A disruptive issue with broad development prospects: the concept of a two-tiered society (Part 1)

Li Yousheng (This article was submitted to 21st Century Magazine on June 22, 2021, but was not published.)

Abstract: Dividing human society into genetically encoded primitive society and artificial secondary society reveals that, unlike other civilizations in the world, Chinese civilization began as a primitive society-style superpower. Confucianism and Taoism, as the mainstream cultures of China, both idealized the primitive society. After the Qin and Han dynasties, there was a history of gradually diminishing class differentiation, leaving the vast rural population still living in a quasi-primitive society stage in the early 1950s. The other five original civilizations of the world all originated in fertile, narrow areas not far from the ocean and desert, making class differentiation and war-based civilizations that controlled land production possible. If the class differentiation of the five original civilizations other than Chinese civilization, under the influence of religion, was still in its early stages, then ancient Greece and the Roman Empire represented a further escalation towards a class division with a large number of slaves. Medieval Europe, dominated by Christianity, is labeled the Dark Ages, and the modernization process originating in Europe was driven by religious revolutions and the revival of Greek and Roman culture. Living in a global village and facing resource depletion, humanity today has a need to study the unique characteristics of Chinese civilization and understand traditional Chinese rural life in order to transcend the limitations of a civilization of class struggle and war.

Keywords: Primitive society, artificial secondary society, human nature, war civilization, class differentiation

Introduction

Modern people are sent to daycare and kindergarten at the age of two or three, followed by more than ten years of basic education in primary and secondary schools. Moreover, living in a world created by humanity itself, immersed daily in a sea of newspapers, television, and the internet, there is no doubt that modern people have departed from the natural beings of prehistoric times, becoming beings manufactured by humanity itself through cultural traditions. This is precisely the understanding of human nature held by many modern sociologists, who believe that human nature is merely a blank slate to be painted on, and that we are, in short, what we make ourselves. I find the term “man-made human” rather inelegant; I would prefer to call it “human beings as we are.” In the history of human development, when did humanity first acquire the ability to create new beings, and when did it begin this monumental project of creating humans and a world? What are the driving forces and intentions behind this?

According to the Western Bible, God created humanity’s ancestors, Adam and Eve, in His own image. Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s will in the Garden of Eden, eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, thus giving rise to human wisdom that distinguishes good from evil, which then led to the mutual slaughter of their descendants. “When the Lord God saw how great the wickedness of mankind had become on the earth, and that the inclinations of the thoughts of mankind all the days were only evil, the Lord God regretted that he had made mankind on the earth, and his heart was grieved.” (Genesis 6) Humanity thus embarked on a path of civilizational development characterized by self-destruction: the struggle for survival under the threat of death in war led to technological advancements and increasingly complex social structures, far exceeding human control.

Genesis chapter 11 of the Bible says, “In those days all the people of the whole world spoke the same language.” They said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered over the face of the whole earth.” After this, God, the Lord, who was moved, decided to confuse the language of mankind, so that they would not understand one another and would be scattered over the face of the whole earth.

If we interpret God’s creation of man in His own image as the beginning of the artificial man era in human history, then from these biblical stories we can understand the difference between natural man and artificial man: the former is the innocence of the Garden of Eden, while the latter is the sin of labor and mutual slaughter, accompanied by desires and ambitions that astonish God.

The Bible provides detailed accounts of the descendants of Adam and Eve, as well as the history of the Middle East, including the Great Flood. It is easy to deduce the birth time of Adam and Eve from these accounts. Scholars generally believe that this time was more than 6,000 years ago, which is the era when Mediterranean civilization began.

Did these artificial beings in human history also undergo a similar growth process as modern individuals? Was there a crucial moment in human history when they entered adulthood? This moment of entering adulthood in human history is Jaspers’ Axial Age: from 800 BC to 200 BC, when human understanding of their own world reached a philosophical height for the first time, laying the philosophical foundation and framework for future thinking.

God created man from clay, but what did man create man with? Language. Anthropologists generally believe that naked humans used conversation instead of grooming themselves like apes. Young mammals have a habit of playing, but only humans have retained this habit throughout their lives. Early human conversations could not have had the function of modern information exchange; they were merely a lifelong form of shared play, like the collective calls of gibbons or the songs of birds and flowers.

The people in the Garden of Eden used chat games to enjoy life, while those outside the Garden of Eden turned language games into reality, using them to create billions of different people to kill each other.

Plato, the ancient Greek philosopher widely regarded as the greatest Western philosopher, lived during the Axial Age. Most people are familiar with Plato’s allegory of the cave: that people in real life are like those in a cave, facing walls where the shadows of animals and forests appear at the entrance, and who are chained to the ground. Their lives consist of judging these shadows by observing them. Only a few philosophers have ventured beyond the cave, recognizing a more fundamental world beyond the natural world and human senses—the Theory of Forms. This leads to Plato’s Problem, a question that has drawn the attention of modern linguists: Plato himself did not understand the origin of human knowledge. Living in the same natural world, animals know nothing, while our minds constantly generate an inexhaustible stream of concepts, ideas, and new knowledge. The only conclusion is that God placed it at the bottom of our brains when He created humans, waiting for us to discover it.

Modern linguistic determinists believe that we think in language, that language guides our lives, and that we ourselves are slaves to language. Language itself is a prison for humanity, and the meaning of life is to constantly reinforce this linguistic prison with new linguistic creativity, so that neither we nor our descendants have the chance to escape.

If the Bible and Plato represent the West’s description and understanding of the early historical phenomenon of artificial humans, then the pre-Qin philosophers of my country also had a clear understanding of this artificial human being. Xunzi said, “That which cannot be learned or acquired, yet exists in humans, is called human nature. Human nature today is that which the eyes can see and the ears can hear.” Therefore, Xunzi referred to the ability to see and hear as human nature, which is essentially 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 artificial human being. (Xunzi, “Human Nature is Evil”)

Zhuangzi first proposed the concept of the “True Person,” which is actually the opposite of the artificial (pseudo) person proposed by Xunzi and others; here it is called the “Natural Person.” In this light, the West’s understanding of God’s creation of man and Plato’s bewilderment and reflection on the artificial world is separated by more than two thousand years, while China’s understanding of the “Natural Person” from Zhuangzi to Xunzi’s “Artificial Person” is separated by only one generation.

The pivotal moment in human history was the transition from a genetically encoded primordial society to a man-made secondary society, beginning a new social life entirely different from that of prehistoric humans. Only artificial beings could adapt to this new social life. As for what kind of society to create, billions of people would have billions of ideas, and war and power politics were inevitable consequences—the very cage of the aforementioned man-made language.

Europe, following the divine decree of a chaotic mix of accents, still lacks a unified language; only modern capitalism introduced a unified language: currency. China, on the other hand, had a unified language and script more than two thousand years ago.

Primitive society and artificial secondary society based on binary genetic coding

(I) Some personal experiences

I began studying Taoist philosophy during my sick leave in 1998. Five years later, while on vacation back in Taiwan, I developed a general outline of a two-tiered society theory in my mind. After retiring in 2005, I self-published an English book (⓷) that formally interpreted Taoist philosophy as an idealization and philosophical interpretation of ancient primitive social life. This led me to propose the concepts of genetically encoded primitive society and artificial secondary society, corresponding to natural humans and artificial humans. Chinese civilization began as a primitive superpower, only entering an artificial secondary society under the pressure of widespread warfare during the Warring States period.

At the time, I thought: surely predecessors in academia must have had the same idea; I even estimated there were as many as a dozen. Later, I published three more books⓸⓹⓺, further elaborating on this one- or two-tier society theory. The result of extensive reading over more than a decade was that I found no predecessors with similar ideas, but I did read scholarly papers that indirectly supported my one- or two-tier society theory. For example, Zhang Guangzhi believed that the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties might have been states, but they might also have remained at the chiefdom stage⓻. Zhang Guangzhi mentioned that the indicators of the state stage commonly used in the West, such as metals, cities, and writing, all came from underground archaeology, none of which were related to social organizational structure, while the difference between a chiefdom and a state lies in their different social organizational structures. Xiao Gongqin refers to the Three Dynasties period as the “Monkey Mountain Structure,” or the chiefdom stage, arguing that China only entered the Asian mode of production during the Qin and Han dynasties. While my two English books have been cited in numerous scholarly works and papers, this is a fundamental and potentially groundbreaking issue that has not yet gained formal acceptance in academia for over a decade, though there have been no objections either. I deeply feel the vast gap between the two social classes, and the wide range of speculations regarding the meaning behind God’s creation of man and the Daoist concept of the “True Man.” For the modern intellectual community, the division between the two social classes has an aspect that is ineffable and can only be understood intuitively. Here, I can only use varied methods, multiple angles, multiple layers, and even repetition to present all aspects of this issue, hoping to convey aspects that can only be understood intuitively. Therefore, I cannot follow the discourse habits of the academic community. In addition to the aforementioned story of God creating man, the author will also describe in detail the Roman Colosseum, Yu the Great’s flood control, and traditional Chinese rural life, in order to more vividly demonstrate the differences between Chinese and Western cultures.

(II) Crossing the Gap Between Two Classes of Society

The author compared the evolution of humankind from primitive to secondary societies to the evolution of fish into birds in the history of biological evolution. The evolution of fish into birds required transforming their fins into legs and wings, and also developing new organs such as lungs. Researchers believe that this significant change from aquatic to terrestrial life was not due to a change in the internal coding of a single gene, but rather through the activation of certain controlling genes, leading to a series of major genetic changes. There is an intermediate type of fish that evolved into birds: the common finfish, which still lives in the ocean today. This common finfish possesses gills, fins, and scales, as well as lungs and a flexible, twisting neck. Researchers have found a specific controlling gene in this common finfish and a completely typical fish that is only activated in four-limbed terrestrial animals. (See ⓸ 237-242)

The author further writes: “Just as humans were forced into secondary societies due to population growth, the common finned fish came ashore as a result of the shallowing and subsequent drying of their habitat, not because they themselves wanted to crawl onto land. During this drying process, the common finned fish survived longer than other fish, but eventually died. Only individuals that happened to undergo further mutations could survive, and the occurrence rate of such further mutations could be as low as one in a million. Instability meant continued transformation, and each step of transformation meant the elimination of most individuals.” The artificial secondary societies in human civilization history are similar; countless prehistoric cultural traditions were eliminated, giving way to war-torn civilizations that went the furthest down the path of betraying humanity.

Part of modern anthropology studies the social behavior of our ape ancestors. The size of ape societies is proportional to the size of their cerebral cortex. Based on this proportion, it is inferred that human societies consist of around 150 people. Humans spend about 30 percent of their waking hours on social interaction, primarily verbal communication. This type of society is the primitive society, and all animal societies are primitive societies.

After the evolution from apes to hominids, bipedal humans emerged three million years ago, including Homo habilis and Homo erectus. Our ancestors, Homo sapiens, appeared 300,000 years ago. Anthropologists believe that modern Homo sapiens possessed the vocal organs and language abilities of modern humans 125,000 years ago. Modern apes, under laboratory training, can master sign language. For example, a female gorilla in her thirties has mastered over a thousand American Sign Language words and can creatively string together up to eight words. When angry, she describes herself as: red-rotten-crazy. When drinking water from a plate using a plastic tube, she describes herself as: sad-elephant-I. We must acknowledge that apes also possess language abilities, and just as fish, which activate specific controlling genes like quadrupedal terrestrial animals, have experienced language development across different animal species. (See ⓸ pp. 126-127)

We hypothesize that human language began to describe personal experiences and action plans around 70,000 to 80,000 years ago, marking the emergence of subjective consciousness, exemplified by funeral rites. This was followed by cave paintings and the invention of fire and the bow and arrow. Around 10,000 years ago, agriculture and animal husbandry emerged, creating conditions for denser populations and expanded social contact, leading to the development of megalithic cultures along the coast. At this time, humans could clearly form temporary social organizations to accomplish specific tasks, such as hunting large animals. These, like various professional groups and hobby organizations in modern society, are beyond the scope of this discussion.

Here, we examine the genetically encoded primitive society and the artificial secondary society from the perspective of human social development history, that is, we consider this social division in the context of human history or the history of a particular ethnic group or nation. The secondary society marks the beginning of a completely new social way of life that is passed down from generation to generation.

Imagine that ancient people, lacking the thousands of years of cultural tradition accumulated by humanity today, would have had countless ideas about building a completely new social life. The result could only be struggles among the leaders of different social visions for the people, ultimately leading to wars between different societies. War itself is violence, and using violent power to control material production is a shortcut to controlling and seizing the people. This is the Marxist theory of class struggle, and the five-thousand-year history of escalating warfare in Chinese civilization⓺. The Daoist school, advocating non-interference, can only idealize a primitive society.

(III) Primitive Society and Artificial Secondary Society Based on Genetic Encoding⓺

From the definitions, many fundamental differences between these two types of societies can be deduced. The genetically encoded primitive society is the society that humans are born into, and human nature is clearly the pillar of its harmony and operation. Because it is determined by genetics, 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 face-to-face and in close proximity, there is psychological and emotional communication between them. 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 may have a leader who governs, but this leader does not have the ability to force others to accept their will; they can only rely on persuasion and compliance with the will of the masses. They have no reliable means of punishing those who do not obey the leader.

Since the secondary society is a man-made society, it has a goal, that is, the ideological system of the society. Society also has corresponding social constructions that are compatible with this goal. If today’s secondary society is regarded as a society aiming at wealth accumulation, the degree of wealth becomes the scale of social rewards, punishments and measurement, thus forming numerous classes and strata symbolized by the amount of wealth. Since secondary society is a human creation, it naturally has countless possible forms. A society can only choose one form, blocking other possibilities. In order to prevent members of society from unbridled pursuit of other possibilities, legally mandated violent institutions such as the military, police, and courts are indispensable. In secondary societies, it becomes possible to impose established intentions on people and becomes a necessary means of organizing large-scale social projects. In a secondary society, its members cannot communicate psychologically and emotionally with society. The unity of a secondary society depends on the recognition of the society’s established goals and direction by all its members. Just as the evolutionary table of the universe shows: the physical world began with elementary particles, the world of plant and animal life began with genetic codes, and the third world is a completely new world created by human subjectivity starting with phonetic letters that can be encoded in two dimensions.

Cosmic Evolution Table

Physical World

life

culture

consciousness

1. None

2. Yes

3. Elementary particles

4. Atom

5. Molecules

DNA

6. Objects

cells

7. Planet

organization

8. Galaxy

organ

9. Universe

Personal

primitive society

culture

Subconscious

Secondary society

civilization

consciousness

Rational cognitive system

Spiritual and Aesthetic Pursuits

The different mindsets of primitive and secondary societies in perceiving the world, especially the human world, lead to different cognitive paths and outcomes. Primitive societies lack the goals and utilitarianism of secondary societies. People in primitive societies 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 how children infer the world from their own experiences, and from observing the world, they come to understand themselves—a state of oneness with nature.

Secondary societies have their own goals, forming ideologies adapted to these goals, and individual cognitive subjects are influenced by these social ideologies. The cognitive process guided by these goals relies on the interaction between subject and object, sometimes leading to the use of the object to harm the subject—a betrayal and transformation of human nature itself, resulting in the artificiality of secondary society. Western civilization, beginning with secondary societies, holds negative criticisms of Chinese culture, including: Chinese thought does not emphasize purely theoretical analysis and reflection on epistemology; the core value of Chinese culture and thought is human relationships; and the Chinese language and script, as the basic material or formal norm of culture and thought, are better suited to lyrical poetry than argumentative prose.

Traditional Chinese visual arts depict landscapes, flowers, birds, and figures, while Western visual arts, from ancient Greece onward, long focused solely on figures, until landscape painting emerged in the 17th and 18th centuries in two coastal countries: the Netherlands and England.⁻¹ This can only be explained by the fact that the diverse traditions of secondary societies led to war and conflict among people, forcing humanity to focus its attention on the people it was fighting against. 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 allowed them to return to the leisurely mentality of prehistoric primitive 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 attend university and win championships in intellectually challenging chess competitions. Because the connections between the two hemispheres are limited, impressions and feelings obtained by the right brain may need to be encoded before being 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 connections between the left and right hemispheres of the human brain may be the neurological basis for the construction of a two-tiered society, used to explain the different levels of distinction between the two-tiered societies.