Ri and Ki: The Cause of the World’s Endless Persistence

A world overrun by those who believe intellectual mastery is synonymous with comprehension. Yet, on the other flank, those who finally step into the light of action are often driven by nothing more than reactive, puerile movements born of societal grievance, lack, or perceived injustice. In such a climate, one might tinker with reality through knowledge or movement, yet the real itself remains immobile. The situation deteriorates year by year, serving as the nutrient for a modern fiction: a world frozen in its own logic—a zombified world-fiction that persists only to sustain its own stagnant existence. We shall call this intellectualism “dead understanding.” It is a comprehension devoid of life. Yet, it is precisely this lifelessness that has gone global, polluting the collective mind and allowing the fictional system of the world to sustain itself. The result is a profound stasis; the very reason for our deepening delusion remains ignored.

To possess a “dictionary-like brain”—to be celebrated for encyclopedic knowledge or an immediate command of various disciplines—is nothing but a symbol of a world in its death throes. As we move into 2026, the decay only feels more pervasive. Now, more than ever, we must revisit a problem that once rose as a great swell in the history of East Asia: the problem of Ri and Ki.

Ri and Ki constitute a pivotal philosophical inquiry into the formation of the cosmos—the relationship between Ri [理] (the fundamental Principle or Pattern of the universe) and Ki [気] (the Material Force or Vital Energy that composes all matter). The figure who stood at the vanguard of this thought, shaping the intellectual bedrock of the ages to follow, was Zhu Xi (1130–1200) of the Song dynasty. It was Zhu Xi who proposed that “Ri governs Ki,” establishing a new and dominant Confucian philosophy. Here, a profound misalignment began.

I call it a “misalignment” because his assertion that “Ri governs Ki” is rooted in a fundamental dualism. Within his thinking, Zhu Xi separated Ri from Ki, creating a conceptual structure where the former subjugates the latter. Through this prism, every element of existence was recast into a landscape of separation and opposition, arranged in hierarchies of superior and inferior, good and evil. Under Zhu Xi, the world began to be constructed as a “severed world.” This was a departure, a mutation entirely distinct from the original Confucian dimensions of Confucius or Mencius.