What to Learn from China

“At work, we don’t talk about politics, religion or sex,” finally decreed my boss Steve at the brokerage firm I worked at for the first decade of this century. We brokered grapes to vintners and also bulk wine to winemakers who needed it. Sparks flew, mostly between those whose interests were rooted in the country and those who were based in town. The brokers were full of stories and opinions, but we needed to work together. Sports was the safest topic, and during March Madness, everyone was on board!

Even among the admin people, I knew that Jackie, who had been at the company even before me, was a fan of George Bush and Dick Cheney, as I was not. She feared terrorists, and didn’t care how they were dealt with. She was fine with the Iraq war, while I thought of it as an imperialistic money-grab. This was another dichotomy I found. Those of us who had been out of the country felt all humans deserved respect and their own sovereignty, while those who had never left the United States didn’t necessarily believe this.

I have always resisted polarization, preferring the “excluded middle.” It’s a lonely place in the United States. I remember when my friends started going to “consciousness raising” groups in the 1970’s. I resisted, saying that, as a Scandinavian woman, I had never felt oppressed. We now know the outcome of all that. If you hate men, you will likely end up living alone with your cat.

It seems that our proclivities aren’t just a matter of background, however. Another person who tries to stay in the middle, Ken Burns, when asked whether his new documentary about the Revolutionary War focuses more on a triumphal or a tragic view, said, “We live in a place in which we are so wedded, addicted, devoted to our binaries. … A good story can contain contradictions.” To the question of whether he is more of an artist or a historian, he says, “Storytelling is the winner, but it also has to be subservient to the facts of the past.”

I was recently reminded that it doesn’t have to be this way by the anthropologist Alan Macfarlane. In an interview posted here, he says “the West is based on binary concepts, either/or. China is based on quantum philosophies, both/and.” For instance, in China, you may subscribe to a Confucian view of society, while retaining Taoist individuality and Buddhist beliefs. Macfarlane believes we must learn from China to get along with each other and our neighbors. “We live in increasingly belligerent confrontation and the world is too small for that now.” For Macfarlane, the future, in which we are undergoing a powerful information revolution, must be based in education.

On a personal level, the things I have gained from China are immeasurable. My years of tai chi study in the Kai Ying Tung academy embody many Chinese concepts. I also owe to Deng Ming Dao a meditation practice based on the microcosmic orbit of the body which has saved me much mental and physical anguish. He also cemented the idea that “discipline is freedom” for me, after a long, confused period of experimentation. From the wonderful writer, John Blofeld, I learned that a Taoist is “content with little and does not give a rap for what the neighbors think.”

From Chinese and Japanese poets, as well as Gary Snyder, I learned that literature need not have an ideology, but simply present the world as you find it. Indeed the list of what I have learned from China is so long, I can hardly find its opening thread. I have written about this here.

I have always been glad I ended up on the left coast where Asian influences are stronger than they are on the east coast. We find intellectual rigor on the east coast, but the future flourishes here in California. Being stuck in binaries doesn’t seem useful. It isn’t just a matter of growing up. We are a young culture, but we also need to see that reality has many layers and swirls with probability before it settles into time and objective truth. Even the interpretation, as in the case of the American revolution, seems to change over time. Are we too small to hold all of this in our brains? Of course not!

Applying “both/and” to our current conflicts, it should become obvious that a nation only impoverishes itself when it limits its citizens to one religion or race. The most successful and exciting cultures are those in which many kinds of peoples live side by side, as in Andalusia in the 10th century, Constantinople in the16th century, Paris in the 1920’s or New York in the early 20th century. Los Angeles is like that now, when you can turn any corner and find a different group of people with their own colorful culture spread out before you.

In our daily lives, we can become aware of where we think in binaries, in whether people are “for” or “against” us, in “red or blue” states or in fixed or opposing identities. We don’t all think the same, nor do we need to. And we don’t need to defend our positions or convince our neighbor to be exactly like us. It is much more peaceful to suspend judgment of our fellows and enjoy them!