A Two-Tier Society Theory's Perspective on the New Economy Movement and its Humanistic Narrative (Part 2)

Li Yousheng (2015/06/30)

IV. Several Theoretical Issues

The above serves as the prelude to this article; now, we will discuss several related academic issues. As for the essence and inherent problems of capitalist culture, scholars have already provided comprehensive and thorough analyses [11, 12, 13], which will not be repeated here. Western capitalism represents the final stage of human wealth accumulation culture. If we consider the two World Wars and the subsequent Cold War as the pinnacle of the history of escalating warfare, then the wealth accumulation culture that provided the material conditions for the civilization of war also subsequently reached its peak, followed by a gradual decline from history, giving way to negotiated coexistence and the enjoyment of life. If all of this is a deliberate arrangement by the universe, in today’s information age where computers have reached their zenith, it is possible to rely on the comprehensive processing of information to abandon war and competition between people, and to live a life of entertainment like other animals. This is also similar to the American New Economy movement: emphasizing service to the community rather than profit.

(I) Different Metaphysical Thinking Directions in China and the West

Lao Tzu said, “The world is a divine instrument; it cannot be manipulated, nor can it be grasped. Those who try to manipulate it will fail, and those who grasp it will lose it” (Tao Te Ching, Chapter 29). Here, Lao Tzu is talking about the unmanipulable nature of secondary societies: the masters of the original society are humans, not gods, while the masters of secondary societies are gods, not humans, because secondary societies face countless possible directions and cannot be manipulated by humans; war and belief in gods are inevitable.

Until the late Spring and Autumn Period, the Chinese lived in a relatively complete, primitive, superpower-like society, without the two-tiered social competition and warfare seen in ancient Greece. The fundamental difference between primitive and two-tiered societies led to completely different metaphysical systems in China and the West; only the Chinese philosophical tradition can be seen as a philosophical summary of humanity’s natural social life. Due to the purposefulness of artificial two-tiered societies and the instability of early two-tiered societies, people were compelled to pursue the ultimate truth behind phenomena. Ancient Greece developed metaphysical logical thinking and corresponding technologies to increase its chances of survival in class struggle and war. It is precisely because of the essential difference and insurmountable nature of these two-tiered societies that Western scholars believe ancient China lacked philosophical perspectives, while Chinese scholars are captivated by the profoundness of Western philosophy, demonstrating the awe-inspiring power of the transcendent nature of two-tiered societies. Similarly, postmodern deconstruction and analysis have led people to recognize that people in two-tiered societies are a cultural construct, and their philosophy is also a cultural construct, or a language game. However, we cannot consider the *Tao Te Ching* and the *Analects* as mere language games; they are summaries and expressions of humanity’s natural life in primitive societies.

Sun Tieqi said, “The metaphysics of Chinese philosophy is fundamentally different from that of Western philosophy. The metaphysics of Western philosophy is a ‘question’ about ‘what existence is’, while the metaphysics of Chinese philosophy is a ‘demonstration’ about ‘how to exist’.”[14] Sun also pointed out that Western philosophy cannot settle people’s physical and mental life, but Chinese philosophy can. Only the original society is the root of mankind, and mankind should return to the original society.

(II) Class Struggle-Style Development at the Secondary Social Level

In his 1949 article “Discard Illusions, Prepare for Struggle,” Mao Zedong said: “In class struggle, some classes have won and some classes have been eliminated. This is history, this is the history of civilization over thousands of years. The interpretation of history from this point of view is called historical materialism, and the opposite of this point of view is historical idealism.”

Mao Zedong’s class struggle is a struggle between two different directions in a two-tier society, and also a struggle in which mankind is at odds with itself. Natural selection forces biological heredity to evolve, and class struggle forces artificial two-tier societies to evolve rapidly. From the collection of essays by scholars of the American New Economy Movement[2], we can also see the differences between Chinese and Western scholars, which are also differences in the strength or absence of the tradition of class struggle. American scholars have obviously joined a group of social struggle: from university professors to local elites to the lower classes, they form a so-called Marxist social group with a conscious class consciousness, representing a slightly different social direction and a correction of the current social reality. This class confrontation is described as a struggle between Main Street and Wall Street[15]. Here we quote a passage to confirm the strength and power of this class group. Of course, they are no longer penniless proletarians, but ordinary people who own corporate shares.

The foundations of the new economy are in place… The Local Community Economy Business Alliance (BALLE), founded in 2001, unites more than 80 local communities in the United States and Canada and has 22,000 independent business members. … Nationwide, organizations dedicated to building a strong, sustainable Main Street economy include the Council for Sustainable Business, the Democratic Cooperative Organization, Green America, the New Rules Project, and the American Town Transformation. In the United States, more and more state governments are beginning to issue franchises for Class B businesses and low-profit limited companies (L3Cs), both of which are for-profit businesses, but which have clear obligations to balance profit-making with social equity and environmental protection. Worker-owned and community member-owned businesses are also an important part of the national economy and play an active role. Notably, there are currently 11,300 businesses in the United States that are wholly or partially owned by 13.6 million employees. Another 130 million Americans are members of cooperatives and credit unions, which provide more than 650,000 jobs and have more than $3 trillion in assets. [15]

Apart from the feudal separatism during the Wei, Jin, and Northern and Southern Dynasties, which led to the combination of intellectuals, social elites, and peasants into local forces, China lacked the kind of class composition in other historical periods where intellectuals and the masses, representing different class interests and social directions, were united as in the West.

(III) The Humanistic Narrative of the New Economy Movement in the United States from the Perspective of Two-Tier Society Theory

As a countermeasure against the Main Street crowd and their academic elites, they did not follow the old path of Marxist proletarian revolutionary theory, but instead put forward a new humanistic narrative to guide their actions. Here I will mainly discuss based on two articles by David Korten et al. [16, 15] Ju Xi, after pointing out the lack of philosophical support in the internal logical unity of the American New Economic Movement, said: “Obviously, Professor You Xiaojian’s Western-style humanistic narrative is different from that of other scholars in the New Economic Movement. He tries to use Chinese-style narrative to make the theory of the New Economic Movement achieve transcendence and integration.” [3]

This is precisely related to the difference between two-tiered societies. Primitive society was humanity’s only natural society, a place of peace and well-being for all human beings. Secondary societies, however, offer countless possibilities; different people aspire to different directions, making division and struggle inevitable. David Korten discussed three previously existing humanistic narratives: the Distant Patriarch, the Grand Machine, and the Mystical Unity. These three narratives, in fact, did not originate in China; they were all products of secondary societies. It was precisely the inhumanity and instability of secondary societies that created a sense of mystery and alienation in humanity, leading to beliefs in God and the afterlife. Due to the pressures of class struggle and war, humanity turned to the Grand Machine for survival. In modern Europe, the origin of the modern world, the Distant Patriarch and the Grand Machine coexisted; modern Christianity merely withdrew from government operations. David Korten, in discussing the necessity of humanistic narratives, wrote:

Among the many intelligent species inhabiting Earth, humanity is most unique in that we have consistently unfolded humanistic narratives, exploring our deepest yearnings for the divine. This is a quest for the fundamental questions of what is most important, what deserves the utmost respect and attention, and we organize our daily lives around these constructed humanistic narratives. Perhaps we haven’t yet recognized or accepted that human civilization is a product of human culture; these deified humanistic narratives construct our understanding of the natural world, the purpose of the Creation, human nature, and our place in the world. These narratives also implicitly reveal humanity’s possibilities and vulnerabilities.

Although David Korten occasionally mentions basic human needs in this passage, he is essentially elaborating on the necessity of a linear historical narrative within a secondary society. His descriptions of human confusion, vulnerability, yearning for divinity, and choices regarding purpose, direction, and values are all characteristics of a secondary society. This reminds me of the biblical story of God creating man: after creating man, God regretted it and, before flooding humanity, instructed a believer on how to escape the flood. If even God, in creating the world, felt his way across the river, taking one step at a time, how much more so must mortals like humans? Humanity’s initial entry into a secondary society is like a fish arriving at sea; the confusion and distress of a fish landing on land for the first time is what gave rise to Julian Jaynes’ (1920-1997) bipolar disorder. This theory posits that human consciousness only emerged around three thousand years ago. Before that, humans were bipolar, with the right brain experiencing auditory hallucinations, hearing divine voices, which were then transmitted to the left brain, where the left brain carried out the commands. In Chinese terms, early humans who were just entering Level 2 society lived as if possessed by a spirit, completely disoriented and unable to distinguish between heaven and earth. [17]

When the Chinese people living in the primitive society established their philosophical foundation at the end of the Spring and Autumn Period, they thought about how to describe their world and life, and how to express their inner feelings, rather than how to tell a story of God creating man and then regretting it. Karen Armstrong wrote in her book “The History of God”: “When people made up their myths and worshiped their gods, they were not seeking a textual explanation of natural phenomena. These symbolic stories and prehistoric rock paintings were the ancients’ attempt to express their inner wonder, to connect the mystery of the world around them with their own lives; today’s poets, artists, and musicians are often driven by the same desire.” [18] This statement applies to the Tao Te Ching and the Analects. Lao Tzu and Confucius were just expressing their inner wonder, which was a kind of self-expression. The Book of Changes is even more about the eight trigrams interpreting the feelings and wonder of the ancient Chinese people about the inner world and the outer world. Ancient Greek philosophy sought a textual explanation of natural phenomena.

I read the articles by You Xiaojian, Ju Xi, and Qian Hong about the arts and sciences in middle school [3, 4, 5]. Their philosophical constructions, like David Korten’s two articles, can all be seen as a kind of humanistic narrative. However, only David Korten strives to establish his humanistic narrative on the basis of modern science and logic, even though David Korten also sees the limitations of science and logic. In his book [5], Qian Hong listed many Western scientific theories and discoveries. I think he was comparing them, that is, he believed that his theories had similarities and comparability with modern Western science. The difference between these two is related to the two-tier society. Chinese scholars are influenced by the ancient Chinese cultural tradition and are not deeply involved in the conflicts of interest in modern Chinese society. They are more easily influenced by their personal deep-seated feelings, that is, they are closer to the original social foothold. Westerners are more shaped by modern cultural tradition and personal social environment, and are closer to the position of Westerners. For this reason, the humanistic narrative of David Korten and others is used to counter the humanistic narrative of Wall Street, pointing out the hypocrisy of free market and private investment in creating economic growth and employment opportunities. Both sides exposed each other under the banner of serving the people. [15] You Xiaojian, Ju Xi, and Qian Hong’s middle school arts and sciences did not oppose anyone.

Finally, I’d like to mention David Korten’s references to modern neuroscience. He clearly considered the social impact, taking into account the social effects of his own humanistic narrative, a level of consideration that is difficult for secondary school liberal arts students to grasp. Below is a short excerpt from his article:

The human mind is based on care and sharing:

Self-centered greed is a psychological disorder, a habit and a symptom. Sharing and cooperation are the natural signs of healthy psychology and sound morality in adult individuals, and such individual maturity is the foundation for the well-functioning of families, communities, and society. Scientists, through advanced imaging techniques studying the human brain and its functions, have confirmed that the adult brain is closely linked to care, cooperation, and service—this is true human nature. Participating in cooperative and generous endeavors causes the brain’s pleasure-regulating areas to release hormones similar to those released from eating delicious chocolate or experiencing pleasurable sex.

Besides bringing feelings of joy, this hormone can also boost the immune system, lower heart rate, promote calmness, and benefit health. Conversely, negative emotions suppress the immune system, accelerate heart rate, and make people aggressive or escapist. In other words, the ethics promoted by the old economy and currently prevalent are harmful to health.

Just as we chose the Wall Street economy to reward and celebrate the severe psychological ailments of society such as greed and cutthroat competition, we can, and must, create a Main Street economy that fosters and rewards care, sharing, peace, and service. [15]

David Korten, here, discusses the difference between Wall Street and Main Street from a humanistic perspective, which to some extent mirrors the difference between secondary and primary societies. Secondary societies pursue their goals in a way that departs from human nature, much like the heart, lungs, liver, and spleen each have their unique functions in the human body. Only primary societies accommodate all aspects of human nature without the pressure of choosing a single direction. Greed and ruthlessness are necessary qualities for winning in competition.

In short, more than two thousand years after the times of the I Ching, Lao Tzu, and Confucius, Chinese and Western scholars have taken completely different approaches when constructing the philosophical foundation that governs all of humanity: the former starts from the level of deep consciousness, the so-called intuitive moralism, while the latter attempts to find a foothold in science, logic, and social benefits.

If Laozi and Zhuangzi’s conception of a Dao existing in everything, including excrement and urine, is similar to the animism of primordial society, then David Korten’s theory of the life universe represents a return to primordial society and Daoist teachings from the extreme development of Western secondary societies.

(iv) From survival of the fittest to coexistence of multiple species

Darwin’s theory of free competition and survival of the fittest summarized the social reality of capitalism in modern European history, to the point that Dawkins’s “The Selfish Gene” became a popular book. [19] Surprisingly, Lin Yutang’s “The Art of Living,” which advocated the Taoist philosophy of a happy life, was also popular in the West and sold well for a long time. [20] This reflects the different origins of Chinese and Western civilizations. Chinese civilization originated from a primitive society of superpowers, while Western civilization originated from the competition and war of secondary societies.

Even if a perfect secondary society descends upon humanity in the distant future, adapting to the needs of natural human nature like the original society, there will be many such perfect secondary societies. For humans or a group of people, different forms of secondary society involve a process of free competition and survival of the fittest, rather than a process of pluralistic coexistence.

Beyond diplomatic considerations, pluralistic coexistence is conducive to peace and to communication and the establishment of a common language among different societies and countries. In the long run, perhaps in a century or two, not all societies and countries will be able to survive and thrive in the same way.

You Xiaojian advocates replacing the Western binary opposition thinking with the three-dimensional approach of Yijing (Book of Changes) philosophy. Many scholars, when interpreting the Yijing and Taoist philosophy, emphasize a three-dimensional perspective, such as the three powers of Heaven, Earth, and Man, and the three harmonies of Yin and Yang. This also aligns with the realities of life in early societies. When binary oppositions arose among members of early societies, most people did not participate in this division but adopted a neutral stance, which is the middle way of thinking. Only in this way could the integrity of early societies be maintained and prevented from splitting.

The binary opposition is a result of the escalating warfare throughout human history; the flames of so-called class struggle forced centrists to split and join the two major camps, left and right. This is the driving force behind the continuous transformation and rapid technological progress of Western society and the modern world, and can also be seen as part of the self-organizing capacity of the universe and human society. In the early 1980s, when I was in Britain, some intellectuals, weary of the two extremes of the two-party system, confidently built a centrist party, which ultimately failed. Binary opposition is conducive to striving for progress and the pursuit of truth, while the middle way is conducive to enjoying immediate stability. Only primitive societies can limit binary opposition to the greatest extent, because when binary opposition affects the entire society, primitive societies can only split in two.

(V) The concept of subjective well-being

Most of the current popular subjective well-being surveys are individual self-evaluation of well-being, representing a person’s overall assessment of their quality of life. Of course, they can also be subdivided into different aspects and different time periods. In contemporary secondary societies, people can only evaluate their own lives based on the cultural traditions they have accepted, that is, people evaluate the quality of life in artificial societies based on human beings. In primitive societies, people lived a natural life, without any distinction between good and bad. Only with reference can there be good and bad. Precisely because of this, the life expressed in the Book of Changes has no evaluation of good or bad, and is more like a natural expression and description. From the perspective of our secondary society life, primitive society humans possessed a peaceful state of mind and an upward mentality of enjoying life. I once counted the frequency of words used in the Chinese Book of Songs, the Indian Rigveda, and the ancient Greek Homeric epics, and found that: the ancient Indian people had more masculine emotions, which may be related to their emphasis on religious beliefs and relative peace; the ancient Greek people had more feminine emotions, while the Chinese were in the middle. [7] It is difficult for us to understand the religious life of the Vedic era today, but from the perspective of Buddhism and Christianity today, they used sincere imagination to establish a life among believers that was isolated from secular society and closer to the primitive society. Cao Changqing pointed out the absurdity of Nepal and Bhutan’s so-called “happiest countries”, saying, “Happiness is a subjective feeling, but without the objective condition of material life, that subjective sense of happiness cannot be established. As the saying goes, material things are not omnipotent, but without material things, nothing is possible. The capitalist market economy of the West provides conditions for material life, economic prosperity, and people to live a wealthy life. In this sense, the so-called happiness of Nepal, Bhutan, and other countries that believe in pure spirituality (even ascetics) not only does not exist, but is also an anti-human deception.”[21]

I recently heard Wang Meng recount a scene he witnessed in Nepal on the Hong Kong talk show “Qiang Qiang San Ren Xing”: an elderly man sat down in the muddy water after a rain, seemingly oblivious to the presence of puddles. Wang Meng was astonished, but the old man remained calm, as if he felt nothing at all. Wang Meng’s observation refutes Cao Changqing’s criticism, whose viewpoint reflects the limitations of a culture focused on wealth accumulation.

Marxism holds that the difference between the poor and the corresponding class struggle is the driving force for social evolution and historical progress, and behind this driving force is the anger and resistance of the poor, that is, unhappiness. In July 2014, professors from Harvard University and the University of Vancouver published a survey on the life satisfaction of the American people. Using statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other resources, they combined age, gender, race, income and other factors to conclude that New Yorkers are the least happy. [22] They published a map of the United States with different colors to indicate life satisfaction. From this map, it can be seen that the unhappy population is mainly distributed in New York, Boston, Miami, the Great Lakes area, etc., which are all areas with developed industries and concentrated populations in the United States, as well as areas with concentrated large cities in the United States.

The Republican Party in the United States represents the interests of industry and the wealthy, tending towards a conservative political stance that maintains the status quo; the Democratic Party represents the interests of the poor, tending towards a progressive political pursuit of reform. From this perspective, it’s not surprising that those who are satisfied with the current state of affairs in America choose the Republican Party, while those who are dissatisfied and seek social reform choose the Democratic Party. What is surprising is that these unhappy Democratic voters are mostly concentrated in coastal areas, covering almost all of the coastal provinces of the United States, including the Great Lakes region. This aligns with the theory of a two-tiered society: the ocean inspires the ancients’ fantasies of a secondary society, while the stable land allows people to be content with their original social life. Precisely because of this, the developed major cities in China and the United States are all located in coastal areas, where there are also many unhappy people who want to continue reform and progress. It is said that surveys of China’s happiness index have also yielded similar results: rural people are happier than urban people.

We cannot expect Chinese people who lack religious faith to be as devoted to religion as the Nepalese, but China has a long-standing tradition of primitive society and culture. In recent years, the popularization of education and television has finally brought Chinese farmers living in quasi-primitive society into secondary society. However, compared with crowded and noisy cities, they are still closer to primitive society. Similarly, relevant surveys in China have found that: rural residents have a higher subjective well-being than urban residents; women have a higher subjective well-being than men; and the middle-aged group experiences a lower subjective well-being compared with the youth and the elderly. This is because cities, men, and the middle-aged are closer to secondary society. Young people are not far from leaving their families, and the elderly return to their families and friends after retirement. [23] It can be seen that competition in today’s world is the biggest killer of subjective well-being.

Finally, it must be pointed out that it is entirely possible to seek personal happiness in a secondary society, and it is also possible to create local social groups with a high level of happiness. Similarly, it is possible for like-minded people to come together to form a relatively perfect secondary society, but this requires separation from the surrounding society.

(vi) Two Moral Views

In their discussion of Confucius, Hall and Amy said, “Many roles in the rational social order of Western culture are played by the aesthetic order in Confucius’s thought. Confucian heroes are aesthetic and have no moral connotations as the West says, while Western morality refers to a requirement of an extremely standardized rational order on individuals.”[24] Here, Confucius’s aesthetic morality and Western rational morality are put forward. The former adapts to the overall needs of emotional communication in the original society, while the latter is part of the rational social order of the secondary society and is a norm and requirement for individual behavior. Confucius’s benevolence, Mencius’s compassion, Zen enlightenment, the “mind is principle” of Song and Ming Neo-Confucianism, and Li Zehou’s theory of emotion as the essence of contemporary society are all continuations of this original social emotional aesthetic morality principle, namely the so-called intuitive moralism.

If these Chinese thinkers emphasized emotional intuition, then the West, starting with Socrates and Aristotle, proceeded from a few simple axioms grasped by intuition to conduct rigorous logical reasoning, ultimately establishing a vast scientific and logical system reminiscent of Euclidean geometry. They also similarly built an extremely standardized and vast rational social system, leading to escalating wars, the establishment of the British Empire, and the two World Wars, bringing the six continents into this so-called capitalist modern world dominated by Western civilization. The Chinese Empire, emphasizing emotional intuition, remained at its original social model, at most expanding outwards from its original geographical location, resulting in stagnation and periodic upheavals in its social structure.

In the West, only modern thinkers such as Bergson (1859-1941) and Moore (1873-1958) have singled out human intuition to study its value, becoming pioneers of postmodern thought.