition that primitive societies are genetically encoded societies, and is an inevitable result. The following arguments demonstrate that pre-Warring States period Chinese society could satisfy the four requirements of this assumption. The following is the social model of the entire country during the Three Dynasties period:
The Imperial Family, Quasi-Primitive Society + Scholars
|
Feudal families, quasi-primitive society + literati
|
Village families and primitive society
According to the definition in this article, the emperor and feudal lords in the above model diagram should be considered a secondary society, forming a two-tiered structure with the village families of the original society. In reality, the emperor and feudal lords still lived in a quasi-original society, similar to the original society, because the conditions of the above important assumptions were met one by one. They were neither influenced by the ideology and culture of the secondary society nor faced any external forces threatening their survival. The following six points are explained in detail:
1) The three levels of families—the emperor, the feudal lords, and the village—all lived in the original social structure;
2) The material standard of living of the emperor and feudal lords may have been higher than that of village families, but the one-tenth tax did not change the leisurely and contented lifestyle of the village families;
3) Although the emperor and the feudal lords did not live together, they met frequently. The number of the emperor and the feudal lords together was within several hundred, forming a quasi-primitive society.
4) Similarly, the feudal lords and the chieftains of their respective villages formed another level of quasi-primitive society;
5) All the aforementioned primordial and quasi-primordial societies handled and coordinated their relationships according to the principles of equality and reciprocity inherent in primordial societies, and their management was based on the management principles of the primordial society’s leaders;
6) The ideal is to have near-zero administrative management and military conflict at the secondary social level, which is the Taoist principle of non-action.
This primordial superpower was first established by the Yellow Emperor. The Records of the Grand Historian begins by stating, “The Shennong clan declined, the feudal lords invaded and attacked each other, tyrannizing the people, and the Shennong clan could not subdue them.” Scholars believe that Shennong likely represents an era rather than a specific ruler’s name. During Shennong’s era, agriculture developed, and people lived in a relatively peaceful environment. However, towards the end of this era, due to increased local population density or food shortages caused by natural disasters, violent conflicts arose constantly, and no one could stop them. Following the challenge-response logic of British historian Arnold Toynbee, the capable Yellow Emperor emerged to address this challenge. His solution was to build a powerful army, conquer the invading Yan Emperor, and capture and kill the rebellious Chi You, thus winning peace and stability for all nations. The Yellow Emperor’s contribution lies in ushering in a golden age in Chinese history, soon followed by the emergence of figures like Yao, Shun, and Yu, whose virtuous rule and non-interference were widely praised, demonstrating that the Yellow Emperor used force for peace. Yu the Great, through his public works project of flood control, further laid the foundation for the system by which the superpowers of the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties maintained peace throughout the world. This is not unlike the peacekeeping function of the United Nations, whose permanent members are the world’s military powers.
Many Western scholars only acknowledge the Shang Dynasty after the emergence of writing, which does not conflict with the argument cited in this article regarding the Yellow Emperor: the philosophical foundation of Chinese culture was laid during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. The Five Hegemons of the Spring and Autumn period, along with the Zhou Dynasty, functioned as peacemakers, and the system of maintaining peace among the superpowers of the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties largely persisted. At this time, legends about the Yellow Emperor and Yu the Great were also widely circulated. Even as legends, they influenced the philosophical thinking of thinkers of the time because they could believe them. However, the influence of prehistoric facts discovered by modern archaeology is highly questionable if scholars at the time were unaware of them. If humanity is a cultural construct, whether the history believed by people in ancient times is legend or reality is akin to the fiction within fiction in a novel—the difference is minimal.
V. Evidence that the main aspects of social life in China before the Warring States period were primitive society
The above theoretical analysis demonstrates the feasibility that the main aspects of social life in China before the Warring States period were primitive society. The following lists both positive and negative historical evidence from ancient China to illustrate that this conclusion is a historical fact.
(I) Early philosophers lacked an understanding of the two-tiered society.
Most of the philosophers of the Hundred Schools of Thought belonged to the lower strata of the ruling class and had the opportunity to understand the upper and lower levels of society. Their doctrines were mostly focused on social life and political management. However, the early philosophers of the Hundred Schools of Thought clearly lacked an understanding of the two levels of society, which strongly suggests that the main level of social life in China before the Warring States period was the primitive society.
Confucius and Mencius both spoke many things that are clearly unsuitable for secondary societies, but can only be understood through the lens of the head-management system in the face-to-face interactions of primitive societies. Confucius said, “Politics is about being upright . If you lead example, who would dare to be unrighteous? ” ( Analects , 12:17). He also said, “If one ’s conduct is upright, one’s orders will be followed without being given; if one one’s orders will not be followed even if given . ” (Analects, 13:6). These words clearly only apply to the head-management system of primitive societies; this kind of exemplary politics is limited to the social circle of face-to-face interaction. Leaders in secondary societies need to come up with solutions to problems and provide clear guidelines and instructions to their subordinates; simply setting an example in everything is not enough. Farmers are idle at least throughout the winter, and how to organize them to pursue public good seems to have been completely overlooked by Confucianism. Furthermore, organizing the people’s leisure time to pursue material civilization is a Western concept, seemingly outside the purview of ancient Chinese thinkers.
Mencius opposed unifying the world through wars of conquest, believing that as long as benevolent governance is implemented and the hearts of the people are won, the world can be unified. In a dialogue with King Xuan of Qi, Mencius put forward a specific standard that modern scholar Li Shen considers to be the economic ideal of a moderately prosperous society. [18] Mencius said, “If the seventy- year – olds wear silk and eat meat, and the common people are not hungry or cold , yet their rulers do not become kings, this has never happened before .” (Mencius: King Hui of Liang, Part 1) It is not difficult to achieve that the common people are not hungry or cold and that the elderly are well cared for. Many countries and regions have reached this standard, but there is no unification or complete cessation of war. Only when material life is guaranteed under the original social conditions, and people are content with a leisurely and comfortable life, can a unified and peaceful situation emerge. In a secondary society, there will always be some people who want to use the labor of others to realize their unlimited ambitions, and the secondary society provides them with this possibility. Furthermore, Mencius’s idea of ruling the world through benevolent governance requires the free movement of people, which is only possible in primitive social conditions where there are neither national borders nor the concept of household registration.
In Chapter 29 of the *Tao Te Ching*, Lao Tzu says, “The world is a sacred vessel; it cannot be manipulated, nor can it be seized. Those who try to manipulate it will fail; those who seize it will lose it.” Lao Tzu means that the human world is sacred and should not be altered or possessed. These words also describe the aforementioned two-tiered structural system. That is to say, the emperor and feudal lords cannot manipulate or seize their subordinate societies; they cannot control them arbitrarily, nor can they possess them, because there is no absolute authority in the original and quasi-original societies.
The *Book of Rites* records Confucius saying, “Therefore, plans are made using this method, and wars arise from it; Yu, Tang, Wen, Wu, Cheng, and the Duke of Zhou were chosen based on this. This was to demonstrate their righteousness, to examine their trustworthiness, to record their faults, to punish them with benevolence and humility, and to show the people that there are constant principles; those who do not follow these principles will be removed from power, and the people will consider them a calamity. This is what is meant by a state of moderate prosperity.” This means that from the Xia Dynasty to the Zhou Dynasty, the world was considered to be in a state of moderate prosperity, where the system of rites and rituals examined the right and wrong, trustworthiness, faults, benevolence, and consistency of the rulers. Rulers who did not follow these principles were seen as a calamity by the people and would lose their positions. This also illustrates that there is no absolute authority in this system; the rulers’ fate is determined by whether the people consider them a calamity.
(ii) Both Taoism and Confucianism take the original society as their ideal.
The first systematic philosophical system to emerge in China was the Daoist school, represented by Laozi. It was a philosophical summary of the primordial society preserved in the ancient two-tiered structure, a philosophization and idealization of primordial social life. It is well-known that Laozi idealized a primordial society of small states and few people. Similarly, Confucianism regarded the era of Yao, Shun, and Yu—a society close to or similar to the primordial society—as its ideal. Confucius praised Yao, Shun, and Yu extensively in the *Analects*, and the *Book of Rites* records the Confucian saying about the Great Learning, further evidence of Confucianism’s advocacy of the primordial society. The *Analects* mentions, “Shun had five ministers, and the world was well-governed.” The * Analects * also records Confucius saying, “He who governs by non- action, was it not Shun? What did he do? He simply sat solemnly on his throne , facing south .”
This means that the two earliest philosophical systems in Chinese intellectual history, Taoism and Confucianism, both took their real-world primitive society as their ideal. Lacking firsthand experience of a secondary society, they could not formulate their ideal of a secondary society, providing further evidence that pre-Warring States Chinese society was primarily a primitive society. Confucius provided a specific description of his primitive social system: he opposed executions and lawsuits, advocating virtuous governance (Analects 12:19, 13:11, 2:3). Confucius took the Western Zhou society as his model. Both the *Records of the Grand Historian* and the ancient version of the *Bamboo Annals* record that, “During the reigns of King Cheng and King Kang of Zhou, the world was at peace, and punishments were not used for forty years . ” This sufficiently demonstrates that Confucius indeed wanted to establish a society without lawsuits and completely free from cruelty and killing (overcoming cruelty and eliminating killing), which was achieved during the Western Zhou period. Based on the world population of 50 million in 1000 BC and the fact that China’s population accounted for 27% of the world’s population in 400 BC[19], the population during the Western Zhou period may have been over 13 million. The fact that no punishments were used for forty years can only be attributed to the enormous power of human nature in maintaining a stable society within the aforementioned primitive social system. In human history, a secondary society of this scale would fall into chaos without punishments, or even with lighter punishments.
(III) The Five-Rank System of the Xia and Zhou Dynasties was an inevitable result of the primitive social superpowers: a universal vision that equated political territory with cultural dissemination.
Both the *Shangshu: Yu Gong* and the *Guoyu: Zhouyu Shang* record the concept of the Five Zones, using almost identical names. The Five Zones refer to the division of administrative regions by the political center based on proximity, with the outermost zone called the Wilderness Zone. The *Yu Gong* states that the Wilderness Zone was open to all, while the *Zhouyu Shang* says that the lords of the Wilderness Zone only needed to pay homage to the emperor once in their lifetime. In short, it represented the edge of a superpower, and also the edge of the Chinese worldview. This illustrates that the ancient Chinese believed themselves to be the sole center of power in the world, representing all of humanity, and therefore responsible for all of humanity—a universal perspective. Their culture should also be considered the original social culture of all humanity, not just a particular culture of a secondary society; only in this way could it truly represent all humankind. Equating political regions with the scope of cultural dissemination was an inevitable result of a primitive, superpower-like society.
In his booklet “Unification and Division: Lessons from Chinese History”, Ge Jianxiong stated that what Chinese dynasties wanted was the vanity of being the Celestial Empire, not actual ruling power. In terms of economy, there was no exploitative relationship between tribute and being exploited. Tribute and rewards were often of higher value than the former, or at least of equal value. In order to show the abundance of the Celestial Empire’s resources, warehouses were often opened and the other party was allowed to choose. This is why there are no records of foreign trade in ancient China. [20] Ancient China’s superpower was not a trade institution, nor was it the meaning of Western countries and nations, but a cultural system of human unification.
(iv) Ancient China lacked a two-tiered social mechanism for social operation.
In conclusion, ancient China lacked a directional ideological system and corresponding culture governing a two-tiered society. This further illustrates that ancient China lacked a social mechanism to organize the entire society towards a common goal, which refers to objectives beyond the system’s security and stability, such as wealth accumulation and territorial expansion. Security and stability are prerequisites for the existence of any social system and should not be confused with the social goals of a two-tiered society.
The practice of exchanging tribute and one-tenth of taxes for the protection of a superpower was the essence of state-building in pre-Warring States China. This superpower’s protective function relied on a balance of power between the dynasty and the various vassal states, as well as mutual trust in personal interactions. The dynasty was stronger than the vassal states, and the combined power of several vassal states was stronger than the dynasty—this was a balancing system. Human nature, as the primary guiding force for self-adjustment after imbalance, represented the will of the people. This will is not the will of the people as instilled by modern culture, but rather the innate will of the people. Therefore, this primordial superpower possessed the function of ensuring its own security and stability, but it was difficult to accommodate other objectives.
Iyar divides power into four types: social, military, ideological, and economic. He argues that all complex societies are backed by military power, but military power has inherent limitations, namely, those who rely on military force are often rebelled against by military force, which is what the Chinese call “those who play with fire will get burned.” Social power, built on kinship, is prone to constant fragmentation, while ideological power is difficult to monopolize, and the power it generates is also difficult to concentrate, just like social power. Iyar concludes that only economic power can stabilize a regime on its own, and control over economic resources is also a shortcut to obtaining the other three types of power. [21]
Consistent with Iyal’s view, China’s military power was subject to a hierarchical system of checks and balances. While capable of dealing with barbarian invasions externally, it lacked absolute power internally. King You of Zhou deposed his crown prince, who then complained to his maternal grandfather, resulting in the fall of the capital and the execution of King You. This demonstrates that the king’s military strength existed within a system of checks and balances.
The culture of wealth accumulation controls the means of production within a social mechanism controlled by a few people, and organizes the entire social population within it. A person cannot survive without this existing social mechanism. This was not the case in ancient Chinese society. At that time, people’s livelihood was agriculture and hunting and gathering. The population was sparse and there was a lot of wasteland. Absolute control of land was impossible. Ancient China did not establish a mechanism to control society by controlling the means of production. According to Wang Yuzhe’s research, the concept of the state in ancient China from the Xia and Shang dynasties to the Western Zhou dynasty was only a point and not a surface. The areas between the strongholds of the Huaxia people under the rule of the state were left to the minority ethnic groups to live. [16] The Xia and Shang dynasties moved their capitals many times. Chinese agriculture was extensive agriculture with slash-and-burn cultivation, which also required constant migration. The Book of Rites: The Great Learning, which appeared in the Warring States period, said, “Therefore, the superior man first cultivates virtue. With virtue, there are people; with people, there is land; with land, there is wealth; with wealth, there is use.” This clearly states that the source of the state’s finances mainly comes from the people who support the monarch’s virtuous rule. In the Analects, Confucius mentioned three times how to attract farmers from afar to join him with virtuous rule. (The Analects, 16:1, 13:4, 16) This is consistent with the lack of geographical limiting factors in China mentioned above. King Li of Zhou nationalized the mountains and forests, possibly attempting to establish a mechanism for controlling society by controlling the means of production, which resulted in his utter destruction.
The conclusion is that ancient China did not establish a two-tiered social management mechanism, making it impossible to carry out large-scale engineering projects beyond survival and security, such as the Egyptian pyramids. The military power of the dynasty and the feudal lords were mutually balanced and constrained, and their social power was constrained by the free migration of peasants. This can be explained by the limitations of the development of productive forces. China had already mastered metallurgy at that time, but according to the famous anthropologist Zhang Guangzhi, from the Xia and Shang dynasties to the Western Zhou dynasty, China used wood, stone, bone, and shell as materials to make agricultural tools. [22]
Foreign scholar Anderson pointed out that among the four ancient civilizations, China was an exception compared with the other three, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and India: its agricultural technology remained at a level close to the Neolithic Age and was relatively simple; its urbanization level was low and its commerce was underdeveloped; it seemed to have never been involved in conquest, diplomacy, or commerce between states, and only had contact with the surrounding barbarians; the wars that demonstrated its power were only on the scale of Bronze Age chariots and were not large in scale; there were not many slaves, and they were used in the family, so it is impossible to regard it as a slave society. [23] These descriptions also show that ancient China lacked an effective mechanism for the operation of a secondary society.
(V) Military conflicts in ancient China were similar to violent conflicts in primitive societies, while Western civilization has been a civilization of escalating warfare from the very beginning.
Due to the characteristics of the superpower and the two-frame structure of society mentioned above, my country’s long-term military conflicts have the characteristics of violent conflicts in primitive society. When prehistoric humans were threatened with survival, they might also attack their neighbors, which was called small-scale attack, mostly driven by hunger. When two groups had a conflict that could not be resolved by other means, prehistoric humans also decided to fight according to ritual procedures. It allowed both sides to show courage and emotion, and the injuries were mostly not serious, and rarely caused death. Because violence is not a basic human nature, but a peripheral potential that humans only show under certain circumstances, hunger and conflict may lead to violent conflict, but are more likely to be resolved peacefully. Such violent conflict remained at the level of individual phenomena and was constrained by human nature. Therefore, for millions of years in human history, such conflicts neither escalated nor increased in frequency. The famous historian Huang Renyu called the wars in my country’s Spring and Autumn Period aristocratic wars, saying: “The chariot wars in the Spring and Autumn Period were aristocratic wars. Sometimes they regarded each other as competitors. There was a certain procedure for the formation, and there were also recognized principles for the intersection, which is still bound by ritual. Not acting for oneself was the general trend at that time.”[24] In short, their wars were also constrained by human nature. The wars of the Warring States period truly possessed the characteristics of secondary social wars. These wars were fought to establish a power politics unrelated to human nature, and were political conflicts resulting from different social orientations.
During the Western Zhou and Spring and Autumn periods, soldiers and farmers were combined, and the people of the state served as soldiers while the common people did not. The real regular soldiers were limited to the guards protecting the royal family, and their numbers were very small. [25] Chinese historical records show that the Shang dynasty replaced the Xia dynasty and the Zhou dynasty replaced the Shang dynasty when the last emperors lost the hearts of the people and were abandoned by the masses. However, the records of the last emperors’ misdeeds should be understood in the context of the balance of power system not allowing them to deviate too far from human nature. Because war is constrained by human nature, the victorious side properly resettled the defeated side, rather than taking them as slaves. The *Records of the Grand Historian*, specifically the sections on the Xia and Yin dynasties, records that when the Shang dynasty overthrew the Xia, “Tang enfeoffed the descendants of Xia , and by the time of the Zhou dynasty , they were enfeoffed in Qi . ” When the Zhou dynasty overthrew the Shang, “they enfeoffed Wu Geng, the son of King Zhou of Shang, as a vassal to continue the ancestral sacrifices of the Shang and ordered him to uphold the political practices of the time of Pan Geng . The people of Shang were greatly pleased . ”
Western civilization originated from Mediterranean civilization, including the Middle East, North Africa, and ancient Greece and Rome. From its inception, it was characterized by commerce and wealth accumulation. Existing family structures were broken up, particularly in Mesopotamia and ancient Greece, where free individuals formed city-states located along rivers and coasts, becoming hubs for transportation and trade. In this context, war was no longer the violent conflict of primitive societies governed by human nature, nor a way to resolve disputes on an equal footing; its purpose was the plunder of wealth, resources, and slaves. They typically killed all the men of the defeated nation and sold women and children into slavery. This provided the economic foundation and social mechanism for wealth accumulation and the escalation of war. Ancient China did not establish such a two-tiered social mechanism. Even if the victorious side captured many people, no one could buy so many slaves; they could only provide proper resettlement for the defeated to prevent rebellion.
Eckhard recently proposed the so-called dialectical evolution theory to explain the evolution of human civilization. He described his theory as follows: “Dialectical evolution seeks the relationship between civilization, empire and war, such that the interaction between the three leads to positive feedback, which causes the three to form a spiral motion that is constantly rising and moving forward. Unless negative feedback is established, causing the three to spiral motion in the opposite direction.” [6]
Eckhard used the frequency of battles as a measure of war, the total area of empires as a measure of empires, and the number of famous people who entered encyclopedias and textbooks as a measure of civilization. Eckhard called these famous people geniuses, that is, the number of geniuses constitutes the measure of civilization. Eckhard’s research results found that the whole world was a spiral of continuous ascent in the five thousand years of civilization history, only ascending and not descending. As far as a region is concerned, there was also ascent and descent in the five thousand years. When expenditure exceeds income, this spiral movement is reversed, and civilization declines, which is manifested in decentralization, feudalization, and foreign invasion. Eckhard found that in the process of spiral ascent of all civilizations, not only did civilization, empire and war rise at the same time, but it also led to the expansion of social inequality, which was manifested in: slavery, caste system, class differentiation and social hierarchy, etc. [6]
This doctrine can be verified by the words of the ancient Greek scholar Heraclitus (c. 540-470 BC), who said, “War is the father of all things, war is the king of all things. War makes some gods, some men; some slaves, some free men.”
Eckhard’s theory is suitable for the Warring States period in my country, but it does not fit the situation before the Warring States period in my country, nor does it fit the world after the establishment of the United Nations. Scholars have studied the war situation in China from 2700 BC to 722 BC and found that China was unusually stable during this period compared with other eras and regions. Its stability was similar to that of the modern world in the Cold War era after World War II. [26] After World War II, science and technology flourished like never before, and a large number of geniuses emerged, but this was not accompanied by an escalation of war.
Lao Tzu said, “Weapons are inauspicious instruments, not the instruments of a gentleman. They are used only as a last resort, and tranquility is paramount. Victory is not beautiful; those who are beautiful are those who delight in killing. He who delights in killing will not gain the support of the world.” “When many are killed, mourn and weep for them; treat victory as a funeral” (Tao Te Ching, Chapter 31). Lao Tzu here views victory in war as a bad thing because both sides have lost people, and it should be handled with funeral rites. No country in later civilizations has ever treated victory in war with funeral rites. If a country insisted on doing so, its army would lose its direction, the people would oppose it, and it would only collapse amidst widespread opposition. Lao Tzu’s guiding principles on war are only applicable to primitive societies.
(vi) Confucianism’s doctrines of benevolence and righteousness, along with its system of rites and music, are extensions of the original social management system rather than evidence of the emergence of a secondary society.
If we consider Confucianism and Taoism as a way of life, neither Confucianism nor Taoism alone can encompass the culture of China over thousands of years. Only the complementarity of Confucianism and Taoism represents the direction of mainstream Chinese culture. As philosophies, Confucianism and Taoism emerged during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, but as a way of life and social trend, the idea of the complementarity of Confucianism and Taoism existed from the very beginning of Chinese civilization.
Confucianism centers on the doctrines of benevolence and righteousness. These doctrines were commonly used in early societies when facing hardship and division, though they weren’t necessarily called benevolence and righteousness. They didn’t impose the power of social unity on any individual member; they simply used phrases like benevolence and righteousness to remind people, hoping they wouldn’t split.
Modern people, having experienced a two-tiered society, have lost the ability to resonate with these words on a psychological and emotional level. The reactions of people in ancient, primitive societies to these words were fundamentally different from ours. A superficially similar situation is this: a two- or three-year-old child is naughty, and after repeated scolding, the parents call out, “You don’t want your mother anymore!” The child immediately stops being naughty. It is said that a six-month-old baby, when excited about receiving a new toy, will constantly exchange glances with their mother to achieve emotional and psychological communication. The mother represents the child’s deep-seated, holistic social interaction, something the child cannot sever ties with.
Rural life in China most closely resembles the ideal of early Daoist society, and in some areas, clans and clan heads still exist. The clan head no longer has the power to convene clan meetings; instead, he fulfills his role by continuously expressing his opinions through negotiation. When internal conflicts escalate to the point of affecting clan unity, the clan head addresses both sides through relatives and friends. His first statement is: “Have a conscience!” This embodies the Confucian concept of benevolence. If this fails, he utters his second statement: “Be worthy of your ancestors!” Ancestors represent the entire clan, which is the essence of Confucian righteousness. In short, even without a secondary social management mechanism, people still appeal to human conscience to maintain social unity and stability.
In primitive societies where language and social institutions were underdeveloped, ritual and music served as a system of social communication and integration. Like language, ritual and music constituted an expressive system with an inherent structure, not necessarily involving the use of language. Compared to law and language, ritual and music were richer in emotional and psychological communication. All primitive societies had their own ritual and music systems, which played a vital role in the functioning of society. Only in today’s increasingly mature secondary societies have ritual and music systems and religious life taken a backseat. Confucianism’s emphasis on both benevolence and righteousness, along with its emphasis on ritual and music, reflects the shared ideal of primitive society by both Confucianism and Taoism, and Confucianism’s approach of using primitive society as a model for governing secondary societies.
Especially the Confucian ritual and music system after the Qin and Han dynasties, while itself an institution of a secondary society, retained characteristics of the primordial society. The ritual and music behaviors of the primordial society can be seen as a holistic expression and exchange at the deep conscious level of the aforementioned primordial social psychology and emotions, just as laughter is contagious, causing those around to laugh as well. The Confucian ritual and music system adapted to the needs of social stability and also contained elements of human self-expression. As Confucius said, ” One is inspired by poetry, established by ritual, and perfected by music.” ( Analects , 8 : 8) This means that the emotional expression inspired by poetry becomes ritual and music, that is, the ritual and music system is seen as a way of expressing emotions. This is the thinking of the primordial society, which differs from that of the secondary society. The ritual and music of the primordial society primarily aimed to please human nature, while the ritual and music of the secondary society primarily aimed to maintain social order.
This should not be confused with religious rituals and music. Humans have an innate need for holistic social and psychological fulfillment, and contemporary religious rituals and music serve to compensate for and cater to this need.
VI. Conclusion: Historical Impact
(I) The Contingency of Human History from the Perspective of the Big Bang Cosmology:
When we study history in school, we often develop a misconception: that the course of China’s three or four thousand years of history was inevitable. In reality, the Chinese history we read about today is the result of countless accidental events. History has countless other possibilities. Only by recognizing the accidental nature of human historical development can we see Confucius from a different perspective and understand that the path China later took was precisely what Confucius spent his life striving to prevent.
From the perspective of Big Bang cosmology, nature, including humanity, is also the result of countless accidental events. The Big Bang, which formed our universe, was the only accidental event that occurred in the past ten billion years. One theory is that the Big Bang produced countless positive and negative particles, which collided and then vanished. Only one in a million of these particles accidentally avoided colliding, thus forming our current universe.
Just as the Big Bang, which formed the universe, occurred only once, the DNA (nucleotide) molecule, the origin of our diverse world of plants and animals, was also produced only once. When we look in a mirror, the image in the mirror is exactly the same as us, but the left and right sides are reversed; that is, the left hand in the mirror image is our right hand. In DNA nucleotide molecules, this is called left-handed and right-handed. If more than two DNA nucleotide molecules were produced simultaneously at the beginning, there would be two types: left-handed and right-handed. Scientists’ examination has revealed only one type, suggesting that we all originated from the same DNA nucleotide molecule.
Like other organisms, human evolution is the accumulation of countless accidental mutations, and genetic mutations are errors in the DNA replication process. These replication errors can be as small as one in a million, and most mutations are harmful, even lethal.
The evolution of human culture and history follows a similar pattern. It has been estimated that adults have 60,000 thoughts or ideas every day, most of which are unrealistic fantasies. Of these 60,000 thoughts or ideas, only a tiny fraction—perhaps one in a billion—will translate into personal actions, potentially influencing societal direction and even the course of human history. This process is referred to as the filtering process of these 60,000 daily thoughts or ideas.
This process of filtering human thoughts or ideas differs fundamentally between primitive and secondary societies. The former is guided by aesthetics, allowing many expressions that seem fantastical today, while people in secondary societies must speak according to established procedures and rules, and conform to social contexts—that is, they are human beings.
If humans, as primitive social animals, possess only the peripheral potential to build secondary societies, and this potential manifests as play and fantasy in primitive societies, then the construction of secondary societies requires the catalysis of war—a concept echoed by Eckhardt’s dialectical evolution theory of escalating warfare. Similarly, war requires the selective accumulation of numerous accidental events to escalate, accompanied by the advancement of empires and civilizations.
As two major sources of Western civilization, ancient Greece and Jewish civilization are both unique and exceptional cases. Both were small coastal states living under the siege of powerful enemies. This harsh living environment forced them to develop unique methods for survival. Ancient Greece developed democracy to encourage the initiative of all individuals, while Jewish civilization developed monotheism to unify action—both were methods for the weak to survive in a war-torn environment.
The history of modern China, familiar to everyone, is full of chance events. The Taiping Rebellion, lasting over a decade and affecting much of China, can be traced back to two indispensable chance events: Hong Xiuquan’s repeated failures in the imperial examinations and his chance encounter with a pamphlet promoting Christianity. Had Hong Xiuquan passed the examinations and entered officialdom, there would have been no possibility of rebellion. His encounter with the Christian pamphlet was so accidental that he later denied it, claiming his dream of God was divine intervention, not inspired by the reading. Sun Yat-sen’s armed uprisings repeatedly failed, while the Xinhai Revolution in Wuhan, in which he did not participate, succeeded. In Chinese history, only Empress Lü, Empress Wu Zetian, and Empress Dowager Cixi held power for extended periods. Cixi chose the young Guangxu Emperor while alive and the young Xuantong Emperor before her death, only to have Guangxu poisoned. This series of chance events ultimately led to the possibility of a peaceful relinquishment of power by the orphaned and widowed Qing government.
The centralization and unification of China after Confucius were also the result of chance events, though the events are largely unknown due to their antiquity. During the Spring and Autumn Period, China convened two peace conferences seeking to establish a United Nations-like international organization to maintain peace—a traditional approach from the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties. Even during the Warring States Period, the seven major states and a dozen or so smaller states followed a path of military balance for over two hundred years, rather than unification by force. Qin Shi Huang’s unification of China, contrary to popular expectations, relied heavily on violence, leading to its short lifespan. The Qin unification of China was indeed a rare and accidental event.
(II) Chinese History After the Qin and Han Dynasties:
After the bloody ravages of the Warring States period, peasants had nowhere to escape, and the state could no longer attract peasants to its rule through benevolent governance, as Confucius had suggested. The social model of the aforementioned primordial superpower transformed into:
The Emperor’s Family: A Deformed Quasi-Primitive Society
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Bureaucracy and its successors; intellectual groups; secondary society
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Village family quasi-primitive society
The main difference between this social model and the aforementioned two-frame structure is that the vassal states in the middle disappeared, replaced by a group of bureaucrats and reserve literati. According to data provided by John King Fairbank, the vast Qing Dynasty used less than 20,000 bureaucrats, but had a reserve group of 1.25 million literati who obtained official titles through the imperial examinations. [27] After Emperor Wu of Han, Confucianism became the official ideological system, complementing the Daoist school in the countryside, and it was still able to appear as a unified culture of humankind. The hundreds of millions of peasants, just like in the previous social model, paid taxes in exchange for a guarantee of peace and stability. The original social system, based on natural human nature, had a strong appeal to humankind, which was the source of the system’s strong inclusiveness and integration, and also the fundamental reason for the continuous development of Chinese civilization. The change of dynasties was merely a change of the emperor’s family, and only one or two thousand bureaucrats were selected from the same reserve group of literati. According to war statistics, from the Qin and Han dynasties to the late Qing dynasty before the influence of Western powers entered China, China for more than two thousand years lacked the escalation of Western wars and changes in social structure, but rather experienced periodic turmoil accompanied by super-stable social structure. [34]
The fact that this system has remained unchanged for thousands of years implies a weak secondary social mechanism and a weak middle class. The ancient Greek city of Athens, with a population of only a few hundred thousand, possessed a well-developed secondary social mechanism that enabled it to mobilize the wisdom and strength of all social classes, maximizing the energy and time of its members to accumulate vast wealth in a short period, build a powerful navy, erect magnificent temples, and create a profound and sophisticated philosophy and culture. China, over thousands of years, has not built a similar massive secondary social mechanism as ancient Greece. This has had a significant impact on the development of material civilization, but a negligible impact on the development of spiritual and cultural civilization. However, their development directions differed: the West focused on the refinement of analysis, while China focused on the depth of aesthetics.
Due to the insufficient development of the operational mechanisms of secondary societies, large-scale projects such as the construction of the Great Wall and the excavation of the Grand Canal relied entirely on administrative orders, leading to operational failures and the sudden collapse of the Qin and Sui dynasties. Historical records show that the reigns of Empress Wu Zetian and Emperor Wu of Han saw more than half of their population flee, yet the dynasties did not collapse, similarly illustrating the lack of a balancing mechanism at the secondary social level. The insurmountable historical influence between primitive and secondary societies is more evident from the perspective of humanity as a whole; while China is included, it is not a typical example. Prehistoric humans, like animals, lived a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Women carried children on foot, resulting in a lactation period of three to four years. Furthermore, a high-protein diet was not conducive to fat accumulation, and low-fat diets and lactation were natural mechanisms limiting the frequency of pregnancy. The emergence of agriculture ten thousand years ago marked the beginning of human civilization, leading to local population increases and the development of secondary societies. Humans began building altars, and megalithic cultures appeared along the coast. The invention of agriculture led to a high-carbohydrate diet, and the lack of childcare shortened the lactation period, resulting in a dramatic increase in the birth rate. However, contact between humans and livestock led to large-scale infectious diseases, such as smallpox, which persisted for tens of thousands of years before being controlled by advanced medicine in modern times. As mentioned above, five thousand years of civilization is a history of escalating warfare. Under the supervision of the leisure class, people worked day and night to support these wars, and those wiped out by war were not necessarily genetically or culturally inferior. On the contrary, they were misled by their inherent human conscience and simply didn’t have time to betray their humanity before death. The agricultural revolution and the establishment of Middle Eastern states in human history were accompanied by a shortening of human lifespan. Before the invention of agriculture, humans, like other animals, did not work. After the invention of agriculture, they began to work, resulting in increased population and the deaths of children due to infectious diseases. After the emergence of civilization, working day and night to support an even larger population led to the deaths of adults due to war and famine. Thirty thousand years ago, the average height of men was 177 cm and women 165 cm, while in the 1960s, the average height of American men was 175 cm and women 153 cm. [28] The gap between primitive society and secondary society is insurmountable, and civilized humans are trapped in the chasm between them, making futile struggles. If modern people pursue personal happiness, the dramatic increase in suicide rates in North America in the twentieth century is enough to show that, from an individual perspective, humanity is still making futile struggles. This is similar to the disaster of the axe before the willow tree becomes a cup or plate, as described by Gaozi, which is unavoidable. No other social classification can explain the disaster of the insurmountable gap.
Under the onslaught of Western civilization, Chinese civilization has suffered repeated defeats since the Opium War, and even the name of the republic is a concept from Europe more than two thousand years ago. Humanity is recognizing the value of non-Western civilizations. The fundamental differences between primitive society and secondary society lead to differences between East and West in philosophical thinking and culture and art, and these differences can all be explained by the differences between primitive society and secondary society. The value of Chinese civilization lies in its demonstration of the power and charm of primitive society, which may point humanity to a new direction for social thinking. [29, 30]
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[4] A. Wolfe (2001): “Human nature” in Encyclopedia of Sociology . New York: McMillan Reference. p1233-36.
[5] You Sheng (2008): A New Perspective on Examining the Differences Between Eastern and Western Cultures. *Xue Deng*, Issue 7. www.confucius2000.com.
[6] William Eckhardt (1995): A Dialectical Evolutionary Theory of Civilizations,
Empires, and Wars. In SK Sanderson, eds., Civilizations World Systems Studying World-Historical Change , Walnut Creek, USA: AltaMira Press. 1995. p75-108.
[7] Chen Ping (1979): The single small-scale peasant economy is the root cause of my country’s long-term turmoil and poverty. Guangming Daily, November 16, 1979, page 3.
[8] Chen Qiyun (2010): On the Prospects of Confucianism from Huntington’s Civilization Consciousness. Confucius2000 Website: http://confucius2000.com.
[9] Chi Ke (1983): A Brief History of Western Art. Beijing: China Youth Press. 341, 156)
[10] Li, You-Sheng (2005): A New Interpretation of Chinese Taoist Philosophy. London, Canada: Taoist Recovery Centre. p2-4.
[11] You Sheng (2009): On the Uniqueness of Chinese Civilization. *Xue Deng*, Issue 9. www.confucius2000.com
[12] William Haviland (2003): Human Evolution and Prehistory . Belmont, USA: Wadsworth.
[13] Benjamin Jowett (1900): Thucydedes. Second edition . Oxford: Clarendon Press.
[14] You-Sheng Li (2010): The Ancient Chinese Super State of Primary Societies: Taoist Philosophy for the 21st Century. Bloomington, USA: Author House.
(All the poems studied are in English translation. A full text was used for the Book of Poetry but a random selection of 94 out of 1026 hymns was used for the Rig Veda and a random selection of five out of 24 books for the Homer epics: Iliad and Odyssey. Their sources were as follows:
a). Book of Poetry: http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/chinese.
b). Rig Veda: http://www. sacred-texts.com/
c). Iliad and Odyssey: http://www.sacred-texts.com/)
[15] J, DeMeo (2004) : Saharasia . Orgone : Orgone Biophysical Research Lab .
[16] Wang Yuzhe, 2004, Ancient Chinese History, Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Publishing House . pp. 75-80, 3-5.
[17] Robert Carneiro (1970): A Theory of the Origin of the State . Science , 169:733-738 .
[18] Li Shen (2003): The history of a moderately prosperous society spans five thousand years. Southern Weekend, January 19, 2003.
[19] McGuire/Jia Lei et al. (2004): Five Ages of Civilization. Jinan: Shandong Pictorial Publishing House. pp. 10-11.
[20] Ge Jianxiong (1994): Unity and Division: Lessons from Chinese History. Beijing: Sanlian Bookstore.
[21] Timothy Earle (2002): Political Domination and Social evolution. In Tim Ingold eds, Companion Encyclopedia of Anthropology , London and New York: Routledge. p940-961.
[22] Zhang Guangzhi (2004): On the Origin of Chinese Civilization. Cultural Relics, No. 1, 2004, pp. 73-82.
[23] Anderson/Sheng Qinwenzhong (2000): The Origin of the Ancient Chinese State. Twenty-First Century, No. 58, April 2000.
[24] Huang Renyu (1989): Talking about history on the banks of the Hudson River. Taipei: Times.
[25] Liu Baocai, Qian Xun, Zhou Suping (2001): Chinese History: Pre-Qin Volume. Beijing: Higher Education Press.
[26] Claudio Cioffi-Revilla and David Lai (1995): “War and Politics in Ancient China, 2700 BC to 722 BC: Measurement and Comparative Analysis”. Journal of Conflict Resolution , 39:467-494.
[27] John King Fairbank, translated by Xue Xuan (1995): John King Fairbank on China. Taipei: Cheng Chung Book Company. 105 pages.
[28] Marvin Harris (1977): Cannibals and Kings . New York: Random House. p14.
[29] You Sheng (2008): The Five Degrees of Mourning and Early Literary Thought in the East and West. *Xue Deng*, Issue 8. www.confucius2000.com
[30] You Sheng (2009): Differences in Eastern and Western Artistic Thought as Seen Through the Different Attitudes of Confucius and Plato Towards Poetry. *Xue Deng*, Issue 11. www.confucius2000.com
[31] Zhao Lin (2006): Clash of Civilizations and Cultural Evolution. Beijing: Oriental Press. pp. 1-21.
[32] C. Sinha (2011): A life without time. New Scientist Vol 212 No. 2833: 47 (8 October 2011).
[33] C. Sinha, Silva Sinha, V. da, Zinken, J. and Sampaio, W. (2011): When Time is not Space: The social and linguistic construction of time intervals and temporal event relations in an Amazonian culture. Language and Cognition, 3(1): 137-169.
[34] You Sheng (2012): The Differences in War Culture Between East and West: A Case Study of Duke Xiang of Song’s Defeated Defeat by Chu Due to His Adherence to the Rules of War. *Xue Deng*, Issue 24. (http://confucius2000.com/admin/list.asp?id=5418)
(Li Yousheng, “Looking at Confucius from a Different Angle”, Suzhou University Press, 2014)
author By Dr. You-Sheng Li
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