Comparing the Western and Asian Dialectics

Comparing the Western and Asian Dialectic -- as I am phenomic (or phenomenological--a branch of experiential thinking), I believe that if Western society was "civilized" (a process) using the Dialectic (a process), then something similar happens everywhere else, such as in Asia (China) and India. As empires, it seems logical that they would be empirical--which is the West is Science as it developed from Aristotle's Syllogism.

My first reading this morning confirmed that Asian oligarchy is Confucian (as you would guess), but did not produce a direct dialectic. Searching using the dialectic's partner word, the didactic, I did find many sources, but, interestingly, the majority of them were focused on "Confucianism for women."

Further, the family/communal trait of the typical Asian village that is universally attributed to Confucianism does not differentiate from Buddhism in current studies, which suggests to me that Asian village life is not necessarily related to Confucianism but has deeper roots that are not understood by Western writers.

However, in the end, Confucianist influence is no different that Socrates' and Plato's Dialectic; In the end, both are about government control. Just as with Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, the influence of Confucius was such that a Chinese emperor had carve the core "Five Classics" in stone to prevent them from being maligned by politicians and scholars (same thing in ancient Asia) who would bribe official librarians to alter texts to help them alter the social structures.

As Confucius is associated with the creation of "civil service exams" (that were based on his philosophy) it might be suggested that he was purely didactic in his educational approach, which would put the Asian civilization development process at about the stage of the Christian Reformation--about a 2,000 year difference! Perhaps in Asia the "debate was over" and the social structure had settled into a mode of "respect for superiors" (which I differentiate from elders as superior suggests politics and elders family).

While Confucius seems to be ahead of Greek oligarchs in reaching didactic control, it is interesting that the Asian and Greek philosophers were near-contemporaries. (It is also interesting that the Buddha was also a near-contemporary, suggesting the possibility of communication between East and West that occurred somewhat "below the historical radar.")

The purpose of the comparison is to use each of the philosophies as templates to lay over the other to attempt to remove extraneous ethnicity-related traits so as to "boil down" a core philosophic process that is universally used to "civilize society." While the Greek oligarchs used the Dialectic, the Dialectic in Plato's example may not be different from Confucius' question/answer mode, where students would be satisfied with "the master's" intuitive answers, and then meditate upon them as homework. In Plato's dialectical interactions, the master was always right in the end, as he determined, through introversion, what was real, or his forms, by deliberately ignoring reality. Aristotle took acceptance to this (in his competing Lyceum) to initiate empirical science which is based on a concept of matter and utilizes observation and experimentation. (I have not yet discovered the Asian equivalent or parallel of empirical science.)

So far, the comparison has been useful; for instance, the use of empirical to describe Aristotle's science (which may really be Hypocrites') does not seem coincidential, it really could be "empire-oriented science," as we can easily see that the Confucian oligarchy exists solely to promote the ruling empire and to reinforce with didactic education whose leadership (of scholar-philosophers) is carefully filtered with "civil service exams." But putting the poets in control, Confucius was far ahead of Plato who foretold a day when all the leaders would be philosophers. Ironically, Plato reached his goal with the purely-didactic Marxist empire that, of course, swallowed Asia with Maoism that dislodged Confucianism after so many centuries.

Using Korea (Southern) as an example, Western oligarchy triumphed over Confusicanist through capital rather than communism (thanks to the Korean War) by displacing a single 1500-year-long Confucian dynasty. It is through Korea that we can compare the two Asian philosophies, oligarchic Confucianism and democratic Buddhism. From my reading about Korea, it seems that levels are family respect exceed both Confucius and the Buddha suggesting a "human" phenomena, or perhaps a "phenomic" philosophy that is purely natural, and hence ignored by the synthesis of both the Dialectic and Confucianism.

This suggests that Confucius, thus, only altered (or perverted) the ancient Asian morality for the benefit of the aristocracy, and, if he did, then there may be a parallel (though unique) Western natural morality that has been suppressed by the Dialectic (whose purpose was to likewise benefit the aristocracy of Sparta). If so, then that natural morality might be wrapped in the Pre-Indo-European (PIE) concept of "Menos," which initiated this learning thread nearly two years ago with my interest in the parallel evolution of thought, mental abilities, and language. Since neither Confucius nor the Dialectic are associated with evolution, then perhaps we have a "model" for the evolutionary fork called "de-evolution" (or devo) if such a phenomena can be described as a "model."