Historical forms of dialectics: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 15:47, 19 February 2025

If dialectics is the underlying logic of the universe, then it follows that it existed historically and that at some points people observed it in action. Dialectical thinking appears in fragments across cultures. Humans observe phenomena in the universe, which leads to knowledge of dialectics, and dialectical knowledge empowers humans to exert influence over the universe.

In Western cultures, the term dialectics is derived from Greek philosophers.^[1]^[2]^[3] Because of the origins of the term dialectics in Western philosophy, and the European roots of Marx and Engels, the argument may be heard that dialectics and therefore all Marxism is Western ideology, alien to any non-Western context. However, this is a case of shooting the messenger: dialectics and the observations of Marx and Engels which Marxist-Leninists uphold are in fact not exclusively Western, despite the language being used to describe that which is universal. This article is written in a Western language, shall we refuse to speak? It was Mao Zedong who correctly observed that dialectical and undialectical thinking exist as tendencies within every society.^[4] So, regardless of what language we use, what we want to call it, whether it is dialectics, dynamic duality, contradictions, phenomena of opposites, or evolution, the same observations are being made. As Marxists, we use the term dialectics most commonly, and perhaps in non-Western languages a different term may be used for the same effect. This article will demonstrate the fragments of dialectics that most commonly apply.

Hegelianism is the Western philosophy, dialectics is a borrowed term. Contrary to what bourgeois academics may hold, Marxism is not Hegelianism, Marxism foiled Hegelianism by drawing out the universal and scientific laws from it while leaving out the stale, incorrect, and narrow aspects. What Marx did to Hegel's philosophy can be replicated with any philosophy, and not only did Marx and Engels do this to Hegel's philosophy but they also did so with Dühring's.^[5]^[6]

East Asian philosophy also heavily involves itself with Marxist dialectics, arguably more than any other part of the world currently, and there is no Communist today who does not read Mao Zedong. Mao Zedong, who said: "I am a native philosopher"!^[7] Mao Zedong drew out the universal and scientific qualities of his own cultural heritage when he synthesized Daoist and Confucian thought with historical materialism, reflecting a uniquely Chinese take on Marxism-Leninism. Mao Zedong was not only a revolutionary who studied socialism, he was also a poet and avid reader. From his childhood into his adulthood he delved deeply in lifelong study of Chinese classical traditions, including Daoist and Confucian philosophers like Mencius and Zhuangzi. This nurtured his dialectical thinking, and he flexibly synthesized Daoist and Confucian concepts with dialectical materialism into his own brand of thought in a principled, practical, and poetic manner.^[8] He was so fluent in these philosophies that it also characterized his mode of expression in various statements and phrases.^[9]^[10] The current Secretary General Xi Xinping continues this living tradition: in his book The Governance of China, there are many explicit references to Confucian and Daoist philosophy.^[11]

It follows that any person with the skill can, as Marx and Mao have done, evolve any philosophy such as the ones listed on this page, introducing further dialectical insights and interpretations into a particular cultural system without the imposition of "outside thought", Western or otherwise, and preserving the valuable wisdom of the ancestors. This list is not comprehensive, nor complete, but its aim is to provide a general impression of the logic of dialectics which is in constant development across all cultural systems. The list is a general overview for demonstration purposes, and is not meant to supplant the necessary work that members of each respective culture must take on to further develop their own native philosophies.

Some cultures may conceptualize opposites as at war with each other, while other cultures may consider opposites as part of a dynamic harmony. Neither interpretation is necessarily incorrect, if it can lead to knowledge acquisition by the correct apprehension of phenomena, then they are but synonymous with each other and any apparent difference is aesthetic.

Any culture can build up a dialectical version of itself, even if it expresses the most irreconcilable static dualism. In fact, there exist several irreconcilable static dualisms: the static gender binary, and the irreconcilable static dualism of colonialism.^[12] In the face of a static gender binary, gender diverse people are contributing to the development of dialectical knowledge of gender^[13] and the origins of transphobia.^[14] In the face of colonialism, oppressed nationalities are rising up to liberate themselves. The same evolution, the same qualitative leaps, can happen with any aspect of human thought or culture.

Below is a list of cultural, philosophical, and religious analogues to dialectics, organized into stages of development, from static dualism to full dialectics.

Summary

Systems in the Stage of Frozen Opposites oppose dialectics by static opposites, while proto-dialectical systems grasp aspects like change or relationality. Notably, factors that keep a system in the Stage of Frozen Opposites include: static dualism (Samkhya, Jainism). which freezes contradictions; antagonistic dualism (Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism), which denies synthesis; anti-materialism (Gnosticism, Cartesianism), which negates dialectical engagement with historical conditions; fatalism (Zurvanism) and elitist idealism (Platonic Dualism), which reject collective agency.

Non-dual systems in the Near-Materialist Stage of Transcendence advance beyond mechanical dualities by synthesizing monism with dualism, offering a perspective that transcends the apparent contradiction between "all is one" and the existence of opposites. This synthesis recognizes that reality is ultimately a unified whole, while simultaneously acknowledging the expression of duality within that wholeness. However, these systems have not developed on par with dialectical materialism, generally because they lack materialism and/or a sense of historical evolution.

Another interesting pattern is that as mastery of dialectics increases, optimism increases. As mastery of dialectics decreases, fatalism increases. This is an indication of humanity becoming more optimistic because their grasp of dialectics grants them the ability to materially satisfy their own needs.

Highest Stage of Dialectics

Dialectical Materialism

Description: A materialist framework where contradictions (e.g., class struggle) drive historical progress through qualitative leaps (synthesis). This article assumes a basic knowledge of dialectical materialism. For more info, see the article on dialectical materialism. There have also been efforts to update dialectical materialism for the advancement of revolutionary socialism: Juche, developed by Kim Il-Sung, emphasizes human agency as the "master of revolution," centering collective human agency in the transformation of material conditions to satisfy human needs and desires, beyond certain fatalistic elements of dialectical materialism; in other words, the idea that humanity acquires the ability to become the principal agent of historical material development. Gramsci’s cultural hegemony extends dialectics to ideological critique, arguing that ruling classes maintain power through cultural institutions, not just economic force. Ahmed Sékou Touré also stated that "the foundations of culture have been created and the conditions for its progress are created by the working masses which are the makers of history".^[15]

Strengths/Weaknesses: Formalizes dialectical laws with materialist grounding, deepening knowledge of the world and humanity.

Near-Materialist Stage of Transcendence

Hegelianism

Description: Hegel lived in a world of strict binaries, and sought to overcome them through his philosophy. His dialectics posits that reality evolves through contradictions (thesis-antithesis-synthesis), driven by the Absolute Spirit (Geist) striving for self-realization. The master-slave dialectic (Phenomenology of Spirit) illustrates how self-consciousness emerges through struggle, with the slave’s labor leading to historical progress.^[16] Hegel's insights can be summed up as: The law of the transformation of quantity into quality and vice versa; The law of the interpenetration of opposites; The law of the negation of the negation.^[5]

Strengths/Weaknesses: Hegel's system, unfortunately, is the only system in this list that interprets history as progressing through dialectical change. His work to dissolve the irreconcilable dualism of his society was comprehensive, and despite managing to advance Western philosophy into its highest stage yet, dialectical principles like the "negation of the negation" remained confined to the realm of logic and abstract reason, disconnected from empirical, material processes. For example, Hegel’s Philosophy of History frames historical progress as the Spirit’s self-actualization, not material phenomena like class conflict.^[16]^[17] This led to Hegel famously being 'turned on his head' by Marx and Engels, transforming his idealism into materialism. Despite this, there are some philosophers that try to rescue him. Bourgeois ex-Russian philosopher Kojève’s Marxist-Hegelian synthesis regresses Marxism into reformism and social democracy.^[18] Hegel’s idealism lacks Marx’s materialist grounding, earning it a near-perfect but incomplete score.

Chinese Yin-Yang

Description: The yin-yang symbol (Taijitu) includes a dot of the opposite color in each half, signifying that each force contains the seed of the other. It captures the essence of the philosophy, which emphasizes that opposites (e.g., light/dark, good/evil) are interconnected and interdependent, not irreconcilable. The interplay of yin (passive, dark) and yang (active, light) generates dynamic harmony through cyclical interaction. The Dao is the undifferentiated source (Wuji) from which yin and yang emerge. The Daodejing (Ch. 42) states, "The Dao engenders One; One engenders Two [...] Three engenders all things," framing reality as a unity of opposites.^[19] Zhuangzi’s paradoxes (e.g., "Butterfly Dream") dissolve rigid distinctions, mirroring dialectical fluidity.^[20] Transcendence in the yin-yang framework involves embracing and harmonizing opposites to achieve unity with the Dao (the Way), the ultimate principle underlying existence, and moving beyond rigid categorization without rejecting opposites.

Strengths/Weaknesses: Cycles of yin and yang embody contradiction-driven change but classical Chinese Yin-Yang philosophical traditions lack any thought on the processes of historical development, instead seeing all phenomena as cyclical.^[21] Adherence to Daoist harmony leads to inaction, impeding its liberatory potential.^[22]

Madhyamaka Buddhism (Śūnyatā)

↑ “The credit for having sketched out the dialectic is due to the Greek philosophers. They saw nature as a whole. Heraclitus taught that this whole is transformed: we never enter the same river, he said. The struggle of opposites holds a great place among them, notably in Plato, who emphasizes the fruitfulness of this struggle; opposites engender each other. [A very good example of Platonic dialectic is provided by one of his most famous dialogues, relatively easy to access: The Phaedo.] The word dialectic comes directly from the Greek: dialegein, to discuss. It expresses the struggle of opposing ideas.”

Georges Politzer (1954). Fundamental Principles of Philosophy. Editions Sociales.
↑ “Our knowledge of the rival claims to this honor goes back to Aristotle, who in his dialogue On Poets mentions Zeno of Elea (c. 495–c. 430 b.c.e.) as the founder of what he calls dialectic and an unknown Alexamenós as the "inventor" of the mimetic dialogue.”

Encyclopedia.com. New Dictionary of the History of Ideas: 'Dialogue and Dialectics: Socratic'.
↑ “Annotation 9:
Dialectics is a philosophical methodology which searches for truth by examining contradictions and relationships between things, objects, and ideas. Ancient dialecticians such as Aristotle and Socrates explored dialectics primarily through rhetorical discourse between two or more different points of view about a subject with the intention of finding truth.

In this classical form of dialectics, a thesis is presented. This thesis is an opening argument about the subject at hand. An antithesis, or counter-argument, is then presented. Finally, the thesis and antithesis are combined into a synthesis, which is an improvement on both the thesis and antithesis which brings us closer to truth.

Hegel resurrected dialectics to the forefront of philosophical inquiry for the German Idealists. As Engels wrote in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific:

Hegel’s work’s greatest merit was the taking up again of dialectics as the highest form of reasoning. The old Greek philosophers were all born natural dialecticians, and Aristotle, the most encyclopaedic of them, had already analyzed the most essential forms of dialectic thought.”

Minister of Education and Training, in collaboration with Sự Thật with Associate Professor and Doctor of Philosophy Nguyen Viet Thong as chief editor (2008). Curriculum of the Basic Principles of Marxism-Leninism Part 1: 'Summary of the Birth and Development of Marxism-Leninism'. Minister of Education and Training.
↑ “Throughout the history of human knowledge, there have been two conceptions concerning the law of development of the universe, the metaphysical conception and the dialectical conception, which form two opposing world outlooks. Lenin said:

The two basic (or two possible? or two historically observable?) conceptions of development (evolution) are: development as decrease and increase, as repetition, and development as a unity of opposites (the division of a unity into mutually exclusive opposites and their reciprocal relation). [3]

Here Lenin was referring to these two different world outlooks.

In China another name for metaphysics is xuánxué. For a long period in history whether in China or in Europe, this way of thinking, which is part and parcel of the idealist world outlook, occupied a dominant position in human thought. In Europe, the materialism of the bourgeoisie in its early days was also metaphysical. As the social economy of many European countries advanced to the stage of highly developed capitalism, as the forces of production, the class struggle and the sciences developed to a level unprecedented in history, and as the industrial proletariat became the greatest motive force in historical development, there arose the Marxist world outlook of materialist dialectics. Then, in addition to open and barefaced reactionary idealism, vulgar evolutionism emerged among the bourgeoisie to oppose materialist dialectics.”

Mao Zedong (1937). On Contradiction.
↑ ^{Jump up to: 5.0} ^5.1 “It is, therefore, from the history of nature and human society that the laws of dialectics are abstracted. For they are nothing but the most general laws of these two aspects of historical development, as well as of thought itself. And indeed they can be reduced in the main to three:

The law of the transformation of quantity into quality and vice versa;

The law of the interpenetration of opposites;

The law of the negation of the negation.

All three are developed by Hegel in his idealist fashion as mere laws of thought: the first, in the first part of his Logic, in the Doctrine of Being; the second fills the whole of the second and by far the most important part of his Logic, the Doctrine of Essence; finally the third figures as the fundamental law for the construction of the whole system. The mistake lies in the fact that these laws are foisted on nature and history as laws of thought, and not deduced from them. This is the source of the whole forced and often outrageous treatment; the universe, willy-nilly, is made out to be arranged in accordance with a system of thought which itself is only the product of a definite stage of evolution of human thought. If we turn the thing round, then everything becomes simple, and the dialectical laws that look so extremely mysterious in idealist philosophy at once become simple and clear as noonday.”

Friedrich Engels (1883). Dialectics of Nature: 'Dialectics'. [MIA]
↑ “So far Herr Dühring, and almost entirely word for word. What he is dealing with are therefore principles, formal tenets derived from thought and not from the external world, which are to be applied to nature and the realm of man, and to which therefore nature and man have to conform. But whence does thought obtain these principles? From itself? No, for Herr Dühring himself says: the realm of pure thought is limited to logical schemata and mathematical forms {42} (the latter, moreover, as we shall see, is wrong). Logical schemata can only relate to forms of thought; but what we are dealing with here is solely forms of being, of the external world, and these forms can never be created and derived by thought out of itself, but only from the external world. But with this the whole relationship is inverted: the principles are not the starting-point of the investigation, but its final result; they are not applied to nature and human history, but abstracted from them, it is not nature and the realm of man which conform to these principles, but the principles are only valid in so far as they are in conformity with nature and history. That is the only materialist conception of the matter, and Herr Dühring's contrary conception is idealistic, makes things stand completely on their heads, and fashions the real world out of ideas, out of schemata, schemes or categories existing somewhere before the world, from eternity — just like a Hegel. In fact, let us compare Hegel’s Encyclopaedia [30] and all its delirious fantasies with Herr Dühring’s final and ultimate truths. With Herr Dühring we have in the first place general world schematism, which Hegel calls Logic. Then with both of them we have the application of these schemata or logical categories to nature: the philosophy of nature; and finally their application to the realm of man, which Hegel calls the philosophy of mind. The “inner logical sequence” of the Dühring succession therefore leads us “quite naturally” {D. Ph. 15} back to Hegel’s Encyclopaedia, from which it has been taken with a loyalty which would move that wandering Jew of the Hegelian school, Professor Michelet of Berlin, to tears. [31] That is what comes of accepting “consciousness”, “thought”, quite naturalistically, as something given, something opposed from the outset to being, to nature. If that were so, it must seem extremely strange that consciousness and nature, thinking and being, the laws of thought and the laws of nature, should correspond so closely.”

Friedrich Engels (1876 — 1878). Anti-Dühring: 'Philosophy; Classification, apriorism'.
↑ “Our strong points are that we have the support of the people whereas the Kuomintang is divorced from the people. You have more territory, more troops, and more arms, but your soldiers have been obtained by impressment, and there is opposition between officers and soldiers. Naturally there is also a fairly large portion of their armies which has considerable fighting capacity, it is not at all the case that they will all just collapse at one blow. Their weak point lies here, the key is their divorce from the people. We unite with the popular masses; they are divorced from the popular masses.

... All the newspapers and radio stations attacked us. There were a lot of newspapers, several dozen in each city, every faction ran one, and all of them without exception were anti-communist. Did the common people all listen to them? Nothing of the kind! We have some experience of Chinese affairs, China is a ‘sparrow’. In foreign countries, too, it’s nothing else but the rich and the poor, counter revolution and revolution, Marxism-Leninism and revisionism. You mustn’t believe at all that everybody will take in anticommunist propaganda, and join in opposing communism. Didn’t we read newspapers at the time? Yet we were not influenced by them.

I have read the Dream of the Red Chamber five times, and have not been influenced by it. I read it as history. First I read it as a story, and then as history. ...

In studying history, unless you take a class-struggle view as the starting-point, you will get confused. Things can only be analysed clearly by the use of class analysis. ...

What is synthesis? You have all witnessed how the two opposites, the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, were synthesized on the mainland. The synthesis took place like this: their armies came, and we devoured them, we ate them bite by bite. It was not a case of two combining into one as expounded by Yang Hsien-chen, it was not the synthesis of two peacefully coexisting opposites. They didn’t want to coexist peacefully, they wanted to devour you. Otherwise, why would they have attacked Yenan? ... One thing eating another, big fish eating little fish, this is synthesis. It has never been put like this in books. I have never put it this way in my books either. For his part, Yang Hsien-chen believes that two combine into one, and that synthesis is the indissoluble tie between two opposites. What indissoluble ties are there in this world? Things may be tied, but in the end they must be severed. There is nothing which cannot be severed. ...

We must take life as our starting-point in discussing the unity of opposites. (Comrade K’ang Sheng: ‘It won’t do merely to talk about concepts.’)

While analysis is going on, there is also synthesis, and while synthesis is going on, there is also analysis. ...

I am a native philosopher, you are foreign philosophers.”

Mao Zedong (1964). Talk On Questions of Philosophy.
↑ “Under the heading “The Scriptures of Mencius” (with no indication of the time), Mao mainly recorded his reading of Mencius - Liang Huiwangxia (梁惠王下). 在“《孟子》经”的标题下（没有标明时间），毛泽东主要是对《孟子·梁惠王下》阅读的记录。

Later, under the heading categorized as “Jing” (with no time indicated), Mao Zedong recorded his reading of “Poetry”, “Mencius”, and “Zhuangzi”. 　后面，在分类为“经”的名目下（没有标明时间），毛泽东有对《诗经》《孟子》《庄子》阅读的记录。

These excerpts not only enriched Mao's poetic imagination, but also benefited him in deepening his philosophical reflection on the dialectical relationship between the large and the small. His comments on the deeds of Li Hongzhang and on the remarks of Mencius, which he appended to Zhuangzi's remarks, concretely demonstrate this dialectical thinking. Zhuangzi's ideas had a significant impact on Mao's social and political activities and poetic life, and he later used the term “big bird” and “kunpeng” in his poems on many occasions. 这些摘录不仅丰富了毛泽东的诗意想象力，而且有益于他加深对大与小辩证关系的哲学思考。他在庄子言论之后附加的对李鸿章事迹的评论、对孟子言论的评论，具体表明了这种辩证思考。庄子的思想对毛泽东一生的社会政治活动、诗词生活有着重大影响，他后来多次以“大鸟”“鲲鹏”入诗。

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Mao Zedong sent someone to look for Yuan Jiliu, but he was deeply sorry to learn that his teacher had died in 1932. In order to express his respect for his teacher, Mao invited Dai Changzhen, Yuan's wife and mother, to Beijing on May 1, 1951, the International Labor Day. When Mao learned that Dai Changzhen was having difficulties, he wrote to Wang Shoudao, the head of the Hunan provincial government, asking the provincial government to help her. In October 1952, when Mao learned that the local government had decided to rebuild the grave of Yuan Jiliu, he was invited by Luo Yuankun to inscribe “Mr. Yuan Jiliu's Tomb” for the erection of a monument. He inscribed “Mr. Yuan Jiliu's Tomb” in his own handwriting at Luo Yuankun's request. Mao Zedong's inscription on Mr. Yuan Jiliu's tombstone is the only one of its kind among all the deceased teachers who taught at the First Normal School. This shows that Mao Zedong sincerely admired Mr. Yuan Jiliu's morality and knowledge. 中华人民共和国成立后，毛泽东曾特地派人寻找袁吉六的下落，后知悉恩师已于1932年去世，深为惋惜。为表达对老师的敬意，1951年“五一”国际劳动节，毛泽东特意邀请袁吉六的夫人、师母戴常贞到北京观礼。毛泽东得知戴常贞生活困难，便给湖南省政府负责人王首道写信，请省政府酌予接济。戴常贞患结石症做完手术，毛泽东得知消息后立即从自己的稿费中拿出400元钱，托周世钊带给她作营养费用。1952年10月，毛泽东得知地方政府决定为袁吉六这位名师重修墓地的消息，他应罗元鲲之请，亲笔题写了“袁吉六先生之墓”以作立碑用。毛泽东为袁吉六先生题写墓碑，这是所有在第一师范学校任教过的逝世老师中是仅有的。由此可见，毛泽东对袁吉六的道德、学识是由衷佩服的。

Influenced by his teacher Yuan Jiliu's words and deeds, Mao Zedong studied hard, studied ancient Chinese literature and poetry, and history during his student days, and mastered his literary skills; he also studied calligraphy diligently, and later became a great poet and calligrapher. Mao Zedong can be said to be a student who surpassed his teacher. His student grew up to be a great man and a poet, and Yuan Jiliu can rest in peace. "Mastering ancient and modern literature and history, and teaching talents all over the world", the couplet on the stone pillar beside the tombstone fully fits Mr. Yuan's identity and deeds. 受业师袁吉六言传身教的影响，毛泽东在学生时代勤奋读书、研习古文古诗及历史，练就了一身文功；他同时勤习字帖，后来终成大诗人、大书法家。毛泽东可谓青出于蓝而胜于蓝，自己的学生成长为一代伟人、一代诗圣，袁吉六可笑慰九泉了。“通古今文史，教天下英才”，墓碑之侧石柱上的这副对联完全符合袁先生的身份与事迹。”

Hu Weixiong, Professor of the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (National School of Administration), doctoral tutor) (2022). Studies on Mao Zedong Deng Xiaoping Theory, No. 8: 'Hu Weixiong: Mao Zedong's diligence in learning poetry during his school years, as seen from Lecture Notes' (Mandarin: 《毛泽东邓小平理论研究》2022年第8期).
↑ “"...the "principle of three nots": not seizing on others' faults, not putting labels on people and not using the big stick."”

Communist Party of China (1978). Communique of the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.
↑ “Just get moving on your two legs, go the rounds of every section placed under your charge and "inquire into everything as Confucius did, and then you will be able to solve the problems, however little is your ability; for although your head may be empty before you go out of doors, it will be empty no longer when you return but will contain all sorts of material necessary for the solution of the problems, and that is how problems are solved.”

Mao Zedong (1930). Oppose Book Worship: 'To Investigate a Problem is to Solve It'.
↑ “Lao Zi or Dao De Jing. This is an important philosophical work from ancient China, which proposed the thought of the "Tao" and advocated the ideas of "governing by doing nothing" and "going along with Nature."”

Xi Jinping (2014). The Governance of China: 'Chapter 6: Culturally Advanced China'.
↑ “The natives' challenge to the colonial world is not a rational confrontation of points of view. It is not a treatise on the universal, but the untidy affirmation of an original idea propounded as an absolute. The colonial world is a Manichean world. It is not enough for the settler to delimit physically, that is to say with the help of the army and the police force, the place of the native. As if to show the totalitarian character of colonial exploitation the settler paints the native as a sort of quintessence of evil. ... Thus we see that the primary Manicheism which governed colonial society is preserved intact during the period of decolonization; that is to say that the settler never ceases to be the enemy, the opponent, the foe that must be overthrown.”

Frantz Fanon (1961). The Wretched of the Earth: 'Concerning Violence'.
↑ “It is not the words in and of themselves that are important to me—it's our lives. The struggle of trans people over the centuries is not his-story or her-story. It is ourstory.

I've been called a he-she, butch, bulldagger, cross-dresser, passing woman, female-to-male transvestite, and drag king. The word I prefer to use to describe myself is transgender.

Today the word transgender has at least two colloquial meanings. It has been used as an umbrella term to include everyone who challenges the boundaries of sex and gender. It is also used to draw a distinction between those who reassign the sex they were labeled at birth, and those of us whose gender expression is considered inappropriate for our sex. Presently, many organizations—from Transgender Nation in San Francisco to Monmouth Ocean Transgender on the Jersey shore—use this term inclusively.

I asked many self-identified transgender activists who are named or pictured in this book who they believed were included under the umbrella term. Those polled named: transsexuals, transgenders, transvestites, transgenderists, bigenders, drag queens, drag kings, cross-dressers, masculine women, feminine men, intersexuals (people referred to in the past as "hermaphrodites"), androgynes, cross-genders, shape-shifters, passing women, passing men, gender-benders, gender-blenders, bearded women, and women bodybuilders who have crossed the line of what is considered socially acceptable for a female body.

But the word transgender is increasingly being used in a more specific way as well. The term transgenderist was first introduced into the English language by trans warrior Virginia Prince. Virginia told me, "I coined the noun transgenderist in 1987 or '88. There had to be some name for people like myself who trans the gender barrier—meaning somebody who lives full time in the gender opposite to their anatomy. I have not transed the sex barrier."

... All together, our many communities challenge all sex and gender borders and restrictions. The glue that cements these diverse communities together is the defense of the right of each individual to define themselves.

As I write this book, the word trans is being used increasingly by the gender community as a term uniting the entire coalition.”

Leslie Feinberg (1996). Transgender Warriors: 'Preface'. Boston: Beacon Press.
↑ “The more I researched the early Hebrews, the more I understood that blaming Judaism for the rise of biases against women, transsexuals, cross-dressers, intersexuals, lesbians, and gay men is not only anti-Semitic, it's a diversion from the realunderstanding of why oppression arose. ...

The accumulation of wealth in the form of herds, agriculture, and trade led to deepening class divisions among the Hebrews, so no wonder the religious beliefs and laws began to reflect the interests of the small group who owned the wealth and their struggle to strengthen their control over the majority.

The communal religious beliefs of the Hebrews had not been fundamentally different from that of other polytheistic tribal-based religions of that region. They worshipped numerous deities, including Yahweh.

So where did transphobic and gender-phobic laws in Deuteronomy spring from? Deuteronomy flatly condemns cross-dressing: "The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God." And male-to-female surgery was denounced: "He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter the congregation of the Lord."

The patriarchal fathers wouldn't have felt the need to spell out these edicts if they weren't common practice. But why did they consider cross-dressing and sex-change such a threat? What was going on among the Hebrews at the time Deuteronomy was written?

Scholars hotly debate the date, as well as the authorship, of these laws. Estimates range from the eleventh to the seventh centuries B.C.E. But what is clear is that Deuteronomy reflects the deepening of patriarchal class divisions among the Hebrews, who lived in and around communal societies that still worshipped goddesses such as Astaroth, Ishtar, Isis, and Cybele. And remember, ritual sex-change was a sacred path for many priestesses of these matrilineal religious traditions.

The condemnation against "cross-dressing," historians Bonnie and Vernon Bullough wrote, "formed part of a campaign against the Syrian goddess Atargatis. who was probably a Syrian version of the Assyrian goddess Ishtar. In some of the worship ceremonies, the followers of Atargatis dressed in the clothes and assumed the role of the opposite sex, just as their Greek counterparts did."

In addition, the laws warned against Jews cross-dressing. These rules forbade Jewish men from using makeup, wearing brightly colored clothes, jewelry, or ornaments associated with women, or shaving their pubic hair. Women were told to keep their hair long, while men were to keep theirs clipped short.' On the one hand, these rules could be seen from the point of view that cross-dressing and cross-gendered expression as a whole retained an integral connection to the worship of the Mother Goddess.

But it's also important to remember that wealthy Hebrew males were trying to consolidate their patriarchal rule. That means they were very much concerned about making distinctions between women and men, and eliminating any blurring or bridging of those categories. That would also explain why the rules of ownership of property and the rights of intersexual people were extensively detailed in Jewish law.

The Hebrews and Judaism were not to blame for the rise of patriarchy or oppression. Class divisions were responsible for the growth of laws that placed new boundaries and restrictions across bodies, self-expression, and desire—as well as fencing off property and wealth. And the Hebrews weren't even the first society to split into classes, or to develop increasingly patriarchal laws. That transformation took place in societies all over the world.

More than a century ago, Frederick Engels explained the importance of these dramatic changes in human society. Engels compared the significance of research into early forms of kinship by Lewis H. Morgan to Darwin's theory of evolution. Morgan, who studied the North American Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy) and numerous tribes in Asia, Africa, and Australia, documented that matrilineal kinship historically preceded patriarchal families. Engels and Karl Marx saw Morgan's studies as proof that the oppression of women began with the cleavage of society into male-dominated classes based on private ownership of property and the accumulation of wealth.

I believe the same historic overthrow of communalism was also responsible for trans oppression.

Shackling a vast laboring class meant creating armies, police, courts, and prisons to enforce the ownership of private property. However, whips and chains alone couldn’t ensure the rule of the new wealthy elite. A tiny, parasitic class can't live in luxury off the wealth of a vast, laboring class without keeping the majority divided and pitted against each other. That is where the necessity for bigotry began.

I found the origin of trans oppression at this intersection between the overthrow of mother-right and the rise of patriarchal class-divided societies. It is at this very nexus that edicts like Deuteronomy arose. Law, including religious law, codified class relations.

The earliest overthrow of mother-right took place in the fertile river valleys of Eurasia and northeast Africa during the period of about 4500 to 1200 B.C.E. In this new social structure, riven by inequality, male ruling class attitudes toward women and trans people grew more and more hostile, even toward transgendered queens and kings.

For example, Hatshepsut, a woman who ruled Egypt in the fifteenth century B.C.E. , "assumed masculine attire, was represented as god and king, and wore the symbolic false beard. In murals she was pictured with short hair, bare shoulders, and was usually devoid of breasts. S/he described herself by male names." Ruling with the support of the temple community, Hatshepsut built grand monuments in honor of the god Amun. Yet after her death, she and the god she honored faced a campaign of hostility, with her second husband attempting to erase all memory of her.

Some eight hundred years later, in the seventh century B.C.E., King Ashurbanipal (Sardanapalus), the last of the Assyrian kings, was described by a physician in his court as spending a great deal of his time dressed in women's clothing. Key nobles used reports of Ashurbanipal 's cross-dressing to justify overthrowing him. Ashurbanipal waged a defensive military campaign against these rivals but was twice defeated in battle. As a result, his rule was limited to his capital city. Finally facing defeat, Ashurbanipal set fire to his palace, killing everyone in it—including himself.9

Hostility to transgender, sex-change, intersexuality, women, and same-sex love became a pattern wherever class antagonisms deepened. As a Jewish, transgender, working-class revolutionary, I can't stress enough that Judaism was not the root of the oppression of women and the outlawing of trans expression and same-sex love. The rise of patriarchal class divisions were to blame.

And I found that wherever the ruling classes became stronger, the laws grew increasingly more fierce and more relentlessly enforced.

...

I found that, as with virtually every ancient people, the early tribes of Greece were communal and matrilineal. But the rise of the Greek city-states during the eighth to sixth centuries B.C.E. was based on slave labor, plunder, and trade. The longer the ruling patricians held power, the more women's status became degraded and expressions of human love became subject to legal dictate.

It's true I did find many, many trans references in Greek culture, religion, art, and mythology. But whatever homage trans expression still enjoyed was a holdover from the communal past. It was hard for the Greek patriarchs to diminish the honor that transgender and intersexuality still held among the laboring class. The patriarchal priests in Greece were hemmed in by the popularity of ancient religions—some dating from matriarchal times—and by schools of secular philosophers who played a vital role in politics and education. Wherever ancient rituals still persisted in Greece, so did trans expression. There were numerous festivals, rituals, and customs in which men dressed in women's clothing, and women wore men's clothes and beards.

Greek mythology was also filled with references to sex-change, intersexuality, and cross-dressing. Many mythological heroes and gods cross-dressed at one time or another, including Achilles, Heracles, Dionysus, and Athena. "Literal and metaphoric sex change," notes classical scholar P. M. C. Forbes Irving, "seems to have been a subject of considerable imaginative interest in the ancient world and had some importance in ancient religion."

But changing attitudes toward trans people and the sharpening patriarchal class divisions are reflected in the Greek legends, in the same way that the mythological defeat of goddesses by male gods mirrored the overthrow of matrilineal societies. For example, Kaineus (Caeneus), a female-to-male figure in mythology, is viewed as a "scorner and rival of the gods." He is driven into the earth by the Centaurs who considered Kaineus an outrage to their masculinity.

Dionysus, also known as Bacchus, was one of the gods who replaced the pre-class goddesses. But Dionysus was represented as a transgendered, cross-dressing god—a hybridization of the old beliefs and the new. During the rites of Dionysus, females-known as ithyphalloi—dressed in men's clothes and carried large phalluses, and men dressed in women's apparel.

Dionysus held great popularity with the most downtrodden, notes Forbes Irving:

Perhaps the most striking feature of Dionysus, and one which seems particularly relevant to his role as a shape-shifter, is that although he becomes one of the greatest of all the gods he retains in his myths and many of his cults a marginal character. He is above all the god of the weak and oppressed, especially women, and an opponent of the established order.

The slave-owners were not easily able to impose their brutal system, or their beliefs, on peoples who had once lived freely and worked cooperatively. The patricians couldn't rule without fighting wars and crushing rebellions.

To my surprise, I discovered that one particular group of warriors who fought against this enslavement was considered transgendered, at least by the Greeks—the Amazons. I knew a little about the Amazons because they were such a symbol of freedom and resistance for modern feminists.”

Leslie Feinberg (1996). Transgender Warriors: 'Why Bigotry Began'. [PDF] Boston: Beacon Press.
↑ “"The foundations of culture have been created and the conditions for its progress are created by the working masses which are the makers of history."”

Ahmed Sékou Touré (1969). A Dialectical Approach to Culture. [PDF] doi: 10.1080/00064246.1969.11414448 [HUB]
↑ ^{Jump up to: 16.0} ^16.1 Hegel (1807). Phenomenology of Spirit: 'Lordship and Bondage'. [PDF]
↑ “A dialectician, Hegel sometimes makes remarkable analyzes. But his idealism led him to attribute to great men an exaggerated role; they become the sole agents of historical progress. This aspect of Hegelian philosophy was to be shamelessly exploited by fascist ideology for which the mass is nothing; only the infallible "superman" counts. "Fascism is what Mussolini is thinking right now," said an admirer of Le Duce. Hitler shouted to his shock troops: "I will think for you".”

Georges Politzer (1954). Fundamental Principles of Philosophy.
↑ Kojève (1969). Introduction to the Reading of Hegel (p. 50).
↑ “"道生一，一生二，二生三，三生万物。
The Dao produced One; One produced Two; Two produced Three; Three produced All things."”

Laozi (Between 8th and 3rd century BCE). Dao De Jing, aka Laozi: '42' (Chinese: 道德經).
↑ “昔者莊周夢為胡蝶，栩栩然胡蝶也，自喻適志與！不知周也。俄然覺，則蘧蘧然周也。不知周之夢為胡蝶與，胡蝶之夢為周與？周與胡蝶，則必有分矣。此之謂物化。
Formerly, I, Zhuang Zhou, dreamt that I was a butterfly, a butterfly flying about, feeling that it was enjoying itself. I did not know that it was Zhou. Suddenly I awoke, and was myself again, the veritable Zhou. I did not know whether it had formerly been Zhou dreaming that he was a butterfly, or it was now a butterfly dreaming that it was Zhou. But between Zhou and a butterfly there must be a difference. This is a case of what is called the Transformation of Things.'”

"The Writings of Chuang Tzu", James Legge, 1891: '齊物論 - The Adjustment of Controversies' (350 BC-250 BC) (Chinese: 莊子 - Zhuangzi - also known as 《南華真經》).
↑ “2 万物恃之以生而不辞，功成不名有，衣养万物而不为主。常无欲，可名于小；All things return (to their root and disappear), and do not know that it is it which presides over their doing so;--it may be named in the greatest things.”

Laozi (Between 8th and 3rd century BCE). Dao De Jing, aka Laozi: '34' (Chinese: 道德經).
↑ “"為學日益，為道日損。損之又損，以至於無為。無為而無不為。取天下常以無事，及其有事，不足以取天下。In the pursuit of learning, one does more each day; In the pursuit of the Way, one does less each day; One does less and less until one does nothing; One does nothing yet nothing is left undone. Gaining the world always is accomplished by following no activity. As soon as one actively tries, one will fall short of gaining the world."”

Laozi (Between 8th and 3rd century BCE). Dao De Jing, aka Laozi: '48' (Chinese: 道德經).

[1] “The credit for having sketched out the dialectic is due to the Greek philosophers. They saw nature as a whole. Heraclitus taught that this whole is transformed: we never enter the same river, he said. The struggle of opposites holds a great place among them, notably in Plato, who emphasizes the fruitfulness of this struggle; opposites engender each other. [A very good example of Platonic dialectic is provided by one of his most famous dialogues, relatively easy to access: The Phaedo.] The word dialectic comes directly from the Greek: dialegein, to discuss. It expresses the struggle of opposing ideas.”

Georges Politzer (1954). Fundamental Principles of Philosophy. Editions Sociales.

[2] “Our knowledge of the rival claims to this honor goes back to Aristotle, who in his dialogue On Poets mentions Zeno of Elea (c. 495–c. 430 b.c.e.) as the founder of what he calls dialectic and an unknown Alexamenós as the "inventor" of the mimetic dialogue.”

Encyclopedia.com. New Dictionary of the History of Ideas: 'Dialogue and Dialectics: Socratic'.

[3] “Annotation 9:
Dialectics is a philosophical methodology which searches for truth by examining contradictions and relationships between things, objects, and ideas. Ancient dialecticians such as Aristotle and Socrates explored dialectics primarily through rhetorical discourse between two or more different points of view about a subject with the intention of finding truth.

In this classical form of dialectics, a thesis is presented. This thesis is an opening argument about the subject at hand. An antithesis, or counter-argument, is then presented. Finally, the thesis and antithesis are combined into a synthesis, which is an improvement on both the thesis and antithesis which brings us closer to truth.

Hegel resurrected dialectics to the forefront of philosophical inquiry for the German Idealists. As Engels wrote in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific:

Hegel’s work’s greatest merit was the taking up again of dialectics as the highest form of reasoning. The old Greek philosophers were all born natural dialecticians, and Aristotle, the most encyclopaedic of them, had already analyzed the most essential forms of dialectic thought.”

Minister of Education and Training, in collaboration with Sự Thật with Associate Professor and Doctor of Philosophy Nguyen Viet Thong as chief editor (2008). Curriculum of the Basic Principles of Marxism-Leninism Part 1: 'Summary of the Birth and Development of Marxism-Leninism'. Minister of Education and Training.

[4] “Throughout the history of human knowledge, there have been two conceptions concerning the law of development of the universe, the metaphysical conception and the dialectical conception, which form two opposing world outlooks. Lenin said:

The two basic (or two possible? or two historically observable?) conceptions of development (evolution) are: development as decrease and increase, as repetition, and development as a unity of opposites (the division of a unity into mutually exclusive opposites and their reciprocal relation). [3]

Here Lenin was referring to these two different world outlooks.

In China another name for metaphysics is xuánxué. For a long period in history whether in China or in Europe, this way of thinking, which is part and parcel of the idealist world outlook, occupied a dominant position in human thought. In Europe, the materialism of the bourgeoisie in its early days was also metaphysical. As the social economy of many European countries advanced to the stage of highly developed capitalism, as the forces of production, the class struggle and the sciences developed to a level unprecedented in history, and as the industrial proletariat became the greatest motive force in historical development, there arose the Marxist world outlook of materialist dialectics. Then, in addition to open and barefaced reactionary idealism, vulgar evolutionism emerged among the bourgeoisie to oppose materialist dialectics.”

Mao Zedong (1937). On Contradiction.

[DiaNature-5] {Jump up to: 5.0} ^5.1 “It is, therefore, from the history of nature and human society that the laws of dialectics are abstracted. For they are nothing but the most general laws of these two aspects of historical development, as well as of thought itself. And indeed they can be reduced in the main to three:

The law of the transformation of quantity into quality and vice versa;

The law of the interpenetration of opposites;

The law of the negation of the negation.

All three are developed by Hegel in his idealist fashion as mere laws of thought: the first, in the first part of his Logic, in the Doctrine of Being; the second fills the whole of the second and by far the most important part of his Logic, the Doctrine of Essence; finally the third figures as the fundamental law for the construction of the whole system. The mistake lies in the fact that these laws are foisted on nature and history as laws of thought, and not deduced from them. This is the source of the whole forced and often outrageous treatment; the universe, willy-nilly, is made out to be arranged in accordance with a system of thought which itself is only the product of a definite stage of evolution of human thought. If we turn the thing round, then everything becomes simple, and the dialectical laws that look so extremely mysterious in idealist philosophy at once become simple and clear as noonday.”

Friedrich Engels (1883). Dialectics of Nature: 'Dialectics'. [MIA]

[6] “So far Herr Dühring, and almost entirely word for word. What he is dealing with are therefore principles, formal tenets derived from thought and not from the external world, which are to be applied to nature and the realm of man, and to which therefore nature and man have to conform. But whence does thought obtain these principles? From itself? No, for Herr Dühring himself says: the realm of pure thought is limited to logical schemata and mathematical forms {42} (the latter, moreover, as we shall see, is wrong). Logical schemata can only relate to forms of thought; but what we are dealing with here is solely forms of being, of the external world, and these forms can never be created and derived by thought out of itself, but only from the external world. But with this the whole relationship is inverted: the principles are not the starting-point of the investigation, but its final result; they are not applied to nature and human history, but abstracted from them, it is not nature and the realm of man which conform to these principles, but the principles are only valid in so far as they are in conformity with nature and history. That is the only materialist conception of the matter, and Herr Dühring's contrary conception is idealistic, makes things stand completely on their heads, and fashions the real world out of ideas, out of schemata, schemes or categories existing somewhere before the world, from eternity — just like a Hegel. In fact, let us compare Hegel’s Encyclopaedia [30] and all its delirious fantasies with Herr Dühring’s final and ultimate truths. With Herr Dühring we have in the first place general world schematism, which Hegel calls Logic. Then with both of them we have the application of these schemata or logical categories to nature: the philosophy of nature; and finally their application to the realm of man, which Hegel calls the philosophy of mind. The “inner logical sequence” of the Dühring succession therefore leads us “quite naturally” {D. Ph. 15} back to Hegel’s Encyclopaedia, from which it has been taken with a loyalty which would move that wandering Jew of the Hegelian school, Professor Michelet of Berlin, to tears. [31] That is what comes of accepting “consciousness”, “thought”, quite naturalistically, as something given, something opposed from the outset to being, to nature. If that were so, it must seem extremely strange that consciousness and nature, thinking and being, the laws of thought and the laws of nature, should correspond so closely.”

Friedrich Engels (1876 — 1878). Anti-Dühring: 'Philosophy; Classification, apriorism'.

[7] “Our strong points are that we have the support of the people whereas the Kuomintang is divorced from the people. You have more territory, more troops, and more arms, but your soldiers have been obtained by impressment, and there is opposition between officers and soldiers. Naturally there is also a fairly large portion of their armies which has considerable fighting capacity, it is not at all the case that they will all just collapse at one blow. Their weak point lies here, the key is their divorce from the people. We unite with the popular masses; they are divorced from the popular masses.

... All the newspapers and radio stations attacked us. There were a lot of newspapers, several dozen in each city, every faction ran one, and all of them without exception were anti-communist. Did the common people all listen to them? Nothing of the kind! We have some experience of Chinese affairs, China is a ‘sparrow’. In foreign countries, too, it’s nothing else but the rich and the poor, counter revolution and revolution, Marxism-Leninism and revisionism. You mustn’t believe at all that everybody will take in anticommunist propaganda, and join in opposing communism. Didn’t we read newspapers at the time? Yet we were not influenced by them.

I have read the Dream of the Red Chamber five times, and have not been influenced by it. I read it as history. First I read it as a story, and then as history. ...

In studying history, unless you take a class-struggle view as the starting-point, you will get confused. Things can only be analysed clearly by the use of class analysis. ...

What is synthesis? You have all witnessed how the two opposites, the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, were synthesized on the mainland. The synthesis took place like this: their armies came, and we devoured them, we ate them bite by bite. It was not a case of two combining into one as expounded by Yang Hsien-chen, it was not the synthesis of two peacefully coexisting opposites. They didn’t want to coexist peacefully, they wanted to devour you. Otherwise, why would they have attacked Yenan? ... One thing eating another, big fish eating little fish, this is synthesis. It has never been put like this in books. I have never put it this way in my books either. For his part, Yang Hsien-chen believes that two combine into one, and that synthesis is the indissoluble tie between two opposites. What indissoluble ties are there in this world? Things may be tied, but in the end they must be severed. There is nothing which cannot be severed. ...

We must take life as our starting-point in discussing the unity of opposites. (Comrade K’ang Sheng: ‘It won’t do merely to talk about concepts.’)

While analysis is going on, there is also synthesis, and while synthesis is going on, there is also analysis. ...

I am a native philosopher, you are foreign philosophers.”

Mao Zedong (1964). Talk On Questions of Philosophy.

[8] “Under the heading “The Scriptures of Mencius” (with no indication of the time), Mao mainly recorded his reading of Mencius - Liang Huiwangxia (梁惠王下). 在“《孟子》经”的标题下（没有标明时间），毛泽东主要是对《孟子·梁惠王下》阅读的记录。

Later, under the heading categorized as “Jing” (with no time indicated), Mao Zedong recorded his reading of “Poetry”, “Mencius”, and “Zhuangzi”. 　后面，在分类为“经”的名目下（没有标明时间），毛泽东有对《诗经》《孟子》《庄子》阅读的记录。

These excerpts not only enriched Mao's poetic imagination, but also benefited him in deepening his philosophical reflection on the dialectical relationship between the large and the small. His comments on the deeds of Li Hongzhang and on the remarks of Mencius, which he appended to Zhuangzi's remarks, concretely demonstrate this dialectical thinking. Zhuangzi's ideas had a significant impact on Mao's social and political activities and poetic life, and he later used the term “big bird” and “kunpeng” in his poems on many occasions. 这些摘录不仅丰富了毛泽东的诗意想象力，而且有益于他加深对大与小辩证关系的哲学思考。他在庄子言论之后附加的对李鸿章事迹的评论、对孟子言论的评论，具体表明了这种辩证思考。庄子的思想对毛泽东一生的社会政治活动、诗词生活有着重大影响，他后来多次以“大鸟”“鲲鹏”入诗。

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Mao Zedong sent someone to look for Yuan Jiliu, but he was deeply sorry to learn that his teacher had died in 1932. In order to express his respect for his teacher, Mao invited Dai Changzhen, Yuan's wife and mother, to Beijing on May 1, 1951, the International Labor Day. When Mao learned that Dai Changzhen was having difficulties, he wrote to Wang Shoudao, the head of the Hunan provincial government, asking the provincial government to help her. In October 1952, when Mao learned that the local government had decided to rebuild the grave of Yuan Jiliu, he was invited by Luo Yuankun to inscribe “Mr. Yuan Jiliu's Tomb” for the erection of a monument. He inscribed “Mr. Yuan Jiliu's Tomb” in his own handwriting at Luo Yuankun's request. Mao Zedong's inscription on Mr. Yuan Jiliu's tombstone is the only one of its kind among all the deceased teachers who taught at the First Normal School. This shows that Mao Zedong sincerely admired Mr. Yuan Jiliu's morality and knowledge. 中华人民共和国成立后，毛泽东曾特地派人寻找袁吉六的下落，后知悉恩师已于1932年去世，深为惋惜。为表达对老师的敬意，1951年“五一”国际劳动节，毛泽东特意邀请袁吉六的夫人、师母戴常贞到北京观礼。毛泽东得知戴常贞生活困难，便给湖南省政府负责人王首道写信，请省政府酌予接济。戴常贞患结石症做完手术，毛泽东得知消息后立即从自己的稿费中拿出400元钱，托周世钊带给她作营养费用。1952年10月，毛泽东得知地方政府决定为袁吉六这位名师重修墓地的消息，他应罗元鲲之请，亲笔题写了“袁吉六先生之墓”以作立碑用。毛泽东为袁吉六先生题写墓碑，这是所有在第一师范学校任教过的逝世老师中是仅有的。由此可见，毛泽东对袁吉六的道德、学识是由衷佩服的。

Influenced by his teacher Yuan Jiliu's words and deeds, Mao Zedong studied hard, studied ancient Chinese literature and poetry, and history during his student days, and mastered his literary skills; he also studied calligraphy diligently, and later became a great poet and calligrapher. Mao Zedong can be said to be a student who surpassed his teacher. His student grew up to be a great man and a poet, and Yuan Jiliu can rest in peace. "Mastering ancient and modern literature and history, and teaching talents all over the world", the couplet on the stone pillar beside the tombstone fully fits Mr. Yuan's identity and deeds. 受业师袁吉六言传身教的影响，毛泽东在学生时代勤奋读书、研习古文古诗及历史，练就了一身文功；他同时勤习字帖，后来终成大诗人、大书法家。毛泽东可谓青出于蓝而胜于蓝，自己的学生成长为一代伟人、一代诗圣，袁吉六可笑慰九泉了。“通古今文史，教天下英才”，墓碑之侧石柱上的这副对联完全符合袁先生的身份与事迹。”

Hu Weixiong, Professor of the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (National School of Administration), doctoral tutor) (2022). Studies on Mao Zedong Deng Xiaoping Theory, No. 8: 'Hu Weixiong: Mao Zedong's diligence in learning poetry during his school years, as seen from Lecture Notes' (Mandarin: 《毛泽东邓小平理论研究》2022年第8期).

[9] “"...the "principle of three nots": not seizing on others' faults, not putting labels on people and not using the big stick."”

Communist Party of China (1978). Communique of the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.

[10] “Just get moving on your two legs, go the rounds of every section placed under your charge and "inquire into everything as Confucius did, and then you will be able to solve the problems, however little is your ability; for although your head may be empty before you go out of doors, it will be empty no longer when you return but will contain all sorts of material necessary for the solution of the problems, and that is how problems are solved.”

Mao Zedong (1930). Oppose Book Worship: 'To Investigate a Problem is to Solve It'.

[11] “Lao Zi or Dao De Jing. This is an important philosophical work from ancient China, which proposed the thought of the "Tao" and advocated the ideas of "governing by doing nothing" and "going along with Nature."”

Xi Jinping (2014). The Governance of China: 'Chapter 6: Culturally Advanced China'.

[12] “The natives' challenge to the colonial world is not a rational confrontation of points of view. It is not a treatise on the universal, but the untidy affirmation of an original idea propounded as an absolute. The colonial world is a Manichean world. It is not enough for the settler to delimit physically, that is to say with the help of the army and the police force, the place of the native. As if to show the totalitarian character of colonial exploitation the settler paints the native as a sort of quintessence of evil. ... Thus we see that the primary Manicheism which governed colonial society is preserved intact during the period of decolonization; that is to say that the settler never ceases to be the enemy, the opponent, the foe that must be overthrown.”

Frantz Fanon (1961). The Wretched of the Earth: 'Concerning Violence'.

[13] “It is not the words in and of themselves that are important to me—it's our lives. The struggle of trans people over the centuries is not his-story or her-story. It is ourstory.

I've been called a he-she, butch, bulldagger, cross-dresser, passing woman, female-to-male transvestite, and drag king. The word I prefer to use to describe myself is transgender.

Today the word transgender has at least two colloquial meanings. It has been used as an umbrella term to include everyone who challenges the boundaries of sex and gender. It is also used to draw a distinction between those who reassign the sex they were labeled at birth, and those of us whose gender expression is considered inappropriate for our sex. Presently, many organizations—from Transgender Nation in San Francisco to Monmouth Ocean Transgender on the Jersey shore—use this term inclusively.

I asked many self-identified transgender activists who are named or pictured in this book who they believed were included under the umbrella term. Those polled named: transsexuals, transgenders, transvestites, transgenderists, bigenders, drag queens, drag kings, cross-dressers, masculine women, feminine men, intersexuals (people referred to in the past as "hermaphrodites"), androgynes, cross-genders, shape-shifters, passing women, passing men, gender-benders, gender-blenders, bearded women, and women bodybuilders who have crossed the line of what is considered socially acceptable for a female body.

But the word transgender is increasingly being used in a more specific way as well. The term transgenderist was first introduced into the English language by trans warrior Virginia Prince. Virginia told me, "I coined the noun transgenderist in 1987 or '88. There had to be some name for people like myself who trans the gender barrier—meaning somebody who lives full time in the gender opposite to their anatomy. I have not transed the sex barrier."

... All together, our many communities challenge all sex and gender borders and restrictions. The glue that cements these diverse communities together is the defense of the right of each individual to define themselves.

As I write this book, the word trans is being used increasingly by the gender community as a term uniting the entire coalition.”

Leslie Feinberg (1996). Transgender Warriors: 'Preface'. Boston: Beacon Press.

[14] “The more I researched the early Hebrews, the more I understood that blaming Judaism for the rise of biases against women, transsexuals, cross-dressers, intersexuals, lesbians, and gay men is not only anti-Semitic, it's a diversion from the realunderstanding of why oppression arose. ...

The accumulation of wealth in the form of herds, agriculture, and trade led to deepening class divisions among the Hebrews, so no wonder the religious beliefs and laws began to reflect the interests of the small group who owned the wealth and their struggle to strengthen their control over the majority.

The communal religious beliefs of the Hebrews had not been fundamentally different from that of other polytheistic tribal-based religions of that region. They worshipped numerous deities, including Yahweh.

So where did transphobic and gender-phobic laws in Deuteronomy spring from? Deuteronomy flatly condemns cross-dressing: "The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God." And male-to-female surgery was denounced: "He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter the congregation of the Lord."

The patriarchal fathers wouldn't have felt the need to spell out these edicts if they weren't common practice. But why did they consider cross-dressing and sex-change such a threat? What was going on among the Hebrews at the time Deuteronomy was written?

Scholars hotly debate the date, as well as the authorship, of these laws. Estimates range from the eleventh to the seventh centuries B.C.E. But what is clear is that Deuteronomy reflects the deepening of patriarchal class divisions among the Hebrews, who lived in and around communal societies that still worshipped goddesses such as Astaroth, Ishtar, Isis, and Cybele. And remember, ritual sex-change was a sacred path for many priestesses of these matrilineal religious traditions.

The condemnation against "cross-dressing," historians Bonnie and Vernon Bullough wrote, "formed part of a campaign against the Syrian goddess Atargatis. who was probably a Syrian version of the Assyrian goddess Ishtar. In some of the worship ceremonies, the followers of Atargatis dressed in the clothes and assumed the role of the opposite sex, just as their Greek counterparts did."

In addition, the laws warned against Jews cross-dressing. These rules forbade Jewish men from using makeup, wearing brightly colored clothes, jewelry, or ornaments associated with women, or shaving their pubic hair. Women were told to keep their hair long, while men were to keep theirs clipped short.' On the one hand, these rules could be seen from the point of view that cross-dressing and cross-gendered expression as a whole retained an integral connection to the worship of the Mother Goddess.

But it's also important to remember that wealthy Hebrew males were trying to consolidate their patriarchal rule. That means they were very much concerned about making distinctions between women and men, and eliminating any blurring or bridging of those categories. That would also explain why the rules of ownership of property and the rights of intersexual people were extensively detailed in Jewish law.

The Hebrews and Judaism were not to blame for the rise of patriarchy or oppression. Class divisions were responsible for the growth of laws that placed new boundaries and restrictions across bodies, self-expression, and desire—as well as fencing off property and wealth. And the Hebrews weren't even the first society to split into classes, or to develop increasingly patriarchal laws. That transformation took place in societies all over the world.

More than a century ago, Frederick Engels explained the importance of these dramatic changes in human society. Engels compared the significance of research into early forms of kinship by Lewis H. Morgan to Darwin's theory of evolution. Morgan, who studied the North American Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy) and numerous tribes in Asia, Africa, and Australia, documented that matrilineal kinship historically preceded patriarchal families. Engels and Karl Marx saw Morgan's studies as proof that the oppression of women began with the cleavage of society into male-dominated classes based on private ownership of property and the accumulation of wealth.

I believe the same historic overthrow of communalism was also responsible for trans oppression.

Shackling a vast laboring class meant creating armies, police, courts, and prisons to enforce the ownership of private property. However, whips and chains alone couldn’t ensure the rule of the new wealthy elite. A tiny, parasitic class can't live in luxury off the wealth of a vast, laboring class without keeping the majority divided and pitted against each other. That is where the necessity for bigotry began.

I found the origin of trans oppression at this intersection between the overthrow of mother-right and the rise of patriarchal class-divided societies. It is at this very nexus that edicts like Deuteronomy arose. Law, including religious law, codified class relations.

The earliest overthrow of mother-right took place in the fertile river valleys of Eurasia and northeast Africa during the period of about 4500 to 1200 B.C.E. In this new social structure, riven by inequality, male ruling class attitudes toward women and trans people grew more and more hostile, even toward transgendered queens and kings.

For example, Hatshepsut, a woman who ruled Egypt in the fifteenth century B.C.E. , "assumed masculine attire, was represented as god and king, and wore the symbolic false beard. In murals she was pictured with short hair, bare shoulders, and was usually devoid of breasts. S/he described herself by male names." Ruling with the support of the temple community, Hatshepsut built grand monuments in honor of the god Amun. Yet after her death, she and the god she honored faced a campaign of hostility, with her second husband attempting to erase all memory of her.

Some eight hundred years later, in the seventh century B.C.E., King Ashurbanipal (Sardanapalus), the last of the Assyrian kings, was described by a physician in his court as spending a great deal of his time dressed in women's clothing. Key nobles used reports of Ashurbanipal 's cross-dressing to justify overthrowing him. Ashurbanipal waged a defensive military campaign against these rivals but was twice defeated in battle. As a result, his rule was limited to his capital city. Finally facing defeat, Ashurbanipal set fire to his palace, killing everyone in it—including himself.9

Hostility to transgender, sex-change, intersexuality, women, and same-sex love became a pattern wherever class antagonisms deepened. As a Jewish, transgender, working-class revolutionary, I can't stress enough that Judaism was not the root of the oppression of women and the outlawing of trans expression and same-sex love. The rise of patriarchal class divisions were to blame.

And I found that wherever the ruling classes became stronger, the laws grew increasingly more fierce and more relentlessly enforced.

...

I found that, as with virtually every ancient people, the early tribes of Greece were communal and matrilineal. But the rise of the Greek city-states during the eighth to sixth centuries B.C.E. was based on slave labor, plunder, and trade. The longer the ruling patricians held power, the more women's status became degraded and expressions of human love became subject to legal dictate.

It's true I did find many, many trans references in Greek culture, religion, art, and mythology. But whatever homage trans expression still enjoyed was a holdover from the communal past. It was hard for the Greek patriarchs to diminish the honor that transgender and intersexuality still held among the laboring class. The patriarchal priests in Greece were hemmed in by the popularity of ancient religions—some dating from matriarchal times—and by schools of secular philosophers who played a vital role in politics and education. Wherever ancient rituals still persisted in Greece, so did trans expression. There were numerous festivals, rituals, and customs in which men dressed in women's clothing, and women wore men's clothes and beards.

Greek mythology was also filled with references to sex-change, intersexuality, and cross-dressing. Many mythological heroes and gods cross-dressed at one time or another, including Achilles, Heracles, Dionysus, and Athena. "Literal and metaphoric sex change," notes classical scholar P. M. C. Forbes Irving, "seems to have been a subject of considerable imaginative interest in the ancient world and had some importance in ancient religion."

But changing attitudes toward trans people and the sharpening patriarchal class divisions are reflected in the Greek legends, in the same way that the mythological defeat of goddesses by male gods mirrored the overthrow of matrilineal societies. For example, Kaineus (Caeneus), a female-to-male figure in mythology, is viewed as a "scorner and rival of the gods." He is driven into the earth by the Centaurs who considered Kaineus an outrage to their masculinity.

Dionysus, also known as Bacchus, was one of the gods who replaced the pre-class goddesses. But Dionysus was represented as a transgendered, cross-dressing god—a hybridization of the old beliefs and the new. During the rites of Dionysus, females-known as ithyphalloi—dressed in men's clothes and carried large phalluses, and men dressed in women's apparel.

Dionysus held great popularity with the most downtrodden, notes Forbes Irving:

Perhaps the most striking feature of Dionysus, and one which seems particularly relevant to his role as a shape-shifter, is that although he becomes one of the greatest of all the gods he retains in his myths and many of his cults a marginal character. He is above all the god of the weak and oppressed, especially women, and an opponent of the established order.

The slave-owners were not easily able to impose their brutal system, or their beliefs, on peoples who had once lived freely and worked cooperatively. The patricians couldn't rule without fighting wars and crushing rebellions.

To my surprise, I discovered that one particular group of warriors who fought against this enslavement was considered transgendered, at least by the Greeks—the Amazons. I knew a little about the Amazons because they were such a symbol of freedom and resistance for modern feminists.”

Leslie Feinberg (1996). Transgender Warriors: 'Why Bigotry Began'. [PDF] Boston: Beacon Press.

[Touré-15] “"The foundations of culture have been created and the conditions for its progress are created by the working masses which are the makers of history."”

Ahmed Sékou Touré (1969). A Dialectical Approach to Culture. [PDF] doi: 10.1080/00064246.1969.11414448 [HUB]

[Hegel-16] {Jump up to: 16.0} ^16.1 Hegel (1807). Phenomenology of Spirit: 'Lordship and Bondage'. [PDF]

[17] “A dialectician, Hegel sometimes makes remarkable analyzes. But his idealism led him to attribute to great men an exaggerated role; they become the sole agents of historical progress. This aspect of Hegelian philosophy was to be shamelessly exploited by fascist ideology for which the mass is nothing; only the infallible "superman" counts. "Fascism is what Mussolini is thinking right now," said an admirer of Le Duce. Hitler shouted to his shock troops: "I will think for you".”

Georges Politzer (1954). Fundamental Principles of Philosophy.

[18] Kojève (1969). Introduction to the Reading of Hegel (p. 50).

[19] “"道生一，一生二，二生三，三生万物。
The Dao produced One; One produced Two; Two produced Three; Three produced All things."”

Laozi (Between 8th and 3rd century BCE). Dao De Jing, aka Laozi: '42' (Chinese: 道德經).

[20] “昔者莊周夢為胡蝶，栩栩然胡蝶也，自喻適志與！不知周也。俄然覺，則蘧蘧然周也。不知周之夢為胡蝶與，胡蝶之夢為周與？周與胡蝶，則必有分矣。此之謂物化。
Formerly, I, Zhuang Zhou, dreamt that I was a butterfly, a butterfly flying about, feeling that it was enjoying itself. I did not know that it was Zhou. Suddenly I awoke, and was myself again, the veritable Zhou. I did not know whether it had formerly been Zhou dreaming that he was a butterfly, or it was now a butterfly dreaming that it was Zhou. But between Zhou and a butterfly there must be a difference. This is a case of what is called the Transformation of Things.'”

"The Writings of Chuang Tzu", James Legge, 1891: '齊物論 - The Adjustment of Controversies' (350 BC-250 BC) (Chinese: 莊子 - Zhuangzi - also known as 《南華真經》).

[21] “2 万物恃之以生而不辞，功成不名有，衣养万物而不为主。常无欲，可名于小；All things return (to their root and disappear), and do not know that it is it which presides over their doing so;--it may be named in the greatest things.”

Laozi (Between 8th and 3rd century BCE). Dao De Jing, aka Laozi: '34' (Chinese: 道德經).

[22] “"為學日益，為道日損。損之又損，以至於無為。無為而無不為。取天下常以無事，及其有事，不足以取天下。In the pursuit of learning, one does more each day; In the pursuit of the Way, one does less each day; One does less and less until one does nothing; One does nothing yet nothing is left undone. Gaining the world always is accomplished by following no activity. As soon as one actively tries, one will fall short of gaining the world."”

Laozi (Between 8th and 3rd century BCE). Dao De Jing, aka Laozi: '48' (Chinese: 道德經).

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@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 If [[dialectics]] is the underlying logic of the universe, then it follows that it existed historically and that at some points people observed it in action. Dialectical thinking appears in fragments across cultures. Humans observe phenomena in the universe, which leads to knowledge of dialectics, and dialectical knowledge empowers humans to exert influence over the universe.
 In Western cultures, the term dialectics is derived from Greek philosophers.<ref>{{Citation|author=Georges Politzer|year=1954|title=Fundamental Principles of Philosophy|title-url=https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Fundamental_principles_of_philosophy|quote=The credit for having sketched out the dialectic is due to the Greek philosophers. They saw nature as a whole. Heraclitus taught that this whole is transformed: we never enter the same river, he said. The struggle of opposites holds a great place among them, notably in Plato, who emphasizes the fruitfulness of this struggle; opposites engender each other. [A very good example of Platonic dialectic is provided by one of his most famous dialogues, relatively easy to access: The Phaedo.] The word dialectic comes directly from the Greek: dialegein, to discuss. It expresses the struggle of opposing ideas.|publisher=Editions Sociales|trans-lang=French}}</ref><ref>{{Citation|author=Encyclopedia.com|title=New Dictionary of the History of Ideas|title-url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/dialogue-and-dialectics-socratic|chapter=Dialogue and Dialectics: Socratic|quote=Our knowledge of the rival claims to this honor goes back to Aristotle, who in his dialogue On Poets mentions Zeno of Elea (c. 495–c. 430 b.c.e.) as the founder of what he calls dialectic and an unknown Alexamenós as the "inventor" of the mimetic dialogue.}}</ref><ref>{{Citation|author=Minister of Education and Training, in collaboration with Sự Thật with Associate Professor and Doctor of Philosophy Nguyen Viet Thong as chief editor|year=2008|title=Curriculum of the Basic Principles of Marxism-Leninism Part 1|title-url=https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Curriculum_of_the_Basic_Principles_of_Marxism-Leninism_Part_1|chapter=Summary of the Birth and Development of Marxism-Leninism|chapter-url=https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Curriculum_of_the_Basic_Principles_of_Marxism-Leninism_Part_1#2._Summary_of_the_Birth_and_Development_of_Marxism-Leninism|quote=Annotation 9:
@@ Line 124: / Line 124: @@
 To my surprise, I discovered that one particular group of warriors who fought against this enslavement was considered transgendered, at least by the Greeks—the Amazons. I knew a little about the Amazons because they were such a symbol of freedom and resistance for modern feminists.|pdf=https://ptilou42.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/leslie_feinberg_transgender_warriors__making_hisz-lib.org_.pdf|city=Boston|publisher=Beacon Press}}</ref> In the face of colonialism, oppressed nationalities are rising up to liberate themselves. The same evolution, the same qualitative leaps, can happen with any aspect of human thought or culture.
-Below is a ranked list of cultural, philosophical, and religious analogues to dialectics, rated on a scale from 0 (static dualism) to 10 (full Marxist dialectics). The ratings reflect how closely each system embodies core dialectical principles.
+Below is a list of cultural, philosophical, and religious analogues to dialectics, organized into stages of development, from static dualism to full dialectics.
 == Summary ==
-Dualistic systems (0-3) oppose dialectics by static opposites, while proto-dialectical systems (4-7) grasp aspects like change or relationality. Notably, in Tier 0-3, static dualism (Samkhya, Jainism) freezes contradictions; antagonistic dualism (Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism) denies synthesis. Anti-materialism (Gnosticism, Cartesianism) negates dialectical engagement with historical conditions. Fatalism (Zurvanism) and elitist idealism (Platonism) reject collective agency.
+Systems in the Stage of Frozen Opposites oppose dialectics by static opposites, while proto-dialectical systems grasp aspects like change or relationality. Notably, factors that keep a system in the Stage of Frozen Opposites include: static dualism (Samkhya, Jainism). which freezes contradictions; antagonistic dualism (Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism), which denies synthesis; anti-materialism (Gnosticism, Cartesianism), which negates dialectical engagement with historical conditions; fatalism (Zurvanism) and elitist idealism (Platonic Dualism), which reject collective agency.
-Non-dual systems often score higher, because they synthesize monism with dualism, offering a perspective that transcends the apparent contradiction between "all is one" and the existence of opposites. This synthesis recognizes that reality is ultimately a unified whole, while simultaneously acknowledging the expression of duality within that wholeness. However, the non-dual systems do not score as high as dialectical materialism, generally because they lack materialism and a sense of historical motion.
+Non-dual systems in the Near-Materialist Stage of Transcendence advance beyond mechanical dualities by synthesizing monism with dualism, offering a perspective that transcends the apparent contradiction between "all is one" and the existence of opposites. This synthesis recognizes that reality is ultimately a unified whole, while simultaneously acknowledging the expression of duality within that wholeness. However, these systems have not developed on par with dialectical materialism, generally because they lack materialism and/or a sense of historical evolution.
 Another interesting pattern is that as mastery of dialectics increases, optimism increases. As mastery of dialectics decreases, fatalism increases. This is an indication of humanity becoming more optimistic because their grasp of dialectics grants them the ability to materially satisfy their own needs.
@@ Line 143: / Line 143: @@
 '''Strengths/Weaknesses:''' Formalizes dialectical laws with materialist grounding, deepening knowledge of the world and humanity.
-== Near-Materialist Stage ==
+== Near-Materialist Stage of Transcendence ==
 === Hegelianism ===
@@ Line 151: / Line 151: @@
 === Chinese Yin-Yang ===
-'''Description:''' The interplay of yin (passive, dark) and yang (active, light) generates dynamic harmony through cyclical interaction. The Daodejing (Ch. 42) states, "The Dao engenders One; One engenders Two [...] Three engenders all things," framing reality as a unity of opposites.<ref>{{Citation|author=Laozi|year=Between 8th and 3rd century BCE|title=Dao De Jing, aka Laozi|title-url=https://classics.mit.edu/Lao/taote.mb.txt|chapter=42|chapter-url=https://www.yellowbridge.com/onlinelit/daodejing42.php|quote="道生一，一生二，二生三，三生万物。
+'''Description:''' The yin-yang symbol (Taijitu) includes a dot of the opposite color in each half, signifying that each force contains the seed of the other. It captures the essence of the philosophy, which emphasizes that opposites (e.g., light/dark, good/evil) are interconnected and interdependent, not irreconcilable. The interplay of yin (passive, dark) and yang (active, light) generates dynamic harmony through cyclical interaction. The Dao is the undifferentiated source (Wuji) from which yin and yang emerge. The Daodejing (Ch. 42) states, "The Dao engenders One; One engenders Two [...] Three engenders all things," framing reality as a unity of opposites.<ref>{{Citation|author=Laozi|year=Between 8th and 3rd century BCE|title=Dao De Jing, aka Laozi|title-url=https://classics.mit.edu/Lao/taote.mb.txt|chapter=42|chapter-url=https://www.yellowbridge.com/onlinelit/daodejing42.php|quote="道生一，一生二，二生三，三生万物。
 The Dao produced One; One produced Two; Two produced Three; Three produced All things."|trans-title=道德經|trans-lang=Chinese}}</ref> Zhuangzi’s paradoxes (e.g., "Butterfly Dream") dissolve rigid distinctions, mirroring dialectical fluidity.<ref>{{Citation|year=350 BC-250 BC|title="The Writings of Chuang Tzu", James Legge, 1891|chapter=齊物論 - The Adjustment of Controversies|chapter-url=https://ctext.org/zhuangzi/adjustment-of-controversies|quote=昔者莊周夢為胡蝶，栩栩然胡蝶也，自喻適志與！不知周也。俄然覺，則蘧蘧然周也。不知周之夢為胡蝶與，胡蝶之夢為周與？周與胡蝶，則必有分矣。此之謂物化。
-Formerly, I, Zhuang Zhou, dreamt that I was a butterfly, a butterfly flying about, feeling that it was enjoying itself. I did not know that it was Zhou. Suddenly I awoke, and was myself again, the veritable Zhou. I did not know whether it had formerly been Zhou dreaming that he was a butterfly, or it was now a butterfly dreaming that it was Zhou. But between Zhou and a butterfly there must be a difference. This is a case of what is called the Transformation of Things.'|trans-title=莊子 - Zhuangzi - also known as 《南華真經》|trans-lang=Chinese}}</ref>
+Formerly, I, Zhuang Zhou, dreamt that I was a butterfly, a butterfly flying about, feeling that it was enjoying itself. I did not know that it was Zhou. Suddenly I awoke, and was myself again, the veritable Zhou. I did not know whether it had formerly been Zhou dreaming that he was a butterfly, or it was now a butterfly dreaming that it was Zhou. But between Zhou and a butterfly there must be a difference. This is a case of what is called the Transformation of Things.'|trans-title=莊子 - Zhuangzi - also known as 《南華真經》|trans-lang=Chinese}}</ref> Transcendence in the yin-yang framework involves embracing and harmonizing opposites to achieve unity with the Dao (the Way), the ultimate principle underlying existence, and moving beyond rigid categorization without rejecting opposites.
 '''Strengths/Weaknesses:''' Cycles of yin and yang embody contradiction-driven change but classical Chinese Yin-Yang philosophical traditions lack any thought on the processes of historical development, instead seeing all phenomena as cyclical.<ref>{{Citation|author=Laozi|year=Between 8th and 3rd century BCE|title=Dao De Jing, aka Laozi|title-url=https://classics.mit.edu/Lao/taote.mb.txt|chapter=34|chapter-url=https://www.yellowbridge.com/onlinelit/daodejing34.php|quote=2	万物恃之以生而不辞，功成不名有，衣养万物而不为主。常无欲，可名于小；All things return (to their root and disappear), and do not know that it is it which presides over their doing so;--it may be named in the greatest things.|trans-title=道德經|trans-lang=Chinese}}</ref> Adherence to Daoist harmony leads to inaction, impeding its liberatory potential.<ref>{{Citation|author=Laozi|year=Between 8th and 3rd century BCE|title=Dao De Jing, aka Laozi|title-url=https://classics.mit.edu/Lao/taote.mb.txt|chapter=48|chapter-url=https://www.yellowbridge.com/onlinelit/daodejing42.php|quote="為學日益，為道日損。損之又損，以至於無為。無為而無不為。取天下常以無事，及其有事，不足以取天下。In the pursuit of learning, one does more each day; In the pursuit of the Way, one does less each day; One does less and less until one does nothing; One does nothing yet nothing is left undone. Gaining the world always is accomplished by following no activity. As soon as one actively tries, one will fall short of gaining the world."|trans-title=道德經|trans-lang=Chinese}}</ref>
 === Madhyamaka Buddhism (Śūnyatā) ===
-=== Buddhist Pratītyasamutpāda (Dependent Origination) ===
-== Stage of Infinite Tension, Transformation and Renewal ==
-=== Heracliteanism===
-=== Hua-Yen Buddhism ===
-=== Jain Syādvāda ===
-=== Yoruba Ifá/Ashé Philosophy ===
-=== Shiva-Shakti (Non-Dual Tantra) ===
-=== Mexica Religion ===
-=== Indigenous Cyclical Cosmologies ===
-=== Ancient Greek Dialectics ===
-=== Norse Cosmology ===
-== Stage of Cyclical Balance ==
-=== Trimurti (Hinduism) ===
-=== Shinto (Amaterasu & Susanoo) ===
-=== Stoic Logos ===
-=== Confucian Harmony ===
-=== Advaita Vedanta ===
-=== Hermeticism ===
-=== Ancient Egyptian Religion ===
-=== Pre-Socratic Oppositions ===
-=== Greek Mythology (The Moirai) ===
-== Stage of Frozen Opposites ==
-=== Samkhya Philosophy ===
-=== Jainism ===
-=== Platonic Dualism ===
-=== Zoroastrian Dualism ===
-=== Zurvanism ===
-=== Gnosticism ===
-=== Cartesian Mind-Body Dualism ===
-=== Manichaeism ===