Chinese Characteristics
Chinese Characteristics
Understanding the deep cultural wisdom within Chinese Marxism and its vision of a shared future
And, not or
By Young Minds featured contributor Prof. Josef Gregory Mahoney.
Without demeaning the tremendous complexities and accomplishments of Chinese and Western thinking, past or present, we can point to a very clear difference between them, one that can be described in two words.
In China, philosophy begins with he, which means "and". In the West it begins with huo, meaning "or". We might describe these words as "ideologemes", among the smallest but ideologically most consequential linguistic units of their respective discourses. They are often understood as key to understanding a culture's first principles and civilizational values, and providing the foundation for the logic and ethics that follow. It is generally theorized that such values — although they first appear in China's case during the middle part of Shang Dynasty (c.16th century-11th century BC) when a formal system of writing Chinese first emerged — had much older origins, perhaps part of the "true ancient thought", as the Chinese philosopher Zhuang Zi who lived in the 4th century BC once suggested, likely long embedded in the linguistic structures that prefigured writing and the development of philosophy.
In the Chinese tradition, we find he also means "harmony", already acknowledged prominently in the Shang Dynasty. The concept of harmony is originally a musical one, but this value is repeated in many other Chinese expressions, for example, that one cannot make a delicious soup from water alone, but must find the right recipe of opposites, the sweet and the sour, the savory and the bitter. Relatedly, Confucius indicated that if a scholar only had time to study one of the ancient classics he should focus on The Book of Songs to at least understand the principle of harmony. The key point here is that if your way of thinking privileges "and", then it's logical that your worldview would emphasize the "unity of opposites" and the value of finding harmony among them.
Conversely, in the Western tradition, starting with Aristotle in Ancient Greece but later radicalized in Europe in the 13th century, and thereafter sparking the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution, philosophy insists on three laws of logic that above all emphasize "or", the primary law being the "law of non-contradiction", which many prominent Western philosophers, past and present, have declared the "law of thought". Interestingly, when the German philosopher Hegel began to question this tradition in his development of Western dialectics, it provoked one of his students, the Danish philosopher and founder of existentialism, Soren Kierkegaard, to produce his first book, Either/Or (1843), a titular rejection of what he saw as the misguided logic of Hegel, which he understood, not incorrectly, as a "philosophy of 'and'", and therefore in deep conflict with the Western logic of "or", and therefore in deep conflict with Western subjectivity.
In fact, as Karl Marx would argue later, following Hegel in part, but as Chinese Marxism would better express in the new era: if the way you're thinking normalizes the unity of opposites, then you are likely inclined toward socialism, win-win solutions, reserving difference and seeking common ground, harmony between people and nature, and a shared future for humanity.
Conversely, if the way you're thinking normalizes the law of non-contradiction, then you're likely inclined toward capitalism, a winner-takes-all mentality, intolerance for true differences, a disregard for ecological wellbeing, and an apocalyptic future for humanity.
One of the distinctive features of Chinese Marxism is the role that the unity of opposites plays in its understanding of Marxist dialectics. This role is already seen in Mao Zedong's seminal essay, On Contradiction (1937), which was likely inspired in part through his previous association with Li Dazhao, under whom Mao worked and studied. In fact, this inspiration has a much older root, as it's related to yin and yang thought, which, as noted above, Zhuang Zi had described as the true ancient thought of China.
Josef Stalin would repudiate this understanding of dialectics by responding to Mao's essay a year later with a publication of his own, Dialectical and Historical Materialism (1938), insisting on the primary role of either/or when it comes to sublation, i.e., the negation of the negation. Classical and even orthodox Marxists generally concur with Stalin's exposition, but this did nothing to deter the Chinese side, and for the rest of his life, Mao would repeatedly reaffirm the unity of opposites as the primary lesson for Chinese Marxism — a lesson that still rings true in Chinese Marxism today.
The genius of Marxism is its discovery of dialectical and historical materialism; however, this genius was neither fully understood nor significantly advanced until it was sinicized. This assertion is not simply to acknowledge an appropriate adaptation of Marxism for China; rather, the Chinese capacity to intuit the deeper genius and potential of Marxism has been unsurpassed individually and collectively by those from other civilizations. This development was not merely a fortuitous intersection, but itself the product of the very materialist logic and historical developments of Western modernity and their encounters with Chinese civilization, accelerating in the 19th and 20th centuries, where the transformation of both, including a powerful synthesis of the same, was accomplished in both theory and practice by the Communist Party of China.
Why does Chinese Marxism surpass other "Marxisms"? This is because Chinese thinkers have a powerful inclination toward dialectical thinking given the role that yin and yang thought has played in Chinese traditions for millennia, but also because China's experiences with the crises of modernity established an existential urgency to learn the radical analytical traditions driving Western modernity in order to survive an aggressive world order dominated by capitalism and imperialism. As a result, Chinese Marxism established a powerful epistemological bridge between these different ways of thinking, one that also brought a stronger scientific grounding to traditional yin and yang thought. In short, Chinese Marxism was able to constructively employ strong versions of both the analytical and dialectical traditions, which both Hegel and Marx indicated were necessary for humans to develop and exercise their full potential, and to do so by embracing the unity of opposites instead of perpetually putting the law of non-contradiction in the decisive position.
In this way Chinese Marxism combines the best elements of both Western and Chinese civilization, dramatically improving both and providing a means for continuous growth and development. Indeed, this is the "logic" that has guided the CPC and China's historically unprecedented achievements that have step-by-step led to liberation and sovereignty, the return of national wealth, and reemergence as a major power on the world stage, one that employs strategic empathy to craft win-win solutions for a shared future, especially with developing countries in the Global South eager for such a relationship, and contrary to the strategic narcissism that still grips Washington and other Western capitals.
Above all, these developments, constitutive of Chinese modernization and national rejuvenation, represent a logical expression of human values. To be sure, these values are found in the Chinese experience, which itself is a synthesis of more than 5,000 years of civilizational history, and which, in the modern period, has achieved unprecedented growth and development while eschewing the Western path of exploiting others or kowtowing to the Western line. That said, Chinese Marxism does not seek conflict with Western civilization — rather, it emphasizes the first principle of Chinese philosophy, "harmony", in other words, "and not or", first inscribed on the Oracle Bones millennia ago during the Shang Dynasty, but today as a mature principle of a major power promoting greater harmony and democracy in global affairs and human development.
This is not the old internationalism of the Soviet Union despite some narratives advancing such nonsense in the West, but a "new internationalism" promoting mutual respect and recognition, mutual development and peaceful coexistence. Indeed, the specter of a "red scare" being conjured by some as justification for a new Cold War has more to do with the biases of Western thinking and nothing to do with the fundamental logic of Chinese thinking.
The author is professor of politics and international relations at East China Normal University and a senior research fellow with the Institute for the Development of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics at Southeast University and the Hainan CGE Peace Development Foundation. The author contributed this article to China Watch, a think tank powered by China Daily. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
Contact the editor at editor@chinawatch.cn.
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