Once my flame burnt brilliant before me,
And friends gathered ’round so merry.
But then departed they into the
Night whilst the fire yet lit their way.
Now the embers burn cold and dim whilst
The moon shines brilliantly upon them;
I raise my head, I beckoned to it
To be my guest, but
Hiding among dark clouds,
It spurned my greeting.
Looking back to earth, amidst the fog
And winter cold so dreary,
I rose a cup of bittersweet wine,
I bade my shadow come and listen
To a song of a distant land and ancient time.
Archive for January, 2008For some time now, I’ve been trying to explore Perennial philosophy, which is an integral component of Traditionalism. The basic tenet of Perennialist thought is that in a much earlier time (i.e. the Satya Yuga of the Hindus), people experienced and recorded the nature of a singular reality, and attempted to relate Man to the world and to the Heavens. Similarities which arose independently among various higher civilizations (i.e. the Chinese or the Indo-Aryans), point to underlying, ascendant and universal principles, forming the common ground of most religions as we know them today. It seems like a logical conclusion, given that many religions share moral precepts. Recently, when comparing New Testament translations in English and Chinese, it dawned on me that the “Dao” (道) corresponds directly to the word “word” in English, and to the Greek word logos (λόγος). Thus, I wondered if these might be related in the context of the opening passages of the Gospel of John:
Although the logos may be translated literally and in the most basic sense as “Word” as it is in English translation, in reality it extends beyond mere words; the semantic field of logos includes thought, speech, and reason. The literal translation of the Chinese phrase 道可道, which is translated as “The Dao which can be spoken” also extends this same meaning to the word Dao, by associating it with speech which corresponds to the Greek λόγος in translation. According to Chapter 42 of the Daodejing: 道生一，一生二，二生三，三生萬物。萬物負陰而抱陽，沖氣以為和。(Dao begets one, one begets two, two begets three, three begets a myriad things. All things carry the yin and embrace the yang. And by breathing together harmony is effected between the two). So just as in the Christian worldview, the Logos is linked through an unchanging, unmoving God who separated light and dark according to the narrative in Genesis, the Dao is also linked to the creation of “all things” (πάντα δι’ αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο, καὶ χωρὶς αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο) through yin and yang. If we search deeper into the meaning of logos, we will find the work of Heraclitus, who used Logos to mean the undifferentiated material substrate from which all things came: “Listening not to me but to the Logos it is wise to agree that all are one.” In this sense, logos is the “the first principle” of the cosmos in pre-Socratic philosophy. Logos therefore designates both the material substrate itself and the universal, mechanical, “just” way in which this substrate manifests itself in and as individual things. The Logos of John is the exactly same as Heraclitean Logos or the Daoist Dao: the progenitor of things and the progenitor of the cosmic order. But here also, there is another link to yet another ancient concept. In the Memphite Theology of the Egyptian Old Kingdom (creations of gods through the word of Ptah), the point is that the creative and ordering power in the cosmos (the eternal substrate) is frequently symbolized by “word” or “speech” because language tends to associate with orderliness and its production. This idea was also expounded by Confucian concept of Rectifying Names (正名). Since creation, as we frequently see in creation myths and earlier philosophic reflection, means usually differentiation or determination out of the original undifferentiated chaos. Dao is the Begetter of things and the ordering power thereof, just like Heraclitean Logos, and hence also its similarity with John, “the Word begets the cosmos” for John and “the Dao begets a myriad things” for Lao-Tzu. So also Heraclitus: “All things came to be according to Logos”, as we have already read. But whereas with John “the Word” is evidently not qualified any differently, i.e. remains positive, with Laotzu the Dao (”to speak”) is immediately qualified with the opposite, as the mysterious and unknown. This mystery equates the Dao, and the logos, to a more central ascendant power, which, according to both the ancient Greeks and the Chinese cannot be immediately understood. Not a week goes by in today’s news without hearing of China’s rise. Whether China is capable of becoming a hegemony or not is still debatable, but the nation of China will certainly play an important role in the 21st century and beyond. While China had attained its status in part by adopting certain concepts in economy and technology from the West, we can also observe that in the past, China was a dominant civilization without utilizing these very same influences. At the same time, as Western scholars such as Patrick Buchanan point out, the Western, Atlantocentric world is crumbling. America is embroiled in hopeless wars overseas on behalf of special interest groups; and unable to maintain the dollar; continental Europe is succumbing to decades of liberal immigration policy and struggling with ethnic conflict on a daily basis. The only thing certain in the West’s present course of debauched liberalism is the “melting pot” phenomenon and imminent failure. Thus, if China is so eager to imitate the West, and the West in its current state is crumbling, it begs the question of how great civilizations fall. From a historical perspective, one might examine how the solar Inca Empire, was destroyed by the invasions of bands of adventurers drawn from the worst rabble of Europe, or how Rome succumbed to the barely literate barbarians to the north. Although centuries apart, these ultimately link to the problem with Western civilization as it exists today. The obvious answer is to point to military invasions and war as the end of civilization. While this is applicable in the case of the Incas, as the Spaniards posessed superior weaponry, this becomes problematic when attempting to apply the same analogy to the Roman Empire. Thus, there are both internal and external forces that can lead to the destruction of society. From the internal perspective, there are clear signs for the end of traditional societies. First, the notion of progress is taken to a reductio ad absurdum, annihilating the impetus to create genuine civilization. Rather than creating civilization and culture, people in these societies concentrate on destroying it through replacing it with new ideas, becoming obsessed by the material and abandon the spiritual and biological. This creates a society with “trendy” people who adorn themselves excessively and are neurotically obsessed with appearance. To gain power in such a society, one entertains and flatters, and this requires a decadent but “different” lifestyle in order to distinguish oneself in any way. From the loss of impetus follows the loss of consensus. Because culture and civilization becomes splintered by “progressives” who are destroying the foundations of civilization, people accustomed to appreciating the benefits of society no longer have the singular focus on maintaining it. Once consensus is lost, decadence arises; what we commonly call “values” cannot exist, since there is no agreement on what is valued. After this, the symptoms of decay set in, namely the loss of culture, decay of the aristocracy, and destruction of ethnic identities. To “coexist” in this society requires dedicating themselves in the largest part toward earning money. After earning money, one might be able to afford vast amounts of consumer goods; however, ultimately, such a lifestyle requires increasing amounts of money as the rest of the economy collapses and thus such finer things become aberrations in a consumer environment rewarding goods that above all are cheap - quality becomes second to quantity. In effect, this destroys the middle class, because it raises the bar on the cost of living outside of the undifferentiated mass. One either lives in the wealthy class or with the “grey mass” in a technological third-world environment. With the loss of the middle class comes a loss of the ordinary, hardworking decent people in the world, because they are turned into either whores for money or semi-impoverished scatterbrains like the rest. When that occurs, the base of support for the finer things in life - the arts, culture, and learning - falls entirely into the hands of the “artificial aristocracy”, who above all are concerned with money. As a result, culture dies; art dies; learning dies. Needless to say, there are remnants of the past. “Art” still exists, but is now little more than “unique” patterns and styles designed to shock or amuse — a crucifix immersed in Urine, a Quran defaced by a homosexual fanatic, and so on. There will be “music,” but it will consist of the wretched screamings and confused ramblings of the malcontented punks. There will be culture, but it will be the culture of the dollar bill and credit card. The institutes of higher learning will continue but will devote most of their time to teaching the ways of the new society, re-interpreting the older knowledge to fit the new rubric and, consequently, destroying it as a system of thought. It, too, will become aesthetics, and although it will exist in reference books (if not burned by the “progressive” newcomers) there will be on a handful who understand it, and none who can add to it. Most Westerners have already transitioned to the idea of living among the ruins in a more “primitive” state, and lacking most qualities of discernment in themselves, aren’t much concerned about how all finer things are crumbling around them, because they still have their fast food, popular music and television and are content with that. So then, what can be done? The first and most important task is to begin to define the world in concrete terms; i.e. this is “right”, that is “wrong”; this is “native”, that is “foreign”, etc. For example, one might say that theiving is wrong and that generosity is right; one might say that Daoism is native and Christanity (or at least the liberal Protestant form of it) is foreign. Both Nietzche and Guenon (the latter more than the former), and later Evola, asserted the existance of “Tradition”. This “Tradition” consists of all that we saw in the ancients that was functional is part of a set of values that are true in any age because of their fundamental recognition of the problems of reality for those who desire higher civilization. Tradition opposes Modernity, and the “progressive” society that believes we can reach some Utopic ideal through egalitarian and utilitarian government. Guenon was correct in dividing current history into these two threads, as Modernity takes many forms, including both Capitalism and Communism, conservatism and liberalism. There is no escape from Modernity once you begin using its divisions. One aspect of Traditional civilization worldwide, regardless of race, is ethnoculture, which is the idea that no culture can exist without its traditional ethnicity to uphold it, because the tens of thousands of generations that produced that culture also shaped the population through selection for those who tended toward upholding its ideal values. Ethnoculture does not designate an Absolute “superior” or “inferior” race. Instead, it asserts an “I prefer”: for each culture to exist, it must prefer to have its own ethnic group which peacefully coexists with others, but is capable of forming an independent unite. This is not inbreeding; there’s enough variation in even a small population to avoid inbreeding. It’s not “racism,” in the sense of wanting to keep others down, but it’s an honest statement of need and will to keep them out so that the culture can develop without becoming a mixed-race society like so many remnants of collapsed ancient civilizations. If China is to prosper in the next century, it must re-awaken its rich and glorious past. “Democracy” and mob rule are not enough to ensure a future for any nation, and personal freedoms must be supplemented with real cultural values such as filial piety and loyalty. In short, China must not succumb to the external forces of liberalism and multiculturalism if she wishes to succeed. Many Westerners, when first learning about the Sinitic languages, make the assumption that the written language across the many dialects are identical. However, this is not true. Some dialects use different words altogether which must be written differently, and in some cases the word order ina sentence is changed. Written Chinese is a form of standardized Mandarin, and while often mutually intelligible, sometimes presents difficulties for speakers of other dialects. For words in Taiwanese that are cognate with Mandarin words, this presents no problem. The Taiwanese word for dog (káu) and its Mandarin counterpart (gǒu) both share the similar sound and the same meaning, so it is easy to use the character 狗 for both. However, some Taiwanese words are different in sound from Mandarin words. For example, in the word for ‘all’ in Taiwanese is lóng, but in Mandarin it is pronounced quán. In a case like this, sometimes people will simply substitute the character 全 in the Taiwanese sentence, but one has to remember that it is pronounced differently. For words that are of more than one character, sometimes alternative characters must be found for syllables with no Mandarin equivalent. For example, ‘tomorrow’ in Taiwanese is pronounced miâ-á-tsài. Clarly, this cannot be written as 明天, since one character can only represent one syllable. Instead, we use the character written as 明仔載. However, even when the number of syllables is the same, sometimes it’s necessary to write it with different characters ‘child’ is written as 囡仔 and pronounced gín-á. Taiwanese also retains some aspects of middle Chinese, using words like 無 (pronounced bo) in place of 沒有 or 日 (jit) instead of 太陽. Also, there are words which do not even exist in Mandarin, and of course, characters must be made up for that as well. As people are primarily literate in Standard Mandarin in Taiwan, this means that although many people can speak the Taiwanese language, only a few can write it well. In fact, many people prefer to write things down in Mandarin alone, and translate ‘on the fly’. One proposed solution is to develop a purely phonetic system to represent Taiwanese sounds. Historically, four systems were used: the earliest was the transcription into Latin used by Jesuit priests, the second was a modified version of Japanese katakana, the third was Zhuyin Fuhao with added letters to show the sounds of Taiwanese (extended bopomofo), and the last was an attempt to make a completely native system, called Tai-oan-ji. |
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