聰明累 Cleverness Misled by Cleverness ——二元鬥爭與間道生新 — Binary Struggle and the Way-Between Giving Birth to the New 錢宏（Archer Hong Qian） 2026年9月3日晨於Vancouver
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米開朗琪羅面對一塊大理石，看見的不是石頭，而是藏在石頭裡面的生命。 據說有人問他，怎樣才能雕刻出那麼美的人體？回答大意是：雕像本來就在裡面，我只是把多餘的石頭去掉。 我喜歡把它說成八個字： 滌除冗餘，彰顯新美。
這也是我理解米萊“電鋸改革”的一個切入點。 如果電鋸只是為了砍機構、砍人員、砍預算，那不過是一把財政工具。真正值得關注的是：那些層層疊疊的機構、程序、規制和組織成本被滌除以後，被遮蔽的生命能不能重新顯現？家庭、企業、社會能不能重新獲得自組織的空間？一個個Mind能不能重新發生、重新連接、重新創造？ 石頭不是目的，大衛才是。 組織不是目的，生命才是。 滌除冗餘，是為生命讓路；彰顯新美，是讓生命重新發生。 可是，人類還有另外一種非常古老、也非常誘人的“聰明”。 《紅樓夢》裡的王熙鳳說： “不是東風壓倒西風，就是西風壓倒東風。” 這話聰明不聰明？ 太聰明了。 王熙鳳本來就是一個聰明絕頂的人。她善於看人，善於算賬，善於判斷強弱，善於抓住機會，更善於在複雜的人際關係中贏下一局又一局。 問題恰恰在這裡： 她真的贏過，而且贏過很多次。 所以這種聰明才特別容易讓人上癮。 贏了一次，證明我的判斷是對的；再贏一次，證明我的方法是對的；一路贏下去，便覺得自己的世界觀也是對的。 《紅樓夢》卻偏偏又給這種聰明留下了另一句話： “機關算盡太聰明，反算了卿卿性命。” 聰明為什麼反過來誤了聰明？ 因為一個人可以把一個回合算得極其精明，卻把整個生命關係算丟了。 王熙鳳贏過多少回合？那些勝負最後挽救賈府了嗎？一個人可以壓倒另一個人，一個派別可以壓倒另一個派別，一件事情可以擺平，一場鬥爭可以獲勝；可是，如果每一次勝利都在消耗關係、透支孞托、堵塞連接，贏到最後又剩下什麼？ “落了片白茫茫大地真乾淨。” 歷史上這樣的“聰明”，實在不少。 北宋與遼簽訂澶淵之盟以後，維持了一百多年的和平。雙方做生意，邊境貿易不斷發生。宋朝的茶葉、瓷器、絲綢等商品進入遼境，貿易又使財富流回來。 可是燕雲十六州總像一根刺。 宋徽宗君臣不爽。 於是想出了一個很聰明的辦法： 聯金滅遼。 遼是敵人，金也是遼的敵人。敵人的敵人，不就是朋友嗎？ 海上之盟，南北夾擊。 結果呢？ 還真贏了。 遼滅亡了。 念念不忘的燕京也終於有機會回來了。 問題偏偏發生在贏了以後。 維持百餘年的宋遼關係沒有了，原來的緩衝空間沒有了，一個更加強大的金直接站到了宋朝門口。戰爭還順便把北宋自己的軍事虛弱、組織低效暴露給了這個新鄰居。 一個目標實現了，整個關繫結構卻被贏壞了。 這才叫聰明反被聰明誤。 聰明的人容易贏，贏慣了的人，也容易活得不耐煩。 活得不耐煩，往往不是因為沒有福，而是有福而不知福，不惜福。 澶淵之盟以後百餘年的和平、貿易與連接，本來就是福。太平久了，覺得太平平淡；繁榮久了，覺得繁榮還不夠；已經擁有可以長期承兌的關係，卻總想再多拿一點、再贏一點、再占一點上風。於是，太平得不耐煩，繁榮得不耐煩，原本已經擁有的福，反而成了最容易被揮霍的東西。 人尤其容易對身邊已經擁有的好處失去感覺。和平久了，便忘了和平也是財富；往來久了，便把彼此提供的方便當成理所當然；鄰居相處久了，甚至會覺得承認對方給自己的生活帶來過價值，好像就是示弱。 其實，對鄰居感恩，並不丟人。
感謝鄰居，不等於低人一等；承認彼此需要，也不等於失去自主。恰恰因為長期相處、彼此往來，許多和平、便利、貿易、連接與孞托已經進入日常，久而久之，人反倒容易忘記：這些習以為常的東西，本身就是福。 太平得不耐煩，繁榮得不耐煩，鄰居相處久了也會得不耐煩。於是，只看見眼前哪裡“吃虧”，卻忘了長期相處中彼此已經共同積累起來的福。 有福而不知福，才容易把福折騰掉。 所以，生命還需要三種智慧： 惜福、積福、載福。 惜福，是知道已經擁有的也是財富，不因習以為常而輕易毀掉；積福，是不只消費前人留下的和平、孞托、契約與繁榮，還要通過自己的交互繼續增加它；載福，則是讓生命、組織乃至國家擁有足夠的容量，承得住越來越大的財富、自由、權力、技術與文明成果，不因承載不起而由福生禍。 惜已經發生之福，積交互生成之福，載生命共生之福。 兩宋的教訓正在這裡：問題並不是沒有福，恰恰是太平得不耐煩、繁榮得不耐煩，有福而不知道惜福。聯金滅遼，贏了一個回合，卻把百餘年積下來的福折騰掉了。 二元鬥爭最誘人的地方，並不是它不能贏。 恰恰相反，它常常真能讓人贏。 贏是什麼？ 說白了，就是占便宜，占上風。 王熙鳳要的是東風壓倒西風；政治鬥爭要的是我上你下；商業惡鬥要的是我多拿你少拿；族群爭鬥發展到最後，也容易變成誰更有資格、誰更高貴、誰應該獲得更多。 占一次便宜，很舒服；占一次上風，很痛快。 更麻煩的是，它真的有效，於是人便容易把“這一次我占了上風”，誤認為“這條路是對的”。 可生命的賬不是這樣算的。 占便宜，不等於創造價值；占上風，不等於關係生長； 贏了別人，更不等於贏得未來。 一個人如果凡事都占便宜，最後可能沒人願意和他打交道；一個組織如果凡事都要占上風，最後可能把自己的孞托耗光；一個國家如果總想從別國那裡占便宜，也可能把原來可以長期承兌的關係做成零和博弈。 所以真正值得追問的，已經不是：“這一回誰贏了？” 而是：“這一回之後，我們之間增加了什麼？” 增加了價值，還是增加了怨恨？增加了孞托，還是增加了戒備？增加了新的連接，還是少了一個可以相處的人？ 政治尤其如此。 一個極善鬥爭的人，可以贏黨內鬥爭，可以贏軍事鬥爭，可以贏路線鬥爭，可以打倒一個又一個政治對手；一個極善鬥爭的組織，也可以不斷尋找敵人、劃分敵我、集中力量，然後一次又一次取得勝利。 毛澤東講階級鬥爭，也確實贏過許多鬥爭。從黨內鬥爭，到與蔣介石的戰爭，再到掌握政權以後的一系列政治運動，直至文化大革命中的最高層政治鬥爭，他一次又一次成為勝利者。 問題也因此更加尖銳：贏了，又怎麼樣？ 政治鬥爭的勝利能夠自動變成生命的成長嗎？打倒一個政治對手，農業就會豐收嗎？知識就會增長嗎？企業就會創造嗎？家庭就會幸福嗎？人與人之間的孞托就會增加嗎？ 顯然不能。 因為勝利很容易產生一種危險的自我證明： 我又贏了，所以我是對的。 贏得越多，越相信鬥爭；越相信鬥爭，越需要新的敵人；越需要敵人，人與人之間可以自由交互的“間”便越來越窄；不同意見越來越難存在，反饋越來越失真，糾錯越來越困難，組織孞托越來越稀薄。 最後，一個組織可能只剩下一種最強大的能力： 戰勝別人。 卻漸漸失去另一種更加根本的能力： 讓生命生長。 斯大林如此。波爾布特更把這種鬥爭邏輯推向了極端。城市可以清空，貨幣可以廢除，原有社會關係可以打碎，凡是不符合那個“新世界”的人和生活方式，都可以成為需要改造甚至清除的對象。 於是，“滌除冗餘”與“清除異己”，雖然都有一個“除”字，生命方向卻完全相反。 米開朗琪羅鑿掉多餘的石頭，是為了讓大衛顯現。 組織改革滌除冗餘，是為了讓生命顯現。 二元鬥爭走到極端，卻會發生一種可怕的倒置： 原本應該為生命服務的組織，開始把生命本身當作可以裁剪的冗餘。 所以，鬥爭一旦由解決特定衝突的手段上升為世界觀，就會不斷尋找新的鬥爭對象。 男權主義如此，女權主義也可能如此。 如果男與女的問題最後變成“究竟誰壓倒誰”，不過是把王熙鳳的東風西風換成了男人女人。昨天男權壓倒女權固然有問題，今天如果以為只要女權壓倒男權，世界便自動獲得正義，不過是東風西風換了一次位置。 黑與白也一樣。 “黑命貴”如果最後走成“白命不貴”，“白命貴”又反過來與之爭奪誰的生命價值更高，雙方看似針鋒相對，骨子裡使用的仍是同一套二元算法： 我的生命價值，要通過壓低你的生命價值來證明。 原住民與後來者也是如此。 原住民有原住民的歷史、記憶、土地關係與生命經驗，後來者也帶着自己的歷史、文化、勞動與生命來到這裡。歷史上發生過的傷害不能因為今天需要和解就被抹去，後來者今天真實的生命存在，也不能因為過去的傷害就被永遠置於某種原罪之中。 原住民如此，後來者也如此。 問題不在於誰的生命更加高貴，也不在於把歷史中的強弱關係倒過來，讓昨天處於下風的人今天占上風。 歷史不能遺忘，傷害需要承兌，但生命不能永遠活在“誰占誰便宜、誰壓倒誰、誰欠誰”的二元關係裡。 更重要的問題是：他們今天如何相處？ 如果共同生活在同一片土地、同一片藍天下的人，只能一代又一代繼承加害者與受害者的固定位置，那麼歷史雖然被記住了，未來卻可能被歷史鎖死。 《原德：大國哲學》（中國廣播電視出版社，2012）的第一篇長文，叫《從“中國向何處去？”，到“中國何以處世？”》。 承認傷害，是為了修復關係；尊重差異，是為了能夠相處；保存記憶，是為了不再重複傷害。真正的和解也不能停在“你承認我、我容忍你”，而要讓今天真實生活在一起的不同生命主體，重新找到彼此連接、交互、承兌、共生的間道。 土地不是只有過去，也有今天，還有未來。 原住民不是歷史標本，後來者也不是永久的外來者。 所以，問題不能永遠停留在“誰先來、誰欠誰、誰比誰更有資格”，還必須繼續追問： 我們之間，今天能夠發生什麼？明天又能夠共襄生出什麼？ 這才使歷史正義不至於重新掉進二元鬥爭，使多元文化真正有機會越過“多元”，進入交互主體共生。 可是，生命為什麼一定要這樣證明自己？ 生命就是生命。 生命本自具足，又非獨存。 男與女不需要通過消滅對方證明自己的價值，黑與白也不需要通過貶低對方確認自己的尊嚴。原住民與後來者同樣不需要通過爭奪誰更高貴，來證明自己的生命價值。差異需要尊重，傷害需要糾正和承兌，權利需要保障，而這一切最終都必須讓生命重新進入生命之間的連接。 這也正是多元文化容易停住的地方。 多元當然比一元強制前進了一步。它承認不同種族、語言、宗教、文化、生活方式可以同時存在。 可是： 多元本身並不會自動產生共生。 如果只是把越來越多不同主體放進同一個空間：你是你，我是我；你的身份、我的身份；你的權利、我的權利；彼此之間卻沒有可以感應、交互、承兌、修正和生成的路徑，那麼多元越豐富，邊界也可能越多。 多元而不共生，差異就可能固化為邊界；邊界失去連接，就可能發生衝突；衝突不斷組織化，又會重新走回鬥爭。 所以，共生從來不是取消多元。 恰恰相反： 沒有多元，無所謂共生；只有多元而沒有間道，也發生不了共生。 生態也是如此。 自然界本來就是一個無比多元的生命世界。森林裡有喬木、灌木、菌類、昆蟲、鳥獸、流水、土壤和微生物。生命有競爭，也有合作；有捕食，也有繁殖；有死亡，也有新生。無數不同生命彼此連接，在動態平衡中形成生態。 所以，只講生態還不夠。 生態必須走向生態文明。 如果生態主義本身又變成一種絕對主義：為了某一種能源消滅另一種能源，為了某一種物種否定人的生活，為了某一種環境目標不惜製造新的貧困、衝突甚至戰爭，那麼“生態”這個漂亮的詞，仍然可能掉回“東風壓倒西風”的老路。 實際上，從更加廣闊的意義看，人類歷史上的戰爭，幾乎都可以理解為一種生態戰爭。 爭土地，是爭生存空間；爭水源，是爭生命條件；爭糧食、能源、礦產，是爭生活資料；爭海洋、疆界、貿易通道，是爭組織在更大生態中的位置。即使以民族、宗教、意識形態為名的戰爭，一旦進入現實，也必然落實為人口、土地、資源、權力與生活空間的重新占有。 戰爭，就是間道斷裂以後，對生存空間的暴力重組。 所以我越來越覺得，鬥爭並不是生命真正的道路。 鬥爭可以贏。 鬥爭可以征服。 鬥爭甚至可以創造帝國。 但鬥爭本身不能生出新的生命。 鬥爭是死亡之路，間道才是新生之路。 為什麼？ 因為世界本來就有差異。 我們有左腦、右腦，左手、右手，左腳、右腳；心臟有左右心房、左右心室。世界上有男與女、黑與白、東與西、公與私、人與自然。 二分，實在太容易了。 可是，上帝創造生命，並沒有因為有“二”，就規定“二”必須互相消滅。 左腦與右腦需要協調。 左右手需要配合。 左右腳必須共同走路。 動脈與靜脈方向不同，卻共同維持生命循環。 如果左腳突然宣布自己代表歷史正確方向，一定要消滅右腳，這個人還能走路嗎？ 更有意思的是男人和女人。 上帝造男，又造女。 差異如此明顯，生命卻沒有停在“二”。 男女相遇，一個新的生命發生了。 這個孩子不是父親，也不是母親，更不是男女各削掉一半以後拼出來的折中方案。 他（她）是第三者。 一個新的生命主體，帶着自己的生命能量、自己的Mind、自己的可能來到世界。 這就是為什麼，除了“一分為二”，我更願意講： 一視為仨。 一分為二，使我們辨認差異。 一視為仨，使我們看見生成。 而二與仨之間，存在着一個長期被二元思維忽略的字： 間。 兩個主體之間，從來不是一片空白。 男女之間可以發生新的生命；人與人之間可以發生情感、契約和孞托；企業與顧客之間可以發生價值；文明與文明之間可以發生新的文化；Mind與Mind之間，更可能發生任何一方原來都沒有的新思想、新關係、新可能。 這種看見“間”、進入“間”、讓差異在“間”中交互生成的思維，就是我所說的間性思維（Intersubjective Thinking）。 而當“間”不再只是一個觀察世界的概念，而成為不同生命主體彼此連接、交互、契合，並通向新可能的路徑，它就是： 間道。 道，是老子的“道”，也是道路的“道”。 有二，未必要斗。 有異，未必要滅。 因為二者之間，還有路可走。 這條路，就是間道。 其實，人類每天都在走間道。 談判就是如此。 低水平的談判還是王熙鳳思維：你多拿一塊，我就少一塊；你贏，就是我輸。 真正高明的談判，卻會在雙方原有立場之間發現一條原來沒有看見的路。你仍然是你，我仍然是我；雙方沒有消滅差異，卻通過交換、讓渡、組合、承兌與重新連接，創造出雙方原來都沒有的價值。 這時候發生的已經不是“各退一步”。 而是生出了第三種可能。 所以，我對“求同存異”也總覺得還可以往前走一步。 為什麼一定先“求同”，然後才允許“存異”？ 不妨： 存同，尊異，間道生新。 同，使連接成為可能。 異，使創造成為可能。 間道，使同與異不必互相消滅，並把彼此帶向原來不存在的新可能。 可是，間道仍然不能只是一種聰明的連接技術。 因為“間”本身並不天然保證相生。 兩個主體相遇以後會發生什麼，本來就存在着不確定。可以相愛，也可以相害；可以合作，也可以欺騙；可以創造新的價值，也可以生成新的衝突。 生命之所以迷人，正在於它從來不是一道已經寫好答案的方程式。 不確定，才有可能；有可能，才會有新生。 而使這種不確定的相遇不只是滑向相害，而能夠趨向相生的，不能沒有一個字： 愛。 所以，間道不能沒有愛。 沒有愛，聰明可以變成算計，差異可以變成敵我，多元可以變成身份壁壘，技術可以變成控制，組織可以變成傲慢，生態也可能變成爭奪生存空間的戰爭。 有了愛，“間”才不只是兩端之間的空隙，而可能成為生命彼此感應、尊重、承兌、賦能和創造的發生之域。 間中有道，道中有愛，愛而生仨。 由此再看Mind與Minds，意思也就不同了。 一個Mind不必壓倒另一個Mind，也不必把自己交給某個凌駕於生命之上的集體Mind。 生命本自具足，又非獨存。 一個個Mind保持自己的生命主體性，又通過“間”感應、連接、交互、修正、承兌、賦能。 Mind進入Minds，不是消滅Mind。 你仍然是你，我仍然是我，他（她它祂）仍然是他（她它祂）。 正因為不同，才需要“間”；正因為有間，才有道；正因為道中有愛，不確定的相遇才可能不斷生出新的生命、新的思想、新的關係、新的價值和新的世界。 Minds因此不是一個高高在上的超級主體，更不是消滅差異以後形成的“大一統”。 它是一個個Mind經由愛，在間道中不斷交互、契合而生成的生命共生態勢。 這不是折中。這是新生。 二，使我們看見差異； 間，使差異發生關係； 道，使關係獲得路徑； 愛，使不確定的相遇趨向相生； 仨，使間道不斷發生新的生命。 至此，“聰明反被聰明誤”也有了另一層意思。 真正需要超越的，並不是聰明本身，而是那種只有勝負、沒有“間”，只有壓倒、沒有生成，只有鬥爭、沒有愛的聰明。 王熙鳳贏過。 北宋聯金滅遼也贏過。 歷史上許多最善於鬥爭的人，更是贏過一場又一場。 可是—— 贏了以後呢？ 贏得一個回合，不等於贏得生活。 戰勝一個對手，不等於創造新的價值。 消滅一個敵人，更不等於生出新的生命。 鬥爭不斷減少他者，間道不斷生成他者。 鬥爭走向死亡，間道因為愛而走向新生。 所以，多元不能止於多元，必須走向共生；生態不能止於生態，必須走向生態文明；聰明不能止於勝負，必須走向生命智慧；主體也不能止於彼此存在，而要彼此連接、交互、契合，在“間”中不斷發生新的生命。 也許，人類真正需要滌除的最大冗餘之一，正是盤踞在我們頭腦中太久的那個“非此即彼”。 滌除了它，我們才可能重新發現： 世界不只有我與你。 還有我與你之間的“間”。 間中有道，道中有愛，愛而生仨。 一分為二之後，還有一視為仨。 聰明之後，還有智慧。 勝負之外，還有生命。 太平、繁榮久了之後，還要懂得惜福、積福、載福。 因為有異，所以交互。 因為有間，所以連接。 因為有愛，所以相生。 因為不確定，所以生命永遠還有新的可能。 一個Mind進入另一個Mind，一個個Mind進入Minds；彼此不被吞沒，又在交互契合中不斷生成新的生命、新的價值、新的世界。 二元鬥爭始終在追問： 誰最終壓倒誰？ 間道卻因為愛，始終向生命敞開： 你我他（她它祂）之間，還能發生什麼？ 答案永遠沒有寫完。 因為生命仍在發生。 因為愛仍在發生。 因為你我他（她它祂）之間，永遠存在尚未發生的可能。 這就是： 凡事交互主體共生 Everything Intersubjective Symbiosism 存同，尊異；間道生新。生命本自具足，又非獨存。Live and let live. Cleverness Misled by Cleverness — Binary Struggle and the Way-Between Giving Birth to the New Archer Hong Qian Morning of September 3, 2026 · Vancouver Michelangelo, standing before a block of marble, saw not stone but the life hidden within it. Asked, as the story goes, how he could sculpt such a beautiful human form, he answered in effect: the statue was already inside; I merely removed the excess stone. I like to put it in eight Chinese characters: Remove redundancy; reveal new beauty. This is also one way I understand Milei’s “chainsaw reform.” If the chainsaw is merely for cutting agencies, personnel, and budgets, then it is no more than a fiscal tool. What truly matters is this: once layer upon layer of institutions, procedures, regulations, and organizational costs have been stripped away, can the life they obscured reappear? Can families, enterprises, and society recover room for self-organization? Can each Mind once again arise, connect, and create? The stone is not the purpose. David is.
Organization is not the purpose. Life is.
Removing redundancy clears a path for life; revealing new beauty lets life happen anew. Yet humanity possesses another kind of “cleverness,” equally ancient and extraordinarily seductive. Wang Xifeng in Dream of the Red Chamber says: “Either the East Wind overpowers the West Wind, or the West Wind overpowers the East Wind.” Is that clever?
Extremely clever. Wang Xifeng is, after all, dazzlingly intelligent. She reads people, calculates accounts, judges strength and weakness, seizes opportunities, and—above all—wins round after round amid tangled human relationships. That is precisely the problem: She really did win, and she won many times. That is why this kind of cleverness is so addictive. Win once, and it proves my judgment was right. Win again, and it proves my method was right. Keep winning, and before long I begin to believe that my entire worldview must be right as well. Yet Dream of the Red Chamber leaves another line for precisely this kind of cleverness: “Too clever by half in all your schemes, you ended by calculating away your own life.” How does cleverness end up misleading itself? A person can calculate one round with extraordinary precision and still calculate away the entire relationship of life. How many rounds did Wang Xifeng win? Did those victories save the Jia household in the end? One person may overpower another; one faction may overpower another; a problem may be settled; a struggle may be won. But if every victory consumes relationships, overdraws trust, and blocks connection, what remains after one has won everything? “In the end, a vast white emptiness—utterly clean.” History has no shortage of such “cleverness.” After the Northern Song and Liao concluded the Chanyuan Treaty, peace endured for more than a century. The two sides traded; border commerce continued to grow. Song tea, porcelain, silk, and other goods entered Liao territory, and trade brought wealth back in return. Yet the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun remained like a thorn. Emperor Huizong and his ministers were dissatisfied. So they devised a very clever plan: Ally with Jin to destroy Liao. Liao was an enemy, and Jin was also Liao’s enemy. The enemy of my enemy—isn’t he my friend? The Alliance Conducted at Sea. A pincer attack from north and south. And the result? They really did win.
Liao was destroyed.
Yanjing, so long coveted, finally seemed within reach. The problem arose precisely after the victory. The century-old Song–Liao relationship disappeared. The buffer space disappeared. A much stronger Jin now stood directly at Song’s doorstep. The war also exposed the Northern Song’s own military weakness and organizational inefficiency to this new neighbor. One objective was achieved, but the entire relational structure was won into ruin. That is cleverness misled by cleverness. Clever people are good at winning. People who become accustomed to winning are also prone to growing impatient with life. Such impatience often comes not from having no blessings, but from having blessings without recognizing them—without cherishing them. More than a century of peace, trade, and connection after the Chanyuan Treaty was itself a blessing. When peace lasts too long, peace begins to feel dull; when prosperity lasts too long, prosperity begins to feel insufficient. Even when a relationship capable of long-term mutual acceptance has already been built, people still want a little more, another victory, a little more of the upper hand. Thus people grow impatient with peace, impatient with prosperity, and the blessings already in hand become the easiest things to squander. People are especially prone to losing their sense of the good that already surrounds them. After a long peace, they forget that peace itself is wealth. After years of exchange, they begin to take one another’s conveniences for granted. After living beside a neighbor for a long time, they may even feel that admitting the value the other has brought into their lives is somehow a sign of weakness. In fact, being grateful to a neighbor is nothing to be ashamed of. Thanking a neighbor does not make one inferior. Acknowledging mutual need does not mean surrendering one’s autonomy. Precisely because people have lived alongside one another and interacted over time, peace, convenience, trade, connection, and trust have entered everyday life. And precisely because they have become ordinary, people forget that these ordinary things are themselves blessings. One can grow impatient with peace, impatient with prosperity, and even impatient with a long-standing neighbor. Then one sees only where one appears to be “losing out” today and forgets the blessings jointly accumulated through years of living alongside one another. It is when people possess blessings without recognizing them that they so easily squander them. Life therefore needs three further forms of wisdom: Cherish blessings. Accumulate blessings. Carry blessings. To cherish blessings is to know that what we already possess is itself wealth, and not destroy it merely because it has become familiar. To accumulate blessings is not merely to consume the peace, trust, contracts, and prosperity left by those before us, but to add to them through our own interactions. To carry blessings is for a life, an organization, even a country, to develop sufficient capacity to bear increasing wealth, freedom, power, technology, and the achievements of civilization—so that blessings do not turn into misfortune simply because we lack the capacity to carry them. Cherish the blessings that have already happened; accumulate the blessings generated through interaction; carry the blessings of symbiotic life. The lesson of the two Song dynasties lies here. Their problem was not the absence of blessings. It was precisely that they had grown impatient with peace and prosperity, possessing blessings without knowing how to cherish them. By allying with Jin to destroy Liao, the Northern Song won a round—and squandered blessings accumulated over more than a century. The most seductive thing about binary struggle is not that it cannot win. Quite the opposite: it often really can. What is winning? Put plainly: getting the better deal and gaining the upper hand. Wang Xifeng wants the East Wind to overpower the West Wind. Political struggle wants me above and you below. Ruthless commercial competition wants me to take more and you to take less. Ethnic conflict, pushed far enough, easily becomes a contest over who is more entitled, who is more noble, and who deserves more. Getting the better of someone once feels good. Gaining the upper hand once feels exhilarating. Worse still, it works. And because it works, people easily mistake “I gained the upper hand this time” for “this is the right path.” But the accounts of life are not kept that way. Getting the better deal is not the same as creating value. Gaining the upper hand is not the same as growing a relationship. Defeating someone else is certainly not the same as winning the future. If a person insists on getting the better of everyone, eventually no one may wish to deal with him. If an organization insists on having the upper hand in everything, it may eventually exhaust its own trust. If a country always tries to gain at the expense of other countries, it may turn relationships capable of long-term mutual acceptance into zero-sum games. The question worth asking is therefore no longer: “Who won this round?” It is: “After this round, what has increased between us?” More value, or more resentment? More trust, or more suspicion? More new connections, or one fewer person with whom we can live? Politics is especially susceptible to this. A person highly skilled in struggle may win internal party struggles, military struggles, line struggles, and defeat political opponent after political opponent. An organization highly skilled in struggle can likewise keep finding enemies, dividing friend from foe, concentrating force, and then winning again and again. Mao Zedong preached class struggle, and he did indeed win many struggles. From struggles within the Party, to the war against Chiang Kai-shek, to a succession of political campaigns after taking power, and ultimately the highest-level political struggles of the Cultural Revolution, he emerged as victor time and again. That makes the question sharper still: He won. Then what? Can victory in political struggle automatically become the growth of life? If a political opponent is defeated, will agriculture automatically flourish? Will knowledge grow? Will enterprises create? Will families become happy? Will trust between people increase? Clearly not. Victory easily produces a dangerous form of self-confirmation: I won again, therefore I am right. The more one wins, the more one believes in struggle; the more one believes in struggle, the more one needs new enemies; the more enemies one needs, the narrower the “between” in which people can freely interact. Different views become harder to express, feedback becomes more distorted, correction becomes more difficult, and organizational trust grows thinner. In the end, an organization may retain only one supreme capacity: Defeating others. While gradually losing another, more fundamental capacity: Letting life grow. So it was with Stalin. Pol Pot pushed this logic of struggle to an extreme. Cities could be emptied, money abolished, existing social relations smashed, and anyone—or any way of life—that did not conform to the imagined “new world” could become an object to be remade or even eliminated. Thus “removing redundancy” and “eliminating dissenters” may both contain the act of removal, yet their directions in relation to life are entirely opposite. Michelangelo removed excess stone so that David could appear. Organizational reform removes redundancy so that life can appear. Binary struggle, pushed to its extreme, produces a terrifying inversion: An organization that was supposed to serve life begins to treat life itself as redundancy to be cut away. Once struggle rises from a means of resolving a particular conflict into a worldview, it must continually search for new objects of struggle. Patriarchalism can do this. Feminism can do it as well. If the question between men and women ultimately becomes “Who will overpower whom?”, we have merely replaced Wang Xifeng’s East and West Winds with men and women. Yesterday’s domination of women by men was certainly a problem. But to imagine that justice will automatically arrive once women overpower men is simply to reverse the positions of the two winds. The same is true of Black and white. If “Black lives matter” ultimately becomes “white lives do not matter,” and “white lives matter” then turns around to compete over whose life has greater value, the two sides may appear diametrically opposed, yet underneath they are running the same binary algorithm: I prove the value of my life by lowering the value of yours. The same applies to Indigenous peoples and later arrivals. Indigenous peoples have their own histories, memories, relationships to land, and lived experience. Later arrivals also come with their own histories, cultures, labor, and lives. Harms committed in history cannot be erased simply because reconciliation is needed today; nor can the real lives of those who arrived later be placed forever under a kind of inherited original sin because of past harms. Indigenous peoples are so; later arrivals are so as well. The issue is not whose life is more noble, nor is it to reverse the old relationship of strength and weakness so that those once placed below may now stand above. History must not be forgotten, and harm must be acknowledged and answered for. But life cannot remain forever trapped in the binary relationship of “who took advantage of whom, who overpowered whom, who owes whom.” The more important question is: How do they live together today? If people living on the same land and beneath the same sky can only inherit fixed positions of perpetrator and victim generation after generation, history may be remembered, yet the future may be locked inside history. The first long essay in my 2012 book Yuan De: A Philosophy for a Great Nation was titled “From ‘Where Is China Going?’ to ‘How Should China Conduct Itself in the World?’” To acknowledge harm is to repair relationships; to respect difference is to make living together possible; to preserve memory is to avoid repeating harm. Genuine reconciliation cannot stop at “you recognize me, I tolerate you.” It must allow different life subjects who actually live together today to rediscover a Way-between through which they can connect, interact, accept and answer to one another, and live symbiotically. Land has not only a past, but a present and a future. Indigenous peoples are not historical specimens, and later arrivals are not permanent outsiders. The question therefore cannot remain forever at “Who came first? Who owes whom? Who is more entitled?” It must continue: What can happen between us today? What can we bring forth together tomorrow? Only then can historical justice avoid falling back into binary struggle, and multiculturalism move beyond mere “diversity” toward Intersubjective Symbiosism. But why must life prove itself in this way at all? Life is life. Life is self-sufficient in itself, yet never exists alone. Men and women do not need to prove their value by eliminating one another. Black and white do not need to confirm their dignity by diminishing one another. Indigenous peoples and later arrivals likewise need not compete over who is more noble in order to prove the value of their lives. Differences need respect; harms need correction and acceptance; rights need protection. Yet all of these must ultimately allow life to re-enter connection with life. This is also where multiculturalism so easily stops. Plurality is certainly a step beyond enforced uniformity. It recognizes that different races, languages, religions, cultures, and ways of life can coexist. But: Plurality does not automatically generate symbiosis. If we merely place ever more different subjects in the same space—you are you, I am I; your identity, my identity; your rights, my rights—without pathways through which we can sense, interact, accept, correct, and generate together, then the richer the diversity, the more boundaries may multiply. Diversity without symbiosis can harden difference into boundaries. Boundaries without connection can produce conflict. Conflict, once continuously organized, returns again to struggle. Symbiosis therefore never means abolishing diversity. Quite the contrary: Without diversity there is no symbiosis; but diversity without the Way-between cannot generate symbiosis either. Ecology is the same. Nature is already an immensely diverse world of life. A forest contains trees, shrubs, fungi, insects, birds and animals, flowing water, soil, and microorganisms. Life competes and cooperates; it preys and reproduces; it dies and is born anew. Countless different lives connect with one another and form an ecology through dynamic balance. So ecology alone is not enough. Ecology must move toward ecological civilization. If environmentalism itself becomes an absolutism—destroying one form of energy for another, denying human life for the sake of one species, or creating new poverty, conflict, even war for the sake of a particular environmental goal—then the beautiful word “ecology” can still fall back onto the old road of the East Wind overpowering the West Wind. In a broader sense, almost every war in human history can be understood as a kind of ecological war. To fight over land is to fight over living space; to fight over water is to fight over the conditions of life; to fight over food, energy, and minerals is to fight over the materials of living; to fight over seas, borders, and trade routes is to fight over an organization’s position within a larger ecology. Even wars waged in the name of nation, religion, or ideology, once translated into reality, inevitably become a redistribution by force of population, land, resources, power, and living space. War is the violent reorganization of living space after the Way-between has broken down. I have therefore come increasingly to feel that struggle is not life’s true path. Struggle can win.
Struggle can conquer.
Struggle can even build empires. But struggle itself cannot give birth to new life. Struggle is the road to death. The Way-between is the road to new life. Why? Because difference already exists in the world. We have left and right hemispheres, left and right hands, left and right feet; the heart has left and right atria and ventricles. The world contains male and female, Black and white, East and West, public and private, humanity and nature. Dividing things in two is very easy. But God did not create life and, because there are “two,” decree that the two must destroy one another. The left and right hemispheres must coordinate.
The left and right hands must cooperate.
The left and right feet must walk together.
Arteries and veins move in different directions, yet together sustain the circulation of life. If the left foot suddenly declared itself to represent the correct direction of history and insisted on eliminating the right foot, could that person still walk? More interesting still are man and woman. God created man, and God created woman. The difference is unmistakable, yet life did not stop at “two.” A man and a woman meet, and a new life happens. The child is neither the father nor the mother, still less a compromise assembled by shaving half away from each parent and fitting the remnants together. He—or she—is a third. A new life subject enters the world with its own life energy, its own Mind, its own possibilities. That is why, besides “one divides into two,” I prefer to say: See One as Three. “One divides into two” lets us discern difference. “See One as Three” lets us see generation. And between two and three lies a word long neglected by binary thinking: Between. Between two subjects there is never empty space. Between man and woman, new life can happen. Between person and person, emotion, contract, and trust can happen. Between enterprise and customer, value can happen. Between civilization and civilization, new culture can happen. Between Mind and Mind, new thoughts, new relations, and new possibilities may arise that belonged originally to neither side. This way of seeing the “between,” entering the “between,” and allowing differences to interact and generate within the “between” is what I call Intersubjective Thinking. And when the “between” is no longer merely a concept for observing the world, but becomes a path through which different life subjects connect, interact, fit with one another, and open toward new possibilities, it becomes: the Way-between. Dao is Laozi’s Dao, and it is also a road—a way. Where there are two, they need not fight.
Where there is difference, it need not be destroyed. There is still a road between the two. That road is the Way-between. Human beings, in fact, walk this Way-between every day. Negotiation is one example. Low-level negotiation still follows Wang Xifeng’s logic: if you take one more piece, I get one less; if you win, I lose. Truly skillful negotiation discovers a road between the parties’ original positions that neither had seen before. You remain you, and I remain I. Neither side eliminates difference. Yet through exchange, concession, recombination, acceptance, and reconnection, the two create value that neither possessed before. What happens then is no longer simply “each side takes one step back.” A third possibility has been born. That is why I have long felt that the familiar formula “seek common ground while reserving differences” can go one step further. Why must we first “seek sameness,” and only afterward permit difference to remain? We might instead say: Preserve the common; honor difference; let the Way-between give birth to the new. What is shared makes connection possible. Difference makes creation possible. The Way-between allows the shared and the different to exist without destroying one another and carries both toward possibilities that did not exist before. Yet the Way-between cannot be merely a clever technique of connection. For the “between” does not by itself guarantee mutual flourishing. What happens after two subjects meet is inherently uncertain. They may love or harm one another; cooperate or deceive one another; create new value or generate new conflict. Life is fascinating precisely because it is never an equation whose answer has already been written. Only where there is uncertainty can there be possibility; only where there is possibility can there be new life. And if such uncertain encounters are not merely to slide toward mutual harm, but to incline toward mutual flourishing, one word cannot be absent: Love. The Way-between therefore cannot be without Love. Without Love, cleverness can become calculation, difference can become enmity, diversity can become identity walls, technology can become control, organization can become arrogance, and ecology can become war over living space. With Love, the “between” is no longer merely the gap between two ends. It can become the field in which lives sense, respect, accept, empower, and create with one another. Within the between there is a Way; within the Way there is Love; through Love, the third is born. Seen from here, Mind and Minds take on a different meaning as well. One Mind need not overpower another Mind, nor surrender itself to some collective Mind standing above life. Life is self-sufficient in itself, yet never exists alone. Each Mind retains its own subjectivity of life, while through the “between” it senses, connects, interacts, corrects, accepts, and empowers. Mind entering Minds does not eliminate Mind. You remain you. I remain I. He, she, it, or He remains himself, herself, itself, or Himself. Because we are different, we need the “between”; because there is a between, there can be a Way; because there is Love within the Way, uncertain encounters can continually give birth to new life, new thought, new relationships, new value, and new worlds. Minds, therefore, is not a super-subject towering above individual Minds, nor a “great unity” formed after difference has been erased. It is a living symbiotic state generated as individual Minds, through Love, continually interact and fit with one another along the Way-between. This is not compromise. This is new life. Two lets us see difference;
Between lets difference enter relationship;
Way gives relationship a path;
Love inclines uncertain encounter toward mutual flourishing;
Three lets the Way-between continually give birth to new life. At this point, “cleverness misled by cleverness” takes on another meaning. What must be transcended is not cleverness itself, but the kind of cleverness that sees only victory and defeat and no “between”; only domination and no generation; only struggle and no Love. Wang Xifeng won. The Northern Song’s alliance with Jin against Liao also won. Many of history’s most accomplished practitioners of struggle won battle after battle. But— After winning, then what? Winning a round is not the same as winning life. Defeating an opponent is not the same as creating new value. Eliminating an enemy is certainly not the same as giving birth to new life. Struggle continually reduces the Other; the Way-between continually generates the Other. Struggle moves toward death; the Way-between, through Love, moves toward new life. Diversity, therefore, cannot stop at diversity; it must move toward symbiosis. Ecology cannot stop at ecology; it must move toward ecological civilization. Cleverness cannot stop at winning and losing; it must move toward the wisdom of life. Subjects cannot stop at merely existing side by side; they must connect, interact, and fit with one another, continually bringing forth new life within the “between.” Perhaps one of the greatest redundancies humanity needs to remove is the “either/or” that has occupied our minds for far too long. Once it is removed, we may rediscover: The world contains more than you and me. There is also the “between” between you and me. Within the between there is a Way; within the Way there is Love; through Love, the third is born. After one divides into two, there is still See One as Three. After cleverness, there is wisdom. Beyond victory and defeat, there is life. After long peace and prosperity, we must still know how to cherish blessings, accumulate blessings, and carry blessings. Because there is difference, there is interaction. Because there is a between, there is connection. Because there is Love, there is mutual flourishing. Because there is uncertainty, life always retains new possibilities. One Mind enters another Mind; individual Minds enter Minds. None is swallowed up, yet through interactive fit they continually generate new life, new value, and new worlds. Binary struggle keeps asking: Who will finally overpower whom? The Way-between, because it carries Love, remains open to life and keeps asking: What can still happen among you, me, and the other—he, she, it, or He? The answer is never finished. Because life is still happening. Because Love is still happening. Because among you, me, and the other—he, she, it, or He—there are always possibilities that have not yet happened. This is: Everything Intersubjective Symbiosism Preserve the common, honor difference; let the Way-between give birth to the new. Life is self-sufficient in itself, yet never exists alone. Live and let live.
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