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  • Evola
    Jun 29
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    Following our study on the `eye', which did not make particularly happy an ex-member whose reaction to it will be quoted just below, after it was kindly forwarded to us by another member, we would like to give a few leads for further exploration of another of those symbols which are universally considered as `traditional', while confronting J. Evola's and R. Guénon's views on it, as expressed respectively in `Metaphysics of Sex' (see `The Metaphysical Dyad') and in `The Great Triad': the curvy yin-yang.

    A word used by that ex-member gave us food for thought. Here is the message:

    "It's not about the symbolism, but about the value judgements that are being attached to the symbolism! Of course here the symbolism is obvious...

    Simply put: a world without yin (with only yang) would be a homosexual world. The pseudo-Evolians do not differ in their silly or morbid (I leave that in the middle) hatred of the feminine element from the feminists in their hatred of the male.

    It is once again an example of false dialectics in the modern world."

    That word is "homosexual".

    Both J. Evola and R. Guénon reminds us of the fundamental importance of the yin and yang concept in the cosmological part of the Far-Eastern tradition, and of their symbolism therein: all that is masculine, active, positive, is yang ; all that is feminine, passive, negative, is yin. "These two categories, the French author writes, are associated symbolically with light and darkness ; in all things the light side is yang, the dark side is yin ; but, as one can never be found without the other, they appear much more frequently as complementaries than as opposites." While "Heaven is entirely yang and Earth entirely yin, which amounts to saying that Essence is pure act and Substance pure potency… in all manifested things there is no yang without yin and no yin without yang, for their nature partakes simultaneously both Heaven and Earth", both elementary determinations. At this point, the Italian author is the only of the two to apply those teachings to the ontological plane, stating that "… it is the predominance of yin in woman and of yang in man that make them what they are: at this level the pure yin and pure yang appear as the substances of absolute womanhood and absolute manhood respectively…" ; and even to extend them to the sexual plane, to the field of sexual relations, through an implicit reference to O. Weininger's theory of sex affinity, asserting that "the fundamental law of sexual attraction, a law already foreshadowed by Plato and
    Schopenhauer and formulated by Weininger, is that sexual attraction in its most typical forms arises from the encounter of a woman and a man, such that the sum of the parts of femininity and masculinity contained in each of them represents the absolute man and the absolute woman. For instance, the man who is 75 per cent male and 15 per cent female finds his natural sexual complement, by which he feels irresistibly and magnetically attracted, in a woman who is 75 per cent female and 15 per cent male: because then the sum would represent an absolute man and an absolute woman. This law applies to any intense, deep, `elementary', heterosexual eroticism." (`Il Terzo sesso', in L'arco e la Clava)

    By the same token, the natural complement of a man who is only 55 per cent male and 45 female is a woman who is 55 per cent female and 45 per cent male, and, in this case, what we are dealing with are poorly sexually differentiated individuals, that is to say, homosexuals, or more precisely `natural' homosexuals. To R. Guénon, get this, a man who is only 55 per cent male and 45 female, or a woman who is 55 per cent female and 45 per cent male stands instead as the nec plus ultra, since, "If we consider yang and yin specifically as masculine and feminine elements it can be said that by reason of this participation every being is in a certain sense and to a certain degree `androgynous' and that it is all the more so insofar as these two elements are in equilibrium in it ; the masculine or feminine character of an individual being (or more precisely its predominantly masculine or feminine character) can then be considered as resulting from the preponderance of one or the other." So, "Insofar as the yang and the yin are already differentiated while still being united (and it is for this reason that the diagram is called yin-yang), it is the symbol of the primordial 'Androgyne', since its elements are the masculine and feminine principles ; it is also, according to another and more general traditional symbolism, the `World Egg', whose two halves, when they separate, become Heaven and Earth respectively", and which is clearly a feminine symbol.

    There is more.

    R. Guénon once rightfully emphasised that complementarity does not mean equality in any way. So, confronted with the fact that "… yin is generally mentioned before yang in traditional texts, a practice which may seem contrary to the hierarchic relationship that exists between the principles to which they correspond, that is Heaven and Earth, insofar as they are the superior and inferior pole of manifestation", he tried to explain this away by arguing that "This reversal of the order of the two complementary terms is characteristic of a certain cosmological point of view…" He missed the point. He missed it because of his disdain for history in general, and for the history of ideas and of symbols in particular.

    The concept of yin yang seems to date back to the Shang dynasty (1570-1045 BC). The symbol for yin and yang first appeared in the I-Ching, which allegedly traces back to the 3rd to the 2nd millennium BC. It is during the so-called `Warring States period' (481-221 BC) that the yin-yang theory was established. It developed rapidly after the Han dynasty (206 BC - 220 AD), to be synthesised in the Song dynasty (960-1279).

    Now, « … initially, yin-yang polarities were relatively non hierarchical, and yin and yang were not used in analogy with either heaven and earth or male and female. Even when yin and yang entered philosophical discourse as the basic polarity, it was not analogous either to gender (male and female) or to the hierarchy of heaven and earth. Hierarchical analogies between yin and yang on the one hand and male and female on the other became prevalent only in the first century B.C.E., with the growth of correlative cosmology. Indeed, some early yin-yang and gender analogies stressed either that yin and yang are composed of the same stuff (qi) or that they are equivalent in their capabilities. Others stressed differences between male and female modes (such as the cock and hen of the early Han manuscripts excavated at Mawangdui, Hunan), but with no hierarchical distinction." (B. G. Smith, The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History, Vol. 4, p. 347), "Although it is true that the yin yang metaphor in the Han cosmology, especially in the work conventionally attributed to early Han scholar Dong Zhongshu, Chunqiufanlu (Luxuriant Dew of the Spring and Autumn), is occasionally correlated with gender, the yin-yang binary is a non gender-specific concept. The correlation of the yin and the yang cannot be entirely encapsulated by limited, hierarchical gender relations between man and woman, especially if gender relations are interpreted within the dualistic (sic) framework of femininity and masculinity. For oftentimes the working of the yin-yang binary as a complex metaphor is cross-gender and beyond gender." (Li-Hsiang Lisa Rosenlee, Confucianism and Women: A Philosophical Interpretation, p. 50)

    So, ironically enough, R. Guénon was not aware that the views he derived from Matgoi on the yin-yang were of a nature which, quite rightfully so, he despised as non traditional: the philosophical one.

    The explicitly hierarchical yin-yang male-female analogies increasingly dominated the tradition at a later period, and, the more it dominated, the more the reversal of the order of the two complementary terms became blatant. In Ming and Qing dynasties, `The Precious Scroll the Medicine King of Loyalty, Filial Piety and Deliverance' (Jiuku zhongxiao yaowang baojuan), one of the only two texts of that period which discuss a view of gender among the scriptures of folk religions, says : "'There is man. There is woman. Originally, they had no difference. Both relied on the Eternal Venerable Mother (wusheng laomu) and were born from the vital breath of Former Heaven." The other, the `Building the Dharma Ship' said : "`It is required that all male and female members gather with neither difference nor discrimination.' The former scripture signified that all men and women were equally the children of the Eternal Venerable Mother. That is to say, men and women were originally equal…"

    "This simple idea of sexual equality originated from the traditional Chinese view of yin-yang. The interaction of yin and yang formed all things and were indispensable to each other. The `Heaven and Earth of the Ancient Buddha' (gufo qiankun pin) section of the Dragon Flower Scripture said: `The Eternal Venerable Mother conceives from herself and begets yin and yang'; `The yin is the daughter and yang is the son. Their names are Fuxi and Nüwa respectively.' Here, yin and yang are equal. Above them, there was the Eternal Venerable Mother, who was the supreme deity. This supreme deity was `female.' This hierarchy ran counter to orthodox Confucianism, in which yang was dominant to and higher than yin. Yin, however, was regarded as the symbol of subordination and inferiority. In fact, the secret folk religions of the Ming [1368-1644] and Qing [1644 et 1912] did not further discuss the relationship and reciprocal status of yin and yang, men and women. These plain and simple scriptures were not exempt from the dominant convention that `yang is superior to yin.' Even so, there were certain narrations or sermons that constantly showed respect, trust, solicitude, and sympathy to women." (Ma Xisha and Meng Huiying, Popular Religion and Shamanism p. 315-17)

    Given the feminine nature of the Chinese people, it is no wonder.
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