The Material Structure

By Tan Kheng Yeang

The conflict between the material side of human existence and that of our spiritual and philosophical beliefs is as old as humanity itselfbut one side of the equation is as important as the other and no society can hope to sustain its existence without an equitable balance between the two.
In this thoughtful and thought-provoking volume, the author offers a unique perspective on the system of concrete, tangible products produced by humankind that form the physical foundation of society. He calls this system the material structure. However, this book is not intended as a scientific study of the production, distribution and consumption of goods that is the realm of economics; rather, it provides an overview of the totality of products created by humans for human consumption and assesses their role as a constituent of civilization. The subject of this study could also be designated as productology.
The development and growth of the material structure have occurred in an inconsistent, haphazard fashion. Advancements in science, medicine and technology have contributed to the creation of a chaotic mass of unrelated products. Even the advent of mechanization has failed to yield any further insights into the conglomeration of products that form an integral part of todays world.
This volume proposes to give unity to the material structure by classifying its components into divisions, determining the principles and rules that govern or should govern it, and relating it to the other constituents of civilization, including philosophy and religion, which throughout history have often been inimical to the material side of human existence.
The author presents a cogent and persuasive argument that, in order to survive, civilization needs one component as much as the other. The key is to achieve an equitable balance between these two dichotomies, something which, to date, no society has been capable of accomplishing. This book provides a fascinating and fresh approach to an age-old enigma that has plagued humankind since the dawn of our existence.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Feb 5, 2014
• ISBN: 9781466999886

Tan Kheng Yeang

Tan Kheng Yeang was born in a country called British Malaya, now part of Malaysia. After studying civil engineering at the University of Hong Kong, he enjoyed a lengthy career as an engineer in the City Council of Georgetown, Penang. Since his retirement, he has worked as an engineering consultant and has published twelve books.

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© Copyright 2014 Tan Kheng Yeang.

Cover image - Man at the Crossroads, mural by Diego Rivera, John Mitchell

Stock Photography (copyright John Mitchell)

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

ISBN: 978-1-4669-9989-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4669-9987-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4669-9988-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013911965

Trafford rev. 02/04/2014

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Other books by the author

Fiction

Novels

Conflict in the Home

Sauce of Life

Struggle toward Extinction

Motivating Forces

Poetry

Diverse Modes

Poems (Flowery Country/Sun and Rain/Grains of Sand)

Nonfiction

Memoir

Dark Days

Philosophy

Intrinsic to Universe

Sayings

Reduced Reflections

Linguistics

LUIF: A New Language

LUIF Dictionaries

Contents

Acknowledgment

Part 1: The Material Civilization

Chapter 1: What Is the Material Structure?

Chapter 2: Aims of Study

Chapter 3: Spirituality

Chapter 4: History

Chapter 5: Justification

Chapter 6: Causes of Change and Stagnation

Chapter 7: Relationship to Society

Chapter 8: Relationship to Civilization

Chapter 9: Defects

Chapter 10: Remedies

Part 2: Principles

Chapter 11: Network

Chapter 12: Utility

Chapter 13: Beauty

Chapter 14: Science

Chapter 15: Art

Chapter 16: Economics

Chapter 17: Nature or Natural Phenomena

About the Author

Acknowledgment

The author wishes to thank Ms. Valerie Cameron for her invaluable assistance in preparing the manuscript of this book for publication.

Part 1

The Material Civilization

Chapter 1

What Is the Material Structure?

W hat is meant by the material structure ? In the beginning, when Homo sapiens first emerged, there was no material structure to speak of. But when humans started living in villages, built huts, tilled the ground, and developed tools and utensils, the semblance of a material structure began to evolve. Stone implements do not seem to us remarkable products, but they made a momentous difference to their possessors. A collection of rough abodes in jungle clearings is not an exhilarating spectacle, but it was the product of human effort and betokened the emergence of the material structure and of society.

As civilization slowly and laboriously stumbled into being, towns grew up filled with buildings, paved with streets, and alive with trade. Architecture became a fine art, and great skill and profound expense were lavished on palaces and places of religious worship. Statues and monuments embellished the scene. Merchandise was eagerly sought after, and it continually increased in variety and quality. Houses were stocked with beautiful furniture and ingenious facilities. The arts and crafts developed, and articles were as much for esthetic appreciation as they were for use. In spite of the difficult and perilous state of travel, commodities were brought from faraway countries; international trade was a noteworthy phenomenon. Highways were constructed, linking the centers of production. Bridges were built to cross rivers. Vehicles on land and ships on sea developed.

In modern times, inventions and new products made phenomenal advances. The invention of machinery and the discovery of electricity have wrought momentous changes in industry. Steamships, trains, motor vehicles, and airplanes have made the conveyance of passengers and goods rapid and easy. Satellites have circled the globe, and spacecraft have landed on the moon. This line of development, the exploration of outer space, has enormous potentialities still to be realized. The telephone and radio have rendered verbal communication from one corner of the world to another as instantaneous as that between two friends holding a confabulation in a room. The cinema and television have revolutionized the entertainment industry. The variety of commodities flooding supermarkets and department stores testifies to ingenuity and enterprise. We have exploited the resources of the earth and turned them to our behoof.

What is meant by the material structure? This is the system of concrete products that serves as a material foundation of a society. These products are in the main modifications of or preparations from natural materials. Iron is a natural material, but it has to be extracted from its ore. It can be modified to become steel, which can be used in the manufacturing of various things from ladders to knives. The airplane is a contrivance to transport passengers and cargo through the air. It is fabricated of numerous parts, all of which are made of substances existing naturally. But the final product does not resemble any natural phenomenon. To enable it to fulfill the function for which it is intended, it is devised in accordance with the laws of nature, painstakingly discerned by scientists. The subject of aeronautics treats of aerial navigation. The material structure has become extremely complex with high-technology products such as computers, which are far from being mere derivations of natural materials.

The material structure constitutes the physical aspect of civilization. It is directly visible, not merely inferred. It endows civilization with a strong sense of stability. It is not of a shadowy nature like thought. It is what common sense readily apprehends and regards as substantial. Unlike natural phenomena, which do not exist for the specific behoof of human beings, though we may turn them to our own use, artificial products are primarily of a utilitarian character: they are made for practical purposes. Because of their functional design, they may embody an intellectual or cultural element, which does not, however, diminish their material nature. The physical side of a culture is of immense consequence, and although it has tended to draw condemnation in so-called spiritual cultures, no culture has ever been able to exist without it.

A civilization does not consist of merely material products, a fact that we are in danger of forgetting in this age of ours, which many stigmatize as materialistic. It has to do too with intellectual and moral attainments. Just as human beings are endowed with a body and a mind, so civilization, our product, possesses two strands: the concrete and the abstract, or the tangible and the intangible. The two strands are interwoven, and it is impossible to suppress one in order to evaluate the other. It might be natural for an individual to prize one more than the other; this is because his or her interest is seldom comprehensive. The average person tends to appreciate only what he or she can see, while the fanatic is obsessed with his or her fancies. A balanced and natural society, however, must pay equal attention to both strands. Only then can it be meaningful and promote the happiness of its members generally.

It is to be understood that the material structure consists of the concrete, tangible products of humankind. Abstract products, such as ideologies, are to be excluded from consideration. This is not to say that abstract products are less significant than concrete products. This is far from the case. But our present study is concerned with concrete products only. An abstract product is a mental product not primarily expressed in terms of matter or the substance that occupies space. A concrete product is a product made with the hands of man or with the agency of his implements. Products such as literature, music, dance, and sports are not included, though they may be associated with physical objects. A book is a concrete product, but a literary work is different from the book in which it is embodied. A dance is not a tangible object but an activity of a human body. Social services such as education and health care are not concrete products.

The material structure deals with things made by human beings. What exists in nature lies outside its scope. Plants and animals growing by themselves in the natural habitat, substances in their natural state, are not to be considered as part of the material structure, though they are concrete phenomena. Of course, all that human beings do is to make use of natural substances. We take them and adapt them for our behoof. We can say that something is a human product if human beings have a hand in fashioning it or even extracting it from its natural environment. Thus, a television set constructed of numerous component parts is a human product. So is the wood that is obtained from felling a tree and the iron that is extracted from the ground. We would also say that the grains, vegetables, and fruits that we cultivate are human products.

Early humans lived by a wealth of natural phenomena, but their material structure was poor. Whether they were better off in their natural environment is beside the point. Our criterion of a component of the material structure is the human contribution to its existence.

The material structure has grown in complexity with the development of civilization. Its components are multitudinous and of tremendous diversity, so much so that it is difficult to discern the wood for the trees in attempting to discover any orderliness, any interrelationship among them. The material structure forms a world of its own but a world without any unifying principle. It is a chaos. Like so many other phenomena, it has evolved haphazardly at a different pace at different times. Here an invention came into existence by chance; there a discovery saw the light after a prolonged and systematic experimentation. Once a new type of product was known, it seldom vanished completely into oblivion. But it did not have to remain in the same form; variations and improvements arose in due course.

In the prescientific age, inventions were slow to come. This, of course, is not peculiar to inventions; it applies equally to all other human developments, to ideas and social organizations. People took things as they were and were averse to change. Inventions arose spasmodically. Their inventors are unknown; it would seem that it was not considered a glorious feat of genius to originate a concrete product, though it might be useful, spread widely, and influence the lives of countless people. This is no cause for surprise, as originality has never had any genuine measure of appreciation. Even nowadays, when originality is considered a respectable trait, the true originator gets recognition belatedly, if at all.

The material structure constitutes a system. It is not a planned system and appears a chaotic mess. Nevertheless, it can be regarded as a system in that all its constituents share a common characteristic, namely, production by human beings for our behoof and no irreconcilable conflict between them. The products are multitudinous, and new types continually come on the market, unlike ideas, which can contradict one another, making it impossible to hold that