A Letter to the Phillippines

Joseph
Princess Venture Enterprises
Manila

Together you and I are on the Way(道). In the current era this can bring an end to conflict, revolution and hegemony. It is this end we symbolize. My life was in NATO working against enemies, now gone, yours on the Pacific Rim struggling to end a hegemony now gone. Where now is the Way(道)?

We in the end game of our lives seek evolutionary harmony, he (和), in now uncontested spheres of influence of West on East and East on West, discarded segments of what is one sphere, our planet. In this conscious systemic evolutionary harmony, he (和), is now the essence of mans survival on the Way(道). Not the irony (同一个世界同一个梦想) of one world one dream (vain hope) of the Chinese Olympics but 同一个世界同一个做梦 but one world having one dream of the Martin Luther King variety as manifest in Obama.

There is a category error in human reasoning. Categories are helpful. They aid understanding but danger lurks in seeing “yin” (阴) and “yang” (阳) as alternatives systems instead of distinct part of ONE process. Profound Chinese philosophy sees this, people see structure not the processes their mind’s eye can create.

With this error ones talks of sub-systems un-systemically as systems when there is only one. Lao Tse called it "the way"(道). Newton called it the heavens. Einstein called it the universe. A correct understanding of its processes leads as Mao rightly conceived, to a need for continuous revolution. Evolutionary harmony requires these to be many and small.

The USA attempts this dominance of yang(阳) over yin(阴) and fails. Fecund errors propagate easily in such free environments producing systemic crisis, 1926, 2009. Flow in any undefined uniformity, a river delta, creates a need for a continuous flow of new flexible channels to guide it.

Such understanding leads to, the “Yi Ching” (易经), focused on the process, “evolution”, not the forms, local to time and place, it creates to enable it to stay on “the way” (道) it cannot leave.

Yin (阴) and yang(阳) are not alternatives but part of the one Way(道) Smooth Evolution requires balance between them. Without this sudden change, revolution, is inevitable to repair “the way” (道) This will happen with or without conscious human intervention. Chinese philosophy recognizes that socially true “he” (和) can avoid such revolution but the neo-Confucian thought of Zu Chi (朱熹) as captured by emperors and farmers was used to sustain their way at the expense of the way competitive technology can modulate business. This domination of yin(阴) over yang(阳) made Ci Xi (慈禧) and the Chinese revolutions that followed inevitable. For balance “The Way” (道) required Western yang(阳) to dominate for a time.

Our job is to find true he (和) as a balance between the processes of the East, with 阳dominant, and West with 阴dominant. Victory of one over the other as seen above is disastrous. Creative dynamic harmony between man and nature requires inclusivity not just of East and West but of Islam and the Spanish speaking world the Philippines encapsulates. For “one world to have one dream” the Philippines must flourish in more than its people.

A truly global University, as we at Nottingham aspires to be, can perhaps assist this.

Dr Brian Hilton, 岵屯来恩(博士)
Associate Professor of International Business,
Nottingham University Business School, NINGBO, China