Pattern and person: ornament, society, and self in classical China 9781684174294, 9780674021396

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PATTERN AND PERSON , Ornament, Society, and Self in

Classical China

Harvard East Asian Monographs 262

Publication of this book was partially underwritten by the Mr. and Mrs. Stephen C. M. King Publishing and Communications Fund, established

by Stephen C. M. King to further the cause of international understanding and cooperation, especially between the China and the United States, by enhancing cross-cultural education and the exchange of ideas across national boundaries through publications of the Harvard University Asia Center. The color reproductions were made possible by a orant from the Untversity of Michigan Center for Chinese Studies.

PATTERN AND PERSON Ornament, Society, and Self in

Classical China

Martin |. Powers

Published by the Harvard University Asia Center Distributed by Harvard University Press

Cambridge (Massachusetts) and London 2006 |

@ 2006 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College Printed in the United States of America

The Harvard University Asia Center publishes a monograph series and, in coordination with the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research, the Korea Institute, the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, and other faculties and institutes, admunisters research projects designed to further scholarly

understanding of China, Japan, Vietnam, Korea, and other Asian countries. The Center also sponsors projects addressing multidisciplinary and regional issues in Asia.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Powers, Martin Joseph, 1949Pattern and person : ornament, society, and self in classical China / Martin J. Powers. p. cm. -- (Harvard East Asian monographs ; 262) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-674-02139-8 (cl : alk. paper)

1. Decoration and ornament--China--History--To 221 B.c-- Themes, motives. 2. Decoration and ornament--China--History--Qin-Han dynasties, 221 B.C —220 a.D.-- Themes, motives. 3. Decorative

| arts--Social aspects--China. 4. Self-perception in art. I. Title. II. Series.

NK1483.AIP69 2006 | 745.0951'09014--dc22 2006008313

Index by the author

@ Printed on acid-free paper Last figure below indicates year of this printing

16 I5 14 I3 12 If IO O9 O8 O07 06

For Amy, Julia, and Benjamin

BLANK PAGE

Acknowledgments

This book has been roughly a decade in the making, and I should have felt more regrets were it not that, during those years, the manuscript had not benefited substantially from the advice of colleagues and family. At the beginning the idea was to write an extended meditation on the cognitive dimension of art: how artifacts encode basic propositions about what it means to be a person. I focused on artifact design in Classical China chiefly because I’m trained in that field. Fortunately, a great wealth of artifacts and texts survive from Classical China, many of which have a direct beartne on the relationship of art and thought. Basically the book argues that artifacts offered a material substrate for abstract thinking in ancient times. They functioned as graphic paradigms for social relationships at the time they were made, and they serve the modern historian as material evidence of otherwise unknown spatial epistemologies. It suggests further that graphic paradigms continued to inform social thought long after the material substrate had been abandoned in favor of more abstract social theory. At first I had hoped to limit my interest to the logical ramifications of spatial design—the geometry of thought, as it were. But entering into it, the material turned out to be less tvory-tower than originally imagined. I was reasonably familiar with the work of students of Chinese literature, philosophy, and culture, but what I had not encountered previously was a substantial literature on Chinese thought by persons not trained to study it. These were mainly social psychologists, members of the scientific community. Their interest in China derives, I believe, from the desire to make universal propositions about the human mind. If something is true of both the West and China, then, some believe, it must be universally true. Alternatively, if we

Vitt Acknowledgments want to claim that something is unique to the West—like the ability to think logically, for instance—then we need China as a foil. I don’t claim any expertise in science; but I soon discovered that these scientific studies often take as their point of departure a body of writing I do know something about, namely, tired old historical narratives. However many statistical tables a psychologist might employ, the notion that Asians have always been sheep is frequently offered as a given, with a

highly romanticized version of Western history as the only supporting evidence. Here we find China operating as a convenient foil: in order to demonstrate the absence of individual agency in Asia, one need only cite the stories we heard as children about the rising bourgeoisie, the Protestant revolution, and abstract expressionism in the West (see Introduc-

tion). Further reading in anthropology and soctology showed that speculation about self and human agency in other soctal science fields sometimes draws on similar suppositions. Still more reading revealed that even some of the analysis offered in the pages of respectable venues such as the New York Times can be informed by that same Romantic narrative born tn the fires of nationalist fervor in the early nineteenth century. Our nation’s fate, in other words, was betng debated on the basis of unquestioned “data” generated by hypernationalist historians almost two centuries ago! I concluded that, if the social sciences cannot extricate them-

| selves from the humanities, so would it be negligent for a humanist to ignore the consequences of history for contemporary debates. I wasn’t so naive as to think I could curb the appeal of the “why-the-

West-is-best” sort of China book. Research on my next project had taught me that this has been a popular genre since the seventeenth | century. Still, any study of paradigms of self cannot avoid reflecting on how such paradigms operate generally, and this requites examining that paradigm we think of as “modern” or “Western,” the one that evolved during the nineteenth century and which still holds most of us in its grip. As a consequence this book adopts a duplex mode of narration, with one eye on the “modern” and another on the Classical past. The aim is to remind myself and the reader of the historiographic suppositions we sometimes take for granted. It also makes it easier to spot those moments when the minutiae of history slam head on against the mighty walls of nationalist rhetoric.

Acknowledgments 1x In adopting this method I make no claim to originality. The need to

question the Romantic narrative has been recognized for decades, well-articulated by writers like Jack Goody and Edward Said. The critique has picked up momentum in recent years with frontal attacks by Blaut, Frank, Mirzoeff, and others (see the bibliography to this book). Within Chinese Studies, Jonathan Hay, James Hevia, Lionel Jensen, James Lee, Lydia Liu, Craig Clunas, Richard Vinograd, Bin Wong, and many more have offered cogent alternatives to “us-them” accounts of China. Even

within the subfield of Early China Studies, a steady stream of new research cited in these pages (Chang, Falkenhausen, Ivanhoe, Lewis, Peerenboom, Puett, Turner, Yates) contradicts popular claims about traditional Chinese thought, so I don’t imagine myself as besieged or alone; | am in rather good company. Likewise, I have no illusions about unlocking the mysteries uniting art and thought. My only wish is to explore closely particular artifacts and particular texts in hopes of developing some working hypotheses. It goes

without saying that artifacts are open to multiple interpretations, and specialists will know that any Classical Chinese text lends itself to more than one reading depending upon initial assumptions. I do not claim that my readings of texts are definitive, only that they are reasonable and, I

hope, interesting. If through this study others may grow interested in relations between early Chinese art and social theory—or in the social uses of graphic paradigms—perhaps the elementary notions offered here can be improved. The bulk of research for the book was completed tn the years 1993-94, when I was fortunate to be resident at Academia Sinica, where I had access to their online databases of Chinese texts. Much of the writing was

| completed in the summer of 1997 in Discovery Bay near Hong Kong, where the mountains and clouds seemed as if lifted from a Huang Gonewang handscroll. The text as it exists currently was probably 90 percent complete in 1998, when the manuscript was sent out to.a good many senior colleagues in the field for close review. Durtng these years Early China Studies was thriving, with new and exciting interpretations of texts appearing each year. Although it was never my intention to survey the Early China field, some of these were relevant to my topic and the

work was strengthened as a result. The manuscript was reviewed and

x Acknowledgments accepted by the Harvard University East Asian Sertes in the fall of 2001. I was serving as Director of the Center for Chinese Studies at that time and,

had I been a more efficient administrator, the turnaround should have taken no more than a couple months, but as it happened I was unable to devote myself to the manuscript until I rolled out of that job this year. In the meantime important studies have continued to appear. I have read these with relish and continued to refer to those that seemed directly pertinent to this study up until the final manuscript was submitted. My interest in the hidden meanings of form goes back to the dissertation years, when I would often exchange thoughts about art in Classical China with Amy Ma, later to become my partner. I learned a great deal from her lively intellect and much of that no doubt finds its way into this book. Astute readers will discern in the book the quiet presence of several senior colleagues. It was Harrie Vanderstappen who taught me and

all his students how to read style with an eye for meaning. Another soutce of inspiration has been Rudi Arnheim, with whom I have cotresponded for decades, and who has been mentor and friend for almost twenty years. For even longer I’ve been the beneficiary of John Ontans’s

counsel and example, and I freely acknowledge here the tnspiration provided by his lifelong search for the common language of shape and meaning. I should make it clear that a book of this nature could not have been written but for the pioneering research of scholars like Choyun Hsu and Kk. C. Chang. I thank Lothar von Falkenhausen for his characteristically tough advice, and Eugene Wang for his insights. I am especially orateful to Frederick Mote, whose intelligence discovered many infelicities in an earlier version of the manuscript, and to P. J. Ivanhoe, who examined every translation and every argument against the backdrop of his own extensive erudition. Those errors that remain are my own, the product of ignorance or stubbornness. I am most grateful for research support from the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Science Research Council of Tatwan, and the University of Michigan. I feel privileged to benefit from the encouragement and advice of perhaps the finest editor in the China field. Finally I thank Tsay Shu-mei for her able assistance in research, and Jen Zhu, whose patience and editorial skills have much improved the manuscript. M.J.P. Spring 2004

Contents

T/ustrations XV Introduction: Graphic Patterns and Social Order 1

Status 13

Questions of Historical Method 3

Art and Personality 6 Visual Perception and Social Order 10 Ornament and Order 17

Style 38 Style and Order 44 Chapter 1: Style 23

Procedural Rules 26

Social Content in Classical Ornament 23

Production and Style 49 Material and Social Measurement 53 Chapter 2: Terms of Craft 47

Compartmental Logic and Ceremony 57

Compartmental Logic and Nature 60

Style and Abstraction 67 Possession and Identity 68 Chapter 3: Abstraction 65

Fieurative Ornament and Representation 71

Summary: Style and Status 80

Xi Contents ,

Crafting Order 84 Chapter 4: Craft 83

The Craftsman in Early Social Discourses 89

Craft Officers and Government 94 Chapter 5: Government 99 :

Ornament and Property 106 Chapter 6: Labor, Invention, and “Taste” 11

Synthetic Macro Style III Decor and Secular Culture 119 Ceremony Versus Ingenuity 125 Chapter 7: Craft and Political Theory 137

Period Terms: Fa 7 and Du FE 140

Style and Status 158 Hidden Dragons 166 Form and Knowledge 170 Chapter 8: Ornament and Identity 160

Natural Order 9 # 176 The Generic Condition 180 Chapter 9: Bureaucracy and Agency 188

Academies and Cosmopolitics 188 The Dialectics of Agency #& & IgI

Bureaucratic Practice 204 Chapter 10: The Politics of Personhood 210

Figure/Ground Dialectics 213 Comparative Perspectives 216 Chapter 11: Patterns, Pictures, and Fractals 227

The Generic Condition of Cloud Designs 229

Cloud Designs at Mawanedut 2.33

Thoughts in the Clouds 242 The Water Cycle 245

Contents Xi

Water Flow 254 Art and Thought 265 Chapter 12: The Laws of Nature 253

Chapter 13: Nature and Society 270

Politics and the People 270 Justice and the People K 273 A Fluid System Model of Social Dynamics 276 Dao and Public Policy 288 Chapter 14: Identity and Possession 297

Independent Possession 73) 298

Notes 321 Bibhography 355 Index 369 Epilogue: Sources of Self 309 Reference Matter

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ILustrations

I2 Ryokai Mandala I 18 12 Bronze /u vessel 3 Detail of Fig. 2 19

8 Hu 27

4 Design of a lacquer-painted shield 20

5 Phoenix design in reversed form 21

7 Bronze bell 25

6 Fox and rabbit among swirling clouds 22

9 Rubbing of the 4z in Fig. 8. 28

bronze vessels 30 II Bronze jza wine vessel 33 10 Fragment of a ceramic mold used in casting ceremonial

12 Detail of Fig. 11 34 13 Bronze bianhu vessel 39 14 Detail of Fig. 13 40

Is Drawing of a Warring States mold for casting inlay 112 16 Belt buckle inlaid in silver and semi-precious stones 113 17 Shape analysis of a figure based on stone engravings

from second-century Shandong. ‘118

18 Shape analysis of a figure based on mirror designs of

the third centuty B.c. 118

19 Shape analysis of a figure based on lacquer paintings of

the second century B.c. 119

20 Bronze garment hook inlaid with gold 128

21 Bone with painted decoration 135 22 Lacquered eared cup | 136 23 Bone with painted decoration 136

Xvi T/ustrations 24 Detail of a bronze mirror 161

25 Detail of Fig. 24 162 26 Bronze dox vessel 163

27. ~—- Detail of Fig. 26 164

28 Clouds propelled by jetstream 165 29 Conceptual diagram of eternal ideas in the mind of God 175

30. =) Lacquered bowl 183

in Fig. 30 184

31 Detail of a dragon-like creature from the lacquered bowl

32 Dtagram of the dragon-like creature in Fig. 31 185 33 Conceptual design of a visually ambiguous figure 2.13

34. Figure on a ground in four variations, A—D 214

35 Spirit with antlers riding a cloud 225 36 ~=—s Bronze chariot finial inlaid with silver 228 37. Drawing of the left side of the black-ground lacquer

casket from Mawangdui tomb 1 229

tomb I 234 40 Cumulous cloud 235

38 Thunder drummer and his entourage 231 39 The black-ground lacquer casket from Mawanedut

41 Goat spirit about to leap from a cloud 237 42 Goat spirit struggling with a phoenix 238

to defend itself 239 44 Immortal spirit dancing 240 43 Goat spirit raising sword and shield perparing

brush movement 2AI

45 Dtagram of Fig. 44 illustrating direction of

46 Drawing of the design of an inlaid carriage ornament 246

47 Spirit with antlers riding on a cloud 250 48 Immortal deer nibbling the mushroom of immortality 266

49 Magpie and mushroom of immortality 267

royal “pattern” 305

50 Conceptual diagram of individuals imitating a

a collectivity 306 52 Lohan mending his clothes 317 st Conceptual diagram of individuals acting within

PATTERN AND PERSON

| Ornament, Soctety, and Self in Classical China

BLANK PAGE

INTRODUCTION Graphic Patterns and Social Order

Artifacts create scales of value. Maybe this is why the act of creation was

compared to the work of crafting in both ancient China and Greece. Plato imagined God as a potter; Zhuangzi (4th-3rd c. B.c.) figured nature

as a catver.' The reason for the analogy seems clear enough: just as a craftsman shapes materials, so does some Creator shape matter and so define the qualities of things. But maybe there is more to it than that? After all, when craftsmen shape materials, they don’t merely distinguish one thing from another: they apply standards as well—some material is better than others, some shapes more beautiful than others. Craftsmen must attend to standards because the artifacts they make often go to the

“better” sorts of people; if not gods, then perhaps nobility, or if not nobility, then at least to the wealthy.

For Plato, it was God himself who shaped the unchanging “patadiom,” a perfect form that could serve as a standard for all others: “A craftsman of anything will only produce something beautiful if he makes it after the pattern (paradezgma) of something which is always the same. If he makes it after something which came into being he will not achieve beauty.”* John Ontans explains: “For Plato this is the reason why God when making the universe makes it in imitation of himself. Since he is spherical and eternal the universe is made by him in the same shape.””?

God imposes a formal standard against which human worth can be measuted—if a sphere 1s perfect, then everything else is more or less a mistake. Among humans too, some are more perfect than others—men more than women, for instance—and so it was male warriors who set the standard for humanity in Plato’s day. Crafting presupposes scales of

worth, and these can specify how one person relates to another.

2 Introduction One of the most common examples of the crafting of “persons” 1s to be found in the use of ornamental designs. All over Eurasia, from Spring

and Autumn period China (770-476 B.c.) to Tudor England, graphic insionia defined a nobleman’s prerogative both in ceremony and in ordinary life. Sometimes cultures find ways to inscribe even complex rela-

tionships in graphic patterns. Oleg Grabar cites both the geometric threshold drawings of Hyderabad in India and Nuba body paintings as examples of ornament that do more than simply enhance the status of the bearer. ‘The Nuba designs, he says, “literally talk about being married

or nonmartied, pure or impure, chief or subordinate, and so forth. In short, the formal ubiquity of geometry in so many places and times conceals variety in the density of its presence especially in its meaning: geometry may well be more iconophoric than 1s first assumed.” ‘The state of being married or nonmarried, chief or subordinate, 1s a function

of one person’s relative dependence upon another. Relations such as these can be translated into geometric designs that can both reduplicate and reinforce the soctal order in ceremony or tn more binding sorts of relations.» Graphic patterns, in other words, can serve as paradigms of social order. Some will no doubt wonder: how can mute matter serve as a medium for articulate thought? Most likely in many ways, but this book examines

three conditions permitting translation from graphic design to soctal thought: 1. Artifacts are never neutral: their materials are etther more or less precious, and their manufacture requires more ot less skill, labor, knowledge, or ingenuity. For this reason they offer a material template for scales of value. Social values can be mapped onto these material scales through the abstracting power of style.

2. If material and workmanship can encode scales of value, pictorial forms can make claims about the thing depicted. Both the values and the claims must have a referent. That referent can be the owner, the artist, or the world “out there,” depending upon the nature of the style employed. By manipulating these claims and their referents, artifacts can shape a petson’s status, self-esteem, public persona, or even one’s identity.

_ 3. The book treats style as a guide to a kind of spatial epistemology. It maintains that the epistemological problem of certifying social identity 1s one with the visual problem of determining pictorial identity. Just as the

Introduction | 3 self must be situated somewhere on a spectrum ranging from (theorettcally) absolute autonomy to unqualified embeddedness, so must graphic style situate any figure on a spectrum ranging from complete legibility to perfect ambiguity. For this reason, any time an artist attempts to draw a fioure, she or he must make suppositions regarding the nature of self that will be acceptable to those paying for the work. The graphic paradigms employed can, in turn, offer a frame for social and political thought, as I argue happened in China from the fourth to second centuries B.C. The word “paradigm” here is not used in the Kuhnian sense, as I am not addressing the history of science. Here, the term is rooted 1n its origin in the crafting process. There “paradigm” referred to a model or pattern that embodied in visual form a scale of value. That scale ultimately defined a hierarchy of human worth and so could specify degrees of agency in individuals. Bearing this in mind, it would be difficult to think of a better term for those examples of graphic order that scholars have found to be in active dialogue with social organization. This study explores this

sense of “paradigm” as a prism for illuminating features of human agency normally hidden from the historian’s gaze. Questions of Historical Method

Studies of the graphing of social order are not common in the history of art. It may be anthropologists who have contributed most to theorizing the problem. One of the earliest attempts in this direction was Claude Levi-Strauss’s explanation of split representation in ancient China and the Americas—and its absence elsewhere—as a function of social order: “The mutual independence of the plastic and graphic components corresponds to the more flexible interplay between the social and supernatural orders, in the same way that split representation expresses the strict conformity of the actor to his role and of social rank to myths, ritual and pedigrees.”° Although this comes perilously close to an intuitive analogy argument (to be discussed shortly), it did legitimize the search for links between visual production and social organization. Since that time anthropologists have devised subtler approaches, including Margaret Conkey’s analyses of artifact style in relation to the production of social “boundaries.” In the area of Chinese studies the anthropologist David Keightley was among the first to explore the relationship between material culture and cognition, maintaining that

4 Introduction material culture expresses and also influences, often in complicated, idealized and by no means exact ways, social activity and ways of thinking, and... the goal of archaeology must be comprendre as well as connaitre....1 assume that the way people act influences the way people think and that habits of thought manifested in one area of life encourage a similar mental approach in others. I assume in particular that there 1s a relationship between the technology of a culture and its conception of the world and man himself, that “artefacts are products of human categorization processes,” and that style and social process are linked.®

For my purposes perhaps the most illustrative anthropological work remains Nancy Munn’s account of Walbiri iconography, for she was able

to show how various design systems each could constitute “a welldeveloped, sociocultural code operating with different media, and

in different domains, to convert one level of sociocultural order into another.”? The power to convert structures of order from one domain to another makes graphic designs usable either as models for daily activity or as visible marks of identity. In other words collective representations—to use Munn’s paraphrase of G. B. Milner—“are among the mechanisms through which sociocultural structure gets a ‘rtp’ on the individual.’’! Anthropologists are accustomed to working in a comparative mode; not every historian will be comfortable with the practice. Yet it would be a mistake to exoticize the subject as a peculiarity of “primitive” societies. For this reason 1t may be useful to consider a parable from the sciences as

a cautionary tale. Apparently, some of the first physicists to develop chaos theory found themselves promoting the idea that chaotic systems could spontaneously give rise to structure. This view elicited attacks from fellow scientists who accused them of reverting to vitalism. In fact this wasn’t the case. They were claiming that plain old chaotic unconscious matter is capable of giving rise to structure under certain physical con-

ditions. The reason they were misunderstood is that traditional theory offered only two options: a mechanistic universe and a vitalist universe. Since a mechanistic universe cannot spontaneously move from chaos to structure, their colleagues concluded, wrongly, that the new theories were vitalist.11

Current historical narrative likewise tends to offer two options: a “Western” world characterized by rule of law and individual autonomy,

and an Asian world characterized by devotion to the group and unquestioning obedience.!* Therefore any evidence contradicting the

Introduction 5 uniqueness of the Western narrative could be interpreted as a claim that Western social practices really came from Asia, a thought certain to enrage traditionalists.!? The result is a polarization of cultures recently described by Richard Vinograd: Ideas of Chinese cultural distinctiveness have their place, but notions of cultural exceptionalism can be a barrier to understanding. ... This is not to evade some very real and profound questions of approach and understanding. But I do feel

that a too-rigid conception of the “Western” and the “Chinese” as mutually exclusive categories can be obstructive, and additionally excludes from our view a vety long history of interaction, translation, and hybridization.'4

This book embraces the view that the two ends of Eurasia have long enjoyed an entangled “history of interaction, translation, and hybridization.” Moreover, like many of the scholars cited in these pages, I see history as fundamentally characterized by negotiations over agency, such negotiations being constitutive of the nature of power relations, and not peculiar to any one culture.'® This principle applies to traditional societies as well as modern ones. The advantage of such a view ts that it avoids simplistic binarisms such as

“democratic” and “totalitarian,” as if any society could be completely free of coercion. No matter what kind of social structure is in place, negotiations over agency are inevitable because political power—even that of a Byzantine emperor—can never be absolute in practice.'® It is slippage in the power structure that permits what Ross Chambers calls “room for maneuver’: The diffuseness of power, in short, makes both “opposition” possible and supports the structures of power that are in place. In this respect, however, it is worth noting that there are societies whose power structure 1s relatively “loose” and those where, to the contrary, it 1s relatively “tight,” and in the latter the degree of tolerance towards oppositional behavior that characterizes “loose” societies is replaced by an effort to stamp it out. '’

In the course of this book we shall trace a variety of social structures,

some tighter and some looser, but there 1s no reason to think that challenges to authority are themselves intrinsic to what we now construe as the “Western” tradition. This book’s concern with the evolution of personal agency is not a claim that other parts of Eurasia lack such a history or that “China did it first.” The historian’s job is to understand how negotiations over agency operate within a given set of

6 Introduction institutional and discursive boundaries. My specific concern is to understand how visual models can determine fundamental conditions for such negotiations. Art and Personality The notion that artistic style may somehow “reflect” different systems of social constraint has been around for some time. As early as the eighteenth century, Johann Joachim Winckelmann discerned in Egyptian and Greek art different levels of artistic potential. The bodily movement of fioures in Egyptian art seemed more restricted to him, whereas the figures in Greek sculpture moved more freely. Winckelmann extended this observation in such a manner as to identify the more naturalistic Greek style with political freedom.'? Winckelmann’s account may offer one of the earliest examples of the intuitive analogy argument in art historical writing. In such arguments, artistic style and graphic paradigms are arranged in a one-to-one relationship. Unfortunately there are problems with this approach to the history of art. First, such analogies almost always involve a non sequitur, for the presence of morphological resemblance tn no way requires a literal correspondence in the social realm. Also, in every case known to me, including Winckelmann’s, the argument is patently self-serving, and often carries racial or ethnic overtones.

The intuitive analogy argument appears again in the work of John Ruskin,?° and by the first half of the twentieth century theories relating society and style could get quite literal, as when L. P. L’Orange argued that late Roman art, like late Roman society, was fundamentally “rigid.’’2!

Whether he knew it or not, L’Orange’s position was consistent with trends in clinical psychology in the 1950s. Evelyn Hatcher’s 1967 study Visual Metaphors describes how anthropologists at that time regularly worked from the premise that “art is a projection, through the artist, of the modal or basic personality of the soctety.””? She cites as an example Anthony Wallace’s 1950 study of Mayan codices: “a conventional art-style must contain elements which are aesthetically (.e., psychologically) congenial to the large majority of the people supporting art production over continuing generations. [he nature of what is aesthetically congenial is determined by the basic personality structure of the people.’’> Historians

of art today might agree that styles must be meaningful to those supporting art production, but this could represent a small sector of the

Introduction 7 population and might or might not have anything to do with being aesthetically pleasant. But we are speaking here of the cold war era, and so should not be surprised that the qualities scholars purported to find in style tended to fall into politically charged rubrics. For some, symmetrical design was “egalitarian,” while asymmetrical design was “hierarchical.” Others maintained that a large amount of empty space was egalitarian, while still others held that, “when crowding or overlapping of figures occurs, gross disregard for the limits of an entity can be inferred. This ts found in individuals who are not sensitive to others.”?4 One may infer that Rubens must have had serious issues with interpersonal sensitivity. Dorothy Washburn and Donald Crowe, in their review of anthropological approaches to visual style, discuss L’Orange’s theory and others like it, characterizing them as “simplistic and ethnocentric.”?5 Indeed, it is

easy for the contemporary reader to see in such claims an attempt to brush a sctentistic gloss overnineteenth-century national-character theories. But the fault does not lie in the assumption that pictorial design says

something about human relations. The core problem in psychologybased theortes is that the argument is based on intuitive analogy. Intuitive analogy provides no checks: one author might find symmetry egalitarian while another might find it restrictive. Often enough, symmetry in Greek architecture is seen as rational, whereas symmetry in Chinese architecture is interpreted as rigid.*° T. J. Clark, in his seminal essay “On the Social History of Art” (1973), lost no time in disclosing the ahistorical nature of such comparisons: “I do not want the social history of art to depend on intuitive analogies between form and ideological content—on saying, for example, that the lack of firm compositional focus in Courbet’s Burial at Ornans 1s an expression of the painter’s egalitarianism.’’’ It is important for all concerned with such issues to recognize that the social coding of pictorial form is largely a historical question. Artists have been representing social relations across the globe for thousands of years.

Before deciding a priort what symmetry might signify and under what conditions it does so, we are obliged to consider historical cases in well-documented civilizations. John Ontans explored the art of ancient Greece and medieval Europe in search of cognitive categories common to both mind and vision—attitudes toward matter, proportion, time, or space.*8 In his studies, logical relations informing literary tropes such as

allegory or metaphor, as well as the drawing of “boundaries,” provide common ground between art and thought. His method 1s historically

8 Introduction based and, like Clark’s sociological approach, has the advantage of providing documentary checks that discourage self-serving analogies such as those bemoaned by Washburne and Crowe. Despite these advances, intuitive analogy remains alive and well in the field of social psychology. One example is the tired contrast between “interdependent” Asians and “independent” Westerners recently criticized by Robert Solomon (see Chapter 10).2? Richard Nisbett’s book on how Asians think differently represents one of the most extreme statements in the genre. The book characterizes all Asians—scores of distinct ethno-lineuistic sroups—as lacking a strong sense of independence or even coherent thought, although generally it is China which stands in for the rest of Asia: “Except for that brief interlude [of Mohist thought], the Chinese lacked not only logic, but even a principle of contradiction.”*° In the tradition of German nationalists like Hegel, Nisbett believes that the

spirit of freedom can be geographically tracked along an East/West spectrum: Someone has said “The idea moves west,” meaning that the values of individuality, freedom, rationality, and universalism became progressively mote dominant and articulated as civilization moved westward from its origins in the Fertile Crescent. ... These values were all intensified in the Calvinist subcultures of Britain, including the Puritans and Presbyterians, whose egalitarian ideology laid the groundwork for the government of the United States.*!

One can see the connection to psychology: lines like that might help someone with low self-esteem feel good about being “Western,” but the cost to historical understanding is steep. Nisbett’s study has been critiqued on scientific grounds,>2 but historical claims are just as much a part of the argument. As most historians know, the trtumphalist narrative he treats as a scientific given has come under critical scrutiny the past fifteen years or so, by mainstream histotians as well as poscolontal thinkers. In Cosmopols, Stephen Toulmin recalls that narrative as he learned it in the 1930s, hitting more precisely many of the points to which Nisbett alludes. But then he adds: ““Don’t believe a word of it! From the start, that whole story was one-sided and over-optimistic, and veered into self-congratulation.’” Indeed. Yet Nisbett quite innocently adopts a language of ethnic pride redolent of the days of Herder and Ranke. He 1s thrilled by his belief that “the Greeks, more than any other ancient peoples, and in fact more than

Introduction 9 most people on the planet today, had a remarkable sense of personal agency—the sense that they were in charge of their own lives and free to act as they chose.”34 What he doesn’t recognize is that when an aristocrat like Aristotle exercises agency, it isn’t individual agency at all but rather

an authority acquited by virtue of hereditary status. Aristocrats in all periods tend to feel free to act as they please, but this is not in opposition

to authority—they are the authorities. Other signs of history-channel history are ptetty easy to find. He speaks of Locke’s “liberty” as if the term had the same meaning then as it has now, and he gushes over Martin Luther’s challenge to the Catholic Church, as if this marked a rare

moment in human history. Possibly it was a rare moment in Western history, but it appears less impressive beside the scores of Chinese authors who earned the status of heroes for questioning authority in the secular realm, that 1s, without the authorization of religious zeal.

None of this is to deny that Nisbett has much of interest to say regarding cognitive patterns informed by contextualized and decontextualized geometries.*> He runs into problems when he tries to map these modes of reasoning onto “geographic” (that is, ethnic) regions, and so fails to recognize that, while early modern Europeans were able to decontextualize some things—say, mass or velocity—they were unable to decontextualize others, like a man’s lineage and social worth.*° If we take

away the generous handicap Nisbett has given to the “West” in his comparisons, the charmingly simple binarisms of social psychology dissolve, forcing us to consider more complicated approaches to the problem. Sociologists have been among those calling for more complex models.

Harrison White’s study of identity and control explicitly seeks to deconstruct: “Two myths [which], I have argued, characterize the rhetoric of social organization. One is the myth of the person as free-standing

entity. The other is the myth of society as an embracing whole. Both myths permeate our culture, and to this day they still permeate our soctal science.’’3”’ The myth White criticizes takes the default condition of or-

dinary vision—figure on a ground—as model for person. We cannot understand the rhetoric of such an argument without subjecting its sraphic paradigm to analysis. Once the geometry of the myth is exposed, it emerges as another intuitive analogy argument: the “Western” tndividual corresponds to a free-standing figure against a blank ground even though, paradoxically, that free-standing figure sits within a larger whole

IO Introduction shaped by a higher-level boundary. But recognizing this fact impels us to inquire why accounts of self in society should map onto graphic diagrams at all.

Visual Perception and Soctal Order

John Onians once observed that “there is a general parallel between our internal intellectual activity and our external human interventions in

nature. The process of organizing our basic mental relation to any phenomenon through a series of concepts is similar to that involved in the marking of the earth with frontiers and boundartes. A direct par-

allel between the naming of a concept and the making of a physical mark on the ground is that name and mark both permit the concept to be shared.’38 The bond may run deep. Some research tn cognitive psychology suggests that simple graphic configurations such as inclusion may lie at the very root of basic semantic relationships such as _ possession.*?

Mote broadly, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson have argued that spatial metaphors are all but universal in the articulation of values. One type of cognitive stratagem they analyze they call “orientational metaphotrs.” These are spatial frameworks that organize “a whole system of concepts with respect to one another.” Such metaphors operate over a broad range of expression because they impose systematic consistencies. If up suggests “better,” then down suggests “worse”’;"° if “in” 1s private, then “out” is less so. In each case a range of values is defined by spatial

consistencies inherent in the paradigm furnished by the orientational metaphor. Could it be that the bond between person and vision runs deeper than the link between “my love” and “a rose”? Is figure/ground only one of many possible metaphors for self, or is the protagonist/ environment dialectic as inescapable in society as the figure/ground dialectic in visionr Thirty years ago Rudolf Arnheim showed that “direct observation, far from being a mere ragpicker, is an exploration by the form-seeking mind,

which needs to understand but cannot unless it casts what it sees into manageable models. The earliest models are those suggested by appearance itself.”4!1 Arnheim was speaking not only of vision, but of epistemology. It is not just “seeing” but also “knowing” that requires models: “Unless an image is organized in forms so simple and so clearly

Introduction Il related to each other that the mind can grasp them, it remains an 1ncomprehensible, particular case.”4* Arnhetm supported his case by demonstrating the visual basis for scientific accounts of the world: “When Galileo visualized the planets as rotating not under their own power, but rather as being driven by an initial impulse, perpetuated through inertia, his perceptual image was no longer that of Aristotle. And it was this tmage of causal event that he described in his theory of

inertia.’ Arnheim extended his observations to the theories of giants such as Kepler, but Kepler’s cosmic geometry could easily be translated into a social paradiom. Kepler saw in the heliocentric cosmos a revelation of the divine trinity, with God personified in the Sun and Christ in the shell of fixed stars—the Holy Ghost dwelled 1n the spaces filled with heavenly air.44 Stephen Toulmin has traced the history of the heliocentric model

and shows how theories of social order could be mapped.onto this structure in early modern Europe: “Tt is fitting that a Modern Nation should model its State organization on the structures God displays in the world of astronomy: the Rot Soleil, or Solar King, wields authority over successive citcles of subjects, all of whom know their places, and keep

their proper orbits.’

Tzvetan Todorov observed that Jean de La Brueyeére, writing tn the late seventeenth century, understood “soctal groups as concentric circles,

each of which reflects or tempers the preceding one, contributing nothing radically new: the people imitate the city, which imitates the court, which imitates the prince; there 1s certainly no escape from centralization here.” The prince, as the source of moral and social stan- | dards, contained agency in himself. The rest of the people obtained more ot less of this depending upon their distance from him. Radial hierarchy theories are common enough in other cultures as well. In medieval Japan, the world of gods and men could be modeled as a mandala of discrete facets, each compartment representing a different

power (Fig. 1). The mandala’s radial symmetry effectively mapped a pattern of hierarchical agency radiating from a single center, increasingly

differentiated the further one got from the primary axis. And just as Walbirt graphs could mediate between different media and domains, so could this system of order be transferred to a system of privileges embodied in the hierarchy of temples arranged in four directions around the royal Todaij1 temple at that time.

[2 [ntroduction

lig. 1. Ryokar Mandala I. Hletan period (794-1185). Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.: Purchase, /1966.4

All such theortes might be understood as generated by a common perceptual model. Hierarchy ts a requirement of viston. Objects of greatest interest OCCUP\ the center of the visual field, with objects on the edges being, quite literally, peripheral. his simple tact might turnish a perceptual prerequisite for identity, for in vision identifying an

object ts an act of judgment requiring that it be somehow marked within the visual field. If there is any merit to this suggestion, then graphic paradigms of personhood should fit somewhere on a perceptual

Introduction 13 field ranging from highly legible to visually ambiguous, since these two possibilities mark both the logical and perceptual limits of normal vision.

Whether or not one accepts this view it is hard to deny that the simplicity of graphic paradigms makes them easy to understand. Being easy to understand, they can be persuasive, and, as such, they can exert a subtle yet compelling power over human consciousness. It is one task of this study to make the silent workings of such paradigms visible so as to subject their influences to critical review. To understand such a complex phenomenon it makes sense to focus on an early moment in the evolution of ceremonial ornament. In this case the locus of interest will be

| Classical China (specifically the fifth through second centuries B.c.), where we can examine in some detail the shift from a social order tesembling feudalism to one of bureaucratic organization. By framing the study in this manner, I hope to throw early Chinese ofnament into a different and more theoretical light.4” The core question will be whether, or how, claims about personal identity and prerogative could be negotiated in visual terms in early society. Because the real concern of the book 1s the nature of graphic paradigms, and because that topic is transhistorical, 1t will be necessary to refer periodically to times and places other than ancient China, including the present-day world. It is my hope that maintaining an awareness of the present may prevent the book’s narrative from falling into a false sense of objectivity and will setve to remind the reader that she and I both speak from particular perspectives at a particular moment in history. For the moment it may be best to start with the working hypothesis that, in most societies, individuals must be construed either as more particulate or more integrated, as relatively dependent or autonomous, as agents or objects. Testing this approach in Classical China requires that we first examine what a person was in that part of the world round about the fifth century B.c. Status

In ancient societies, it is often difficult to find words for defining “personality” or “identity.” One does find words for marking status. “Status,” as tt happens, is a useful category with a broad range of applications. In addition to occupying the attentions of traditional writers—

14 Introduction from Plato and Confucius on through their later followers—it occupies pride of place in much modern theory as well. In his analysis of identity and control Harrison White observed: Since at least Sir Henry Matne’s Ancient Law (1861), a major theme common across the social sciences has been modernization. This is yust Maine’s postulated untversal evolution away from status, which is concetved as nexus of reciprocal obligations enmeshing all persons and actions in traditional bonds ul-

timately derived from kinship, toward contract, which is conceived as free-standing adults running around a cosmic beach playing some generalized tag in which coup is counted.*®

We are fortunate that a detailed analysis of the evolution of status in ancient China was undertaken some thirty years ago by Choyun Hsu. The trend Hsu found will not surprise students of European history. Overall he discerns a pattern of gradual change from highly restrictive forms of social order to structures allowing greater diversification and mobility. In fact, from Hsu’s analysis one can see that the Spring and Autumn period (770—476) resembled itn some respects European feudalism with its relance upon ceremony, personalistic relationships, and the hereditary principle of social ranking: The society of the Spring and Autumn period [was] characterized by a structure of “familial relationships,” 1e., a structure based on families rather than 1nd1-

viduals. In such a society, the individual 1s fixed within a ramified kinship structure that provides a conventionalized pattern for all social relations... . Kinship ties maintained social stratification in terms of heredity; hence, social mobility was restricted.”

The basic model for Spring and Autumn period social order was the family structure: “Zhou kings identified political leaders with family heads.’’>° In such a system, the concept of “politics,” as an object of systematic speculation, did not yet exist. In the writings associated with Confucius, for example, issues of authority, prerogative, and resource control are discussed in terms of ceremony and decorum, or 4. Military

operations observed the rules of aristocratic honor; military orders were issued in the ancestral temple. Occupations generally were heredttary, and the concept of “ownership” was poorly developed.*! Individual identity was conceived primarily as a function of position within a feudal type of structure, with persons of rank being endowed with an intrinsic

Introduction 15 worth beyond the reach of infertors: “The nobles seem to have believed that they possessed an inborn endowment which ordinary people did

not have.’ The link between living elites and supernatural authority was conceived in terms of lineage. What we would call political authority was transmitted principally through lineage, a lineage that ran directly back to ancestors who, in their spiritual state, were able to influence the wind and rain. In this way the nobility of Classical China, like most ancient arts-

tocracies, claimed authority from something we would call a religious power. Such a view ts well-represented in a passage from China’s earliest collection of poetry, the Book of Songs: Why does Heaven punish you? Why do the gods not bless your It is because you protect your true enemies, yet neglect only my criticism. You show no compassion for your people when Heaven sends disasters upon them. This is not the deportment proper for a ruler. Now all the capable men are fleeing the state. Soon your state will collapse.°°

RATA? PRE? SAK, BEES. BRE, UAT AZ

Be, FRI FH.

In this example Heaven is construed as threatening to revoke the ruler’s authority. Heaven could do this only because Heaven had orig1-

nally ratified that authority. This ts why government, in the early period, revolved around the performance of ceremonies addressed to Heaven and other spirits. Ceremonial schemas are well-suited to early societies because they can map out, in clear visual terms, abstract relations such as social hierarchy. At the same time, ceremonial systems of representation are not well-suited to making many kinds of distinctions that were fundamental for later political theory, such as the difference between “public” and “private” (gongs7 2 FL): “In this feudal society there was no clear

distinction between the public affairs of a state and the private business of a lord; a subject might be called upon to work for both.”*+

This relatively simple social order forms the low end for an analytical scale that runs roughly from ascribed status to achieved status. It is important not to misread this developmental process as a peculiarity of Chinese culture. The truly important developments in history rarely are unique. In this instance, a similar scale of development can be discerned in Stephen Collins’s study of Tudor culture in England. At the low end of Collins’s scale we find a society divided hierarchically and

16 Introduction stabilized through the use of ceremony and decorum. Social role was largely determined by heredity, and so the notion of degree was fundamental to the Tudor concept of social order: In general, the Tudor idea of order described a divine cosmos very similar to the one fashioned by the traditional “Great Chain of Being.” All creation was by degree situated in a divinely ordained chain of existence. ... So the hierarchical

structute of the cosmos, permeating the individual levels of the chain, too, meant that some men, princes for example, were higher than others—and all was but a matter of degree.

“Degtee” corresponds roughly to our “soctal station” with the understanding that degree was, for the most part, inherited and fixed at birth: “Order was assured by each person following proportion and fulfilling the duty inherent in his degree. Or as Aylmer put it in 1559, “Where

good concorde, and brotherlye unitie, where loyaltie and obedience 1s; there must needs bee a sure state.’’’>° Collins contends that this system oradually loosened up to permit a wider range of personal options and cites the writings of men such as Thomas Hobbes as evidence. Likewise

Hsu’s study traces the breakdown of a rigid social order during the Warring States period.*’

The purpose of such comparisons is to lift the phenomenon of interest outside the confines of nationalist rhetoric; it does not follow that Warring States China “achieved” Tudor England’s “stage” of development in the fourth century B.c. (unless, in the interests of national pride,

one prefers to assign different ethnic groups to different “stages” of development). Many historical phenomena recur in unique ways again and again in history. “War,” “art collecting,’”* and “aristocracy”? treappear at multiple moments in the historical record, each time with a different complexion and with different consequences. While it is 1mportant to respect these differences, proper attention to structural sim1larities has served many historians as a useful guide to analysis. In the case of societies moving from a ceremonial to a more administrative mode of control, certain challenges are likely to recur irrespective of time and place. One of these will be the increasingly contested nature of ceremonial norms. In Warring States China, stinging critiques of decorum and hierarchy begin to appear in the literary record. During the same period land ownership, metal currency, independent occupational groups, and speculation on legal topics all emerged. Warring States

Introduction 17 strategists began to consider the “people/ mzn’—rather than decorum—as a major element in political theory. Perhaps most important, the hereditary social order had been undermined by a bureaucratic system that claimed to reward ability over heredity.© It was during this period that the ornamental patterns of Chinese bronze vessels changed radically. Considering the fact that such vessels were the chief means of identifying social role under the old order, is it concetvable that the two transformations occurred independently of one another? Ornament and Order

The foundations for the evolution of graphic ornament tn China had already been laid by the beginning of the Bronze Age. Sarah Allen, Elizabeth Childs-Johnson, Hayashi Minao, and Teng Shu-p’ing have all

linked early ceremonial designs with cosmic or spiritual processes.°! Considering that the forces represented were invisible, it 1s difficult to explain such designs as simple instances of representation. What would have setved as the artist’s model? Could it be that, in such cases, it was the sign that shaped the signified? Perhaps a bronze pot may have shaped eatly modes of thought as much as the other way around?

Let’s look at two artifacts from China’s early history: a ceremonial wine vessel (Figs. 2, 3) and a detail of a lacquer shield (Figs. 4, 5). Figure 2 is a vessel made during the fifth century B.c. It 1s divided into five registers plus the foot. Each register displays a complex textured design. Each

design is made up of discrete modular components and these, in turn, ate subdivided into still smaller units (Fig. 3). At the time this vessel was made, Chinese craftsmen had been subdividing vessel decor 1n this man-

ner for over half a millennium, yet within a century all these compartments would dissolve into a web of interconnected, ambiguous shapes (Figs. 4, 5). Clearly Chinese craftsmen were capable of creating noncompartmental designs, so why did a modular model persist for so long?

No doubt, many conditions contributed to the persistence of a modular style, but the ceremonial function of such vessels is unlikely to have been a trivial factor: “The ritual vessels of the Shang thus present not so much a picture of a spirit realm as a model of society, structured by rites in the form of ceremonial banquets.’ Just as the Catholic cal-

endar employs different vestments for different times of the year, so |

18 Introduction

yas et alata

lig. 2. Bronze da vessel. Late Spring and Autumn—carly Warring States period, sth cen tury B.C. reer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.: Purchase, 1957.22.

did the ceremonies of ancient China distinguish clearly between one deity and another, one season and another, one lineage and another, or ditterent personages within a lineage. Just as in medieval Europe an individual might think of himself as Lord So-and-So’s vassal, so in early Classical China a man’s identity could be specified in terms of nested grades and degrees. And just as a European nobleman would have worn a particular coat of arms, so did the clothing and vessels made during

this period specify certain degrees of charisma, visually inscribed as dragons or other insignia on weapons, clothing, and vessels (Fig. 3). This

is why it was necessary to cover ceremonial objects with patterns and insignia of different grades, where levels of honor could be specified by the number and quality of compartments displayed (see Chapter 3).

Introduction 19 Be : =" ——— of tC er_—_> ——__ oe —_ ~~

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Features of style such as these could serve as templates for concepts of inherited rank at a tme when political theory, in its later sense, did not vel exist. [ft the vessel in Figure 2 could specify a certain grade of honor within a

compartmentalized ceremonial system, then what kind of social relations could be modeled on a shield pattern such as seen in Figure 4? This design seems to lack anything remotely resembling a compartment. Not only have the compartments of earlier decor disappeared, but both style

and imagery seem to suggest motion and change rather than fixed boundaries. The most common imagery in such designs consists of birds

and dragons, but birds are hardly known for sitting still, and the chief characteristic of dragons in early China was their ability to transform trom animal to cloud and back again. Designs such as this sit at the beginning of a long trend, which extended into the second and first centuries B.C. By that time immortal spirits and a variety of running, jumping,

or flying animals enriched the pantheon, while the arabesques of earlier times had turned into swirling cloud designs (Fig. 6). The one common

element in the complex imagery of these works is motion of every conceivable sort. How could emblems of motion serve as signifiers of tixed, inherited rank?

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B.c. Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.: Gift of Charles Lang Ireer, F'1915.103.

a closer look. First, for Bachhofer (and other mid-century scholars such as Max Loehr), the aim of stylistic description was not to classify different motifs but to discover underlying principles of organization. This

is evident where Bachhofer contrasted a preference for asymmetry, fluency, and curves with a penchant for symmetry, rigidity, and straight lines. For him, these contrasts hinted at some underlying, consistent set of visual preferences that might, in theory, be reduced to a still simpler set of aesthetic principles.

40 Style

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a. .Leet ™~ .~ =Ne A,, fSai i “(Oe ge‘’ =i -et *4ig i“ ~“A. But this understanding has been disputed. Pauline Yu has noted that “image” implies “representation” but maintains that xzang does not correspond to “representation” in the European

76 Abstraction sense. Yu maintains that the concept of mimesis 1s lacking, for xzang 1s much more integrally related to its object than “representation” implies

in English. I believe that Professor Yu 1s correct to caution against assuming that xzang is simply the Chinese term for a post-Renaissance notion of representation. But of course this does not mean it doesn’t imply representation at all. The history of European art offers examples

of many different strategies of representation, as does the history of Chinese art. Because a figure always refers to some object, xzang necessarily presupposes some underlying concept of representation, even if, as Yu suggests, this concept may not be intuitive to some today. A close

examination of texts and the kind of art they describe may help us to reconstruct such apparently nonintuittve concepts of representation. The Gwoyu text literally says that patterns/wen and insignia/ zhang “compare to/br’ fioures/xzang. The verb i means to “compare” in the sense that one thing is set against another, eliciting a comparison. If a pattern or design causes one to compare it to a recognizable figure, one would assume that the pattern is such as to call to mind, or resemble, an object. The Yanzz chunqiu, a Warring States text, uses 47 in just this sense. In one passage Yanzi tries to dissuade a duke from decorating his palace with sculptures of dragons, snakes, birds, and other animals. Hoping to denigrate the practice as culturally backward, Yanzi points out that “only the [primitive] Di people compare//z themselves to dragons and snakes at fe A SA e ee rb.” Sun Xineyan cites the Han writer Ying Shao (d. a.D. 195) to show that Yanzt 1s referring here to the use of tattoos by the D1 people. Supposedly they covered their bodies with designs /wen “in order

to make themselves resemble/xzang dragons, in hopes of avoiding harm.’’2’ Notice that Ying Shao uses »xzangas a gloss on J. Both can mean to “resemble.” This is what Wet Zhao supposes in his note on the Guoyu

passage just cited. He explains bixzang as meaning “to compare/bi a pattern wen to the figure/xzang of something like a mountain, dragon, flowers, insects and so on” FLR, LEK UK ch, Fe, Fe, Hz Br. This can only mean that a conventional design was articulated in such

a manner as to call to mind an object without actually attempting to represent it convincingly. Bavang therefore suggests an image that calls to mind an object yet retains its identity as a conventional design, presumably by

means of periodic, stylized forms. Let us call this kind of tmage “allustve design.”

Abstraction 77 From the perspective of the history of art, the concept of allusive desien 1s far from trivial. It means that, in Warring States times or earlier,

a distinction was made between normal representation and stylized patterns articulated so as to call to mind dragons, birds, and so on. This matches the art historical record and suggests, not unreasonably, that the

| distinctions we find in modes of representation bore some significance for viewers of that time. The bronze designers went to considerable trouble to distinguish between different types of image; the laconic Guoyu identifies, not “figures” but “designs comparable to figures.” There must have been a reason. Further hints can be found in the Zuo xhuan tn a passage partially cited earlier. Here the court officer Zang-sun remonstrates with his Duke and in doing so finds it necessary to elucidate the true nature of ornament in eovernment: (The ruler’s) robe, crown, knee pads, and jade scepter, his waistband, lower tobe, shin covers and shoes, as well as the four parts of his crown, all manifest his ob-

servance of degree/du. His sash, sash pendants, banners, and equestrian ornaments all show his observance of the number/shw. The fire, dragon, and noble designs (fujz) displayed upon his attire all manifest his refinement (wen). The five colored designs, calling to mind figures/dixiang, manifest his appropriate [symbolic] objects (ww)... . I£in this way a lord’s virtue/de is frugal, if he is observant of the ceremonial degrees and measutes, if he records his refinement with ornaments and symbols, if he expresses his virtue with musical tones and brilliant desions, then when he appears before his officials, they cannot but be overawed and will not dare to transegress the statutes and ordinances.*®

KRUSE, TRS, HE, RA Bi. RIS SE eee, Be Hk.

K, He, WARK, BB. AER, BH w.... Kee A, BMA,

RWVARZ, FAREZ ABRAE, AERATED TRY SE.

This passage identifies several different species of ceremonial ornament. We learn at the outset that the term wen can refer either to pictures of things, such as fire or dragons, or to abstract patterns such as the fufu desion. Fufu is mentioned frequently in the classics whenever the author wishes to stress the rank or magnificence of an object’s ornamentation, hence my translation. Hayashi Minao has conducted research on this and the other designs applied to the royal robe in Zhou times, attempting to associate each with specific designs discernible in extant artifacts. Fufu he identifies with a kind of diaper pattern found on some ceremonial vessels

78 Abstraction from Shang through Warring States times.?? It would appear, however, that by mid-Warring States times, the term often served simply as metonymy for any sumptuous pattern in which figure and ground are reversible. For the moment both Sato’s study and Hayasht’s reveal that the Juju design was surely a counterchange pattern of some sort, that it was a mark of distinction, and that it was not figurative. Pattern/wen is broad enough to include representational images of “objects” like dragons as well as abstract designs. In the next line we find Jaxzang used in the same manner as in the Guoyu passage above. Colored patterns assume shapes comparable to figures, but this time we are told explicitly that these figures/x7zang resemble objects/wu. We may infer that the designs in question were not ordinary

representations of objects like dragons. In both this passage and in the Guoyu, the character iz reveals a consciousness of the barrier between the

representation and the represented. Takezoe’s commentary bears witness to this dichotomy: “They did not merely paint and embroider desions for the sake of beautifying the object. It was necessary for the desion to be comparable to (dz) some (recognizable) figure/xzang. In this way the design would necessarily obtain significance from some real object.’ Takezoe does not ask why it was important to present an image while still reminding the viewer of the tmage’s periodic, ornamental character. If the Spring and Autumn period bronze casters could make some images as convincing as the feline figures on the vin Figure 9, why not make them all that way? Unfortunately, we do not have a Spring and Autumn period craft officer on hand to interrogate. Assuming that the stylized figures in the ornament of that period do not have a narrative function, perhaps it was not the history of the object (sun, moon, dragon, phoentx) that was of interest. Perhaps something else was being stressed. Here one of Takezoe’s suggestions seems pregnant with possibilities. He refers to a pertinent bit of Han dynasty commentary on the Book of Rates which allows

us to infer that the significant element in the design was not the image itself, but rather meaningful guaktes possessed by the image’s referent: “The significance of tmages of] the sun and moon derives from their brilliance; that of the mountain derives from its stability; that of the dragon dertves from its mutability.”5! In each example it 1s a quality that is being recorded in ornament, not a narrative about a thing. In literary

Abstraction 79 terms we would say that each image functions as synecdoche for the quality it typifies. Mountains are stable; dragons are forever changing. Likewise the ruler is both dependable and adaptable. What the ornament displays is not “mountain” so much as the abstracted quality “stability.” The reason an ornamental figure can accomplish this transfer of qualities better than a pictorial figure is the fact that pictorial art and ornament differ most radically in the nature of their referent.

THE REFERENT OF ORNAMENT Rhetorically speaking, the referent and standard for an ordinary picture 1s

the thing depicted. Pictures make claims about objects putatively “out there.” ‘This 1s the source of their authority. A picture of an eagle in flight makes the claim that eagles fly. It does not claim that the picture’s owner can fly. Claims about a picture’s owner, such as her knowledge or taste, can be derived only secondarily. Ornament, on the other hand, by virtue

of its mode of manufacture, does not refer primarily to things— eagles, dragons, or mountains—but first and foremost to human qualities encoded in artificial textures—trepetitive, learned behaviors practiced by custom within a particular community. Its authority derives from its abil-

ity to demonstrate the performance of certain kinds of character (patience, skill, labor) by using matertal scales as signs. This is why the pertodic character of ornamental design is so meaningful. Periodicity signals the abstraction of human qualities to a plane of general significance. One could say that the content of ornament is culture, if by that we mean a set of social values a particular group projects about itself. For this reason, its primary referent is the constructed identity of the community, group, or individual that owns it, not an object supposedly “out there.” Of course, figures lacking periodic design could also function as ornament, but would not as easily make use of scales based upon material deerees such as density or complexity. Zang-sun’s discussion appears to

refer to such images. There is no reason to suppose that these would function very much differently from actual objects serving as emblems, such as a jujube. A figure on a ground, in other words, could function simply as a zhang indicating by metonymy something of the station and character of an individual. An allustve design, on the other hand, appears to function by synecdoche. From Zang-sun’s perspective, the periodic

80 Abstraction character of allustve design would enable it to encode the degree of a man’s virtue as dv and at the same time attribute to him qualities such as “brilliance.” From our perspective, the abstracting power of style enabled the design to appropriate the qualities of an object and transfer them to the wearer. Allusive design shares with abstract ornament the ability to transfer character from an object to an owner. In the latter case, the qualities transferred are those of the material object at hand. In the former case, the qualities are those of a class of objects referred to in ornament. Summary: Style and Status

Imagine a society with a pecking order but without written records. If A produces and B takes the product by force, there is no need for further discussion, but such a society is likely to be unstable. If B wants A to

understand that A will always give some portion to B as part of the natural order of things, one “thine” must be transferred in such a way that it can stand for all other situations of the same sort. It must be abstracted. Now this society needs a symbolic system to serve as a site for naturalizine and negotiating social hierarchy. In the absence of writing,

| the scales inherent in different qualities of material offer a handy template for establishing such an order.

The act of demonstration lies at the base of this symbolic system. Demonstration 1s a symbolic system that we inherit by virtue of having bodies. Without the ability to interpret demonstrated signs, we would not sutvive for long; even insects possess it. A 1s taller, B is stronger, C 1s more sexually attracttve, D wears the skins of three bears he has killed.

This demonstration confers authority. You will think twice before bumping into D. Fortunately for the history of ornament, demonstrated qualities need not be quite so immediate as bearskin. The marks left upon a decorated object, like a dead bear’s skin, record a set of actions signifying qualities required for the design’s execution. But demonstrated qualities are by nature specific. D carries on his belt the paws of three bears that he personally killed. This kind of symbolism 1s

impressive, and may be sufficient for a small community, but will not work well for a more complex society. The latter needs a shared symbolic

system, and this requires abstraction. Specific, demonstrated qualities become subject to abstraction as soon as they acquire a recognizable

Abstraction SI style which sets them apart from the textures of the natural world. Stylization confers general status on a specific object, making possible such things as tribute, exchange, or taxes. Style may be acquired through ceremony, ornament, or both. It is the nature/society dialectic inherent in the act of production that makes style possible. Random textures are easy for nature to create, but difficult for humans. Our bodies encourage periodicity of motion, and so it is periodicity that sets a stylized article apart from a “natural,” “wild,” or “untamed” one, however it might be construed.” Stylization permits the transfer of demonstrated authority to persons other than the original actors. Production gives rise to stylization; stylization makes possible abstraction, and abstraction makes it possible for producers to trans-

fer possession of products and abstracted authority to others. The transfer of grain from me to you becomes an act of culture rather than an act of force. Once a soctety learns the symbolic use of material scales

in ofnament and ceremony, almost any nuance of social order can be situated and negotiated by reference to material scales instantiated in artifacts. Suppose a society has a written literature, yet still lacks political theory.

Ceremony and ornament can function in place of political theory, for these provide the only site for negotiating prerogative. Concepts of social

prerogative can be understood as degrees. Unlike “number,” which ts specific, “degree” is proportionate and so permits abstraction. This means that the abstract idea of social degree can be understood and discussed largely in terms of material scales. In China, such concepts appear in ceremontal/craft terms like du, shi, jie, ot fa. All assignments of degree, all transfers of quality, are claims for hu-

man worth. On one end, a claim requires a source of authority; on the other end, it requires a referent. Pictures and periodic ornament differ radically in both respects. Pictures represent claims about a world supposedly independent of the picture’s maker or owner. This claim to objectivity is their source of authority. Ornament records a demonsttration of human quality (skill, labor, and so on); that demonstration 1s its source of authority. In a sense, both are equally “concrete.” Representation refers to a concrete thing; ornament provides a concrete record of demonstrated action. Figurative ornament, as a claim, might seem to fall between the two extremes, but in fact it tends to retain the rhetorical sionature of periodic design in that its referent is its owner rather than the

82 Abstraction world “out there.” It utilizes the abstracting power of stylization to 1solate some quality of the object and transfer it to its possessor. This is a somewhat simplified outline of the condition of material symbolism as I understand it for Spring and Autumn times. In reality, pictures and ornament represent two extremes of a single scale generated by the randomness /periodicity dialectic. As ornament becomes more pictorial, the nature of its rhetorical claims can become quite complex, as in late Warring States and Han times. Still, theories, like designs, are necessarily general in nature. Herein lies their utility. Some of the abstractions discussed in the preceding chapters will be useful for understanding major changes in system style during the Warring States period. The basic elements of the dynamic will remain much the same: production, possession, abstraction, and style.

FOUR | Craft

Power in all societies is negotiable, sometimes in tiny increments, sometimes in substantial chunks. If the nobility relied upon ceremony to ratify their power, and ceremony was defined through artifacts, to what extent could craftsmanship become a medium of negotiation? The thought that

| craftsmen could do anything other than follow orders may come as a surprise to the modern mind, accustomed to thinking of craft workers as occupying the lower rungs of society. The privileging of intellectual skills over manual skills 1s, indeed, a common device in the contentious repertoires of many advanced socteties, including early modern Europe.! Nonetheless, tn any society ordered by ceremony, craft workers must serve the ruling aristocracy.* If power, as Ross Chambers notes, “produces in the means of its legitimization the very instruments that can be used against it oppositionally,” then it should not be so easy to separate surgically the practices of craftsmen from those of the ruling elite. Despite rhetorical claims for the inferiority of manual labor (a necessary component of aristocratic society), one would expect some messiness in the boundary between nobility and those who provided their material

authorization. |

In China the complex unit processes utilized in manufacturing bronze vessels, jades, and clothing presumably required some combination of administrative and technical skills at the interface between ruling elite and shop worker. We understand now that changes in thickness, size, type, or density of decor were equivalent to claims for resource allocation. This meant that decisions about material scales of value were in reality sociopolitical decisions. Certainly by early Warring States times, the chief craftsman in charge of an operation—usually called the gongshz _&#, or “Master Craftsman”—was treated on a par with other officers.

84 Craft Li Xueqin shows that they were listed together with officers of rank, and when they made mistakes, they were fined in the same way as other of-

ficers. What made their status somewhat ambiguous ts the fact that, unlike other officers, some appear to have had some knowledge of craft procedures, whether or not they were craftsmen themselves. They were responsible for training raw recruits as well as for assigning duties and managing resources. This could not be accomplished unless they understood something about the work. Li surmises that they most likely

were promoted from among the ranks of regular craftsmen, all the rhetoric about gentlemen and laborers notwithstanding. Crafting Order

Hints of structural tensions in the ancient collaboration between craft worker and nobility survive in a late Warring States or Han text. In a chapter A. C. Graham dates to the period between the Qin and Han dynasties (209-202 B.C.),* the Zuangzz questions the traditional order of human worth by arguing that knowledge of ceremony and technical skill bring nothing but suffering to the people. The passage problematizes the aristocratic monopoly of knowledge and skill, maintaining that, if experts were not allowed to ply their trade, their skills would return to the people. The passage ends by indicting political thinkers and craftsmen in a single breath: [Famous thinkers like] Zengzi, Shi Qiu, Yang Zhu, and Mozi, and [famous] artisans like Master Kuang, master craftsman Chui and Li Zhu, all displayed their achievements and confounded the world [with their abilities]. This 1s the uselessness of craft//a.°

HG, 2, , B, PPUR, Dh, AER, Ob DH Ia Mt AABALA FP a, AZ & FR at.

The first four men listed were all famous thinkers of the Warring States period. The last three were famous craftsmen. From the perspective of a late Warring States writer, what could craftsmen and thinkers possibly have in common? The author provides a clue by accusing both professional groups of confounding the world with their ja. In ceremonial texts, fa can refer to manufacturing procedures that encode social eradings. In texts on bureaucratic theory fa may be translated as “standard.” In some contexts its meaning 1s close to “law.” In each case ja

Craft 85 refers to specialist procedures for measuring and controlling. In this passage, fa is best translated as “craft,” as in “statecraft” and “handicraft.” In both cases spectalist techniques and measurements were ap-

plied for the purpose of shaping and control. The author credits both famous thinkers and craftsmen with creating a civilization based upon elite, specialist techniques for controlling human and material resources.

If court philosophers and lowly craftsmen were as distinct in their functions as modern sensibilities would suppose, why did the author lay his grievances at the feet of both? Did he know something we do not? Another passage from Z/uangzi reveals more. It begins with an attack on experts—horse trainers and craftsmen. Such men shape their products

only by visiting violence upon them. This state of affairs contrasts sharply with the utopian society the author imagines for the remote past: According to my idea, those who knew well how to govern mankind would not behave this way. The people had their regular and constant nature. They wove and made themselves clothes. They tilled the ground and got food. This was their common ability and virtue/de. They were all one in this [ability] and did not form themselves into groups. This 1s called their natural freedom /s#anfang. ... In the age of perfect virtue, men lived tn common with birds and beasts, and were on terms of equality with all creatures, as forming one family. How could they know among themselves the distinctions between gentlemen and commoners?®

BREGRTARR. RA PIE, AOR, HMB, eA; —MAS,

PARR ALBA, ABRSRE, ABBE, BPE )AR

From the reference to “gentlemen and commoners” it is obvious that “sroups” refers to hierarchical social divisions, in this case, hereditary divisions. The basis of the author’s critique of social hierarchy is the fact that all people are equal in their ability to provide for thetr own material needs. Guo Xiane’s third-century commentary explains that all people universally, or “naturally,” have the capacity to farm and weave. This then forms the basis for “releasing/fang’ them to look after themselves without government interference. Thus “they were released and naturally

were one/equal and so did not form groups. This is called ‘natural

, freedom’” AZM A —H, FEAL, HAZ AA,’ It need hardly be said that “freedom” here is not to be construed as constitutionally protected freedom, but it does imply that individuals are construed as their own agents in contradistinction to being under government control.

86 Crafi The view that human groups evolved over time from an unranked social structure to a ranked one ts not unique to this text. One finds it in

the book attributed to Shang Yang and in the Guanzi8 In these latter texts the primitive condition is not regarded in utopian terms but rather as a kind of “state of nature” from which ranked social institutions eventually evolved. What is unusual in the Z/hwangzi passage is the fundamental critique of status difference as an institution. Not only does the author deny a hierarchy between noble and common; he even denies any basis for assioning higher status to people vis-a-vis animals. From this perspective, while the people’s ability to provide for themselves is construed as natural, the existence of nobility 1s anything but natural. It 1s to be explained as an unfortunate consequence of the history of specialized

knowledge and technical skills. Just as trainers learned to whip horses into line, just as craftsmen learned to hack materials into shape, just so did the ruling members of society learn to control behavior through ceremony: But when the learned men appeared, strutting about in the practice of humanity/ ren, patading about in the practice of propriety/yz, then the world began to be confused. These men were wanton in their performance of music and excessive

in their performance of ceremony. It was then that the world began to be separated into classes.’

REBATES B1-, BIBRA, MR PRE, BRAM, HHA, MR FRG AL. “Struttine” and “parading” serve as synecdoche for the artifice of all ceremony, which now is the object of critical reflection. The terms ven and yt are being used in their ceremonial sense precisely so as to criticize the social order of which they are a part. At one time it was this artifice that

made possible that abstraction justifying the transfer of material from producers to ruling elites. Here, that very artifice comes under attack. The term “classes” in Legge’s translation is merely implied. Of course, the author was not speaking of “class” in a Marxian sense, but he was speaking of fixed, hierarchical, ceremonially constituted social divisions. Why does the author implicate humanity/ven and propriety/y7 in his critique of ceremony? What ts the link between artifice and moral values? The link is status differentiation. As A. C. Graham put it: The stative verb ren, as it was inherited by Confucius, covers like English “noble” the whole range of superior qualities distinctive of the man of breed-

Craft 87 ine. Granting that it is coming [in Confuctus’s time] to mean “human, humane”

rather than “noble,” it may be convenient to stay with “noble” as the ad hoc equivalent. ... being nearer to the older meaning, it suggests the sort of concept which Confucius is narrowing in the direction of benevolence.!”

By the time this ZAuangzi passage was written (possibly third century B.C.), the term ven certainly could mean “humane,” but the author’s interest in the ceremonial system suggests that he 1s calling upon its older,

more feudal sense. A comparable ambiguity surfaces in a passage in which Xunzi (third century B.c.) equates the quality of humanity/ren with the ranking function of ceremonial design: The former kings determined some to be honored [lit. beautiful] and some to be demeaned [ugly]; some to be rich and some to be poor; some to enjoy ease and others to labor. They did not do this out of a wanton fondness for beauty. They simply wished to express their humane/ven {= designs/wen X and to communicate the social ordering [required by] humanity/vez."!

tA ALD S to F RZ, BRRA, RB, RAB, RAH, Ki RAM, KOH DP FETA BERS RE, MAYER ZR, Wi 1- ZA. Ceremonial designs are ren because it 1s with such designs that one assions levels of honor. For Xunzi, “humanity’’/7en refers to that quality by which a lord graciously imposes status distinctions on his people so as to prevent those injustices generated by competition for resources.” The author of the Z/uangzi passage above understood this affiliation between ceremony, music, feudal morality (vez), and social hierarchy. This explains why the Z/vangzi was able to identify the work of craftsmen, the practice of ceremonies, feudal morality, and social inequality all as different species of artifice: Therefore, if the raw material had not been assaulted, who could have made an intricate sacrificial vessel from it? If the natural jade had not been despoiled, who could have made handles(?) for libation cups from it? If the natural course (dao) and its natural endowments (de) had not been abandoned, how should anyone have preferred humanity and justice? If human nature had not been abandoned, how would ceremonies and music have come into use? If the five colors had not been confused, how should ornamental figures have been formed?!

WIZE DR, RAE! ORAR, MAH! BET, RRA EAT aE, ALAS! hE FAL, HAR! For ceremonial officers in earlier times, designs made from the five colors were the means of establishing a nobleman’s moral au-

88 Craft thority. For this author, the feudal identification of insignia with human worth represents the lowest stage in a historical process of decline from equality to hierarchy. Because Confucian morality is identified with so-

phisticated craftwork, the author can blame courtly scholars and craftsmen equally for the rise of social hierarchy: The assault on raw materials to form ritual implements was the crime of the craftsmen. The devastation of the natural way and simple virtue in order to practice humanity and justice, this was the fault of the [Confucian] sages.!*

ARRAS, LAZU; Rix AIA, BAZ,

Such remarks make sense only if we understand the functional link between the terms “humanity” and “justice” on the one hand and ceremonial ornaments on the other. By paralleling craftsmen and sages, the author neatly establishes their functional complicity in fashioning a hierarchical social order. If in theory craft workers made the tools of social control, one would like to know more about their actual status in pre-bureaucratic society. Through a careful reading of the Book of Rites, Cho-yun Hsu has shown that women had a larger role in craft than had been formerly supposed." Similar studies of the social status of craft workers are hard to come by, but a few Chinese and Japanese scholars have attempted to establish their titles and offices, drawing upon surviving texts and archaeological matertals.16 Apart from some specialized studies in Chinese, Sato Taketosht’s lengthy investigation stands as the most useful to date.!’ Both Sato and some Chinese scholars attempt to reconstruct the names of craft offices, their functions, and their place in the official hierarchy. The difficulty with such studies is that the functions and titles of various offices may have been altered or idealized. Moreover, it seems likely that details of the official structure would have varied from state to state.

Even the dates of the contents of these books are difficult to assess. Lothar von Falkenhausen has made a study of inscriptional references to music officers and concludes that “it is almost impossible to establish the relative status of individual offices or fiefs. In particular, we cannot in most cases correlate official titles with specific sumptuary ranks.’’!8 This caution applies to other craft offices as well. There are limits to the

level of detail sources will permit. It does not follow from this that the sources are useless. Surviving texts remain an excellent source for the rhetoric of craft.

Craft 89 The Craftsman in Early Soctal Discourses

Early Chinese texts, like their European counterparts, often discuss class

relations in terms of occupational groups. Attempts to rationalize the social order will seek to naturalize differential levels of prerogative among occupations, generating what we now call ideology. What distinguishes one ideology from another is the way it negotiates degrees of

prerogative among high- and low-status groups. One of the thorniest problems for any ideology to answer is why those who produce the wealth do not, for the most part, control it. This problem shaped, to one

degree or another, various attempts to rationalize the role of craft workers in pre-bureaucratic discussions of social order. In particular we can recognize in such texts two major problems about the status of craft

workers: if it is artifacts that confer honor and ratify power in ceremony, what is the stature of those who make the artifacts? And to what extent should a craft worker contribute to ceremonial—which 1s to say, political—decisions? MAKERS OF HONOR VERSUS

POSSESSORS OF HONOR The status of the artisan is a major concern in any society where human worth is displayed in visual emblems. Speaking of the European artstocracy, Jonathan Powis notes, “Aristocracy as we now understand it implies both the existence of that [soctal] distinctiveness, and its translation into the visible trappings of distinction: from tax-exemption to the wearing of appropriate, and different, clothes.”!? But since aristocrats across Eurasia encoded degrees of honor in visible artifacts, the public expression of honor required the services of artisans. This fact created an ideological conundrum. If, as aristocrats may suppose, honor is acquired _ by birth, how could someone as lowly as an artisan—or even an artist, once the concept existed—impart honor to the objects of his making? This issue could elicit anxious hand-wringing in European painters as late as the eighteenth century! As cited by Thomas Crow, one anonymous painter lamented the fact that he and his colleagues generally suffered from “the built-in disadvantage of coming for the most part from the lower classes of society, where the lack of education and of a certain noble manner of seeing makes us judge things with a coarseness which

90 Craft the greatest effort cannot correct.”2? The idea that nobility is somehow intrinsic, a substance in the blood, is, of course, a key assumption in

societies where status is largely inherited, but it was precisely this assumption that was to become a focus of debate throughout the Warring States period. The authors of the Kao gong ji, now surviving in the Rees of Zhou, ad-

dressed the ambivalent status of craft making in their idealized social otder. Who ts it, after all, who creates the implements of soctal regulation, the nobility or the craftsman? One author’s solution to the problem was

to give credit for the invention of artifacts to the “sages” who, presumably, were of honorable birth. Their inventions, then, were faithfully preserved and handed on by the craftsmen: Those with knowledge [the sages] invented new products. Those with skill who

explained the craft and passed it on to their progeny, are called “craftsmen/ gong.” [Therefore] the products of the various craftsmen were all invented by the sages.7!

go Ht Bly, Sika, Pot, ALZL. ALAS, F BARE. We should not take for granted the fact that this author regards invention as an act worth claiming credit for. Michael Puett has shown how the very act of creation—in the sense of making something new—gave rise

to extended debate among Confucian and Mohist thinkers during the Classical period, in part because creation had been originally assoctated with the actions of Heaven. During the Warring States period, the sage was often figured as a craftsman, with the very terms for social “institu-

tion” deriving from the acts of “making.’’?? From the perspective of power and its negotiation in society, invention is necessarily provocative because it means the exercise of agency. So the issue in this passage 1s, who has agency, the craftsmen or the nobility? Our author cannot deny that it is the craftsmen who make the products, so he claims credit instead for the agency that first brought those products into being.” This attitude is fully consistent with the Wangzi Wu inscription mentioned in Chapter 3, dating to the mid-sixth century B.c.: “The king’s son Wu selected his fine metal and on his own initiattve made [these] sacrificial Ading cooking vessels(?).”24 Clearly the king’s son did not personally

make this cauldron, but agency was attributed to him rather than to the master craftsman. The claim for agency was conveyed chiefly by the character EJ, accurately translated here as “on his own initiative.” By

| Craft gI contrast, in the Z/uangz, it was famous craftsmen who got the credit for inventing the ceremonial tools for suppressing people. The distinction 1s not fortuitous. The author of the Kaogongz text could not imagine that craftsmen might create; the various authors of the Zhuangz could. CRAFT WORKERS AND SOCIAL HIERARCHY The Rives of Zhou explains the relationship of craft workers to the ruling elite in the following passage: In a state there are stx kinds of occupation; the various craftsmen make up one of these. [Among these various occupations] some [the nobility] sit and discuss policy/dao,; others [the scholars or lower nobility] tmplement 1t. Some [the ctaftsmen] carefully examine the shapes and properties of things, decorating the five kinds of materials in order to distinguish [with ornament] the articles [apptopriate to] the various [classes of] people/zn.*? Some [the merchants] provide access to rare and precious commodities and resources. Some [the farmers] use their strength to grow the products of the soil; others [women craft workers] process silk and hemp in order to make cloth.”

AA, ALBA. RK Mw, REMITLZ, KRG OGRMYA HE , VAR KRES, RIAIALZYRAUAZ, RMAAVRRWM, RIG RIYA

RZ. These opening lines do not explicitly mention the name of each social sroup; social groups are defined only by their occupational type. Even so, it takes little imagination to figure out that it is the nobility who “sit and discuss policy.” Still, lest the reader make a mistake, the text goes on to make it perfectly clear: “Those who sit and discuss policy we call kings

and dukes.” From this it would appear that the order of presentation reiterates the normative order of social ranking for this author. In this sense the list is as much a scale of occupations as of class. The lords set policy and the scholars, or lower aristocracy, carry it out in their various

administrative posts. The women and the farmers produce the wealth—erain and silk. The merchants, for their part, distribute goods and resources. We have a definite structure in which wealth 1s produced at the bottom of the social order, distributed at higher levels, and concentrated at still higher levels by those who make decisions about its use

and distribution. Such a structure is common to many premodern societies. But it will seem odd to students of China that the list provided

is not the traditional “four ranks of society/sémin”: scholars/knights,

92 Craft farmers, craftsmen, merchants. Why did this author place craftsmen above merchants and below administrators? The answer may lie in the text’s description of the craftsman’s function in society. First and foremost, the craftsman’s job is conceived as one

of ornamentation. The craftsmen “carefully examine the shapes and properties of things, decorating the five kinds of materials.” This author assumed that decoration had a crucial function in maintaining social order. Craftsmen decorate artifacts “in order to distinguish [with ornament] the articles [appropriate to] the various [classes] of people/min.” A passage in the Guoyu also tells us that craft officers “collect [information] on modifications.”2”? What is meant by “modifications”? According to the commentary, the reference is to modifications tn the “institutions” of the time, which is to say, the grading system. This, naturally, would require alterations in measurements, specifications, and degrees of material or ornament by craftsmen.”®

Sato found several examples of the term gongeheng Tak as a designation for the officer in charge of a craft specialization. This term simply means “the guy who regulates craft workers.” Cho-yun Hsu and Katheryn Linduff discuss an inscription which identifies the zai 3#, or chief steward, as being in charge of all the craft workers, so it is not clear if songxheng is a specific or a generic term.?? A passage from the Zuo xhuan specifies that the gongxheng and zai “make beneficial articles for use and

regulate measures and capacities (duiang) so as to pacify the people”

Lok, +, FIBA, LES, RAR AA. Sato cites this as evidence of the craft office’s role in governing the state.” This political function 1s intellisible only if we recognize that the decoration of artifacts was close to the business of government. This may be why the craftsman comes after the scholar in this idealized social hierarchy. His job was to design materials in such a way as to regulate the relations between the classes. ‘The author of the Zhuangz passage cited earlier had good reason to blame artisans and scholars both for class divisions. The craftsman’s raison @ etre

in pre-bureaucratic society was the maintenance of such distinctions. Clearly the artisan was neither lord nor scholar, yet he had a role to play in government. This is why it was necessary to demonstrate that he

was more than just a man who knew how to make tools. In another passage from the R¢yfes of Zhou the author establishes the distinction between someone who makes artifacts and a genuine craftsman:

Craft 93 In Yue there is no Hoe; in Yan there is no Armor. In Qin there is no Halberd; among the Hu there is no Bow or Chariot. It is not that there are no hoes in Yue. It is simply that every man in Yue knows how to make hoes [and so there 1s no craft office with the title Hoe overseeing their manufacture]. It is not that there is no armot in Yan. It is simply that every man in Yue knows how to make armor [and so there is no craft office with the title Armor(er) overseeing their manufacture] [and so on for Qin and the Hu].*!

O fost, RM, ARE? RGR. BZ, ER, AA MAR This may be one of the earliest texts in China to shed light on the issue of expertise, for that is what is at stake here. The distinction rests upon levels of organization and division of labor. In the less developed parts of

China, individual men made their own tools. In China, an office was necessary to regulate the division of labor demanded by the unit process mode of manufacture. Therefore the ability to make a hoe or a bow does not make one a craftsman. The text exploits an ambiguity inherent in the Chinese language of that period to make this point. At that time the term for the tool “hoe” was the same as that for the craft office “Hoe,” which was responsible for the manufacture of hoes. ‘The officer, furthermore, could bear the surname Hoe, as would his sons. Therefore, according to

this author, Chinese communities of the central states all had a Hoe, while the less sinicized outlying communities, had only hoes. When the Rives of Zhou claims that a genuine craftsman must hold an office, it is saying that craftsmen have expertise; but expertise, in that society, was related to the maintenance of social order. This explains why another passage in the Gwoyu says that “the common people eat by virtue of their labor [in the fields]; the craftsmen and merchants eat by virtue of their offices/guan gf .”33 The reference, again, is to men responsible for a craft office. These claims, while perhaps idealized, nonetheless reveal much about the way power relations were represented at the time the text was written. Chinese scholars have discovered at various sites pottery inscribed with the craftsman’s name/title, taking the form “Potter so-and-so,” not unlike the early English practice of calling the fellow who makes horseshoes Mr. Smith.3+ At that time citizens were organized by residential criteria

rather than kinship, with taxation, corvée labor, and military service reckoned in relation to a petson’s residential “block.” In theory only

94 Craft state-registered craftsmen who paid taxes could legally carry on business in their trade.*>

Also consistent with the Book of Rites is the discovery of the remains of

bronze and iron foundries, and craft shops for working bone, pottery, and jade, in the outer city of the ancient city of Zheng. The site has been dated to the period from the Spring and Autumn to the Warring States

period (roughly, early fifth c. B.c.). It would appear that craftsmen working at these sites were producing not just ritual implements for the

nobility, but tools for use by the larger population. According to Li Xuegin, “Clay molds found at the site indicate that this foundry was devoted mainly to manufacturing tools of production such as picks, sickles, spades, adzes, and chisels.” In the southwestern portion of the city archaeologists found remains of an iron workshop. “Most of the iron

tools that were found there were production implements.” ‘Thus, the ancient city of Zheng not only had pottery, like less stnicized communtties, but also a Potter. All the texts examined here separate craft officers from the making of policy. But because they were necessary for conferring honor, the texts

do assign them a tole in maintaining the status quo. The ambivalent status of craft workers in pre-bureaucratic ideology becomes even more apparent in discussions of their political role. Craft Officers and Government

One of the earliest texts to list the duties of craft officers 1s in a section of the Gwoyu attributed to the statesmen Guanzi (seventh c. B.c.). It may

well be that the passage has little to do with the seventh century B.c.; nonetheless, the reasoning employed ts consistent with a social order in which social station is virtually identical to occupation. This corresponds well to the familial social system described by Cho-yun Hsu: “In a feudal society in which occupations were generally inherited within families, the

knowledge needed to engage in these occupations was also inherited within families.”’>’

The author of this passage distinguishes four occupations in the following ranked order: scholars, craftsmen, merchants, and farmers.*® The order is similar to that found in the Rees of Zhou, but different from the more familiar “four ranks of society.” The latter ranking is by far better known because it became part of traditional Confucian discourse, but this

Craft 95 does not guarantee that it is the older of the two. The ranking etven in this

text is closer to the soctal realities revealed in Spring and Autumn period city remains, where the craftsmen’s quarters are located close to those of the ruling elite. In any case, the traditional “Guanz1” then goes on to explain the advantages of segregation by occupation: specialization; training both at home and on the job; a stable supply of specialists generation after generation. It is this stability that would be threatened, he feels, if people of different occupations rubbed shoulders and thus got it into their heads to try other trades. By dwelling together, he argues, craftsmen may consider carefully the needs of the different seasons. They may distinguish [degrees of| difficulty and accomplishment in their work and weigh and measure their duties and functions fairly and appropriately /7e. They discuss and compare

_(4unbi) their work and share materials... . They discuss their work with one another, display their skills to one another, and show their wares to one another so as to demonstrate their achievements.>?

& Avon, Ae, HELA, ead... . HGR B, MATA, FAR VA TH.

The author is arguing for the advantages of traditional, hereditary occupational groups living together in the same part of the city. One of the advantages of such a system 1s that young craftsmen grow up thoroughly immersed in the skills and language of the craft. This includes, according to our author, learning from one another’s products and words. To stress this he employs several terms that emphasize mutuality,

including “one another/xang’ three times as well as “discuss and | compate//unbi.” Xiang and bi require that these activities be mutual, a fact that underscores the value of men of the trade living together. It is worth noting that the author presumes that men of craft can have achievements

that command the appreciation of others. This is not to be taken for eranted in familial societies. Sato found a similar passage in the Gwanzz, with the difference that,

instead of “craft officer/ gong,’ Guanzi mentions the “Chief of Craft Workers /gongshuai FP .’’4 In both passages “Guanzi” notes the need to assion duties and functions and to organize materials according to the

different abilities. The unit processes typical of craft production in Classical China would require such organizational ability of any craft officer. Related to this is the need to assess levels of skill and achieve-

ment, as the different units would be assigned on the basis of an

96 Craft evaluation of ability. Worker A can design the pattern blocks for the mid-section frieze; worker B will confine his work to filling in stippling and stripes where needed. Such organization is clearly most effectively

carried out if craftsmen live in the same community. From the list of duties, moreover, it is evident that when “Guanzi” uses the term gong fp here he is speaking of craft officers who possess technical skills (otherwise, there would be little to discuss). Basic skills as well as new motifs or design procedures could spread rapidly from one medium to another in such an environment. It is worth noting that “Guanzi” associates this basic task of craft work with the need for craftsmen to show their work to one another, discuss its quality, and, presumably, its technique. ‘This, too, makes sense

in the context of unit process manufacture. Presumably, another important purpose of “discussion” was the determination of the proper du, shi, jie, and so on. Perhaps this is why “discussion//un @y” is taised in connection with craft workers again and again. Recall a passage from the Book of Rites cited earlier: “A scholar should trust in his virtue/honor/de and take delight in his accomplishments [in music, archery, and so on]. A craftsman should trust in his rules/procedures//a and take delight in the

discussion//un a of his work.”*! When attempting to summarize the essential role of the craft worker, Xunzi also does not fail to list vx: The official tasks of the master of craftsmen are to discuss//wv the work of the

[various craftsmen], to determine the occasion for their work, to judge the quality of their products, to encourage them to produce well-made and useful atticles, and to keep in supply all the necessary implements so that the people dare not make privately in their own homes articles that are carved ot engraved ot painted and decorated with colors and designs.”

aa OL, BASS, PHL, A, 1 th A EER KR RFK SAEAR, Lh In places the wording 1s almost identical to “Guanzi’s” in the Gwoyu.

Like Guanzi, Xunzi’s list includes: determining the range of products made according to changing seasonal needs; assigning tasks; maintaining supplies; discussing the relative quality of work among the artisans. But we need not infer that the social roles of craftsmen had not changed by the time Xunzi was writing. On the contrary, Xunzi’s anxiety about the private manufacture of luxury goods ts a clear reference to rising mobility among craftsmen, some of whom were now working independently.*

Craft 97 It is not uncommon to suppose that the officers in charge of craftsmen had little or no technical knowledge. Helms’s work on craftsmen in pre-industrial societies does not support this supposition, nor do the texts just examined. We began this chapter perusing a late Warring States

or Qin author who took the complicity of craft, ceremony, and social order for granted. It also 1s clear that craft officers had to be familiar with the social implications of different technical specifications. This was why

they had to “collect information on modifications [in the ceremonial eradine system|].’44 In most other pre-Han sources, officers with such responsibilities are referred to generically as gong I, which can mean either “craftsman” or “craft officer.” The two are not always clearly distinguished.

In the Spring and Autumn period, most officers would have been

members of the nobility. How could members of the nobility be craftsmenp Some evidence can be gleaned from inscriptions. Among the aristocrats known through inscription to have owned sets of bells, Lo-

thar von Falkenhausen mentions, among others, men with titles like “Inspector of Forests” and “Master of Viands.”4 Falkenhausen notes elsewhere that the Rates of Zhou lists musicians as “middle-level noblemen,” adding that, “while the historical accuracy of these details 1s open

to question, other sources seem to confirm that bell players were members of the administrative hierarchy.” He adduces other examples of musicians with noble rank but admits that some kinds of evidence seem to suggest “low, slave-like” status, such as the fact that some musicians

were simply given away as gifts along with the sets of bells that they played.* That men in charge of serving the king should have held some artstocratic rank should not surprise us. Even in nineteenth-century Europe, a queen’s personal attendant might be a countess. In early Zhou times officers in charge of the kitchen and the estate held hereditary offices. They would naturally enjoy frequent contact with the leaders of the noble house in ceremony. Nonetheless, officers with duties such as tending to the forests or kitchens are regarded in early sources as craft officers / gong. These craft officers, as members of the ruling elite, would naturally be

concerned with the proper maintenance of the ceremonial grading system//. Since they were situated between the working craftsmen and the court hierarchy, they were in a position to contribute to the articula-

98 Craft tion of aristocratic ideology. To do this to the satisfaction of the royal house, they would need to be sensitive to the ideological needs of the latter. This required some degree of breeding, but it also required close

knowledge of the craft. This is not to say that craft officers worked in the foundry. Remember that what was at stake here was agency. Therefore, the making of the

object was not so important as its conception. Consistent with this thought we find two pre-Han sources that explicitly state that master craftsmen attended chiefly to design. The earliest of these sources is a passage in the Moz dating, perhaps, to the middle Warring States period: “The most skillful do not need to use their blade; the greatest craftsmen rarely carve.”*’ Much the same point 1s made in the Li shi chungz, dating to

the late Warring States period: “A great craftsman/siang Ft does not carve; a great cook does not handle the pots.”48 Such statements recall Robert Bagley’s thesis that the bronze artisan was first and foremost a draftsman. The unit-process organization of ancient Chinese production encouraged a division of labor. At the top of the craft hierarchy was the craft officer who attended, principally, to matters of design and quality control. It was chiefly this man—1in consultation, no doubt, with ceremontal officers—who encoded the ideological concerns of the court elite

in visible form. The man who designed any particular object had to understand that the dimensions, materials, and ornaments he assigned to it were not merely technical specifications, but also declarations of social

prerogative and duty. When an artisan made changes in the design of an artifact, he was altering identities; he was playing with power. The Lhuangs’s charge that court officers and craft workers created the hierarchical society of Zhou China appears to have been founded on more than a little knowledge of Zhou ceremonial practice.

FIVE Government

Harrison White made the observation that “control induces efforts to verify or regulate by comparison with some standard, if only tmplicit or relative or historical, which is to say to establish discipline by some linear

order and thus some valuation.”! The procedural rules employed in Eastern Zhou bronzes and lacquerwares were well adapted for creating material scales of valuation. This made it possible to negotiate issues we might call political in the guise of ceremonial propriety.? Therefore in the Zuo xhuan and the Guoyu, most objections to artifact production come not from professional intellectuals, but from court officers who reveal no consciousness of the existence of rival schools of thought such as is — typical of Warring States writers. These texts are more likely to discuss

the distribution of obligations among different occupations than to consider the distribution of authority among bureaucratic offices. They do not question, much less criticize, the existence of the aristocracy, as ts common in Warring States sources. Their concern ts not so much that the nobility compete with commoners for resources, but rather that the nobility are inviting political instability by overstepping the resource allocation legitimized by their dz. Whatever the date of thetr compilation, such texts address social conditions more typical of a familial social order. It 1s only in this context that we may begin to comprehend the surprising

number of disputes over the proper use of ornament attributed to craft officers.

The question of the role of craft officers in disputes over resoutces 1s most explicitly put in the State of Zhou section of the Guwoyu when King Li allegedly reacts ungraciously to popular grumbling:

IOO Government Kine Li was a tyrant and the people of the kingdom were critical of him. Duke Shao reported this saying “the people no longer recognize your orders” [or “mandate”; either reading amounts to much the same thing]. The king was furious and hired a shaman from Wet to spy on the critics. When such were teported to the king, he had them executed. After this the people no longer dared to voice their criticism, but merely signaled with their eyes as they met on the road. The king was pleased with this and addressed Duke Shao saying “I have put the criticism to rest; no one dares to speak now.” Duke Shao replied “You

have [merely] suppressed it. Stopping up the voice of the people/n is more dangerous than stopping up a river! If a river is dammed up and bursts [its dikes], the number of people killed will necessarily be large. The people/min ate just like this. For this reason those who plan to control rivers dredge them and provide channels [as outlets]. In controlling the people, one releases them [from constraints] and provides for speech [as an outlet].”°

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The passage says that “the people/ven of the kingdom” were criticizing the king. Is this possible at such an early date? Since ven could mean

just about anything, one could interpret the passage to mean that the lower aristocracy, for instance, were criticizing the king, but then it becomes hard to explain why Duke Shao glosses the term as min. But perhaps we should not be surprised that nobility of this period should worty over the political power of the mob. After all, Thomas Aquinas, living in comparably hierarchical society, would utilize a similar device some two millennia later, arguing that subjects held in fear by a tyrant are like water “which, having once found an outlet, flows out with all the more force if tt has previously been contained by force.” The difference between the Duke Shao’s argument and Thomas’s, apart from date, 1s that Duke Shao explicitly mentions the issue of open speech. Why did the duke bother to make this areumentr He was a nobleman; did he really care if a few commoners lost their heads? Perhaps—but the duke need not have been sentimental. He might just as well have been concerned about the dangers of capricious rulership. Cho-yun Hsu has

shown that developments in military tactics and economic planning encouraged Eastern Zhou ministers to appreciate the value of their productive population. In particular, “during the struggles among the nobility . . . the power of the mob was often exploited by ambitious

Government IOI nobles.”> Hsu provides several examples to support his point. The Zuo xhuan records, for instance, that in the late sixth century B.c. the people of Yuan drove out their earl and replaced him because he was tyrannical.° In 549 B.c. the great officers Qing Hu and Qing Yin put to death a builder because one of the planks on the wall he was building fell down. This was considered excessive by the other workers, who agreed

that they should kill their overseers, after which they went after the two Qing. The Zvo comments: “A gentleman will say that the two Qing

were not just [in their behavior] and that such a course cannot be indulged [with safety]. Thus the Book of History says: “Heaven’s Mandate is inconstant.’”’” In this example “mandate” 1s identified with the will of the people.

References to the Mandate of Heaven theory are not uncommon in early period texts. The antiquity of the idea is not to be doubted; it 1s mentioned even in early bronze inscriptions.’ Benjamin Schwartz is one of few sinologists to have stressed the profound political implications of the theory: I shall not linger here on the “democratic” implications of the doctrine. If what is meant by “democracy” is constant reference to the responsibility of rulers for the welfare of the people as a major criterion for the possession of the Mandate

this is, to be sure, a very striking theme, although by no means unique to China. ... Perhaps more can be said for the “night to revolt” and the decisive negation of any notion of an “eternal dynastic line.” The [Zhou] conquest does not, however, suggest the image of a “rise of the masses” but rather of the rise of anew center of power which proves through fact its entitlement to the Heavenly

Mandate.? ,

Professor Schwartz was on target noting that, while early references to the theory suggest a “right to revolt,” they do not imply that this right belongs to the masses. The Mandate of Heaven theory incorporated a healthy fear of popular dissent into traditional aristocratic decorum, at the same time authorizing action by the nobility against higher-ranking members of their own class. And so there is no need to portray the duke (or the author of this text) as a bleeding heart. His argument is consistent with early aristocratic discourse as we know it. Aware of the threat of popular uprising, the duke hoped to maintain a stable polity by providing outlets for discontent and a kind of political feedback within the traditional occupationbased social system. Uhis feedback system would correspond roughly to

102 Government the contentious repertoire of that period. What sort of feedback could one imagine for a familial system? The duke explained: Therefore when the King considers government affairs, he has all the officers, from high to low, submit poems [for purposes of remonstration]. The blind musicians present their songs; the historians present their records [of exemplary events|; the music masters present their admonitions; the blind singers chant the prose-poems [incorporating cautionary plots]; [other] blind singers perform the satires.'0 The various craftsmen present their objections; the common people express their views.!!

HAF RE, KAWET ALR, HRA, RAKES, ORR, AVL. BA, TER, FRAME. It 1s difficult to tmagine that courtiers blithely sought criticisms from their craft officers or “the common people.” On the other hand, if there was to be any contest over resources in a ceremonial system, ceremonial production would be the normal site of dispute. It is this condition that is reflected in these passages.'* Popular ditties are mentioned in ancient sources as expressions of widespread disapproval.'3 Historical example was routinely used as a warning for policymakers. Prose poems, as late as Han times, took as their theme the extravagant use of resources. But how could craft officers offer objections to the ruling nobility? Wet Zhao, in his commentary, notes that craftsmen could raise objections within their area of expertise and gives as an example the case of Craft Officer Qing discussed previously. Qing’s objections turned on issues of decorum expressed as du. The object of his commentary was

palace decor, but the root of his concern was the distribution of labor and resources represented by that decor. This same concern arises in another section of the Zvo xhuan under the date 522 B.c. In this passage an

officer worries over the wisdom of entering into conflict before the people have been properly “comforted,” thus winning their support for the campaign. A nearby attendant assured him that their king had adequately comforted the people. The former, however, replied: I have heard that whoever would comfort the people must be moderate/ according to grade/jie in his internal expenditure and establish his virtue /de abroad so that the people will enjoy life according to their nature without worry of robbers or feuds. Now the kine’s palaces are built without proper measure / hang and the people/znren ate kept in daily terror, weatied and exhausted so that they either die or flee, neglecting both sleep and sustenance. This is not what I

call “comforting” them.!* _

Government 103 & ARR, Bp GAA, Bea oh, RB to AR EE. GS Be, A AK, Phe OH, SHIR, FFM ZW. It is no accident that “expenditure” is set parallel to de/virtue. In the ceremonial grading system, expenditure 1s justified by de. Here jze seems to rest midway between its later sense of “moderation” and its ceremonial sense of “grade/class.” The ceremonial element enters in when the author mentions “measure/ ang,” by which is meant duiang, ot the appropriate degree of expenditure manifest in degrees of labor and materials. In other words, this officer’s concerns differed from Officer Qing’s only in details. The former was a regular officer; the latter, a craft officer, but both took a legitimate interest in the political effects of the allocation of resources expressed tn craft. These are by no means the only instances of objections or even riots initiated by craft officers.!> One might wonder, though, why a craft of-

ficer would want to discourage the use of craft. In Han times craft officers might actively encourage building projects, as this could increase the flow of cash under their control and provide lucrative opportunities

for handing contracts to generous bidders.'® Is the story about Officer Qing, then, just a by-product of the author’s pruderyr I suspect not. The craft officers of Han times were operating within a very different kind of economy from that implied in passages from the Guoyw and Zuo xhuan. Officer Qing would have held a hereditary position with a standard 1ncome from lands granted to his ancestors. His income would be unlikely to change significantly even if he undertook more projects. His interests wete best served by maintaining the status quo. Since he knew that transeressions of ceremonial degrees could lead to popular unrest, it was in his interest to preserve the traditional du. A similar argument for feedback within the traditional occupationbased society occurs in the Zuo xhuan. In this record, under the year 558 B.c., the Music Master Kuang offers advice to the Marquis of Jin on the propriety of a ruler being deposed by his people. It seems that the people/ven of Wei had recently expelled their ruler. Music Master Kuang happened to be sitting beside the marquis and so the latter asked him, a

bit nervously perhaps, “Have not the people of Wei done wrong by expelling their ruler?” The question sounds rhetorical. The marquis might reasonably expect an obsequious reply from an inferior, but instead the music master observed, “Perhaps the ruler had actually done wrong.” He added that if one is good to the people, “they will maintain

104 Government their ruler, look up to him as the sun and the moon, revere him as they would the spirits, and stand in awe of him as they would thunder. Could such a tuler be expelled?” On the other hand, if he makes their lives difficult, then the people will lose hope. Under these circumstances, “Of what use is [the ruler], and what should they do but send him away?!” It is easy to see that Master Kuang assigns some agency to the people;

it is less obvious that he is speaking in craft terms. The sun and moon were figured on the ruler’s robes to signify his brilliance; the first hexaeram of the Book of Changes compares a lord to a dragon. ‘The source of this comparison is probably older than the Book of Changes, as the dragon

seetns to have been a standard insignia on the flags of the nobility.1® Thunder, the voice of the dragon, also was a common metaphor for authority in Classical literature.!? In ceremony, the rulet’s moral authority/ welyi was manifest and justified in images of the sun, moon, dragons, and other zhang on his clothing and vessels. When Kuang wants to express the idea that a just ruler will maintain authority, he does so in the figurative terms of ceremontal tmagery—the sun, moon, and dragon. Master Kuang is not only arguing as a craft officer—he 1s arguing in the language of craft. Politically speaking, Kuang’s reasoning recalls that of Duke Shao and no doubt is based upon a knowledge of those cases in which rulers were overturned by their people. Unlike Duke Shao, whose argument is pragmatic, Master Kuang appeals to a higher moral authority. A ruler has an

obligation to his people. If he neglects that obligation, he can be discharged. Such reasoning is not uncommon in the Zo xhuan and the Guoyu and is perfectly consistent with the “Mandate of Heaven” theory. In fact, for most sinologists, Master Kuang’s advice will call to mind the kind of motalizing commonly found in the Analects or even in Mencius. One might even argue that the passage in question is a later work of the Confucian

school. But the resemblance could be explained in other ways. If we suppose, along with A. C. Graham, that Confuctus was simply an exceptionally inspired teacher of ceremony, then Master Kuang’s lecture might

provide some insight into the kind of ethos necessary for men whose profession it was to express political issues in ceremonial/craft terms. Kuang goes on to articulate a theory of feedback and internal checks for all members of society, including rulers. What is of special signifi-

catice is the kinds of checks Master Kuang has in mind. He does not appeal to law (/a) as later thinkers might, nor does he appeal to the rulet’s

Government 105 exceptional virtue and intelligence, as Xunzi might. Instead, he appeals to

the ceremonial grading system and the constellation of duties and prerogatives assigned to the different occupations: In giving birth to the people, Heaven assigned for them rulers to act as superintendents and guides so that they should not lose their proper nature. For the rulers [Heaven] assigned for them their assistants to act as tutors and guardians so that they should not lose their proper limits (dy).?°

RAK AZZ AZ, WHAM. HE MABAA, PPR, We i /Z. Note the parallel construction. It comes as no surprise that the authority of rulers to rule should come from Heaven. But Master Kuang is a craft officer. It is natural for him to assume that rulers also have limits /dy. Who tells a ruler what his dw is? Heaven provides him with assistants to help preserve these limits. Master Kuang, in offering these opinions, is acting as such an assistant. But how are limits maintatned when rulers hold all the power? Kuang proceeds to list the various advisors proper to each level of rank, from the king, dukes, and ministers on down to the craftsmen, merchants, and

shepherds. Even the lowest of these is no different from the king in having family and friends to “adjust and watch over their government.” For the higher echelons of the ruling elite, however, there are in addition other sources of enlightenment, and here Kuang provides a list similar to that of Duke Shao above: The historians make their records [as an implicit critique], the blind make their poems, the artisans [musical and otherwise] recite their satires, admonitions and objections/jzan, the great officers admonish and instruct, and inferior officers

report to these what they hear. The common people utter their complaints [which the inferior officers transmit upward], the merchants [display their wares] in the marketplace and the craftsmen submit their arts.?!

%AS, RA, Le, RK, HR, KAM, 41S, RAS, BRAD, OT How it is that craft officers, or trade officers, are to limit the activities of the nobility? Master Kuang himself provides documentation for this practice by citing the (now lost) Xia dynasty section of what we call the Book of Hestory. As Kuang quotes it, the book claims that “the herald with his bell goes along the roads [proclaiming]: “You officers able to instruct, be prepared with your admonitions. You craftsmen engaged in your art,

106 Government offer objections on the subject of your business.’” ‘eB Eb AGH, Hh ah VA BR 2

Once again, craft officers are mentioned after court officers in the context of questions of government. This we have seen in other sources as well. But Kuang does not neglect the common people. He cites further the traditional practice of collecting complaints from the people in the first month, at the beginning of spring. This was done so that mistakes in government would be corrected. “Heaven’s love of the people is very oreat. Would it allow one man to take his will and way over them, so

indulging his excessive desires and abandoning the [just] nature of . Heaven and Earth? Such a thing could not be!” RZASBREHS. SHS

— AFB GS RE VAGE SEE to RR EP ie BRE What are we to make of such a text? It certainly does not demonstrate that Eastern Zhou rulers regularly collected criticisms from subordinates. One might even argue the texts suggest that Eastern Zhou rulers quite callously extracted wealth and labor from their populations. Either view misses the point. What we witness in this text is an early attempt to define

social structures within which the agency of ruler and ruled could be negotiated, channeled, or contained. Such structures are required 1n all societies, but the degree of negotiability differs markedly depending upon the time and place in question. What is of historical interest is the way in which Master Kuang (or the author speaking through him) attempts to expand the agency of subordinates by building upon structures provided by the ceremonial system. He is not interested in overthrowing

that system; he has no problem with the notion of inherited station. Having accepted that order, he tells a story of ruler, vassal, and ruled 1n which the lower rungs of the hierarchy acquire slightly greater agency vis-a-vis the ruler. Understood in these terms, it is significant that ornament is equated with expenditure. Equally clear is the percetved need to legitimize that expenditure. Such texts presuppose that power 1s, to

some degree, negotiable, and that the proper site of negotiation was ceremony and ceremonial artifacts. Ornament and Property

In these texts we find the assumption that a nobleman who exceeded his

proper du might face criticism and popular unrest, but there has been little hint that the property appropriated was thought to belong, right-

Government 107 fully, to the people. In some texts, however, the right of the nobility to the wealth of the populace is by no means taken for granted. Possibly this new attitude was related to soctal changes Cho-yun Hsu traces through the late Eastern Zhou and early Warring States periods, when “ownership of the land gradually shifted from the lords of the manors to independent farmers or to landowners who were not necessarily of the

nobility.”*4 Beginning with the sixth century B.C., it became more common to levy taxes on independent farmers, particularly on reclaimed land. References to taxes become quite common by the fourth century

B.C. These developments, along with the growth of private markets, metallic currency, and craft specialization, could be expected to explode the notion that wealth was inextricably wed to inherited station and rank.?9

It is significant for this study that, according to Hsu, “the [Zuo zhuan|

seems not to mention the purchase of land, but it took place quite commonly in the [Warring States] period.”*° The Zuo zhuan also seems to lack the notion that wealth extracted from the peasantry rightly belonged

to them. Because the transfer of products from peasants to nobility was traditionally justified through the use of ceremonial artifacts, challenges to a nobleman’s right to make such transfers should arise in the context of artifact production. This, in fact, is the case. Possibly one of the earliest texts to record such an event occurs in the State of Zhou section of the Guoyu, in a passage reportedly dating to 522 B.c. but perhaps of later date. In this scenario Danmu Gong remonstrated with King Jing over the casting of a set of large bells (cf. Fig. 7). He argued that the project would require the levying of special taxes and that this would tmpoverish the people, creating unstable conditions.?’ The king tenored this warning and had the bells cast. A music master affirmed that the bells were properly tuned. The king said as much to the music officer Zhou Jiu, but the latter remarked that this was not necessarily the case. The king was puzzled, so the officer explained that the bells could only be harmonious if the people took joy in them. He then offered an objection in the manner of a craft officer remonstrating on the subject of his expertise: But now with the wealth/property/cai exhausted the people/min are resisting [further encroachments]. Every one of them detests and resents [these bells]. This is not what I call “harmony.” ... Therefore the popular saying has it that

108 Government “the will/xz of the masses ?? can build city walls; the voice of the masses can melt metal.”’28

SRR, BERRI, BRE... KA MORIN, KOS.” This objection differs from others we have seen in several tmportant respects. Zhou explicitly voices the idea that the people have a stake in the ptoperty/cai 94 being used to cast the bells and that they may leoitimately resist encroachments upon it. Indeed, they may take violent action: the king’s bells—and much else—could disappear in flames. Even more interesting is the reference to open discussions of political resentment by the people, for there is no other way to interpret the allusion to the voice of the masses in this context. We know that popular resentment was an issue at this time, but it had not previously been cast in terms of popular will. The diction here, in fact, recalls that of Menctus, suggesting either that this passage is later than the sixth century B.c., of that it may have furnished a source for Menctus. The Zu0 xhuan provides another reference to popular political opinion, this time set in the mid-sixth century B.c. Supposedly word got around to authorities that a traveler from Zheng was discussing the conduct of the

government in village schools. Someone suggested that perhaps the schools should be destroyed to prevent criticism, but a minister replied: Why should we? If people retire morning and evening and pass their judgment on the conduct of government as good or bad, I will do what they approve and will correct what they condemn. They are my teachers. On what grounds should we destroy those schools? I have heard that by loyal conduct and goodness, animosity can be diminished, but I have never heard that it can be prevented by acts of violence. It may indeed be suppressed for a while, but it continues like a stream that has been dammed up. If you [seek to avoid a flood] by making a large hole in the dike, then much injury will ensue, far beyond your power to relieve. The better method is to let the water run off through small openings. [Likewise,

| in this sttuation,] our best plan is to listen to what is said, and use it to cure [our deficiencies].”?

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The areument recalls that of Duke Shao in the passage from the Guoyu cited earlier; the importance of such a text does not reside in what it tells

Government 109 us about early institutions, but rather in what it tells us about the forms within which power might be negotiated. This text, along with the Duke Shao passage, shows that, at an early date, the possibility of public expression of political opinions was being entertained as a possible check

on higher-level authority. In addition, it shows that a discourse of popular agency was enshrined in classical texts early on. When or where such criticism was allowed during the Warring States period, or to what degree, is not especially significant. The mere presence of such an idea 1s sionificant because we hardly find it at all in earlier material, or in other cultures. In the end, Socrates was silenced for discussing politics, but what historians find significant is the fact that it even occurred to him to do so. In this case, it would appear that the offending teacher was not

sentenced to death by poison but, barring Eurocentric bias, the same principle should apply. What separates Zhou Jiu’s discussion from others cited in this chapter is the fact that he links popular resentment to issues of property, where the property is regarded as a proper concern of the people. Such an idea would very much complicate the fabrication of ceremonial artifacts. One

might have thought that courtly expenses for casting bells would be covered by the king’s normal income from his lands and vassals. ‘his passage, however, in keeping with other Warring States sources, presupposes that special taxes had to be levied for fashioning ceremonial articles, architectural projects, or even ceremonial clothing.*° This means that the people would feel directly that expenditure of wealth encoded tn

an artifact’s dv. Under these circumstances, the political charge of ornament would have been far stronger than moderns can easily imagine. This is why the craft officer could claim that the bells were out of tune. Similar sentiments can be found tn other Warring States sources. We have already discussed the Moz7s comments on the use of state resources to produce private instruments for the nobility. By Mozt’s time, even the atistocracy appear to have largely abandoned the pretense that musical

instruments were intended for the praise and entertainment of the ancestors. Lothar von Falkenhausen translates a number of early Zhou inscriptions in which the more pious attitude is expressed, but notes that later inscriptions reveal a decidedly more secular tone. One of these inscriptions was found on a bell cast for Wangsun Gao 1n the third quarter of the sixth century B.c., a bit earlier than the time of Mozt:

ILO Government Glistening are the harmonizing bells. With them we feast in order to please and make happy the king of Chu, the lords of the states and the fine guests, as well as

my fathers [that is, father and paternal uncles] and brothers and the various noblemen.?!

The absence of reference to a mandate or a responsibility to the population 1s conspicuous, signaling a change in political discourse. If the

aristocracy feel no need to refer to their mandate, then the grade of instrument they employ has lost its relationship to their putative virtue. If this is the case, then virtue is no longer commensurate with wealth. Consequently, the aristocracy would require some other means of legitimizing

claims to economic resources. Such attitudes could have engendered, dialectically, a more cynical consciousness among the populace. Indeed, several texts reviewed in this section require us to infer that commoners were beginning to question the aristocracy’s use of resoutces. Under these circumstances, disputes over ornamentation would likely take on a new character. The issue raised by ornament would no longer

be “Is the degree commensurate with this man’s virtue’ Rather, ornament would become little more than a raw display of wealth, demonstrating but not necessarily justifying the control of resources. This new development left an ideological void in the twisted spaces of Warring States design.

SIX Labor, Invention, and “Taste”

Ludwig Bachhofer described the change from Spring and Autumn to what he called “Huat” style ornament as the “replacement of symmetry by asymmetry, of rigidity by fluency, of the straight line by the curve.” Comparing a Warring States bzanhu in the Freer Gallery of Art (Figs. 13-14) with the 4v in Shanghai (Fig. 9), itis easy to understand what

he meant. It almost looks as if the designers of the dianhu set out to contradict everything the 4 had stood for. A closer look will show that almost every procedural rule of the modular macro style was summarily abandoned tn inlaid ornament of the Warring States period. It is not that a modular system of production was no longer used; it 1s rather that the

new design procedures do not flaunt the use of modules, as if the symbolic value of modularity were no longer important. The material scales of human worth had been altered, yielding a new macro style. Because the new style tends to integrate rather than segregate, it seems reasonable to call it the synthetic macro style. Synthetic Macro Style

The Freer dzanhu 1s a small bronze flask inlaid with silver, originally desioned to hold wine. The most obvious difference between this vessel’s decor and that of the Shanghai 4v 1s the use of inlay. Where a traditionally cast vessel tended to thematize the use of sections and pattern blocks, in vessels such as this the inlay pattern runs like a web across the surface of the article, as if to deny the use of sections. To enhance the effect, both

inlay and surface were burnished with a whetstone to the same height and shine.' Jenny So has traced the unfolding of inlay in China from its

|

\\\

112 Labor, Invention, and “Taste”

yq

Fig. 15. Drawing of a Warring States mold for casting inlay. After Institute of Archaeology of Shanxi Province, Art of the Houma Foundry, fig. 914.

earliest beginnings at Houma to its full flowering in Southern China during the Warring States period. She tracks both the geographical and stylistic history of the technique, demonstrating how it developed from the status of a minor flourish to the dominant mode of fashioning de-

——— cot.” In its earliest occurrences, flat pieces of copper were cast separately and placed inside the vessel mold so that the bronze would flow around and fuse with them. The design would appear on the finished vessel as inlay. Later, around the fifth century B.c., molds were fashioned so as to form the channels for the inlay when the vessel was cast (Fig. 15). Then thin copper, gold, or silver wires were placed side by side and hammered into the grooves (Fig. 16), later to be polished (Fig. 14). The hammering and polishing also caused the fusion of formerly discrete pieces of metal.

This process of manufacture necessarily contrasted sharply with procedures employed for the /w in the Freer/Sackler Galleries and all other

vessels of that macro style. The fact that inlay evolved gradually does not imply that this evolution was either natural or inevitable. The trtumph of

inlay meant the downfall of an ancient and complex mode of artifact design. The rise of inlay signified, not merely a new taste, but a new way of conceiving the distribution of human worth. ‘The best record of that new order is to be found in surviving inlaid and lacquer vessels.

Labor, Invention, and “Taste” 113

a Nr ee ee ae 3

. fo "SR eta Ta PSA Si,™ oe ~a - . :>

-. £ Se

lig. 16. Belt buckle inlaid in silver and precious stones. Warring States Period. University of Michigan Musuem of Art. Photograph by the author.

PROCEDURAL RULES

Important differences between the Freer piece and the Shanghai piece can be seen at the level of design. A cursory look at the bianhu’s inlay reveals that the rule of rectitude was abandoned and replaced by one which might be called “inclination.” Now the design follows a diagonal rather than a horizontal/vertical grid. Most students of Warring States ornament have commented on this. The point to bear in mind 1s that the diagonal grid could not have been lightly adopted. The ceremonial degrees expressed in earlier ornament encouraged a style capable of clartfying the addition or subtraction of decor elements. The use of a diagonal

grid makes the segregation of design units more difficult to assess. In essence it eliminates the additive element in style. Since the additive principle had been a key feature of ceremonial decor since Neolithic times. the abandonment of this procedure could hardly have been undertaken whimsically.

In the Freer bianhu the rule of consistency also gets turned around. Consistency simplified the number of decisions necessary for the design by maintaining an even line and band width most of the time. In the synthetic style, lines and bands may change abruptly over short distances. Any band may grow rapidly from a thin line to an eye-catching triangle,

114 Labor, Invention, and “Taste” only to peter out again just as quickly (Figs. 14, 15). Such a procedure yields a significant change in the density of carving required for the desion. Remember that, tn a scarcity economy, density of carving records the expenditure of labor. In the Zuo zhuan and Guoyu, expenditure of

| labor was related to ceremonial du. Since, in the modular macro style, regions of thick bands alternated with regions of fine lines, higher “degrees” could be displayed simply by adding more of each (of course, the eneraving would have been done on a ceramic model or mold, but it had to be engraved). The new macro style would have made the measurement of such degrees more difficult, as it does not require much carving of densely packed lines. While reducing the marks of labor, abandoning the rule of consistency required many more decisions along the length of the line. Consistency, for instance, allows the designer to place several incisions parallel to one another. Once the trajectory of the first line is determined, the rest is just “ditto.” It could be assigned to an assistant. If that rule is dropped, the

designer needs to decide when and where each band will expand. Moreover, each time a band changes width, the designer has to consider

its effect on adjacent bands as well. There can be no “ditto.” All this places greater demands on thought and ingenuity, as opposed to mere hand control or labor. Rejecting the rules of rectitude and consistency would tend to complicate any attempt to segment the pattern for purposes of grading. The same applies to the rule of closure, which was so closely allied to the modular method of manufacture. Closure was replaced by a rule of intersection, which seriously reduced the ability to compartmentalize desion units. The essence of the rule of closure is that most design elements

should have discrete boundaries. The rule of intersection, by contrast, requires that all regions of the design interlock smoothly with one another, presumably so as to create an impression of seamless beauty across the entire vessel.

In the Freer dzanhu, it is difficult to pick out any bounded region as a distinct design element. This will be appreciated immediately by anyone who tries to outline the design unit in Figure 13. It can be done, of course, and when it is, one will discover that the units mesh to a degree that is rare in earlier bronze designs (Fig. 13). They dovetail because shapes in the design appear as variations of diagonals or volutes disposed in such a way as to interlock on several levels—not only as tongue and groove but

Labor, Invention, and “Taste” LIS also as figure and ground. This effect is achieved by ending some lines and bands tn “empty” regions instead of bringing them to closure.

Wherever this occurs, the precise nature of the shape created is not clearly defined—neither its beginning, end, nor contour ts specified. ‘This sets our meaning-seeking algorithm buzzing. Because the eye will try to assion the simplest shape to the spaces between volutes, they will tend to resolve as triangle and volute motifs identical in structure to the vo-

lutes first percetved. This means that variations of band and shape can occur simultaneously in the figure (silver) and 1n the ostensible ground (bronze). By reversing two venerable design procedures—consistency and closure—Warring States ornament designers generated the codependence of figure and ground. CO-DEPENDENCE Most everyone is familiar with the idea of figure and ground.’ A small object against a broad expanse will be seen as a figure against a ground. Within the frame of reference the figure has a limited dimension while the ground appears undifferentiated. Generally a shape has to be small and bounded in contrast to its surrounding area to be seen as a figure.

The geese on the /y in Shanghai (Fig. 9) are examples of figures set against a blank ground. In synthetic style designs, the systematic alternation of band width does not allow the eye to determine any given hue (silver or bronze, red or black lacquer) as consistently large in relation to the other. It 1s not that we cannot recognize any figures at all. We can, but only /ocally. As soon as we take in a larger view, the relative size of one region and another shifts. The result is a continuous reversal of figure and ground, giving rise to a variety of co-dependent shapes. A typical angle and volute motif begins (or ends) as a distinct figure against a broader region (Figs. 14, 15). Very quickly, however, that narrow coiled volute expands to become a broad scroll (here, black). When such a scroll curls in on itself, the bronze area (here, white) will itself be seen

locally as a bronze volute on a gold or silver ground. The eye will have read the thin coil at the center of the volute motif as local ground, thus creating a new, fat, asymmetrical, bronze-colored (here, white) volute. The rapidly changing distribution of broad and narrow regions in the design allows the eye to interpret the thin coil either as an extension of a gold coil or as a crease in a bronze volute. One cannot, of course, per-

116 Labor, Invention, and “Taste” cetve the coil as both bronze and gold at the same time. Nor is there any eround for preferring one interpretation to the other.*+ The identity we

assion to it 1s inseparable from our own participation in the object’s formation.

Warring States ornament designers could take advantage of codependence to create virtual presences, fleeting images that never quite coalesce into a fixed form. Figures 4 and 5 illustrate designs from a lacquer shield found in Baoshan tomb number 2, in Hubei. Richly supplied with bronze, lacquer, cloth, and other decorated artifacts, the tomb and its contents belonged to an aristocrat of the Chu State in the late fourth century B.c.° From any distance (Fig. 4) the design appears to consist of swirling bands, but up close one can just discern the heads of parrot-like birds (Fig. 5). Having identified these heads, one is tempted to read adjacent “I” scrolls as folded wings, but any further attempt to pin down the bird dissolves as structure gives way to generic bands. Neither “bird” nor “band” satisfies the desire to establish a permanent identity. The artist accomplished this effect by radically playing with band width as well as the rate of expansion within chosen bands. The parrot heads wax broad oradually, as if they had been pulled from taffy, but no sooner do we recognize this form than we see an alternative form grow from the bird’s beak, this time headed in the other direction. The artist begins with what appears to be a recognizable, even band, then stretches or compresses it radically within the space of an inch or two. In this respect the technique is akin to hyperbole, for it exploits exaggeration for effect. Exaggeration, whether tn literature or in cartoons, presents things in an unfamiliar guise, yet provides sufficient information to retain identity. In this manner the technique makes us all the more conscious of identity’s instability. We

can see that the abandonment of the rule of consistency leads to far-reaching changes in the visual effects of the design. The relative security of compartmentalization gives way to rampant ambiguity. FE. H. Gombrich observed that the multiple possibilities afforded by ambiguous designs lead to a sense of instability, with emotional as well as intellectual consequences: “What is equally vital to our understanding of

these effects is that uncertainty of response carries over from the perceptual to the emotional sphere.’ This uncertainty is a distinctive quality of synthetic-style designs. Their ambiguity allows the designer to play with our expectations, producing one surprise after another.

Labor, Invention, and “Taste” 117 PHYSICAL LABOR AND MENTAL LABOR

Co-dependency of form, like alternation, tends to reduce obvious marks

of labor because a craft worker could literally double the number of patterns produced for the same amount of effort. The labor required to catve the “white” portion in Figure 16 was identical to that required for the “black” portion because they were produced simultaneously. Inlay itself is of course a laborious technique, but on the other hand neither catver nor caster had to deal with plastic effects such as are required by the cusps and bosses of earlier bronzes (Fig. 3). What z required is a staggering level of mental effort. Mental effort is demonstrated through the element of surprise. At first sight, we see a sliver of silver; the next moment, a fat flourish tn bronze. The design dazzles by virtue of an intelligence apparently too complex to be fully grasped by eye or mind. This level of complexity could only be achieved through enormous mental effort. It 1s well-known that, the more complex a shape, the more work the eye and brain must perform to perceive it. Visual complexity actually can be measured as the ratio of perimeter to area. The simplest shape for the eye to grasp 1s a circle. If we pull that circle into an oval, we have made the perimeter longer in relation to the area. We can stretch it more or add convolutions, but whatever we do, as the perimeter acquires more changes, the area will be smaller in relation to it. Since each of these changes represents that much more information the eye must decode, the eye and brain must perform more work to process an oval than, say, a circle. Therefore, the longer the perimeter in relation to area, the more visually complex a shape ts and the

more effort an eye (or computer) must exert 1n order to resolve it.’ Computer programs can measure a figure’s perimeter and area and compute its complexity as its “formfactor.” Putting Figures 17 to 19 through such analysis illustrates a rising scale of relattve complexity of some shapes in early Chinese art, where a smaller number signals a higher degree of complexity.

Of course, the eye does not require a computer to recognize such complexity. The numbers, here, like a bar graph, serve as a convenient demonstration of rising scales. Because the brain must perform at least as much work as the computer to resolve these designs, the numbers help

us to appreciate the mental effort required to create them. There-

118 Labor, Invention, and “Taste”

Fig. 17. Formfactor .3968. Shape analysis of a figure based on stone engravings from second-century Shandong.

Fig. 18. Formfactors .0318 and .0328. Shape analysis of a figure

based on mirror designs of the third century B.c.

Labor, Invention, and “Taste” II9

Fig. 19. Formfactor .0283. Shape analysis of a figure based on lacquer paintings of the second century B.c.

fore it is reasonable to suppose that it is more difficult to design a complex shape than a simple one.’ Whereas an increase in fine striations requites

more labor, it does not add appreciably to the number of decisions needing to be made. On the other hand, designing co-dependent forms and virtual shapes clearly involves more mind-crunching than physical labor. The bianhu vessel in the Freer Gallery of Art is a tour de force of highly original thought and design. It is not that manual labor ceased to be important; it is simply that design begins to require and reveal much more brainpower than previously. Decor and Secular Culture

It has long been recognized that the Warring States change in ceremonial

decor represents a radical break from the past in terms of taste (a term we'll examine presently). Like modular design, the tongue-and-groove procedure is much more than a craftsman’s technique—tt is a method of ordering. Presumably the abandonment of a venerable system of design and manufacture required the full support of the aristocracy. What could have happened to support such new attitudes toward craft and crafting? Lawrence Sickman saw in this change evidence for a more secular attttude toward ornament. Describing a Warring States dragon, he remarked that we “sense a point of view far less serious, austere, or mysterious than displayed by the beasts of earlier times.”® Years before most art historians began looking at soctal issues, Sickman traced the probable source

120 Labor, Invention, and “Taste” of this new taste to changes in the political and economic norms of the late Zhou period: From the sixth century to the founding of the [Qin] empire, the rise of great feudal states had a profound influence on the arts. Just as there was rivalry for power, there was rivalry in wealth and all that goes with the outward display of condition and pomp. The art of the late [Zhou] period is in many respects a luxury art with a sumptuous use of gold, silver, jade and inlays of turquoise and semi-precious stones. This character is evident also in the perfection of craftsmanship.... There is a tendency for design to become fine and infinitely detailed, with marked attention to texture qualities in the play of light over a surface.'

Some years later these views were reinforced by Thomas Lawton, who

suggestively identified fioure/ground issues as a key to this change in style:

A specific aspect of the change in bronze decoration during the Warring States period is clearly evident in the relationship between figure and ground... . To achieve a more sumptuous visual effect, bronze artisans experimented with a wide variety of complex motifs in which the clear definition between figure and eround was subordinated to a luxurious, even ostentatious, technical display.!!

The kind of change Lawton describes, from piety to raw display, required first and foremost a distinction between human affairs and those of the spirit world. Early Classical China had pictured nature spirits within the ceremonial order and, therefore, part of a unified system encompassing society and nature.!? King Ling’s son could treat both floods and palaces in ceremonial terms only because nature and ceremony were co-extensive. As in Fletcher’s account of ancient Greece, “nature [was] a composite system, all parts and aspects of which [were] daemonically controlled.” And so a central concern of all ceremony was ae, for to speak of de was to invoke the powers of nature. The stars, dawn, dusk, and the royal ancestors all marked the socitocosmic distribution of ae.

In those days, the graphic paradiom underpinning the concept of de could be understood as a network of compartments because natural powers were controlled by a directing will conceived as a singular entity,

a governing consciousness called a “spirit/shen.” The notion of a consciousness behind natural process allowed ceremonies to be addressed to distinct foci of worship. Shang kings received the blessings of each year from shen called Shang di ot “god(s) on high.”'3 The king might sacrifice to

cloud spirits in an attempt to stop drought or flood. This ability to appeal

Labor, Invention, and “Taste” I2I to the conscious lords of natural forces allowed the nobility to “negottate” with these powers on behalf of their people. That is to say, their

method of negotiating with spirits was not very different from the method of dealing with other nobility. It is as if the political agency of the nobility was dertved from the natural agency of spirits through the medium of ceremony. By Warring States times, nature and ceremony were no longer treated as co-extensive beyond the charmed circles of ceremonial officers. K. C. Chang has argued that a key factor in the eventual separation of society from nature was the separation of the world of gods from the world of ancestors and, moreover, a frontal attack upon Heaven’s ultimate authority. In a number of aspects of Rastern Chou [Zhou] culture, this period is one of diversification and competition. In terms of kin groups, this 1s a period in which the lesser lineages of the Chi [Ji] clan and the hitherto politically subordinate clans, vested with newly

acquired powers, competed for dominance. Up to this time, political and mythological supremacy had been held by the royal Chou by virtue of their close

relationship to the world of gods and The God [Shangdi]. The immediate manifestation of the competition, then, was to challenge this close relationship on the one hand, and to emphasize individual virtue, and merit, on the other.'4

Another factor was the spread and commercialization of technology and knowledge in Spring and Autumn and Warring States times. This, Chang argues, “awakened a large part of the Chinese gentry and peasants alike to a knowledge of the world and thus for a correspondingly d1minishine power of the myths to exercise sanctions on the social and

political order.”!> Presumably Chang refers to the same process of technological specialization that so vexed the authors of the Zhuangz cited in Chapter 4. K. C. Chang’s argument helps us to understand better the critiques of technology, ceremony, and inherited authority we find in the Zhuangzi. After all, these critiques presuppose that rift between society and nature that Chang describes. In Zhuangzz, this division appears as the contrast

between the natural and the artificial. This rift had profound consequences for both Chinese thought and Chinese artifacts. Michael Puett

has traced the debate over the act of creation—as crafting—to the nature/culture rift of this period. According to Puett, the Zhou dynasty kings had situated agency in Heaven and construed themselves as merely transmitting Heaven’s creative acts (a position reminiscent of European

122 Labor, Invention, and “Taste” monarchs in later ages). Once the continuity between Heaven and ruler was disrupted, acts of creation themselves became charged and, potentially, disruptive.'© Throughout his book, Puett traces the often ingenious methods Classical thinkers devised for getting around this contradiction, continually revising their views of human agency and natural process. Puett’s insight helps us to understand why the depiction of nature 1n craft would come to have such a profound bearing on the way personhood would be figured in late Warring States China.

In the world of craft, it was the nature/culture rift that eventually made possible the desacralization of political authority in bureaucratic theory. Because authority had formerly been instantiated 1n ceremonial decor, the desacralization of political authority required ornament to adapt to a new set of social functions, some of which have been identified by Jenny So. So has noted that “bronze vessels were put to more secular uses at this time, for banquets and festtvities at home and in war, as diplomatic tokens of good faith, and as dowries in important marriage contracts.”!7 She also showed that, by this time, bronze vessels were being coveted by members of the new merchant class as tokens of wealth. Ornament, in other words, had lost its old ideological function, creating a need for new ways to justify the transfer of resources from producers to rulers.

THE CLOTHING IS NOT THE MAN Research establishes the fourth century B.c. as a distinctive moment in the cultural history of China. For Cho-yun Hsu, this is the period when the familial system collapsed and bureaucracy arose to take its place. In

the world of material culture, it was in the fourth century that the modular macro style gave way to the synthetic macro style. For A. C. Graham, the fourth century witnessed what he called a “metaphysical crisis” in Chinese thought, revolving around “the discovery of subjectivity” on the one hand, and the separation of the human and natural worlds on the other. The “discovery of subjectivity” forced thinkers to recognize the difference between the claims of soctety and an independent valuation of oneself. This rift between humans and the natural world set theorists to wondering whether Heaven cares at all what happens to people and, if not, how our place in nature should be understood.!8

Labor, Invention, and “Taste” 123 In his introduction to new developments of the fourth century, A. C. Graham quipped that “The Confuctans, who had seemed incapable of debating any issue more momentous than “Did Guan Zhong undet-

stand ceremony?’ are now obsessed by the question whether human nature is morally good, a mixture of good and bad, or neutral, or good in some but bad in others.” Under a familial system it is natural that Guan

Zhong’s understanding of ceremony would have been a momentous issue, but with the Mozz we encounter a new world. In many ways it anticipates the rift between humans and nature on the one hand, and the split between objective and subjective on the other, by addressing the relationship between the clothing and the person. In the Moz, Gong Mengzi has an audience with the master. He comes wearing his ceremonial hat with its insignia (xhang), his scholar’s robe, and his official’s tablet. His opening remarks to Mozi question the very foundations of the old system: “Does a gentleman dress in appropriate attire before conducting [government] business, or does he act first and then consider his attire?” This was a serious question. Like the nobility of

Tudor England, a gentleman of the Spring and Autumn period knew only theories of society and rules of decorum. Under those citcumstances, the choice of attire constituted a significant part of “government.” But Mozi boldly rejects Gong Mengzi’s premise, asserting that “action does not depend upon clothing” 47 # 7LARAL, an opinion with undeniable appeal for a man of nonaristocratic origin. Being unable to presume upon his station, moreover, Mozi supports his point with logic and historical evidence, showing that a variety of successful rulers all wore different kinds of clothing.”° But Gong Mengzi replies by asserting that “a gentleman has to dress and speak in the manner of former times before he can be [considered] humane/ven.” These remarks make sense if we recall that ven was orig1nally similar to English “nobility.” In Confucius’s time, the wen and zhang on one’s clothing and vessels quite literally expressed one’s “humanity,” which is to say, atistocratic qualities of character. Using vem in this fashion would allow Warring States readers to associate Gong Mengzi’s views with the Confucian tradition of political theory. Mozi, as the head of a rival tradition, is made to refute these claims by citing historical example.

He alludes to several cases to show that, among those who wore the ceremonial attire of the ancients, some were wicked and some were sood.*! Considering that Mozi is thought to have stemmed from the

124 Labor, Invention, and “Taste” ranks of craftsmen, it is perhaps fitting that the first critical jab at the premises of the ceremonial system should be ascribed to him. A similar case arises in the Yanzi chungiu, a text often assigned to the middle or late Warring States period. In this scenario Duke Jing 1s made to ask Yanzi if he can govern by wearing the proper clothing: Duke Jing asked Yanzi: “I’d like to dress in the clothing of a sage-king and live in a palace appropriate to a sage-king. If I do this, will the feudal lords submit?” Yanzi replied: “It would be fine to imitate the frugality and restraint of the sagekings, but there would be no point in imitating their clothing or dwellings. The kings of the three dynasties all ruled alike, yet they all wore different clothing.

They did not rely on clothing to bring the feudal lords [to their courts].

GAMREELZI, PEELE, toh, MHERRE PO RTHS: “ARO

Ale] Fk, GLE, BB. SER BRL, FEV.”

Substance counts more than appearance: “The world did not pay honor to [the sage-kings’] clothing, but rather gave allegiance to their justice. .. . The world did not pay honor to their dwellings, but rather gave allegiance to their humanity/ren.” Yanzi’s “humanity” is not that of Confucius or Gong Mengzi, however, for he explains further that “the

weight of the clothing was adapted to the needs of the body and the expenditure and material suited the people’s ability to support such production.” He does not say that expenditure was gauged to the proper du; rather it was adjusted to the population’s ability to support it. This shift toward the population’s economic capacity as a standard for expenditure signals further the erosion of familial discourse. The break with tradition is most evident in Yanzi’s view of ornament: The plaster used [in the Royal Ancestral Temple] was not painted, and the beams and rafters were not carved. This was to make known to the people/ mn the frugality [of their rulers]. When [rulership] began to decline, clothing became extravagant beyond what was necessary for enhancing dignity. The beauty of palaces was far beyond what was necessary to avoid dampness and moisture. The use of labor was far greater than previously and the expenditure of materials was wasteful. This only fostered hatred among the people/min.*4

LEAK, ASRS, TRH. RE Rw, RIAGBLAM, SEZ FUE He, AAS, AVE, WR AE. Both the Yanzi and Moz passages are predicated on the assumption that

performance matters more than appearance.* Both presume that true legitimacy derives from benefiting the people. Both appeal to historical

Labor, Invention, and “Taste” 125 fact and reasoning. Rather than arguing from within the ceremonial orading system, both texts question the very utility of such a system. All

these features were absent from texts discussed in previous chapters, whatever their date of recording. The difference between the two modes

of thinking is fundamental. Mozi’s dismissal of the “clothing equals man” supposition is a symptom of the breakdown of the familial social order. It does not mean that the old order collapsed in one year. The fact that the Mozi text has to debate the issue shows that adherents of the old system retained a strong voice. In fact, one can find supporters of this tradition right through the Warring States period. Nonetheless, once the underlying suppositions and institutions of the familial order came to be questioned, the rhetorical claims of ornament were no longer sufficient

to justify a man’s presumption of virtue. If ornament was to remain important in Warring States courts, as we know it did, a new ideology of ornament was required. Ceremony V ersus Ingenuity

From the appearance of Warring States bronzes, the most significant change during the fourth century is from graded signs of labor to evtdence of ingenuity and intelligence; from compartmentalization to co-dependency. Is there any evidence of a debate over ingenuity versus control in Warring States texts? One can find hints in the Book of Raves, if we ate prepared to believe that a rather late source might have preserved vestiges of an older way of life: In this month the craft officers are ordered to inspect and record their products,

to display the ritual vessels [for inspection], to record their degree/dw and specifications/ cheng, making certain that none ate so excessively artful (yznqzao) as to arouse intemperate feelings in the ruler. Only those artifacts made with skill and care can be graded in the top class. The artisan’s name should be carved on

the artifact so as to be able to check his reliability. If the work is in any way inappropriate, the artisan responsible should be punished so as to put an end to these tendencies.”°

Akt, oP LGA, RBS, BR, KAGE, URLS, LYRA L. Wy 4x Hak, LARS, LIKE, AR Ph. The Book of Rites is known to have been compiled in Han times. Though much material may date to an earlier period, specialists tend to remain skeptical. My interest, however, is less in the date of the text’s

126 Labor, Invention, and “Taste” recording than the referent for its discursive tradition. Such texts might be used with caution in much the same way as we use Roman sculptures in the Greek manner, or Song (tenth to thirteenth centuries) paintings in a Tang (seventh to ninth centuries) tradition. Twelfth-century landscapes in eighth-century modes tell us little about twelfth-century artistic practice (other than that paintings were sometimes done in older styles) but have revealed much about earlier painting when used together with archaeological materials. The method of reading such paintings consists in eliminating those features known to be late and then examining the rest

in relation to other bodies of corroborative evidence. In the same manner the Book of Rites describes a mode of artifact production that has little to do with that of the late Warring States period.

Overall this passage paints a picture of tight control over artisanal ingenuity, as would be required by any properly functioning ceremonial erading system. Ironically, the very assertion of such controls demonstrates that artisanal ingenuity existed. Indeed, the problem of departures from tradition is intrinsic to the systematic production of any artifacts.

E. H. Gombrich has discussed at some length the notion that “habit establishes a frame of reference against which one can plot the variety of

experience.”?’ Because meaning in style is generated dialectically, a consciousness of some traditional norm is, in fact, a precondition for any concept of novelty. NOVELTY 464

Evidence of a demand for novelty appears already in the Mozz. There, the author argues that utility should be the guiding principle in the design of royal architecture and clothing. In making this argument, however, Mozz

actually reveals that novelty/pi # had by that time acquired a positive connotation, despite the author’s utilitarian views. Here I shall only translate the section dealing with clothing, but the text advances similar arguments with respect to other media: Therefore when wise rulers had their clothing made, it was to suit the needs of the body and that 1s all. It was not to bedazzle the eyes and ears or to befuddle the people/n with the delight of viewing/guan [beautiful artifacts]. At that time, fine carriages and good hotses were not prized. No one took delight in carvings, openwork and colorful designs.*®

Labor, Invention, and “Taste” 127 KEAZAARIRK, WA, PALME. FRAAMMARYW. FRA

ay, RP RH, PHO. AER R, FAB.

This section presumes that common people, the zn, are acquiring the ability to derive pleasure from viewing beautiful artifacts, an ability they formerly did not possess. Further on this essay continues its critique and, in the process, takes for granted the notion that people outside the aristocracy were acquiring a taste for novelties: Today’s rulers are not at all like this when they have clothing made. Their clothing being already light and warm in winter and light and cool in summer, they must yet levy heavy taxes on the people/bazxing, robbing the people’s/ min wealth/propetty in food and clothing so as to make brocades and embroideties for fine, decorated garments. They cast metal so as to make belt buckles and use jewels and jade to make belt ornaments. Women craft workers weave colorful designs, and male craft workers fashion carvings for their clothing. This is not what I call keeping the body warm or cool. Every bit of material wealth and labor in the end contributes to nothing. From this point of view, when they have clothing made, it is not for the body [at all], but merely to satisfy their desire / hao to delight in viewing/guan [beautiful artifacts]. This then causes the people/ mn [to prize] excessive and rare/pz [things], which makes them difficult to govern. [At the same time] their lord is self-indulgent and extravagant/chz and untresponsive to criticism. If a self-indulgent and extravagant/chi lord rules over people who desire excessive and trare/p/ things, and yet expects to avoid social disorder, he will surely fail.*?

S24, LARMMMLAA. KOE. Dalek ELLA RK RAAG. RERRAELY. LASERS AR. BELA. KE VA BIR. oT VERR, HOVE AE, ARAM. WIA RR Aw. BMH,

GZ GS ALL. ka, ARR. SERA. FS. RKHKRIE

tet to RIG. LABS PRL. ALS BZA. HiEHZK. RA RALF Wy AFA.

The ground for negotiating prerogative in this passage is no longer the

ceremonial grading system. Instead, property has become a site of negotiation, with the focus of debate centering on what belongs to the people and what does not. In this passage ftne embroideries and belt hooks such as become abundant in middle to late Warring States times (Fig. 20) represent the material extravagance that Moz sets in opposition to the people’s livelihood. From previous chapters we know that oppo-

128 Labor, Invention, and “Taste”

Fig. 20. Bronze garment hook inlaid with gold. Warring States period, fifth—fourth centuries B.c. Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.: Purchase, 1949.24.

sition to extravagance was not new, but in this text the author does not argue that the degree of prerogative encoded in the dv of the ornament ts inappropriate. Rather, he argues that the manufacture of such highquality artifacts requires the lord to utilize material resources and labor power rightfully belonging to the people//n. In other parts of the Moz7 this concern emerges more explicitly: To levy heavy taxes on the people for constructing large bells, drums, string instruments and wind instruments for [courtly] music is of no help toward the goal of benefiting [the people] of the world or eliminating their troubles.

G/F ATR, AR KI BREE FESR. LLRATLZA, RAT 2, hy RAL. The ruler no longer can justify his position merely through appeal to birth, ceremonial propriety, or religious efficacy. Now a dialectic between ruler and min has replaced the compartmentalized hierarchy of the old grading system. As a result, issues of agency over property and labor emerge in their own terms of property rather than as features of ceremonial grading:

(Moreover, people are needed to perform on these instruments.| If men are employed to perform, it will waste the time they need to apply their skills to plowing and planting, and if women are employed, it will waste the time they need to perform weaving, sewing, and spinning. Now if today’s kings and nobility make music; they only rob the people’s/ in wealth/ property in food and clothing all for the sake of pleasure.*” There are many [today] who behave tn this manner. This is why Mozi said “Making music is wrong.””*!

Labor, Invention, and “Taste” 129

XK BL, RAR RAZ. PAARL, BPA GRAIL. EKA ES, BERREZUVS, Itoh. LHFSATH, By 8 JE. Within the dialectical framework opposing ruler to zn, the ideological role of ornament becomes more problematic. Ornament still testified to

the transfer of products from the min to ruling elites, but now such transfers were no longer considered natural or inevitable. We do not hear that each occupation has its assigned insignia and sticks to it. Nor does

the author suggest that ornament is significant principally because it represents the owner’s virtues. Instead, extravagant and wanton designs are sought after because both the court and the populace have acquired a “taste/guan #,” for such things. TASTE #3 Lothar von Falkenhausen has offered a thoughtful analysis of taste in late Western Zhou bronze vessel decor.** Using “taste” analytically as “the mental counterpart of style,” the author argues cogently that a taste for atchaism—conscious references to the art of the past—can be detected

in the styles of late Western Zhou bronze decor. While resemblances between late Western Zhou ornament and early Shang ornament had been noted previously, Falkenhausen links these styles to the late Zhou Ritual Reform noted by Jessica Rawson and to “a redefinition of history

that appears to have occurred as part of the Ritual Reform.’ If he 1s correct, Falkenhausen may have identified the earliest instance of Class1-

cal rhetoric in China, by making good use of “taste” as an analytical term.34 On this foundation we can examine the sociological significance of “taste,” or evan, when it appears as a period term.

The basic meaning of gvan is to observe, usually with the implication that mental activity is involved. For this author, an affective delight in viewing beautiful ornament is an acquired capacity: “[In former times, ] people did not yet know how to prize sturdy carriages and fine horses; they did not yet know how to take delight tn carved and brightly colored ornaments.”35 We need to bear this in mind when the author tells us that, contemporary rulers “have clothing made, not for the body, but all for the purpose of guanhao #L3F.” Guanhao literally means “the [habitual] desire (hao) of taking delight in viewing (gvan) [beautiful artifacts|.” But

130 Labor, Invention, and “Taste” sociologically and rhetorically speaking, this meaning of gvan is in no manner different from acquiring a “taste” for beautiful artifacts. The term is used in the same sense in Yanzi chungqiu:

Now in the state of Qi the men plow and the women weave, day and night [without rest], still this is not enough to satisfy the court’s demands. And yet Your Majesty still pursues this taste/gvan for carved designs and inlaid [ornament].3°

AHR KAP ATR, BVH, FRAAL, HH lS EX AES MH. This concept of “taste’—to be distinguished from artistic preference in eeneral—sionals a new language of status in the realm of material culture because taste is not an inherited capacity, as was ven in Confucius’s time. Taste is an acquired capacity. The rise of a nonroyal consumer group tre-

quired a mode of authorization more flexible than demonstration of emblems of membership. Since taste is not a sign of intrinsic membership in a group, its debut in history marks a significant departure from the premises of the ceremonial grading system. Nonetheless, it would be easy to overstate the case. While it is apparent that nonroyal persons could imitate the court’s taste for extravagant ornament,*’ there is no hint that anyone would consider developing aesthetic values in opposition to courtly taste. Such a phenomenon would not develop until Han times.*® Nonetheless, the very existence of “taste” marks a shift away from an identification of inherited social station and insignia. This taste does not necessarily connote a taste for ingenuity, but two other terms in the Moz: passage do: yin and pz. Yin signals designs that are

inappropriate within the ceremonial grading system. In this passage, of course, yz does not mean “in violation of the ceremonial grading system”; Moz: doesn’t even refer to that system. Instead, because yzn 1s understood dialectically in relation to a norm, it is by definition novel. This explains why it is used together with pz. Pz quite literally means “novel,” “rare,” or “unusual.”

INGENUITY 49 What formal features might have counted as “novel” or “rare” during the mid—Warring States period? By the fourth or third century, authors most likely were thinking of synthetic-style designs (such as in Figs. 5 and 14), as

these are typical for that time and permit a wide range of novel effects.

Labor, Invention, and “Taste” 131 Earlier we noted the style’s capacity for visual trickery. Good evidence of a taste for trickery is hard to find in early Warring States texts, but a later source, Han Pezz7 (mid-third century B.c.), testifies clearly to a demand for deceptive visual effects: A craft worker once made a whip for the Lord of Zhou which took three years to complete. When the Lord viewed 1t, it looked just like an ordinary lacquer whip. The Lord was furious, but the whip’s painter said: “Build a wall twenty feet high with a window eight feet long. Place the whip on the window sill at suntise and view it then.” The Lord did as he was instructed. When he looked at the features on the whip he found them all turning into dragons, serpents, birds, beasts, carriages, horses, and a myriad other things all complete. The Lord was extremely pleased. Now the craft that went into this whip was certainly subtle and difficult, but in its use this whip was just like any other.°?

SARASERS, 22K, SMS, MERAAR, ABR, ERS

BA: “E+ RZ, BARA MAA ha Zh eR.” ABZ,

SLEEK RAS REA, BwHZKHA, APAKM IRAE ih What made this whip so marvelous was the fact that it was capable of tricking the eye—it seemed ordinary enough in daylight but could reveal a profusion of startling images in the slanting rays of rosy-fingered dawn. The whip was capable of deceiving the viewer into not seeing things that

actually were there. This is the reverse of the synthetic-style trick of making one see something that is not there (Fig. 4). In either case, visual ambiguity 1s coded as a sign for zngenuity.

Some might find Han Feizi’s story hard to swallow, but considering what we know of Warring States and Han lacquer, the whip maker could have accomplished his trick stmply by restricting his palette to black and a deep, dull purple common on late Warring States and early Han lacquers.*? The purple rarely shows up even in photographs because in tone and saturation it is close to the black ground. In fact, one sees it best when light hits 1t at an angle. This would be the case, of course, for a whip placed on a windowsill at dawn. The red rays of the morning sun also would favor the purple hue. A whip decorated only with black and this purple would easily pass for an undecorated artifact without close inspection. No matter what kind of whip Han Feiz1 had tn mind, the fact that Warring States artisans used a color so difficult to see 1s itself evidence of a market for deceptive visual effects.

132 Labor, Invention, and “Taste” Han Feizi’s text dates to a period later than the first debut of the synthetic macro style. However, the thematization of visual ambiguity in that style already suggests a taste for visual trickery. If we place such designs at the end of the fourth century and Han Feizi’s text in the third century, we can discern a trend in taste. Throughout the Warring States period, visual ambiguity came to serve as the visual correlate of skill and ingenuity. INGENUITY AND THE MASTER CRAFTSMEN The Mozi and Yanzi chungiu passages recognized an emotional factor in the taste for beautiful artifacts. Craft workers had to be sensitive to this when working out the design. The exercise of other mental capacities, such as intelligence or creativity, is presupposed by the demand for ineenuity. The shift from demonstrations of physical skill toward demonstrations of mental capacity implies a change in the role and status of the master craftsman.

By late Warring States times there is evidence that novel work by oifted artisans was valued. Several anecdotes appear in the Han Fezzz, where the fashion for sophisticated artistry was likened to sophistical rhetoric. The story about the lacquer whip was one such anecdote. Another described how the King of Wang was beguiled by articles fashioned with “subtle/wei fk artistry/giao 49.” Yet another described an artisan from Wet who claimed he could engrave a female ape on the edge of a bramble thorn. A gullible king hired him at the rank of five chariots. By the story’s end the man is exposed as a fake, and the king, a fool.4! The king and carver are types; the rank may have been exaggerated, but the possibility of a king hiring an artisan at a high rank must have been a live

one ot Han could not have made his point. This is consistent with Cho-yun Hsu’s work, which shows that artisans could be hired for pay during this period.” The new mental and emotional dimension of design may be best revealed in a late Warring States passage from the Zhuangzi. The text concerns a bell stand carved by the famous craftsman Qing. According to Zhuangz2, the stand was so impressive, contemporaries thought it must be the work of spirits. We may infer that tts style was non-traditional. So marvelous was it that the Marquis of Lu asked Qing what special art (shu fig) he had employed in fashioning it. Craftsman Qing politely declined

Labor, Invention, and “Taste” 133 to take credit for any special art, but nonetheless explained how his work required special mental and emotional preparation. He fasted, for example, for three days, until he no longer “thought of any congratulation,

reward, rank, or emolument I might recetve as a consequence of my work. After fasting five days, I did not presume to think of any praise or criticism regarding the skill or ineptness exhibited in my work” m= 8,

RIT BR, BRA, KA FEAR Gh.% Having attained this level of dispassionate self-absorption, he could exercise his art without interference from external influences and thus create a marvelous work. From the perspective of social history this is a significant passage. Echoing Han Feizi, it presumes that an artisan could be rewarded with office for a fine work. More important, the passage reveals a concern for the professional autonomy of the design process. Qing’s mental preparation implies the ability to distinguish between external praise and 1internally determined worth. That this issue should arise in the Z/uangzi ts not a chance occurrence. The assignment of internal worth arises as an issue in the first chapter of that book, a chapter contemporaneous with many synthetic style designs (late fourth century B.c.). There, in one of his most famous anecdotes, Zhuangzi compares men of limited talent to a quail that takes its own manner of flying as the acme of aerial performance. Seeing the great peng bird, which soars upward on the whirlwind, and “bears on its back the

blue sky,” the quail can only sneer, unable to fathom the concept of “flioht.” Likewise, officials of narrow ability are unlikely to recognize the talents of a man like Rongzi of Song, for though the entire world should have praised him, he would not on that account have worked more diligently [at his chosen task], and though the entire world should have condemned him, he would not on that account have been the least disheattened, so firm was he in knowing the difference between his internal/ ez [judgement of himself] and the external/wai [judgment of others]; so sharply

could he discern the conditions of glory and disgrace. [Thus] in his public conduct he was never narrowly bound by the rules. Stull, there were things he had not yet mastered.*4

AL SR ty RZ ty Kyo dy, Mihi JEZ ty Ki, CF AALAD, HFRE Z Se, MU. RGM RB RL. MER, TA HR BT AL. In his typically dialectical fashion, Zhuangzi praises Rongzt’s independence, symbolized by the peng bird, while admitting that there were areas in which he fell short. Yet clearly, the passage displays Zhuangzt’s

134 Labor, Invention, and “Taste” concern for the difference between individual and external assessments of personal value. Feudal concepts of “honor” and “insignia” have been replaced by an internally assigned concept of worth. The same concern

underlies the anecdote about craftsman Qing, where we learn that his talents shine only when he operates independently of external pressures. None of these ideas would have sounded natural under a compartmentalized model of personal identity. Such anecdotes do not imply that all late Warring States craftsmen were appreciated for creating unique designs. Nor can we infer that Qing was treating his art as a medium of personal expression. These anecdotes do suggest a demand for positive signs of invention as opposed to skillful conformity with past procedure. Such a demand requires of the artist a strong sense of internal standards of worth.

UNIQUENESS AND UNIT PROCESSES | The demand for invention required an improvement in the status of the

master craftsman. It would not, however, require rejecting the unit process of manufacture or the assignment of details to subordinate workers. Recall the claim of the Lia shi chung: “A great craftsman does

not carve; a great cook does not handle the pots.” The Han dynasty scholar Gao You comments that a great craftsman “merely inspects the mold and does not actually carve in it.”4° The Chinese master craftsman exercised his ingenuity in making the design; others executed that design in lacquer, jade, or bronze. Physical evidence for the separation of design and execution can be found in painted artifacts. Among the Shang dynasty ceramic molds housed in the Institute of History and Philology at Academia Sinica, ~ some preserve thin painted lines needed as guides for the carver’s knife. A similar method was used for a Warring States bone in the Freer Gallery in Washineton, D.C. (Fig. 21). This craft worker, like his Shang dynasty counterpart, first drew thin lines to mark the contours of the design.

Afterward, he or someone else filled in the contours with ink. This procedure is consistent with unit process manufacturing. The master draftsman could draw the design and then let apprentices fill it in. The contrast between design and execution is hard to detect in inlay work, but remains noticeable in lacquer painting until later in the third

Labor, Invention, and “Taste”’ 135

lig. 21. Bone with painted decoration. Warring States period, fifth—fourth centuries B.C. Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.: Gift of Mrs. Hubert Grigaut, 1979.46.

century B.c. An early example of synthetic-style lacquer work is preserved in a bowl from the tomb of the Marquis of Zeng (Fig. 22). Although the design makes use of surprise changes in line width and shape, including the reversal of figure and ground, close examination would show that the outlines were drawn using short, cautious, and sometimes awkward strokes of the brush. The level of quality in painting seems incommensurate with that of the design. This suggests that, while ingenuity of design may have been encouraged, craft shops continued to make use of a division of labor in the execution of the product. This procedure was not followed, however, on the bone illustrated in Figure 23. It is difficult to see in the photograph, but inspection shows that the designs were painted in single strokes, much like the so-called boneless technique of later Chinese painting. There was no outline. Such a process cannot be left to apprentices. Only an accomplished master could paint so beautifully without the opportunity to touch up mistakes. The same technique becomes almost de rigueur in late Warring States and Han painting. The effect is readily seen by those visiting the tomb of

the King of Nanyue in Canton. Outside the tomb, cloud scrolls are

136 Labor, Invention, and “Taste”

’

lig. 22. Lacquered eared cup. Krom tomb number 1, Shazhong, hhangling. Courtesy Hubet Provincial Museum.

¥-

* te

lig. 23. Bone with painted decoration. Late Warring States period, third century B.c. Private collection, Ann Arbor, Michigan Photograph by the author.

painted in ink directly onto the stone. Each scroll was painted in broad, quick strokes of the brush, much like the bone in Figure 23. The evolu tion of such techniques required the virtual collapse of the compartmental system of social order and a period of experimentation with alternative stratagems, such as bureaucracy.

SEVEN Craft and Pottical Theory

The modular macro style employed in its very procedures the same kind of graphic logic that, in ceremony, served to order society. The synthetic macro style was adapted to a noncompartmentalized social order but did

not echo ideology in its geometry. This point is so important it bears repeating. As explained earlier, the modular macro style was not compartmentalized because it shared a mystical Gesst or “mentality” with the people of Spring and Autumn times. Modularity is a mode of organization well suited to a ceremonial strategy of social control even though, under different circumstances, it can be adapted as well to the needs of

modern industrial production. Spring and Autumn period bronzes are modular for the same reason that hawks and lions both have sharp claws. It is not that God chose to mark predators with the same attributes. It is simply that, given the job at hand, pointed structures work well. In the same way, if social prerogative is compartmentalized in ceremony, and if ceremony makes use of the symbolism of material scales, then a modular style does its job well.

The graphic characteristics of the synthetic style do not encode mid—Warring States social structure in this manner. Synthetic style procedures are what they are because they abandon modular style procedures, and they permit the display of ingenuity. Ingenuity, like taste, is an achieved quality, not intrinsic. Ingenuity in an artifact situates itself on a sinole scale rather than a graded one, a scale that ranges from clumsy to inspired. This means that persons of non-noble rank could compete on that scale if they could acquire works of inspired craftsmanship. It does not mean that mid—Warring States society was somehow “synthetic” in

sympathy with the same Gest that produced the lianhu in the Freer Gallery. The relationship between society and style had changed: style

138 Craft and Pohktical Theory had become further abstracted to become a sign of wealth and power generally rather than an instantiation of honor. Artifacts now functioned more like cultural capital than like a royal birthmark. This more abstract

status for craft can be traced in the lexicon of craft terms, for old standbys such as du, fa, wen, and zhang began to acquire extended mean-

ines more useful for political administration than for ceremony or decorum. The need to adapt craft terms to political theory was driven principally

by the decline of the familial social order and the consolidation of the state. Structurally, one can see this development as a process of individuation, as Cho-yun Hsu and Katheryn Linduff do: ~ Until the mid-[Zhou], the tradition of allowing inheritance of office gave the [Zhou] aristocracy opportunities to share power and privileges. However, the bureauctatization procedure grew more and more complicated and dispersed the literate to all branches of government. Those people were bureaucrats whose forebears had performed functions held sacred, as diviners, priests, recorders, and historiographers. Thus started a process of institutionalization of govern-

ment structure, which shook the foundation of the practice of inheritance of office.!

As dtviners and priests turned tnto bureaucrats, the language of ceremony was adapted to administrative needs. In the process, the basis for constructing indtvidual identity was fundamentally altered. Tu Chengsheng has traced this trend in the emergence of new terms for the people, seen as existing in relation to the centralized state rather than in relation to the feudal lords.* The geometry of this relationship was such as to

require a new graphic paradigm for the distribution of prerogative in society. In the new model, political authority, in theory, should converge upon the sovereion and extend from him to his functionaries. This differs from the more feudal kind of relations informing the familial social

order. Under the latter, political/moral authority was compartmentalized, with the nobility holding their own lands, armies, and (partially) inherited charisma/de. Concentrating legal authority in the sovereign required dissolving those compartments: “Officials were subjects as well

as functionaries; they served their lord with their competence and knowledge of statecraft but, in contrast to the nobles of the [Spring and Autumn] period, they did not share his power. The demand for this new type of official required new means of recruiting the needed men, retainine the competent ones, and screening the unqualified.”

Craft and Political Theory 139 But if authority was no longer compartmentalized, then the standard for determining social role had to be unified. How to accomplish this was not only a political question but an epistemological one as well: “How do I know if the person serving as magistrate has the makings of a magistrate?” With the decline of heredity as a standard for status, this became a serious issue. The solution to this problem required a different spatialization of social agency.

It 1s important to understand that the problem of defining identity in relation to an underlying geometry—the puzzle of spatial epistemology—is a general one and by no means a peculiarity of ancient Oriental culture. One option, conspicuous in the European tradition, 1s to situate identity within a highly regularized, hierarchical model focused on a single source from which all identity radiates. Thus God sets the measures and issues nature’s laws because He is the ultimate cause, the Prime Mover. On earth, the role of monarch 1s analogous to that of God. As Stephen Collins observes of one Tudor writer: His reasoning was clear. God has made everythine—all his works—full of degrees and estates, Elyot informed his readers. The Bible proves that there 1s otder in the heavens. There are the four natural elements, and of course, there ate all of God’s creatures who exist within order and degree; “so that in everything is order, and without order may be nothing stable or permanent.” Tudor theorists maintained that order was natural, indeed divine.*

In this scheme, the structure of things must be hierarchical because all meaning, all order, issues unilaterally from God fo those beneath him. ‘This hierarchy might be compartmentalized, and in principle an individual of sufficient rank might construct his or her own identity directly in relation

to God, much like a figure on a blank ground. But itn either case the conceit is little more than a tautology ratifying the status quo by projecting a fictional duplicate of earthly authority onto the heavenly realm.

In China, such appeals to a higher power can be found in works embracing ceremonial logic, but this stratagem is not so conspicuous atnong Warring States writers. Another option was to try to adapt the ceremonial system to contemporary needs by transforming a feudal code of honor into a generally applicable code of ethics. This approach tended to preserve something of the old use of artifacts for purposes of signifying hierarchy. Yet another spatial metaphor was that of the craftsman

with his measuring instruments. Government was understood as

140 Craft and Pottical Theory something crafted. The ruler and his ministers, not God, were the craftsmen. If measurements were made carefully and objectively, government would operate properly. Period Terms: Fa +: and Du FE

David Keightley has explored the evolution of the craft metaphor and demonstrated its importance for the development of Chinese political thought.> I am unaware of any similar study tn Chinese. However, Xue He and Xu Kejian have written a book that inadvertently illustrates the application of craft terms to political theory. Beginning with early texts and ranging through the Warring States period, Xue and Xu compile key passages addressing major legal and bureaucratic issues. The book 1s much more than a simple list of texts. The authors choose their categoties carefully so as to explore early Chinese thinking on issues such as sovereignty, the limits of political authority, and the theoretical basis for laws. Taken together, their documents demonstrate a process of individuation and incteasing mobility parallel to that described by Hsu, though in the realm of legal and bureaucratic thought. Because many of their sources utilize former craft terms, it will be useful to refer to several of the texts they identify. One passage Xue and Xu cull from Gwanzz demonstrates the transformation of meaning in what had once been craft terms. In the chapter

“Understanding Fa,” Guanzi argues that the ruler must attend to government like a craftsman: An enlightened ruler unifies the standards of measure/dudang and establishes the sauge/biaoyi for behavior, and then maintains [these standards] firmly. Therefore when regulations [against murder, theft, etc.] are issued the people/mzn will obey them. Law/jais the form/chengshi for the world, the behavioral norm/yzbiao for any conceivable affair.°

Wee, -—Ee, ze, MEFS, UST MAK. AA, A PAZAERAU,

ZR RAL.

The Guanzi passage makes no reference to crafted objects, only to what had once been craftsmen’s terms, such as dudang. In ceremonial contexts duliang usually refers to ceremonial measures—how large, how heavy. Here it is used metaphorically to mean a measure for deciding the apportionment of duties and prerogatives in government. “Measure” has

Craft and Poktial Theory 141 been abstracted from its material substrate. This represents a higher level of abstraction than was formerly required to permit physical “degrees” to stand for social measure. At this higher level of abstraction, the concept could be freely applied to a theory of administration. Fa undergoes a similar transformation. Originally referring to craft and ceremonial rules, it now means something like “law.” But notice that, in this passage, fais distinguished from dng 4, which also means “laws.” In texts to be examined later, fa connotes something closer to procedural rules for government administration than anything like “laws” against murder or theft. The latter are called 7 4# or ling .’ This usage parallels

the meaning of fa in craft, but now its range of application has been broadened. Another craft term, cheng, originally referred to the measurement and proportion of crafted objects, while sh7 indicated their “form,” “model,” or “style.” Both terms appear here as metaphors for well-defined assignments within an administration. The text implies a dialectic between ruler and people. Fa ensures that standards will be applied consistently, along a single scale: a practice essential for the exercise of justice. This helps the government to sustain credibility so that the people will obey the laws. The implication is that people may well disobey inconsistent or partial laws. If this becomes a conspicuous problem, the fault may lie with the administration. This relatively liberal view follows directly from the separation of fa from its ceremonial/moral context and its application in a more functional, goal-oriented framework. Fa once was used to distinguish one orade from another; soon it would be said to apply evenly across classes. The beginnings of this cleavage can be detected in writings associated

with the fourth-century pioneer of bureaucratic theory, Shang Yang (d. 338 B.c.). In “Changing the Fa,” a chapter from the Book of Lord Shang8

we find a scenario in which the conservative courtier Gan Long debates whether or not it is advisable to change the old ceremonial rules, or fz: Now if we alter the rules//a and no longer follow the former practices of the State of Qin, changing the ceremonial system/Z as the means of teaching the people, I fear that everyone in the State will criticize you, my lord. Therefore | hope that you may reconsider this proposal.

& BAMA ALE BVUAR BRA TZRAE. RAR. Rules/fa here refer to the ceremonial system, but the hero of the passage, Gongsun Yang, has a very different understanding of rules //a:

142 Craft and Poktical Theory In each case tules/fa were established in response to the [needs] of the time, and

ceremonies wete instituted in response to [contemporaneous] affairs. In ordering the world, the needs of different generations cannot all be met by one principle; when benefiting the nation, one need not take former times as a standard/fa.*°

& Sle ty ZH, ASH HMR. SHR, CAPR LAKES. In Gongsun Yang’s account, even ceremony ts historically contingent,

and his use of fais ambiguous. In its first occurrence tt could refer to ceremonial rules, but at the end of the passage its meaning 1s “to take as a standard,” a sense more closely allied to the bureaucratic lexicon. In either case, the point of the passage is that rules//a are not handed down by Heaven; institutions are historically determined; any set of fa can be used if it fosters current goals.

This debate over the definition of fa could be seen as a relic of countless debates that slowly redefined the nature of ceremony from late

Spring and Autumn times onward. This, in turn, may have been one response to the breakdown of the correlation between birth, rank, and resource allocation. ‘Tu Cheng-sheng has documented the decline of the aristocracy during this period, showing that lower-ranking aristocrats, for example, could exchange wealth or hereditary prerogatives for higher status, eventually marrying into higher-ranking clans.'0 This kind of slippage presumably strained the ability of the ceremonial

oradinge system to maintain order, yet this was the only framework available for negotiating social prerogative. From this situation arose the need for something more like political theory, but the earliest theories were in fact little more than attempts to codify principles underlying the ceremonial grading system. Confucius’s attempts in this direction were the most influential for later periods, and his disciples were among those spearheading an entire generation of ceremonial specialists trying to ra-

tionalize, and thus rewrite, the rules of decorum. The competition to codify forgotten rules had the undesired effect of exposing the bankruptcy of those same rules. This created new opportunities to shape those rules//fa in ways enabling upward mobility within the aristocracy and beyond. We should not be surprised that ceremonial and craft terms *Fa is used verbally here so that, more literally, it could be translated as “imitate” former times. My translation preserves the sense of a standard apparent in the original.

Craft and Poltical Theory 143 became important sites for such maneuvering. One example of this process, examined by Graham, is the broadening of the term ren 4. Formerly the defining attribute of aristocracy, by Warring States times ren came to mean “humane” and so could be applied to almost anyone. Again, we shall misunderstand the significance of this process if we cast it in parochial terms. Some such changes must take place whenever a

social system based on ceremony begins to evolve toward more systematic and abstracted forms of theory. Frank Whigham provides an excellent rhetorical analysis of a similar process of increased access to aristocratic status in another place. At a time when England was moving

toward greater centralization and the erip of the aristocracy was just beginning to loosen, Whigham sees the rise of courtesy theory as an attempt by that aristocracy to consolidate their prerogatives. The effect, however, was not what they had intended: The discourse [of courtesy theory] was originally aimed to repress illicit mobil-

ity... . Hand tn hand with such repression went the gesture of reascription whereby the established elite strove to reclaim the self-evident “natural” supetiority its forebears had enjoyed. The systematic image of the ideal courtier was designed both to cast the existing elite as approximations of the ideal and to disfranchise the all-too-towardly assheads. The literature of exclusion thus came paradoxically to enabk social mobility, its third effective function, by the very promulgation of the techniques upon which the distinctions rested.'!

The process Whigham describes here offers a good example of the dialectical generation of meaning in culture. The old aristocracy’s attempt to define criteria for excluding inferiors actually “drew the absolute status of that elite into question.”’!? The society Whigham describes was one in

which high-status qualities, such as wit or taste, could be acquired by those who may have lacked the best pedigree: Soon the codes of status maintenance which produced and reproduced identity for individual and class became commodities; they were bought and sold like today’s “life styles,” and were often practiced vicariously, that is, by specialists who sold their services to established and would-be, group and individual alike, reifying and institutionalizing various forms of interpretive manipulation along the way.!°

Whigham is speaking here not only of crafted “genealogies” but also of crafted objects such as cups, shields, clothing, and other artifacts upon

which one could display learned phrases or aristocratic insignia. He

144 Craft and Pohtical Theory understands that such practices signal a trend away from what some might call ascribed status and toward achieved status. Whigham does not

use these terms, preferring instead the contrast between “birth” and “achievements”: This discourse [i.e., courtesy theory] arose in response to a major shift in the definition of social elevation, from a stress on birth to a stress on achievements,

from parentage to deeds, as Marlowe’s Tamburlaine has it. Elite identity oradually came to be defined not by reference to inherited or God-given attributes, but to characteristics acquirable by human effort. This shift in definitions arose from a complex of causes that came together in a marked increase in upward social mobility into the ruling elite.'*

We must be careful to avoid falling under the spell of Romantic historians by attributing these changes to some peculiarity of the British

Spirit. The “achievements” of which Whigham speaks are not the product of scholarship or hard work. He has in mind acquired qualities such as taste, wit, or even a manufactured pedigree. Such a statement needs to be understood in reference to a zero ground in which even aristocracy had difficulty moving up the soctal ladder. The “mobility” of which Whigham speaks generally required marrying into higher- ranking families and acquiring the trappings of aristocracy. There was no attempt to replace aristocratic scales of value with an alternative, merit-based scale; 1t was simply that, now, it became easier for the lower aristocracy to acquire higher-status attributes.

The dynamics Whigham describes are not dissimilar to the situation Tu Cheng-sheng documents for late Spring and Autumn period society. In fact, it is just at that time that theories of decorum became a hot topic of debate in China. The similarities are not due to relative progress toward a “modern” teleological end, but rather to the specifics of a ceremonial social system and the adaptation of that system to a séght/y more mobile system of resource allocation. In both instances a certain set of cultural tools, such as systematic theories of decorum, were being generated in response to the breakdown of ceremonial order and ensuing attempts to centralize authority. Another cultural tool developed in Warring States China can also be

seen in seventeenth-century English thought: exploration of a nonrelioious rationale for government. Again, the similarity is the product of structural requirements: 1f society’s rules are merely human and are not

Craft and Poktical Theory 145 eranted by God or by Heaven, then it becomes necessary to provide sovernment with a nonreligious rationale. In the Book of Lord Shang, Shang Yang offers as justification for government an evolutionary theory

reminiscent of the writings of Thomas Hobbes. According to Collins, “Hobbes early argued that ‘the estate of men. . . tn natural liberty 1s the estate of war.’”!> “Liberty” here does not carry the political sense we assion to it in the twentieth century. It simply refers to an unconstrained condition. Shang Yang and other bureaucratic theorists also considered what society might have been like in an unconstrained state. Shang Yang maintains that this condition was one of unbridled violence, giving rise to

a need for order so as to benefit the people. So the sages established divisions with respect to land, property, gender, and so on in a series of historical stages that he calls “early, middle, and late.’’° “Early, middle,

and late” implies an inexorable process of development. The use of historical stages is an invention, a tool, a more sophisticated rhetorical device capable of replacing appeals to divine authority. Even if a ruler has no ancestors in the sky, an evolutionary theory makes the emergence of the status quo appear both natural and inevitable. But this tool could be used against rulers as well as for them. In Chapter 5 we have already seen how Zhuangzi used it to attack the idea of social hierarchy altogether, arguing that society declined in stages from utopian to corrupt. A theory similar to Shang Yang’s but more detailed survives in the Guanxi. This essay holds that, originally, there were no classes, so that it was easy for the strong to intimidate the weak. Later, as society evolved, wise leaders used the superior numbers of the masses to restrain strong and violent people, putting an end to oppression. Thus the art of government, having been developed by men of ability, was accepted as just by the people (Literally, it was “accepted into their hearts”’).!7 The Guwan-

27s theory justifies the ruling elite’s inordinate share of social resources because it benefits the people. Again, similar rhetorical strategies appear in England at a time when the role of a higher authority was diminishing—at least relative to the

stricter rhetoric of medieval times. Collins notes that a number of seventeenth-century writers justified personal and political actions by appealing to the common good of England or of society.!8 The appeal to social good 1s a rhetorical tool with certain strategic advantages. First, such appeals support a writer’s credibility because they appear to be altruistic. Second, to the degree that a sovereign might identify himself or

146 Craft and Pohktical Theory herself with the nation, this rhetoric offered a good substitute for divine authorization. Presumably this would have been a live option in Francis Bacon’s England, where the sovereign and state were not yet sharply distinguished. ‘Third, “the people,” “England,” and “society” are sufficiently abstract to offer great scope for rhetorical manipulation. As a graphic paradigm for social order, this tool offers structural advantages. It is the appeal to an amorphous abstraction that makes possible the centralization of authority. If the ruler is set off against a single abstract body such as “society” or the “people,” then unity becomes possible, in the manner of a figure enclosed within a uniform ground. In a compartmentalized social order, there is no such possibility. But a more

centralized theory requires a degree of secularization sufficient to imagine society in abstraction from a nested set of social degrees.” Shang Yang’s arguments eschew appeals to a higher power. Shang Yane’s contemporary, Shenzi (d. 337 B.c.), went further still: “Law//a does not descend from Heaven, nor does it arise from Earth. It develops in society, and resides in the people’s/ven hearts and minds, that is all”

ETRE R FE, FEA, ET AR, SPAS

Shenzi recognized a psychological element in government that cannot

be ignored. He presumed that the laws, in order to be effective, must somehow be internalized by the people, a principle important in later bureaucratic theory. Like the first chapter of the Zhuangzi, such an assertion presupposes a distinction between society and self. The number and range of factors necessary for power negotiation, in other words, were beginning to expand. Previously honor, degree, rules of ceremony, and material expenditure were relevant factors in negotiating prerogative. Now even such things as the psychological state of the people’s minds can be part of the process of negotiation. Related to the society/self distinction is yet another dichotomy appearing in bureaucratic theory as gong 2 and sz 74, or public and private. In Classical bureaucratic theory, sz refers to those personalized interests *Like all such terms, “secularization” is being used here as a description for a scale upon which statements can be seen as more or less secular. Collins’s understanding is much the same. Seventeenth-century England was far from secular; even United States politics in recent years is strongly influenced by religious considerations. Collins sees the thought of Hobbes and contemporaries as secular relative to the zero ground of medieval England.

Craft and Poltial Theory 147 that dominated political decisions under the familial social order. Gong refers to more public, shared rules for making unbiased judgments about bureaucratic roles. When Warring States writers use the term ./, they generally have in mind the feudal mode of making appointments on the basis of blood relations rather than ability. Shenzi was one of the first to stress the importance of this distinction: “Of all the benefits of law//a, the greatest is preventing the implementation of personal(istic)/s7 [prac-

tices in government]” AZ, BALA AF. When appointments are based upon personal relations, judgment can be clouded; an incompetent might be assigned to a vital position. On the other hand, if the rules of government are employed like a craftsman’s tools, they can provide standards for making objective decisions. This principle requires a principle of equality as a correlate. In order for po-

sitions to be assigned objectively, nobility and commoners, rich and poor—all should be potential recruits for bureaucratic office. As the

Mozi states: | :

Therefore the ancient sage-kings paid mind to promoting capable men and appointing officials on the basis of their abilities. They did not appoint fathers or brothers, they did not favor the rich and noble, they were not swayed by femi-

nine charm. They chose and promoted the capable, made them wealthy and noble so that they could serve as major and minor officials. They demoted and fired the untalented, making them impoverished and lowly, so that they could serve as workers. This was how they motivated the people/n to exert themselves in pursuit of rewards and to fear punishments and to lead one another to better performance. In this way the capable became numerous, while the incompetent few. This 1s called “promoting the capable.’’!

HEA RLES AM, Mee, KER, Cmte, FRA. RAR M@EZ,eMRZ UBER. FA AMOS, ARS, RRR. RU RPHED, REA, HAR. LARA MR, PAAR. eee.

This passage addresses issues that do not figure in Whigham’s analysis. Mozxi is suggesting nothing less than that aristocratic criteria of social worth—tfamily connections, genealogy, rank—be abandoned tn favor of a nonaristocratic standard based on performance. Bureaucratic expertise is something that can be acquired without marrying into a higher-ranking clan and without fake insignia, a false pedigree, or other external attributes of putative worth. In fact, he explicitly rejects wealth and nobility as criteria. Some will be surprised to find such a claim tn a source dating to

148 Craft and Poktical Theory centuries B.c. After all, as late as the seventeenth century in Europe, the Duke of La Force, writing to his tenants in southwest France, argued in distinctly familial terms that “lords had been placed in authority over others only so as to protect them from oppression.”*? Yet, as Donald Munro has shown, the principle of promoting the capable was among the most widespread areas of agreement among all the various schools of

thought in the Warring States period.*? The basic idea, more weakly stated, was even written into a treaty signed by several states in the fourth century B.c.**

The reason some may have difficulty assigning Moz’s remark to such an early date is that the Romantic historians have left us with a layer-cake model of history. In this model, history proceeds in stages each characterized by a unified character, or Gesst, and so the phenomena characterizing each stage must be unique to a given period. If this were truly the

case, of course, then it would be odd for the Romans to have had a Senate, since to say as much would imply that they must have had a modern democracy. One way out of the conundrum ts to disaggregate phenomena from a ricidly stepped narrative and to view history as layers of multicolored buckshot. Rather than portray each “layer” as unified by an exclusive color called “Medieval” or “Modern,” we might understand each period

culture in terms of a collection of social practices permitting varying degrees of mobility and control, or a “repertoire of contention.” Sydney

Tarrow conceives of such power structures as mutually generated by rulers and ruled alike, with each side, or multiple sides, making different claims to authority. “Over time, claim-making groups establish a wellknown repertoire of contention whose implications are understood by everyone. Repertoires change as shifts in political opportunities bring

new groups into contention or as they alter the relationships between established groups.”?5 Elements of contentious repertoires—such as a meritocratic discourse—need not be unique to any given period. The Greeks enjoyed Euclidean geometry at an early date, though such learning came into China only much later. We should not be surprised, then, if the chronological sequence sometimes goes the other way. Granting that some form of meritocratic discourse was developing in Warring States China, how should a man in charge of promotions avoid

Craft and Poktial Theory 149 intimidation by noble rank or the temptations of family bias or feminine charm? Guwanzi espoused the use of objective measures:

An enlightened lord uses craft/shu and measures/shu and so cannot be cheated. .. . As a result, none of the officials will dare to further his private [family] interests, eminent people will not dare to overshadow the mean, those near to the throne will not be able to prevent [promotions for] those distant, and even orphans, widowers, the old, and the weak will not be prevented from acquiring appropriate positions. Within the borders of the state all distinctions of [ability and responsibility] will be clear, and none will interfere with anothet’s [sphere of responsibility]. This is what is called “ruling a state.”°

WE a, it Bin RYT Ra... RAR PRAT, BARR, IS

KLEE, KEE BEAL. SA, th TWA, he

The first shu is the same term Craftsman Qing used to describe his “art.” ‘The second is “number,” shv, a term that formerly referred to assioned numbers of artifacts for purposes of ceremony. Both are used metaphorically. The idea is that the right techniques and specifications will prevent prejudice in the assignment of duty or prerogative. The kinds of prejudice listed tnclude bias based upon family, class, personal affiliation, and even age. The last part of the passage addresses an important principle essential

for reducing personalistic behavior in a bureaucracy: the separation of duties for each office. In a familial or feudal social system, the man is the office and so his sphere of responsibility may be ill defined. Bureaucratic theorists in China early on determined that the separation of man from office required a clear definition of the office’s duties. ‘This is part of the “measurement” of which they speak. The implication, however, is that prerogatives and duties are not intrinsic to an individual but reside in the office instead. This principle tmmediately creates a chasm separating role

from identity. This disjunction is essential if human resources are to change roles as required by a meritocratic system. Separatinge man from office and making rules historically contingent

would necessarily alter the concept of rulership. One of the strongest statements on this topic is to be found in the writings of Shenz: Formerly when they set someone up as emperor and honored him, it was not for

the [benefit] of that one person. When one sets up an emperor, it is for the

150 Craft and Pohtial Theory [benefit] of the world, it is not that the world is set up to [benefit] the emperor. When one sets up the lord of a state, it is for the [benefit] of the state, it is not that the state is set up to [benefit] the lord. When one sets up officials, it is so they can [serve] in office, it is not the office that is set up to [serve] the official.*’

GALZAFTMAEAZA, FEV AML. MZRFURATS, FLZATRAA RFa,, ZAMS YAM, FLAK RA ML, ZRPRARE, FFL EU Ae. For Shenzi, social role, in the sense of duty or prerogative, is a function of the office and not intrinsic to an individual. While these state-

ments may sound fairly liberal, they are not so far in sense from statements in Mozz, Yanxi, or Guanzi, all of which imply that the ultimate

justification for government is benefiting the people. Rhetorically speaking, this areument provided legitimacy for a privileged class. However, many arguments could fill that function—heredity, for example, or an appeal to God, or “natural law.” None of those arguments would demand demystification of the ruler. Shenzi’s argument does. One

would expect that most potentates, given a choice, would prefer the more secure status of a demigod. It may be, however, that Warring States

rulers did not have that choice. Political essays of the period routinely assume that rulers are likely to be etther cruel or downright incompetent. Among these ts a passage from Mozz: There are a great many rulers in this world, but among them the humane ones are very few. If everyone takes their ruler as standard//a, then their standard//a

will not be humane. If the standard//a is not humane, it cannot setve as a standard /fa.78

RE AZRBAM, EAR, BRALK, LAR. KEE, RIK BE. An essay in Guanxi notes that there is nothing to distinguish officials from their ruler other than the force of citcumstances (shi). When officials acquire this advantage, they can lord it over the lord. On the other hand, even if officials are not loyal, they will obey the ruler if he holds a strategic advantage. Craft Officer Qing would have had difficulty understanding this one, for the text necessarily implies that the ruler’s authority is not intrinsic; it is merely a function of political citrcumstance.”? This is

why political theorists were so concerned with ja. If being a ruler no longer meant having virtue, then the guide for government could not be sought in the man who happens to hold the office. Ruler and minister alike required some kind of objective standard.

Craft and Pohktiwal Theory 151 GOVERNMENT AND CRAFT:

WEN X AND ZHANG & Bureaucratic theorists in the tradition of Shang Yang, Shenzi, or Guanzi have little to say about terms like wen or xhang. But the work of Xunzi, the

major Confucian thinker of the third century B.c., offers thoughtful adaptations of such terms. As a writer in the Confucian tradition, Xunzi treated the ceremonial system as a point of departure for standards in government. Unlike Moz7, for instance, he insists that the ruler should be a model of wisdom and virtue. Nonetheless he was sufficiently in tune with his time to understand that the hereditary system of determining social status was outmoded. As a result he assigns to ornament more pragmatic social functions. He sees it as a means of distinguishing rank, for example, but understands that rank should be determined more by ability than birth. He also insists that ornament has the practical value of enhancing a man’s dignity so as to command the respect needed to carry

out his duties. These subtle but important differences emerge when Xunzi tries to explain the use of ornament in government: The way to administer government is that the emperor should have the three dukes [under him], while the nobility should have a single minister. The superior officers should have sole administration of their office, while the scholar officers

should attend to their responsibilities. Each should follow the legal procedures/fa and limits/dz concerning their duties [in accordance with] public/gong [principles]. This is the way to manage government. If the ruler sorts out the merits/de [of different personnel] and on the basis of this determines rank, if he assesses ability and assigns office accordingly, then this will ensure that each will be assigned to business suitable [for his talents] and everyone will get what 1s appropriate [for his ability].°°

RFAR, HR—M, KAGE, ERK, BRAK BMA: RPG AAU,

a 4S ty OK, BAO BA [LIA MAS, mH eB. Much of the new vocabulary of bureaucratic administration 1s apparent in this passage. The bulk of the text is concerned with the clear separation of duties, with each official attending only to his assigned tasks. Du here no longer refers to ceremonial degrees but to specified limits of office; ja refers to those public/gong procedures for fulfilling the

duties of office in accordance with assigned goals rather than for the

152 Craft and Poltical Theory benefit of one’s own family. The latter portion of the text explains the principle of assigning office on the basis of merit. Given the context, it 1s obvious that de here does not mean “honor/virtue” in the feudal sense, though for Xunzi “merit” would still retain a strong moral component. The passage assumes that nonaristocratic men can receive office, but by this time virtue/de was no longer so closely associated with nobility as it once was. Moreover, he links de specifically to the bureaucratic aim of distinguishing the duties of each office so that everyone’s activities will be limited to their appropriate business. In this context @ still refers to a

man’s “powers,” but only in the sense that a man may possess special abilities, such as good administrative skills or moral virtues necessary for leadership 1n office. The text immediately following this passage considers how to display

differences in rank. Here, Xunzi draws heavily on the old ceremonial system:

The most able should be appointed as the three dukes. The next most able should be granted noble rank. The next most able should be made into superior officers. This is the way to separate and establish [the different ranks]. The way to distinguish them with ornament is with the various caps and robes, noble designs/fufu, patterns/wen and badges/ zhang, carvings in jade and inlaid metal, each [representing] a different rank. ‘This 1s how you show [levels of] majesty. In this way, from the emperor down to the common people, each will undertake his task in accordance with his ability, and so each will achieve satisfaction and enjoy his work. This is how to unify [the people in support of you].*!

LBGEZ ASR, RAZ RB, PREZALAA: RHRBRAU,

WERGARE, WARK, AIR AGE, PAA: RAS Hw. MAT

ZARAL, RRB, GLE, REL, SPALL.

This passage rests comfortably midway between a feudal-like social ideal and bureaucracy. Xunzi still conceives of ranks in terms of levels of majesty, and offices in terms of feudal rank, but he sees these ranks as distributed according to merit, not birth. Even his notion of merit/de lies midway between the earlier sense of “virtue, honor, power” and the later bureaucratic concept of merit. P. J. Ivanhoe has shown that one of the cote properties of dein Confucius’s thought ts its “attractive power.” *? A

man of virtue has the power to attract people to him. This attractive power, then, serves to justify a man’s authority and so becomes an indispensable quality of leadership. One senses in this passage from

Craft and Pohtial Theory 153 Xunzi something of this virtue-based scale of value. On the one hand, Xunzi recognizes that birth need not be a determinant in assigning office. On the other hand, the “‘merit’? he has in mind resembles less the performance-based criteria of later bureaucratic theory than it does a more Confucian concept of personal charisma. This is why I have translated pattern/wenzhang here not as insignia but as “badge.” An tnsienia, in the feudal sense, actually defines one’s identity. The xhang Xunzi mentions can be granted and taken away as a man 1s promoted or demoted. It signifies one’s office but is not inherited. Another feature anticipating bureaucratic theory is the idea that people in office do not merely serve as functionaries for the ruler. They have their

own ambitions. When allowed to realize their potential they achieve a psychological sense of satisfaction no different from that of the monarch himself. A kingdom full of such satisfied individuals provides the conditions for harmony and peace. Despite Xunzi’s old-fashioned conception of rank, passages such as these reveal an attitude toward personal ornamentation fully distinct from that of earlier times. This new understanding emerges still more clearly in the following passage: [The ancient kings and sages] knew that if, in creating the position of ruler, they did not refine and adorn him, he would prove inadequate to the task of unifying the people. If he were not made rich and opulent, he would be inadequate to manage his subordinates. If he were not made majestic and powerful, he would prove inadequate to suppress the violent and overcome the cruel.*°

KBE. OR RAEEH, PERMARRU-Rw, REBEL VAP, BRR IRA RAR RL. In its own way this passage recalls the Gwanzz, for both recognize that a tuler’s authority is not intrinsic but dertves from force of circumstance.

Xunzi’s Confucian training, however, shows in his desire to use ceremonial ornament. The need to enhance the ruler’s majesty justifies his lavish musical entertainment, fine food, and, of course, beautiful ornaments: “Hence it was necessary that they should carve jade and inlay metal with noble desiens/fuju and patterns /wenzhang, only such as would be sufficient to distinguish the noble from the mean, not so as to satisfy his taste/guan (for beauty)” & AZAMARA, ASE, HAMM RH, RMA He

BC, BRIM

154 Craft and Poltial Theory Ornament has acquired a purely instrumental function, that of distineuishine different ranks. Its relationship to virtue, therefore, 1s more

complex. True, further on in this chapter Xunzi mentions virtue/ authority/de, but even there he does not presume perfect equivalence between ornament and de: “Hence it was necessary that they [the people] should carve jade and inlay metal with noble designs/fuju and patterns/ wenxhang in order to give him majesty and to cultivate his virtue. If such a humane/ven man sits on the throne, then the people/dazxing will honor him as an emperor and love him like their own father or mother; they will gladly risk their very lives for his sake” & BZARR, WIZE, MARR EB,

VAG HZ, ARH. WIHAAL, AMT ZwH, M2wRF,

By Zh FO Bh te to lay a. In this passage ornament is not an instantiation of inherited virtue. Rather, it has become an instrument for cultivating virtue and creating an impression of majesty. In an age when most intellectuals regarded feudal lords with skepticism, it was more difficult to claim that the clothes really made the man. Consequently Xunzt says that the peop ornament the monarch in order to express their sincere admiration for a virtue he has cultivated. This is very different from the notion that virtue is intrinsic and need only be made manifest in ornament. Originally one of the functions of ornament was to legitimize the transfer of possessions from producers to elites. Like speakers in the Guoyu, Zuo xhuan, and Mozi, Xunzi is aware of this problem but, unlike Moz, does not associate an unjust distribution of resources with ornament itself. Rulers increase the levies in bronze coinage and cloth to pilfer the valuables of the common people. They double the taxes on agricultural produce so as

to steal their food. They tyrannize with imposts the border stations and marketplaces to place obstacles in the way of business transactions. Not content with this, they also spy on people so as to entrap them, using their privileged

position to plot people’s demise, hoping to turn the tables against them and bring their enterprises to ruin. But when the people come to their senses, they will know of their ruler’s wanton tyranny, and then the throne will be in grave danger.*° -

3.72, ABZ, COHLZM, LEZ FPS, CHAS. F

AimaOCK: BITRE, HEA, ASA), ARIZ. ERE OH

Fi2 RAL, AFA EC.

Craft and Poktical Theory 155 Xunzi, like Mozz, is saying nothing less than that the aristocracy steals property belonging to the people. This necessarily implies that the people

have a right to this property which has been violated, a notion some maintain never existed in China. Likewise, his criticism of spying and entrapment implies that this, too, deprives the people of something that rightfully is theirs. Xunzi knew only too well the kinds of injustices perpetrated in his time, but he did not see the display of wealth in ornament as contributing to it. This might come as a surprise for some, seeing as Han and post-Han Confuctans were known to preach frugality, but this was not necessarily the practice during Warring States times. Presumably this is why Han Fetizi could criticize Confucians for favoring “maonificent clothing and appearance and embellished rhetoric.’”’ Xunzi resembles other Warring States writers in using craft terms in a more extended sense, abstracting the concept from its material substrate. The ancient dialogue between ornament and abstraction finds elegant expression in this passage: All people like to hear others speak well of them, but a gentleman 1s especially so. Therefore, to give words [of praise] as a gift is more precious than gold, jade and costly stones; to appreciate/egvan a person with [fine] words makes them more

beautiful/me: than noble designs//ufu or ornament/wenzhang, to listen to a person’s words is mote enjoyable than the music of bells, drums, and zithers. Therefore a gentleman never gets tired of speech.*®

LARS SHARE, METRE. UAE, EWEERE MAM S, HAMM RE; IAMS, BAERS E. RE FLZH SBR. Ceremonial materials, music, and designs serve here as metaphors for a purely intellectual appreciation of value, not a material instantiation of value. Craft Officer Qing might assume that the possession of jade was equivalent to the possession of virtue. Xunzi claims that the psychologtcal satisfaction of recetving praise for personal achievement is far more precious than external signs of worth. The same reasoning applies to the metaphor of ceremonial music. The use of guan #8, in this text is close to Moz?’s notion of “taste.” It implies a capacity to appreciate something beautiful, like ornament/wenzhang. But again, what is being appreciated is an internal beauty abstracted from artifacts. Xunzi’s support for promo-

tion by merit would suggest that he is speaking of achieved worth. In drawing this comparison, Xunzi unwittingly discloses the distance between his own thought and the ceremontal order to which he refers.

156 Craft and Poktical Theory FROM CRAFT TO THEORY In most of the texts reviewed above one can recognize a dialectic at work among four functionally related phenomena: (1) the separation of craft

terms from intrinsic, inherited qualities; (2) the assignment of office on the basis of ability; (3) the separation of duties between offices; and (4) the demystification of the ruler. All four are part of the same dynamic. As soon as jawas understood as something nonintrinsic, it could be abstracted from its material substrate, which had attached that quality directly to its referent, its owner. This made it possible to abstract the idea of “governing procedures” away from ceremony so that it could apply to anyone, irrespective of birth. But all this necessarily meant disassembling

the religious mode of authorization. Now, even the ruler could not escape the segregation of man and office. The knowledge that rulers could be incompetent became a functional part of most political theories. ‘This intensified the need for an objective standard like fa. Guanzi argues this with the craftsman metaphor. An unskilled artisan can make a good circle using a compass. Likewise, a monarch can avoid mistakes keeping to his ja? It would be difficult for even an ungifted monarch to miss the com-

parison here. Given the terms of the analogy, if there are dull-witted craftsman, presumably there are dull-witted rulers as well. At one end of the scale we have appeals to spiritual authority, such as “respecting their (my ancestor’s) bright sacrifices and eternally receiving their blessings, I will not be in fear and will not err.” At the other end we

have: “There are a great many rulers in this world, but among them the humane ones are very few.” At one end 4 1s a property of hereditary nobility, at the other end, any government functionary can have it. At one end we have ceremony; at the other, emergent bureaucratic theory. These changes are dialectically related. Formerly, political theory did not exist. Material objects offered an effective means of articulating the distribution of prerogative through ceremony. Style served to abstract the idea of a specific degree of physical quality so that it could stand for a comparable degree of socta/ prerogative. But this method of creating mental and soctal

order favors a compartmentalized structure. As the compartments of ceremonial order dissolved, a relatively higher degree of centralization emerged as a possibility. Centralization is not incompatible with divine

Craft and Poktacal Theory 157 authority—witness Louis XTV—but a more complex administration would benefit from a loosening of ceremonial order at the level of government functionaries so as to better match the man to the job at hand. The weakening of ceremonial order then makes possible appeals to nonreligious sources of authority. Any appeal to authority other than the divine is necessarily higher up the scale of secularity. This historical dynamic is hardly unique to China. It should not surprise us that Collins’s analysis of seventeenth-century England contains

several observations that could apply to the Moz:, the Guanzi, Shang Yang, or Shenzz:

The idea of a state, in this context, suggests that social order is separate from divine, natural, or cosmic order. Social order, now, begins to incorporate rational utilitarian authority. And authority is no longer a matter of acquisition or definition; it is only a matter of exercise. Secular order then, redefines the social good.*?

The notion that English social order really was separate from cosmic

order comes as a sutprise. Stephen Toulmin has shown how early modern English concepts of society were closely integrated with theories of cosmic order. According to seventeenth-century writers, “God would

never set up the order of Nature less rationally and prudently than a wise King would organize the State: nor would God care for Nature with any less concern than a Husband and Father has for his Wife and Family.” In both society and Nature, the leading themes were “stability and hierarchy”: The Rot Soleil, or Solar King, wields authority over successive circles of subjects,

all of whom know their places, and keep their proper orbits. What God 1s to Nature and the King is to the State, a Husband 1s to his Wife, and the Father 1s to his Family: the paternalism re-established in respectable circles after 1660 is thus given a justifying place in the order of Nature.*!

This does not sound quite as secular as Collins would have it. Presumably Collins is not suggesting that God somehow disappeared from English rhetoric in the seventeenth century (God has a habit of showing up in U.S. political rhetoric even today). It 1s simply that, in relation to a vero ground, one might say that, with Hobbes, “social order is separate from divine,” kind of.*

158 Craft and Poktical Theory Style and Status

The ceremonial grading system of Classical China expressed “humanity” in graded levels of material workmanship. The driving power supporting this system of control was style. Style necessarily minimizes some phystcal qualities (such as regularity or texture) and enhances others (such as irregularity or depth). Representation is distinct from “nature” precisely because a natural object’s excess of detail resists effective fabrication. The amount and range of information in a natural cloud 1s far greater than any artist could capture, and so s/he is forced to exclude some qualities and

enhance others. This process yields a hierarchy, with the presumption that excluded items are less tmportant than enhanced ones. Stylistic criteria will be determined by the priorities a culture assigns to the physical properties of natural objects, but physical properties readily acquire moral value. I have referred to this condition as the fitness principle, the working assumption that a style appeals to some social groups more than others because it encodes a particular scale of priorities. The link between spatial paradigms and the fitness principle resides in

the fact that every artifact requires a special set of procedures for producing its peculiar form. Those procedures amount to a kind of algorithm corresponding to definite logical operations. Those logical operations consist principally of decisions regarding the categorization of things. Should an artist portray a servant as having feelings? Is a woman a

person ot an ornament for a rich man? Value judgments such as these will be encoded in the conventional procedures for generating an acceptable form. Because a macro style consists of a set of categorical decisions, artisans cannot avoid adopting a procedure for dealing with boundaries and, therefore, the assignment of identity, what a thing “is.” ‘These operations

give tise to peculiar geometries, spatial paradigms corresponding to logical operations such as analysis or synthesis on the one hand, and structural relationships between figure and ground on the other. These paradigms, in turn, can play themselves out in society as material scales

for representing personal worth. In early societies, these scales may have offered the only method for debating issues of prerogative. Over time, the logic encoded in a paradigm could furnish a conceptual model for a geometry of personal worth.

Craft and Poktical Theory 159 The process 1s relatively easy to trace in Spring and Autumn period China. In China of that period, as in other ranked societies, quantity served as a code for social prerogative. The challenge for artisans was to find material scales that could match the social levels of the ceremonial erading system. The solution they found was to adopt modular design,

which, in turn, permitted a modular system of production. Through modular design, the amount of labor expended on any artifact could be coded in precise increments so that social privilege might be mapped onto design and ornament. By the fourth century B.c., the use of ceremony and style to designate human worth came to be recognized as an artificial tool of control. Just about that time the modular style gave way to a more “synthetic style.” In synthetic-style designs, all the modular stylistic elements of the previous

period were abandoned, along with some production procedures. In addition, the density of ornament was reduced, and new dimensions of variation were concomitantly more fully explored. This gave the artisan novel avenues within which to exercise invention and wit.

Alterations of form previously forbidden now were encouraged. Visual cues for invention began to displace the marks of sheer labor. This shift in macro style signals the debut of “taste.”” Non-noble (if wealthy) persons could now imitate courtly taste. This created a matertal scale for a new social order upon which all educated persons could relate to their sovereion directly, unmediated by the local lord. High and low became

linked on a single scale running from crude to artful, with ingenuity marking higher grades of taste. Considering ornament’s earlier role in sionifying intrinsic virtue, this trend necessarily implied a secularization of design. In keeping with this, craft terms such as /a, shz, and du acquired extended meanings in bureaucratic theory. This, in turn, altered forever the traditional relationship between pattern and person.

EIGHT Ornament and Identety

Ingenuity and skill remained essential features of ornament throughout the Warring States period (475-221), but by the third century B.c., cloud designs often ceased to be treated as patterns at all. A new set of procedures left cloud motifs so open to variation as to vacillate between ornament and representation, as if the ornament itself were animate. Max Loehr described the phenomenon well (see Figs. 24 and 25): At close inspection this vivacious configuration proves to be the body of a single

dragon with organically indefinable extensions and flourishes. ... The extraordinary thing is that this creature is partly organism and partly ornament, yet in all its ambiguity possesses a semblance of vitality. ... The dragon is essentially an ornament that has mysteriously acquired life.!

At about the same time, animals and spirits began to appear among the meanders as integral elements of design—something like tiny cloud patterns with feet, horns, and wings. Was this pictorialization of pattern also charged the way density or ingenuity had been previously? Another way to put the question 1s to apply the fitness principle. If the designs themselves had acquired a representational function, what sorts of information did the style of the cloud meander enhance? What did it filter out? What was the generic condition of clouds? On the back side of a bronze mirror in the Freer Gallery of Art, four dragons slip furttvely among swirling clouds (Figs. 24 and 25). The dragons took shape some twenty-three hundred years ago when liquid bronze flowed into a two-piece mold. Bronze alloy on the back side congealed into serpentine shapes. Metal on the other side formed a smoothly curved surface ready for polishing. That is how mirrors were

made in the late Warring States period. Having viewed the elusive

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Ornament and Identity 161

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dragons adorning the back side, the mirror’s owner would have flipped the disk around to face his own image. Could it be that the dragon, also, invited the mirror’s owner to consider the nature of his own identity? In some respects the mirror’s decor resembles earlier Warring States patterns. Diagonal organization, for example, remains prominent, but most of the design procedures employed were new, as seen in the nature of figure/ground relationships. Although the motif is no less ambiguous than before, the source of that ambiguity has changed. In synthetic-style

designs (Figs. 26 and 27), ambiguity was ensured by rapid and conspicuous changes in band width that force the eye to reverse figure and ground. Because both the “ground” (bronze or lacquer) and the “figure” (gold, silver, or lacquer) share the same smooth surface, reversal of figure and ground faced no obstacle (Fig. 27). Neither condition applies to the mirror in the Freer Gallery. On the mirror, the dragon motif is raised above a ground uniformly covered with a texture of “thunder” patterns, so that the dragons seem to float above that surface (Fig. 24). Although the band’s contour changes often, its width does not change as rapidly or

162 Ornament and Identity “ee \ae hoare fs i) INN - Oeee, ae : me OOS ONSEN heat ag7fey Gs% } i Ag SsQS eesfae eee(GAGE So Of Sf Sts, /oats Gua

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ae fi. Rey WOME a Fie. 25. Detail of the mirror illustrated in Fig. 24. The background has been electronically removed so as to reveal the dragon pattern. Photograph by the author.

as conspicuously as in synthetic-style designs. In comparison with the earlier designs, the width of the “cloud” band on this mirror keeps to a fairly narrow range. For this reason, the dragon motif emerges as a network of thin bands superimposed above an even ground. One can find volute shapes in that “ground,” but these remain consistently broader than the dark dragon motif. The cloud band never becomes as thick as the ground, and the ground never as thin as the band. Because figure and sround do not share the same width or texture, they are not fully codependent. If this is so, what makes the dragons ambiguous? The ambiguity here does not hold between figure and ground so much as between “dragon” volutes and what are often called “‘cloud” scrolls. A look at the lower left corner of Figure 25 will reveal a pointed, claw-like structure leading to an elbow-like joint. Following the line up to the “shoulder” takes you to a “neck.” Tracing that neck upward, one can discern a head with an eye, a

nose, and a horn or crest. Following the band to the other “shoulder” will lead to another elbow and claw, but beyond that the “body” dissolves into a pattern of swirls just like those to the immediate left of the satne dragon. To which “body” does this dragon belong and, while we’re at it, where is the bodyr

Ornament and Identity 163

lig. 26. Bronze vessel, type dow. Warring States period, fourth century B.c. Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.: Purchase, 1939.41.

Each unit of the design is made up of a long, shallow curve that expands and finally ends in a mass of cusp-like forms. This unit resembles the scroll-and-volute motif of earlier Warring States designs (Fig. 15).

Like earlier scrolls, it follows a rule of alternation, with new scrolls shooting out in alternating directions, now left, now right, now up, now down. It differs from earlier volutes because the cusps are highly irregular. Unlike the periodic shapes of earlier scrolls, these cusps can be modified to suggest natural shapes—a shoulder, a claw, a nose, and so on. This same scroll and cusp unit appears throughout the design as “cloud” scroll, in which case the “cusps” mimic the structure of clouds curling back due to wind and turbulence (Figs. 24 and 28). The ambiguity of the dragon motif, then, derives from the fact that the dragon shares basic features of contour, orientation, and structure with its environment. This change in the spatial logic of the image alters the way we figure the dragon’s identity. Following the same principles that enable a cam-

ouflaged moth to disappear on mottled bark, the dragon is easily as similated to its surroundings. Sharing with its environment a common set of structures, its “identity” 1s easily changed. Viewed at a distance, the mirror’s pattern might be seen as a conventional “cloud” design (Fig. 24), but up close it can resolve into a dragon (Fig. 25).

The ground also changes depending upon the viewer’s distance and perspective. Up close the fine, coiled “thunder” patterns emerge, so that

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164 Ornament and Identity

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Photograph by the author.

the dragon in the clouds seems to float above them. At a distance, the ground itself seems made up of volutes and swirls, but these remain

thicker than those of the dragon pattern. However construed, the thunder patterns do not transcend the figures, like a neutral ground, nor are figure and ground truly interchangeable. The identity of the motif, and even the nature of the ground, becomes dependent upon the viewer. For this reason one might speak of this macro style as metamorphic. If we were to describe the procedures employed in terms of “rules,” at least four would come to mind: (1) the rule of inclination; (2) the rule of

alternation; (3) a single unit rule, requiring the exclusive use of one design unit consisting of an expanding volute coming to a head in a cluster of cusps; (4) a rule of permutation encouraging a high degree of variation and irregularity in modulating the basic unit. Essentially one type of scroll unit has replaced a variety of types formerly in use, but this

one type can now undergo a limitless range of permutations so as to permit the use of less periodic, more descriptive forms. The metamorphic style differs from previous macro styles in several fundamental respects. First, the geometry underlying the design 1s no longer precise but corresponds more closely to what Oleg Grabar calls “loose geometry”: although the work required the artisan to work out certain geometric relations, the presence of those relationships may not be obvious in the finished product. In fact, the artisan may even attempt

Ornament and Identity 165

hig. 28. Clouds propelled by a jetstream, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1999.

to conceal the use of periodic form.* Next, the metamorphic style’s solution to the problem of cohesion was new. The modular style ensured a

sense of cohesion through a hierarchy of units, each with its own boundary, and with each unit being enclosed by another. In the synthetic macro style (Figs. 26 and 27) the use of boundaries was abandoned. Instead, co-dependence knit together separate design elements, reversing

figure and ground universally throughout the design. Some degree of co-dependence remains in the metamorphic style, but it ts much looser and so contributes little to cohesion. Now, cohesion is maintained through the repetition of one basic structural element. The procedural algorithm employed by the artisans who designed the Freer mirror vielded a structure unlike anything employed in earlier styles.°

Why is this structure important for understanding the metamorphic style? Structure reveals a set of design procedures, and those procedures correspond to underlying logical operations. Just as an analytical logic was critical for the ceremonial function of Spring and Autumn period ornament, so can metamorphic designs be described as having a dendritic structure. Craft workers who designed this mirror worked from inside to outside, rather than the other way around. Nothing could be further removed from the modular style, in which the subdivision of boundaries made possible the soctal activity of segregating roles.

Because the geometry of the metamorphic style possesses spatio-logical possibilities entirely distinct from those of earlier macro styles,

we once again confront the futility of associating any single paradigm with an entire race. It appears instead that graphic paradigms are the product of social evolution. The modular style was able to represent, on a material scale, compartmentalized social relationships. With the synthetic

style, the sheer complexity of form served as a scale for labor and in-

166 Ornament and Identity genuity, allowing persons further down the social ladder to acquire high-status items without overtly breaking the now frail ceremonial rules. No doubt, the metamorphic style retained this direct economic signification, with greater complexity standing in for ingenuity. But the fact that the fictive element in metamorphic designs assumed a presence equal to that of periodic shapes changed the nature of its referent radically. The

dragon on the Freer mirror is no longer an insignia marking a man’s inherited honor. The figure in the carpet now functions more like a metaphor drawn from a socially constructed “nature,” signifying those values the wearer chooses to display.

Hidden Dragons

The mirror in the Freer has a small hole through which a ribbon could be looped for attachment to the belt. The mirror would be seen hanging on its owner’s belt by officials, courtiers, or persons in the marketplace. It may have been granted as a gift to a meritorious officer, or 1t may have been privately commissioned from a craftsman in a southern metropolis. It would not have been seen as an insignia of rank because, by the third century B.C., officers of state did not have to come from noble families. Rather, it was an ideal surface for the display of “taste,” that new sense of visual meaning that emerged during the fifth and fourth centuries B.c. (see Chapter 6). If the dragon was no longer an insignia of feudal rank, did it acquire

new ineanings, or was it reduced to the status of mere “ornament”? Fortunately Warring States literature is rich in references to the dragon. This literature suggests that the image was anything but neutral at the

time. In fact, the dragon, like the very terms of craft (such as dy, ja), became a conceptual tool in Warring States attempts to redefine the relationship between pattern and personal identity. This was so because the

dragon, once an emblem of nobility, had become a figure for men engaged in political action. Depending upon whose dates one accepts, the Book of Changes may be

one of the earliest texts to use the dragon in this sense.* Typically the metaphor turns on the tradition that dragons can fly and adapt their form to circumstances. Talented men, like dragons, could also change their role and identity, changing from ordinary citizens to men of rank. In this way the notion of “form” became a visual model for the way individuals

Ornament and Identzty 167 respond to circumstances. By late Warring States times the trope appears to have become widespread. Han Feiz1, for instance, cites a passage from Shenzi comparing the man of political action to a dragon. In its famuliar surroundings of mists and clouds, the dragon can exercise its wondrous powers; severed from this environment, however, it loses them. In just this way, S/enz argues, a man’s capacity to exercise talent 1s contingent

upon the force of circumstances (s/7 HS , Han Feizi does not specify what kinds of powers the dragon could

powers: ,

exercise, but the same figure occurs in the Yanzxz. There the author reveals the sorts of suppositions readers might make about the dragon’s Now the dragon is a creature with spiritual powers. With the advantage of but a foot of cloud, it is able to hide its body and carry out its transformations far and wide. Otherwise women and children could catch it and play with it. ‘This is the necessary result of the force of circumstances.°

LAR, PHL, FREE, MRARAA MAHI, SAMREM PZ, MIAH wh Bb. In these passages the dragon represents a man of political action, but

the assumed relationship between metamorphosis and identity was pregnant with other possibilities. A passage from one of the Zhuangz?’s

late Warring States or early Han chapters illustrates how the dragon metaphor could facilitate the exploration of the difference between socially constructed identity and a personal sense of self.’ In this scenario Zhuangzi’s students present him with a conundrum. The master had just observed how a tree’s life was spared because of its uselessness. Likewise, if a scholar were unfit for government service, he could avoid the dangers of the Machiavellian courts of the time. This advice, of course, offers bald testimony to the decline of feudal concepts of loyalty. It 1mplicitly recognizes the priority of an individual’s own safety over duty to a lord.’ But the students were not convinced that withdrawal was the best

route to personal happiness, for the same day they saw a goose being cooked precisely because it was no longer useful! Having thus witnessed

the failure of both strategies—service and withdrawal—the students naturally demanded of their teacher an answer. In response, “Zhuangz1”

recast the issue in spatial terms, treating the paradox as a question of positioning. This enabled him to resolve the puzzle with the dialectics of motion. In order to make the graphic logic of the argument clearer, I will highlight visual metaphors in the passage below:

168 Ornament and Identity If I wete to say that I preferred to situate myself in a position between being useless and being useful, that might seem to be the right solution, but 1t would not. I still could not avoid getting into trouble. But one who can ride on the course of flow/dao and its powers, floating freely, will have no such difficulties. Above the reach of both praise and blame, such a man could either mount on high like a dragon or retire below like a serpent. He would transform in keeping with the times, unwilling to be fixed in any single role. Alternately in a high or a low position, treating balance as his standard of measurement/ ang. Floating freely with the ancestor of all living things [1.e., the course of change or dao], he treats things [appropriately] as things, and does not allow himself to be treated as a mete object. How should he get into trouble?’

PAG Re A OR A ZO. ARR AZ], FEL, RRR. BA

RR AFM RR. RRR SE, —HE—3C, BIC, oR eA; Eb — FY Foy So, PT B78; thin Fh, MAT FF ty RH AP Some terms here, such as dao, will require further exploration later in this chapter. For now it is sufficient to note that this author, like Shenzz and Han Feizz, identifies the dragon metaphor with a man of political ambt-

tion. He further assumes that this implies a choice between becoming manifest as an active official or disappearing among the multitude. This is an intrinsically visual metaphor; so it is entirely appropriate that the author’s first step in reasoning is to consider “centrality’—a spatiological condition—as a possible solution. Recall that Zhuangzi’s students had cast the problem in terms of two extremes, service and withdrawal, or manifestation and disappearance. “Zhuangzi” supposes they might imagine that a compromise between the two extremes could solve the problem. “Be acttve—but not too much; retreat—but not too much.” But “Zhuangz1” claims that adopting a middle position will not work. Mencius, too, had observed as much: “By holding fast to [the middle road] without leaving room for the extgency of circumstances, [one’s position] becomes too single-minded.’ Mencius seems to find some merit in the idea if one makes allowances for contingencies. Zhuangzi seems skeptical of middleness altogether, for the “middle road” strategy presumes that the path one follows 1s independent of one’s own person, a blank ground upon which a figure could occupy the middle space. Only if this were so could a man avoid extremes by navigating a middle course. But this author understands that a man’s surroundings—a figure’s ground, 1f you will—always changes. Consequently, if you steer a steady course, even a middle course, eventually you will find yourself in an extreme position. This means that there

Ornament and Identety 169 is no privileged position. Vhe only way to avoid extremes is to define yourself

relative to immediate surroundings by rejecting the very concept of fixed

position/role. This demands an ability to transform personal role in response to circumstances, just as a dragon shifts back and forth between conspicuous form and invisibility in relation to its fluid environment.

It may not be immediately apparent how pervasive 1s the dragon metaphor in this passage. It extends from the moment the dragon 1s first mentioned until the end of the passage. The text speaks of one who can “tide/cheng on the course of flow/dao and its powers.” Cheng #€ is the proper verb for a dragon’s aviation, for it doesn’t really fly, but rather “tides” on the clouds, from which it obtains powers of transformation and movement. Because clouds assume wave-like patterns, the dragon’s path is necessarily undulating, a condition expressed by the alternation of “high” and “low” positions. The word choice here recalls the Book of Changes, where the dragon metaphor ts articulated in these terms. Metaphorically speaking, rising and descending motion refers to the vicissitudes of a man’s career, but it also 1s typical of the dragon’s flight as portrayed both in the literature and in the ornament of the period (Fig. 25). In a word, the dragon’s freedom to change roles 1s expressed as transforma-

tion of shape. The underlying metaphor dertves logical force from a paradigm of ambiguous form. In reference to this mode of graphic logic, spatial terms such as “high,” “low,” “surroundings,” “fixed,” and “freefloating” have been skillfully employed to represent, not social degrees ona scale, but positions assumed in response to circumstances. Once we understand this, the logic of fluid position encoded in the dragon’s form can be seen to figure a talented man with the power to adapt behavior and role to changing circumstances. This concept of personhood differs markedly from that presumed in the ceremonial texts examined in earlier chapters of this study. The spatial paradigm of ambiguous form ts not to be taken for granted. Harrison White, tracing the evolution of personhood in Europe, raises the problem of how to reconcile singular identity with multiple roles: how can you be a “father, professor, Celtics fan” and so on, all tn one persone" The problem is not limited to modern times.'* The reason this

was a special problem in premodern times was due to the fact that identity and agency are inseparable. Different levels of agency are inherent in different kinds of roles. In Warring States China, when the memory of fixed, inherited degrees of rank must still have been fresh in

170 Ornament and Identzty men’s minds, the idea that a man might change his assigned regions of agency, “floating freely” among the constellation of available roles, was no less than radical.!? This noncompartmentalized social order required

new ways of articulating the nature of both public identity and self-perceived identity. From its widespread use in late Warring States literature, 1t would appear that the dragon provided both a sign and a oraphic framework for a new concept of person adapted to this order. Form and Knowledge

Modern readers are not likely to feel uncomfortable with the mobile conception of personhood offered in the Z/huangz, yet it is important not

to dehistoricize the idea. In the premodern world, although the use of spatial paradigms of personhood seems to be common enough, the idea that a person could change his or her appointed role was not. We have already seen to what extent Tudor thinkers insisted on fixed, inherited roles, sometimes designating any change of role as rebellion. In fact, among the great European thinkers the notion that a person’s essence ts inherited has a venerable history. In one essay Stephen Jay Gould traces the notton to Socrates, or Plato speaking through Socrates: Citizens ... you are brothers, yet God has framed you differently. Some of you have the power to command, and in the composition of these he has mingled gold, so that they also have the greatest honor. Others he has made of silver, to be aids (to the honored). Others again who are to be farmers and craftsmen he has composed of brass and iron, and the species will be generally preserved in the children.!*

In this passage the equivalence of identity and agency is clear. Those made of gold have the power to command; those of silver, the power to execute theit orders; those made of baser metals can only obey. Identity is fixed at birth because it is a function of a body’s substance. One receives this essence, presumably, from parents. Of course in this passage

Soctates is referring to a myth and says as much, but Plato was no stranger to the notion of inherited rank, for we find comparable senttments in the [7aeus: “First, there 1s the separation of the priest-hood from the other classes; next the class of craftsmen—you will find that each kind keeps to his own craft without infringing on another; shepherds, hunters, farmers.”!5

Ornament and Identity I7I There 1s a graphic logic to this mode of reasoning. “Identity,” in this system, presupposes fixed positions, for Socrates’ epistemology 1s one in which the object of knowledge does not change: “We must, then, in my judement, first make this distinction: what is that which 1s always real and has no becoming, and what is that which is always becoming and 1s never realr’”'6 If this fixed identity is inherited as an essence, then hierarchy provides the simplest means to order society’s different roles. In Plato’s scheme, hierarchy infuses order at all levels—spuirit above flesh, human beings above animals and, among humans, “human nature being twofold, the better sort was that which should thereafter be called ‘man.’”’ The graphic logic of this order is most clearly expressed when Plato describes that “living creature that was to embrace all living creatures within itself.” For such a being, “the fitting shape would be the figure that comprehends in itself all the figures there are; accordingly, he turned its shape rounded and spherical, equidistant every way from center to extremity—a figure the most perfect and uniform of all; for he judged uniformity to be immeasurably better than its opposite.”!” Uniformity is the standard for visual order, and it is this order that provides a scale for moral values. Unfortunately, human beings fall far short of the ideal, for “there is in us too much of the casual and random, which shows itself in our speech.”!8 The impact of Plato’s reasoning on European thought was profound. Irregular shapes like clouds remained suspect as somehow contrary to that perfection that was the hallmark of God. As late as the nineteenth century, when Western mathematicians discovered structures that didn’t fit the linear patterns of Euclid or Newton, such structures were regarded

as “pathological”; a “gallery of monsters.” Clouds, trees, and other common but irregular structures would not receive serious mathematical treatment until the 1970s.!° From this we can see that Plato’s visual metaphors are more than just fioures of speech. They are a frame for order, a spatial paradigm more

readily passed from person to person than the finer nuances of his thought. The point of this comparison, however, is not that East and West are different. One can find Plato-like paradigms in Chinese thought and Zhuangzi-like paradigms in European thought. The point is that, tn history, personhood has often been conceived within the framework of a

spatial paradigm. The geometry of such paradigms has the power to

172 Ornament and Identity _ impose different levels of dependence and mobility on human beings. Thinking of Spring and Autumn period modularity, or Buddhist man-

dalas of Heian Japan, or the Great Chain of Being in early modern Kurope, it is impressive how often cleanly bordered geometries could be ptessed into service as maps for fixed social relationships. So pervasive

are sitnple geometries of order that Rudolf Arnheim bemoaned the relative lack of “tmages that can show continuous flow or, at least, continuous extension. This need, however, is resisted by the mind, which starts its account of reality with self-contained, circumscribed shapes. All eatly imagery relies on the simple distinction between figure and ground: an object, defined and more or less structured, is set off against a separate ground which is boundless, shapeless, homogeneous, secondary in importance, and often entirely ignored.”2° How strange, then, is the late Warring States dragon (Fig. 25)? Surely the existence of a fluid model of identity requires explanation. Understanding this phenomenon will require a guide, someone like Plato who can reveal for us the reasoning underlying it. Was there in Classical China a thinker who could articulate the social potential of an ambiguous spatial paradigm? One of the subtler discussions of such matters is to be found in the second chapter of the ZAuangzz. Zhuangzi, betng ignorant of Greek science, did not suppose that social roles were fixed at birth and rejected the notion of soctal hierarchy altogether. How, then, should one determine the difference between one thing and another, one person and another, one policy and another? He puts the matter this way: JER # #&, FEAR MPT IR. The lines suggest this translation: “If there were not that other, there would be no ‘me’; if there

were no ‘me,’ there would be no ground upon which to choose.” The text describes an interdependent relationship between “that other” and “me.” But the issue being addressed here is not ontological, as it might at first seem. This becomes apparent as Zhuangzi explores the problem in a challenging demonstration of dialectical reasoning: There is no thing which is not “that” [rather than “this”], and there is no thing which is not “this” [rather than “that’’]. If I look at it from “that” point of view, I cannot see 1t; only as I, myself/27 know it can I say that I know it. Thus it is said that “that” arises as a consequence of “this” and that “this” is contingent on “that.” ‘This is the theory of the mutual generation [of claims]. Although this be so, as soon as there is life, then there is death; as soon as thete is death, then there is life; as soon as a statement is [seen as] admissible, then it [can be seen as] not admissible; as soon as a statement is [seen as] inadmissible, then it [can be

Ornament and Identity 173 seen as] admissible. First we rely upon the assertion, then the dental, then the denial, then the assertion. A wise man does not operate this way; rather he sees things manifest as in nature. Yet even this relies upon asserting some “this,” but my “this” is someone else’s “that,” and this “that” is someone else’s “this.” Any “that” also contains a this/that [dialectic], while any “this” likewise contains another this/that [dialectic]. In the end, is there really a “this and that’? Or 1s it really that “this and that” are not real? That place where “this” and “that” do not possess a dialectical complement we call the pivot of the course of flow (dao). When the pivot is in the center of the ring, it can respond endlessly to any situation: an asserttion/shi can respond infinitely, just as a denial//ec can respond endlessly. Therefore I say there is nothing like the power of understanding.*!

th tn FEAR, FEAR. ARAB, BFR Ze. HARA, A AR, $ALE, HER, WEAR ARAL ATARYT ZRIAAT; A 7 AJE, AFER RK. ERYLBAFH, MRAZARA, FAR. APR, KR

EL. RIE, eR. RAAMRRP HR? KRLKBHG, B

Zi, BHAA, ARBRE. ST —-BH, HERB. LKARS VA BF).

Graham and Hansen maintain that the “that” and “this” refer to different “positions” within an ongoing debate. Without your poimt of view, mine would have no significance. In this sense any two sets of views, pro and con, are mutually generating.?? This would imply that the position from which one argues has no absolute status. For a moment tt

appears as if Zhuangzi departs from this view, offering the reader an absolute guide: “A wise man does not operate this way; rather he sees things manifest as in nature.” It almost seems as if he is saying, “ake things as they come and don’t tmpose your own categories on them.” But no sooner has the reader bought into this than Zhuangzi brings back the dialectic. Unfortunately, even this is contingent on asserting some “this,” and there is no ground for asserting “this” over “that,” for my “this” is someone else’s “that,” and this “that” is someone else’s “this.”” Who or what occupies an unbiased position from which to arbitrate

Suppose we simply take my “this” as an object of understanding. Even now, “this” eludes definition, for within it we can discern another “this/that” dialectic. This process is the inescapable condition of the mutual generation of claims, the inescapable interplay of figure and context, the “course of flow/dao” which operates at all scales. This is why no appeal to the dao can get us out of our quandary. Dao does not define things for us, it only provides the conditions within which we “make a

choice” about how to figure ourselves in relation to others. While this

174 Ornament and Identity offers no firm ground upon which to stand, it does give us the freedom to “respond endlessly” as we see fit. In other words, it gtves us agency. Surprisingly, this understanding helps us to avoid concluding that Zhuangzi is some kind of glaze-eyed relativist. P. J. Ivanhoe in particular has been critical of the tendency to read Zhuangzi as a “strong” relattvist. Following a close analysis of the parables in the Zhuangzi, he argues that the author of the inner chapters clearly had a sense of values, tsolating

some kinds of behavior as more worthy of admiration than others.” Moreover, it would not be difficult to show that Zhuangz1 and his followers consistently abhor cruelty, violence, and exploitation. How can values such as these be reconciled with Zhuangzi’s perspectivalismr In all likelihood philosophers will continue to debate this one, but my own view, for what it’s worth, is that Zhuangzi does nof argue that any view is as good as any other. This, after all, would be an assertion of Truth with a capital T (the claim that there 1s no truth 1s itself an assertion of truth). Zhuangzi says nothing to suggest that a man should not decide what is best within a given configuration of circumstances, and Ivanhoe’s

many examples show that he had no difficulty with the idea that a man might support certain viewpoints over others. What Zhuangzi does seem to refute is the idea that a man can derive authority for his own personal views by pointing to the cosmos, or God, and saying, “You see, my view

is the only correct view because that’s the way God intended 1t.” Zhuanegzi can take a stand within a gtven set of circumstances, but he must take personal responsibility for it. He can do this only because his system of thought situates agency in the individual. He has to situate agency in the individual because early on in Chapter 2 he destroys any basis for super-societal authority. This position is most clearly observed in his solution to the problem of a “prime mover,” that cosmic correlate of earthly rulers in the European tradition.”4 In a line of reasoning reminiscent of Aristotle, Zhuangzi asks if there might not be someone ultimately in charge? This 1s a key question because such a thing would ensure that each object had a secure identity ouaranteed by a transcendent observer (Fig. 29). In that case, the object of

knowledge would be to discover the true identity of each thing as God knew it. But Zhuangzi did not echo Aristotle’s conclusions: And yet we do not know what it is that causes all this. It is as if there were something genuinely in control, but it is notable that we cannot obtain any

Ornament and Identity 175

niga!

lig. 29. Identity issues. Conceptual diagram of eternal ideas in the mind of God. In the Platonic view, objects are what they are because their identity is fixed absolutely in the mind of God. What we see in the mundane world are merely imperfect imitations of the perfect paradigms God entertains in his mind.

evidence of it. | can accept [the idea] that [such a thing] could operate, but we do not see its form. We encounter the conditions [of this operation],*° but no [fixed, substantial] form.°

af 4 - -

At 0 LP Be. GAUL HF, MOIR H MRM. TI, mE RLY, AM BIB.

The fact is, if we search for some solid, verifiable evidence of a prime mover, it just isn’t there. Zhuangzi follows this passage with a remark that, even if something were in charge, it would make no difference anyway, from our perspective. All we can be certain of is the presence of certain circumstances and processes whose operations we can detect. Zhuangzi has to embrace dialectics because the geometry of his system lacks an absolute ground.

176 Ornament and Identaty Why should Aristotle, the father of science, insist on the reality of some invisible, supernatural mover? For Aristotle, substance was real, a solid presence maintaining its integrity against the “ground” of the world. Motion was not real for, by definition, it was impermanent. If substance

moves, ultimately there must be something permanent and real that makes it move—hence, the need for a prime mover. Another reason may lie in the consequences of disallowing an absolute arbiter for Truth. Had Aristotle done this, there would be no reason to assume that membets of

his own class had any intrinsic claim to agency. As noted above, this aficient prejudice may have informed Newton’s idea that matter had to be “moved” by some higher power, just as his contemporaries assumed that the masses lacked agency in the absence of higher intelligences. The genius of Zhuangzti’s system lies tn this: although his system deconstructs any claim for suprapersonal authority, it does not forbid an individual to

take a stand. It is simply that the authority for that stand has to come from oneself. The personal agency presumed by his system is not hindered by relativism. On the contrary, Zhuangzi’s critique of claims to absolute authority supplies individuals with a good many tools for bringing into question a wide range of sacred cows.

Natural Order 6 ?® Let us postulate that Zhuangzi’s perspectivalism is based upon a spatial paradigm in which figure and ground are ambiguous. If this 1s so, then the identities of objects can change depending upon “circumstances” (how you look at them) but will be no less real for that. Such an interpretation at least is consistent with the commentary on the passage just cited: The thousands of different creatures and situations in the world each have their own character and position, as if some final ruler had caused them to be that way. But if we search for some evidence of this ruler, in the end there is none to be obtained. This shows that all things are as they are by virtue of themselves (naturally /zzran); no one causes things to be as they are. (Italics added)?’

%InB, BSE, SHASRZARY. HPT AEAK, MHRA SG, Fl] BF ay ee Bl A, PAB A RA.

As with other Classical terms, z7ran boasts a variety of interpretations.”®

Murotani Kuniyuki has reviewed its history and argues that it first

Ornament and Identzty 177 appears in the Laozz in the straightforward sense of “that is the way it 1s” A) G te th.2? Xunzi and Han Feizi, in his view, use the term to mean “not performed by men,” that 1s, a product of nature rather than artifice. He

notes that the term 1s missing altogether from the first two chapters of

the Zhuanget and so concludes that Zhuangzi used tan instead, tan having also acquired the sense of “natural” by Warring States times.*° But

Murotant’s stress on the first two chapters is misleading, for zzran does appear in two of the other seven early chapters. The Laozhuang Dictionary

glosses both instances as “natural/f#anran, as opposed to performed by

humans” A, HA B48, echoing Murotani’s interpretation. A closer look at the first of these passages may permit a more nuanced understanding of gran in Zhuangzi’s thought.*! In this passage Zhuangzi has a spat with his favorite sparring partner, the sophist Hutzi. Zhuangzi declares his admiration for anyone who “has the form of a man and so dwells among men, yet who is without feelings / ging, so that [disputes over] right and wrong (shife2) cannot get to his

petson” RAZ, URRAA, BAZ, UE IER AF. Huizi takes the bait and asks how anyone without feelings can be called human:

Ato tA, TI VA GBA? Of course Zhuangzi is not speaking of “feelings/ging’ in the sense of “compassion.” He says as much himself, but in an ambiguous manner, as if taunting Huizi with a pun. The two possible readings are: (1) “‘Right and wrong’/shifei is what I mean by (the word) ‘feelings’”; (2) “This/shiz [what you said] is not/fez what I call ‘feelinos’” & JES PA #4 tq +4. Both readings sound curious, though for

different reasons. The second interpretation makes perfect sense in context but requires us to read s/z as a pronoun and /ez as a negation. It would be more normal to read shzfez as a compound, “right and wrong.” This 1s our rendering in the first reading. In that case, however, the word order is not particularly common (predicate first), and we have to understand “feelings” as equivalent to “right and wrong.” The latter 1s hardly intuitive, as Huizi’s remarks attest. The ambiguity is compounded by the fact that gzag can refer equally to feelings and to circumstances.

What is Zhuangzt doing here? Seeing as both readings support Zhuangzi’s argument, perhaps the pun demonstrates, syntactically, the fact that two alternatives need not be mutually exclusiver Recall the dialectics of “this” and “that”: “When the pivot is in the center of the circle, it can respond endlessly to any situation: ‘this’ can

178 Ornament and Identity respond endlessly, just as ‘that’ can respond endlessly.”32 Presumably Zhuangzt would not have us choose one s/z and be bound to it. In Hansen’s reading, which works well here, Zhuangzi’s philosophy eschews dogmatic support for any single s/z or fez under all circumstances. We cannot say that Mohist doctrine is always right and Confucian doctrine ts always wrong. The appropriate “response” will differ depending upon

circumstances. Therefore we should not be surprised that Zhuangzi should admire people who can avoid prejudiced (cheng) feelings regarding

what is right and wrong because prejudiced feelings are the opposite of ziran: “What I am calling ‘without feelings’ means not allowing internal preferences [1.e., prejudices] to [result in] harm to the body. One should always rely on what is natural/z7ran and not [try to artificially] add on to

the [processes of] life’ BPT a BIA, SAZFUMBBAGES. F

El Atty ge 39

Dogmatically holding to one point of view (shz) 1s artificial; responding to changes as they come is “natural.” Could it be that a spatial paradigm led Zhuangzi to these conclusions? Recall the dragon meta-

phor from a later chapter of the Zhuangzi. In that parable, a fixed, “middle-road” position would inevitably lead to trouble because the vicissitudes of experience ensure that what is now “middle” will later become an extremity. Likewise, a prejudiced view of right and wrong will inevitably fall “out of sync” as the conditions of life change. Stubborn refusal to recognize this fact can only lead to anxiety or poor judgement, and this will ultimately bring harm upon one’s body. Rather than try to construct an artificial account of reality, it would be better to take ad-

vantage of conditions as they change. It ts the latter method that Zhuanezi recognizes as 27raN.

Notice that, while zran offers a procedure for responding to the world, it also respects the responder’s inner mental condition. The new concern for emotional health we find in ZAvangz7 and other Warring States texts (such as Guwanz7) 1s testimony to the decline of a feudal framework for identity.>+ If ability and worth are not determined by birth, if a man’s clothes may contradict his true character, then individuals must possess interior qualities (intelligence, leadership ability) which cannot be defined in ceremony. Bearing this in mind, it is significant that Zhuangzi chooses to situate feelings in the body’s interior (as does Mencius), rather than postulate some kind of detached soul.

Ornament and Identity 179 As we learned in Chapter 5, the Z/uangz7 1s hostile to ceremony, hierarchy, or anything one might associate with feudal society. A critique of unnatural addittons—ceremontal decoration, for example—trecurs as a common leitmotif throughout the book. A harnessed horse or a carved goblet exemplifies that artifice against which the “natural” is defined. But

this means that “natural/zzran’” is understood as something not consciously “made” by design—zzran 1s the opposite of craft. We have encountered this sense of zvan before: “This shows that all things are as they are by virtue of themselves (naturally—zzran); no one causes them to be as they are.” The idea that “no one causes things” to be as they are has profound political connotations. In the end, we find no trace of a transcendental arbiter who can ensure the permanent identities of things. This necessarily

entails that distinctions, or identities, arise as a consequence of /ocal perspective. Because there is no transcendent observer, no Platonic supposition is made equating permanence and reality. This means there is no need to assume that contingent identittes—the phenomena 1n the flux—are unreal. What would they be unreal in relation to? This places the burden of definition—the agency for making distincttons—not on God, but on the reacting individual who figures him or herself agonistically in relation to a local environment.

Let us reconsider these two points: identities arise because of perspective; and permanence 1s not a necessary attribute of the “real.” If we accept these, then the figure’s identity as it emerges in context 1s necessarily

self-generated—zzran, because there is no other place from which it could arise. Zzran is not a fudge factor designed to disguise Zhuangzi’s lack of rigor. It is a necessary consequence of the absence of an absolute sround. An object’s identity arises from its “response” to a local constellation of interacting perspectives. In the absence of an absolute, the power to figure a person’s identity reverts to the dragon. Without this understanding the concept of gran might have seemed arbitrary or even mystical. Once we comprehend the perspectival nature of Zhuangzt’s spatial epistemology, zzran becomes a necessity. It proceeds directly from the idea that no transcendent observer creates an absolute ground against which figures may assume a permanent identity.*° Needless to say, were such ideas applied to human relations, the possibilities for power negotiation would be expanded tn fundamental ways.

180 Ornament and Identzlty The Generic Condition

Was this thesis a chance product of Zhuangzt’s poetic intellect, or did 1t have a broader basis in his society and time? While Zhuangzi’s ideas ate characteristically original, most of his images are drawn from a broad body of lore shared with contemporaries. Did this shared “knowledge” extend to attitudes about the nature of knowledge itself? Let us assume, for the moment, that Zhuangzi’s dialectic addresses the issue of identity, not existence. In this scheme of things, a person’s identity is determined by the response taken toward current challenges

rather than any inherited substance. Such an assertion challenges the normal assumption that your picture of the world, or mine, possesses an inviolable integrity, like a closed figure on a blank ground. It suggests, instead, that your view and mine figure one another, like a counterchange design in which each “figure” serves as the other’s “ground” (Fig. 27). To a historian of art, this situation parallels the problem of identity in pictorial art. Every strategy of representation rests upon choices about the nature of identity, for everyone makes assumptions about identity, and artists have to apply theirs in practical ways. Most artists in literate cultures have assumed that objects have distinct and stable identities. The Philistine’s question, “What is it anyway?” testifies to the fundamental status of this problem in picture-makine. If the Duke of Waddington wants a painting of a flower pot, the artist must first decide how to make the pot recognizable. In vision this boils down to a question of fisure and ground—to what extent can the pot’s features be integrated with its surroundings without losing its identity?%°

Rudolf Arnheim’s remarks, cited above, underscore the fact that, historically, a majority of pictorial traditions are based upon a fairly firm distinction between figure and ground. In such cases objects are assumed to possess some integrity: the contours of a vase do not interpenetrate

those of a book nearby. This corresponds to the notion that ordinary objects have distinct and permanent identities. We call a book a book because it is not a vase; premodern artists painted it the same way. But Zhuangzi’s assertion suggests the world is not so simple. His argument resembles more closely a pictorial system in which figure and environment ate roughly equal in status; a system in which the identity of any object could enter into an exchange with its surroundings, yet maintain its integrity, like a dragon emerging from a pattern of clouds.

Ornament and Identity 181 Let’s look again at the mirror in the Freer Gallery (Fig. 25). From one point of view, the design on the mirror is a dragon; from another point of view (Fig. 24), it is a cloud pattern. Since you cannot comprehend it as cloud and dragon at the same moment, it follows that a choice must be made. But if I say it is a cloud, does that not preclude saying it is a dragonr

No, and this would not normally be the case were we looking at the mirror. Nor does the mirror permit us to claim that its figure is both cloud and dragon for, in vision, it cannot be seen as both at the same time. Should circumstances require it to be a dragon, the dragon is there, we need only view it that way. Should we need to see it as cloud, it is easy to switch. Our choice will be based, not on ontological considerations (the

Truth), but on practical considerations: “What consequences ensue under current circumstances 1f I assume it is a dragon?” In this sense, all views ate admissible, but not under all circumstances. Vhis is not idealism and

not relativism but something closer to a pragmatic nominalism. Designing covalent forms such as we find on the dragon mirror would not require of either artist or patron any understanding of Zhuangzt’s

philosophy. No more would be needed than familiarity with Chinese traditions about dragons and clouds. Everyone in Warring States China “knew” that the dragon in the clouds could alter its perceived identity. It seems unlikely that Warring States artisans somehow forgot all about this when drawing a dragon design, any more than a Greek artist could forget that a male nude ought to look ideal. In fact, it occurs that the ambiguity of the Warring States dragon design may be no accident. Perhaps, from the viewpoint of a Warring States artist, intrinsic mutability was an essential feature of the dragon’s generic condition. The art historical community employs a number of terms to isolate meaningful elements in an image, terms such as “attribute,” “icon,” or “emblem.” “Generic condition” is a term I would suggest for designating

those qualities that reflect fundamental attitudes toward an object or situation’s identity. In post-Renaissance Europe, substantiality (volume, weight, texture, and perspective) was part of the generic condition of all things, sometimes even the haloes of saints. Likewise, a Rambo-esque physique was part of the generic condition of able-bodied adult males. Those who have seen the Ra/t of the Medusa, in reproduction or otherwise, will recall that even the bodies of men who have starved to death would rival the models in Calvin Klein ads. Every artist in a given community must be able to portray the generic condition of an object in order for tt

182 Ornament and Identity to be recognized as a proper picture. This is why the generic condition, unlike mere attributes, imposes constraints upon style. Artists must find a pictorial strategy adequate to render the required generic conditions. I shall not argue the point extensively here, but since textual descriptions of clouds, spirits, and dragons typically emphasize their transformations and little else, it seems likely that mutable identity was part of the generic condition of clouds, spirits, and dragons in late Warring States and early Han China. It is difficult to imagine how Zhuangzi’s philosophy could have affected dragon designs directly. Rather, Warring States designs could have served as graphic models for the kind of perspectival system Zhuangzi advocates. I must confess, however, that I was not the first to get this idea. One of Zhuangzi’s followers apparently saw the connection first. In Tian yun we find a passage in which Confuctus compares Laozi to the ever-mutable dragon: [Having just visited Laozi,]| Confucius said: “Today I have seen a dragon: Gathering together, he assumes form; dispersing, he completes his designs. He tides (cheng) on the clouds and g [vapor and gases], nourished by the Yin and Yang. I stood there with my mouth open and was unable to shut it. How should I have ventured to correct him?’’?’

LF AEBS LE SRM KORE, RERM RS. F ik HAS, FRAT HLS HH aR.” Hayashi Minao was the first to notice that this passage suggests a

knowledge of contemporaneous dragon designs.*? Indeed, for someone familiar with the visual culture of this period, it is difficult to imagine the

author was not making a metaphor of dragon designs rather than “dragons.” Hayashi didn’t analyze the implications of the dragon paradigm for the thought of the period, so let’s consider just how it 1s that visual structure and metaphorical content interpenetrate during this period by taking a close look at a lacquer dragon of the late Warring States ot early Han period. This particular dragon graces a lacquer plate preserved in the Freer Gallery of Art (Figs. 30 and 31). Like the whip in Han Fetz1’s story (recounted in Chapter 6), the plate is so designed that its figures are notgenerally apparent except upon close inspection and in favorable light. We seem to have caught this dragon in the act of coming into being. ‘The

reat, left leg differs only slightly from the cloud wisps in the border

Ornament and Identih 183

lig. 30. Lacquered bowl. Warring States period, fourth—third centuries B.c. reer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.: Purchase, 1953.8.

decoration, as if the claws had only just congealed, while the left “foot” still retains its regular row of cloud-nodules (Fig. 32). This is better appreciated when we examine the right foot, which has already assumed a form better adapted to the business of walking. Likewise, while the right

forearm shoots to the right—its fingers delicately grasping for the ether—the left forearm 1s still unformed (waxing), curving upward and ending in a cloud swirl. The body’s contour ts faint, but little cloud swirls take the form of scales where its trunk would be. The head ts neotyne, its snout not yet fully extended; its “beard,” after all, is sll a cloud. Even the dragon’s motion is indeterminate. While the rear legs locomote forward, the right arm seems to seek a “foothold” for climbing upward, while the neck writhes away from us and then back again, shooting upward and

toward the viewer at the 11:00 position. This ts not to say that the dragon’s motion is slapdash. The rate of expansion and diminution in each brushstroke is slow and precise, with the result that the dragon’s calves, fingers, and toes appear to grasp the invisible substrate with a sinuosity fully befitting a reptile. Conceiving such an image was by no means simple. [The artist who penned this beast may or may not have been literate, but he was able to

184 Ornament and Identih

lig. 31. Detail of a dragon-like creature from the lacquered bowl illustrated in Fig. 30. reer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.: Purchase, 1953.8.

conceive of a condition between being and nonbeing with more prectsion than philosophers could easily articulate. In a sense the dragon 1s a prime example of what Aristotle views as never real, a visualization of the state of becoming. But that is surely not the idea here. What aligns this apparition with the Z/wangzi, or the Sones of the South, 1s the absence of constraint along multiple dimensions. ‘The body writhes in virtually every dimension, a demonstration of the absence of border. Nor 1s it possible

to fix its identity, for it hovers midway between dragon and cloud. To better understand the spatial epistemology of such an image, 1t will help to return to the Z/uanez. Bearing in mind the generic condition of “dragons” on Warring States and early Han lacquer artifacts, we can read the passage as one complex metaphor in which spatial relations convey ideas. Whereas Laozt’s talents are figured in the form of a dragon, the latter’s powers are expressed as a spectrum of relations between figure and ground; that 1s, between dis-

persion and condensation. Just as condensation presupposes a legible form ona or und, so does dispersion corresp¢ mynd toa pattern-like condition in which the contour of the figure dissolves into the ground. When a form unifies into a whole with distinct contours, it assumes a recognizable form (cheng/!) wk HX. As the form disperses, so does its current role, but not its identity, for now it forms a design (chengrhang) mE.

Ornament and Identzty 185 or

.B .; +a‘ oo,

Ma a % ~*~ | a . “ 2 FF *

yor te ws a as a Ar nd Pool La ie

f

— Fig. 32. Diagram of the dragon-like creature illustrated in Fig. 31. The background has been electronically removed so as to reveal the dragon pattern. Photograph by the author.

In the Spring and Autumn period, zhang ¥, “insignia” was the visual cottelate of de 7%, “virtue, power.” It was an emblematic design on clothing or vessels corresponding to that virtue which justified a man’s allocation of resources. In this usage z/ang is not just a design. It is a desion that reveals some characteristic quality of the bearer. Here, Laozi’s vhang is likewise the artificial design that expresses his ability to transform. It is the very structure of his mutability.

The use of cheng in this passage may be loaded. Chad Hansen has argued that cheng may acquire a more technical sense in Zhuangzt’s writing, where cheng can sometimes signify what our heart comes to regard as the boundary of a thing, hence a prejudice. Zhuanegzi’s use of cheng signals the interdependence of what is in-itself and our vatying purposes in drawing a distinction [e.g., cloud or dragon]. It’s what we, and our various ways, make of things. We can understand it by analogy to the pragmatists’ what works. There ate two caveats in this comparison. First, we are

testing not beliefs or theories, but conceptual schemes (systems of guiding names, that 1s, daos) and discrimination patterns. Second, Zhuangzi never thought there could be a neutral test of success. What works depends on the evaluative standards internal to one’s dao.*”

Clearly cheng does not always carry this sense (see below), but if Hansen is correct, then cheng can refer to the “fixing” of a figure’s identity

186 Ornament and Identity in our minds. That such a term is needed at all suggests an understanding that the boundaries we choose to draw are, in fact, subject to convention. But to say the boundaries we draw are conventional is not the same as saying they are fabricated. Those attached to an ideal of absolute Truth could readily suppose Zhuangzi is saying “nothing is true.” But the assertion “nothing is true” would be required only if we once believed in Truth and then were forced to admit that an absolute standard was mere fiction. In that case, the assertion that “nothing is true” would be the only absolute Truth left to us. But supposing we had never been in love with absolutes to begin with? Zhuangzi put it this way: “If we accept [a given interpretation], then it ts acceptable. If we reject it, then it is not. A path/dao is established/ cheng by

walking on it. As we [conventionally] name things, so are they thus”

TET, RTPA. BHA, WHat A." This passage con-

tains another one of Zhuangzi’s puns, his way of showing, perhaps, that alternative views need not be mutually exclusive. The third line quite literally uses dao as “path.” In this metaphor, finding the right interpretation in life is like walking through a virgin forest. Some people walk here, some there, but in time a path will be formed (cheng) because a larger number of people have discovered that “this” path works best in terms of local evaluative standards. Here cheng does not mean “prejudice,” but it does refer to a social practice that, temporarily, has become fixed. Perhaps that route is shorter, perhaps it 1s safer. In etther event, God didn’t put the path there. The path became established (cheng) because it en-

~ abled people to respond effectively to the environment of the forest.

Now people may say, “There is the path through the woods” where formerly there was none. The path will remain fixed as long as it “works.” It will disappear when it ceases to serve people’s needs. If 1t no longer served people’s needs but still people insisted on using it, then the

fact that it was established (cheng) would take on the character of a prejudice. What Zhuanezi and his followers seem to stress 1s the fact that

the path 1s conventional. Its virtue depends upon its ability to help us

respond effectively to the environment. Knowing that gives us the agency to choose whether or not it ts useful for us. Not knowing that could turn the use of the path into a mere prejudice. Having understood the parable, we can read the same line at a higher level. Clearly dao 1s not a mystical force but the “best way to respond to a particular environment,” a “euiding path” as Hansen puts it. The second

Ornament and Identzty 187 character, xing 47, means “to walk,” but it also means “to carry out,” and in bureaucratic theory can mean “administration.” Reading at this level we get something like: “A guiding course/dao becomes an established/ cheng social practice by carrying it out [in life or administration].” This 1s closer to pragmatism than idealism. Zhuangzi is not saying, “Whatever we think is true is true.” There are limits to interpretation: however the

path meanders, we cannot walk directly through a tree, but must walk around it, left or right. The dragon design possesses one particular set of oraphic relations and not another. That is a fact. Nonetheless, the viewer brings to it a system of guiding names (“cloud” or “dragon’”’), discrimination patterns (we recognize the dragon’s eyes and horns), and evaluative

standards (Which is more important—service or withdrawal?). These conditions permit a finite set of responses. ‘As soon as you make a choice, the dragon takes shape/ cheng either as a discrete figure or as a pattern. Should we look again at the Freer dragon with this in mind, we would

do well to remember that the author of the passage on Laozi and Con-

fuctus felt comfortable using dragon designs as a model for selfgenerated identity. This model, after all, infuses the entire passage. The action of condensing and dispersal implicitly associates Laozi with the dragon’s transforming power because that is the way “transformation” in dragons was expressed at the time the passage was written. The constriction and dilation of dragons and spirits 1n mid-Warring States ornament may likewise be construed as an expression of this same generic condition. The author skillfully exploited the reader’s knowledge of such designs to create a rich conceptual resonance. Because the graphic logic of the image is as it is, Warring States writers could use it to express the notion of foregrounding oneself politically, or disappearing among the masses. Constriction and dilation thus illustrate, structurally, the mutability of role and identity that 1s Laoz1’s strength. The dragon image was

an ideal vehicle for reassessing the nature and agency of persons in Warring States China.

NINE Bureaucracy and_Agency

In Warring States China the notion that persons change roles in life was not confined to an elite club of linguistic philosophers. The currency of dragon-and-cloud imagery in the art and literature of the period shows that the notion of mutable identity was familiar to artisan and courtier alike. In fact, the dragon metaphor was but one feature of a more general paradigm of indeterminate form in wide use by the third century B.c. This paradigm offered an alternative to the compartmentalized model of earlier times. Possibly the new model developed in response to the decline of heredity as a means of defining personal role. Bureaucratic theoty had to model the relationship between bureaucrats, the sovereign, and the state. The dragon could stand for the potential bureaucrat, but

there was a need to model as well the environment within which that bureaucrat could figure his responses. A new logic of spatial relations fiouring the individual in relation to the state was required. This logic does not appear to have resulted from deliberation by ceremonial officers. More likely 1t was the product of study and open debate in the court-sponsored academies of the Warring States period. Academies and Cosmopolitics

In essays of the third and second centuries the language of swirling form furnished a spatial model for the structured activity of natural forces. Many of these essays were produced in academies that sprang up during the late Warring States period. By that time, the practice of studying with a known master was well established, but it is not altogether clear what a

young man might gain from his studies. Mark Lewis’s research has shown that the economic foundation for learning appears to have rested

Bureaucracy and Agency 189 more on private practice as a teacher than in the hope of official appointment. Scholars, in other words, were not primarily dependent upon the state for support. He further reveals that the relationship between the schools and the courts was complex and, at times, contentious: Forming associations outside the state sphere at a time when the state resisted such associations, the philosophical schools formulated theories of political order and ideal kingship on the basis of the values and practices cultivated within their own circles. These theories, claiming authority through the complex of master/disciple/text, challenged the state order, which the schoolmen accepted only to the extent that it conformed to their models.!

This means that discursive arenas such as political theory had acquired ereater importance in the late Warring States repertoire of contention. If this is so, then it 1s significant that princes and other powerful persons supported academies. In doing so, they would have been competing with the schoolmen on the latter’s terms rather than simply trying to suppress the development of this arena of contention.

Xunzi was a master at the famous Jixia Academy founded by Tian Wen, Lord of Mengchang (active 299-279 B.c.). John Knoblock showed that several of Xunzi’s essays were written to address political events occurring while he was resident at the academy.’ It is thought that some essays in the Guanzi collection also may have been written by scholars resident there.> The existence of an institution in which scholars of different views could debate and develop theories must rank as an important moment in history, for the academy marks the dissociation of political theory from ceremony and the emergence of an intellectual arena of debate. It 1s not that ceremony had no place in the academy—texts testify to the survival of old-style ceremonialists, and public occasions must have required the exercise of ceremony (as in universities today). What makes these academies special is the fact that ceremony no longer provided the necessary intellectual frame for conscious reflection on society, nature, or the distribution of resources. This shift in intellectual frames is conspicuous among the essays produced at such academies. Where scholars of Confuctus’s generation may have been mainly concerned with ceremony, the Guanz: authors embraced a much wider range of topics, including statecraft, cosmology, military strategy, personal health, astronomy, ritual, magical arts, and personal conduct. An even wider range of expertise is evident in the La

190 | Bureaucracy and Agency shi chungiu, ot Master Lii’s Anthology, a collection of essays produced at the Academy founded by Lu Buwei (d. 235 B.c.).4 Master Lii’s Anthology offers

examples of more refined cosmopolitical theories than one finds in Guanxi. Much the same could be said for Jzngfa, an early-second-century collection of essays found in tomb 3 at Mawanegdui. This collection, like the others, may well reflect the views of scholars supported by the local court—in this case, the court of Changsha. Finally, the collection pub-

lished around 120 B.c. under the auspices of the Prince of Huainan (Huainanz1) offers the most sophisticated accounts of natural process in relation to social order.® If the texts are any guide, it would appear that bureaucratic theory and the theory of nature developed hand-in-hand at these academies during this period. Although the four collections were compiled at different times and display every concetvable tradition of thought, each contains some essays

describing natural process in relation to the polity. Among these, a number of terms and assumptions mark a distinctive discursive tradition over a period of two centuries or more.® Apart from words for natural process discussed in previous chapters, some of the most characteristic terms include:

1. Yin &\ and xun 4, concepts for describing how to take advantage of natural processes. 2. Dao %& in the sense of “course of flow” or, more specifically, “watercycle-as-paradigm-for-social-theory.” 3. Du in the sense of limits established by law.

4. Fa in the sense of written procedures for government operation. 5. A seties of fundamental social distinctions, such as public/gong vetrsus private/sz, ctvil/wen versus martial/wu, or performance/ xing versus title / ming.

It was within this tradition of writing that the most advanced bureaucratic theory developed. Modern scholars, ever anxious to identify

“schools,” have dubbed some of the texts in this tradition products of the “Huanglao” school, a late development arising from the work of Zhuangzi and other Daoists but by no means averse to the use of Menclan concepts.’ Not everyone is happy with the term. More than a decade ago Wei-ming Tu observed that the so-called Huanglao texts draw upon a wide range of rhetorical traditions (including Confucian) and do not

Bureaucracy and Agency I9I agree on all aspects of theory. Mark Lewis, prudently, prefers to speak of

texts associated with a “Huang-Lao political tendency.” Major differences of opinion persist to this day, but a number of Chinese, Japanese, European, and American scholars have begun to reach some consensus on the nature of the political thought associated with these texts, whatever we choose to call them.® There ts some agreement that these theoties possessed some concept functionally cognate to that of natural law (although what that concept was is being debated); that the bureaucratic theorists wished to place constraints upon the monarch; that they placed a high priority on the material and social needs of the general population; and finally that this intellectual development is somehow related to the Zhuang. Above all, these texts share an appeal to the natural order/dao as a guide/dao for social order. In short, what some refer to as Huanglao theories tend to be cosmopolitical in nature and to share with other late

Warring States writers (such as Han Fetzi) a concern for a detailed analysis of bureaucratic process. Because 1 am agnostic on the issue of whether these texts should be called Huanglao, I shall more often use the

term “bureaucratic theory” for those texts in which bureaucracy is theorized in relation to dao. Such texts resemble in some ways writings in other cultures in which a sophisticated state apparatus is theorized and justified in relation to some larger cosmic order. Why should there have been a boom in cosmopolitical theory at the end of the Warring States pertod? Cosmopolis is the ideological coun-

terpart to the state. When heredity, religion and personal charisma are insufficient to justify ruling elites, political legitimacy can be sought in universal conditions supposedly external to that class. In Europe, the natural order structured on the Great Chain of Being paradigm derived its ultimate authority from God, but the appeal to cosmic order offered a universal model for social theory. For one reason or other most Chinese theorists of the late Classical period avoided that option. This forced them to postulate a natural order that ran itself, without interference (wuwer) from any higher power. The Dialectics of Agency 3 By

In many Warring States sources, the graphic structure underlying new theories of state was a configuration of ambiguous form (Figs. 24-25). Ambiguous form was adopted, not because Orientals are fuzzy-headed,

192 Bureaucracy and Agency but because such a form could figure that mobility of identity required by a meritocratic administration. As with any other system of power rela-

tions, bureaucratic theory contained within itself the seeds of oppositional negotiation. In this case, the need to match the right man to the job

required that persons be permitted to shape their own roles through performance. In other words, people were figured as dragons situated agonistically in relation to a swirling and ever-changing environment. This concern for self-shaping was not an expression of some latent individualism but a very practical response to the need to mobilize human

resources for greater administrative effictency.!° Nonetheless, merttocratic standards could and would be used to bolster claims for greater personal agency.

One can trace this tradition of rhetoric from about the time of Zhuangzi through early Han times in such texts as Guanxi, Han Petz, Lii shi chunqiu, Jingfa, and Huainanzi, many of these were produced at private academies. For purposes of explanation, it may be better to begin at the late end and move backward, the later texts being more explicit tn some respects. Consider the following passage from the J/zngfa, a collection of essays dating to the late Warring States or early Han era: He who holds fast to the course of flow/dao can comprehend heaven’s alternating (currents) and can achieve precisely the proper balance between ruler and minister. He can examine in detail the causes [beginnings and endings] of all things and yet avoid [personally] directing anything.* He can reach to the utmost simplicity and subtlety, [riding] in the vastness of indeterminate form/wuxing, and thereafter can deal with the world correctly."!

ERE GLE) ABLAZE, MPEP RAZ, FRAERWAZMGRRH,

tt E.R BRER, (SRR, RRTRABR PE.

This passage revels in paradox in a manner quite typical of late bureaucratic theory (Huainanz:, for example). One gets the impression that scholars working in court academies found it advantageous to tickle their patron’s curiosity—and flatter his intellect—with riddle-like paradoxes. At the same time, the paradox is an appropriate form for a theory that aims to resolve apparent contradictions. The primary tool for resolving *Vhe zhu here carries the sense of xhudong = $4, “to take the initiative.” Literally, the text says he can avoid acting as “lord” for anything, but “lord” means “the one who decides how things ought to be.”

Bureaucracy and Agency 193 contradictions was a spatial paradigm based upon dragon designs, for the

second-century reader would understand that the monarch in this passage 1s being compared to a dragon. Like Zhuange’s “dragon,” he rides upon heaven’s rolling currents of vapor, a metaphor for the changing vicissitudes of time. Betng constantly in motion, he does not reign on high as the earthly counterpart to a prime mover. He does not “cause” anything to be as it is. In this theory, the ruler’s proper concern 1s to establish the absence of directionality, represented here as a state of “formlessness” or what I am translating as “indeterminate form.” What did the author mean by that? From this text as well as many others it is clear that the term “formless” (wuxing) does not mean “shapeless,” much less invisible. It refers to shapes that are visible but unfixed because they are constantly in motion, clouds being the most common example. This is why I translate waxing as “indeterminate form.” According to this author, when a ruler’s form 1s indeterminate, everything else can be percetved “correctly” (xheng), that is, without bias. The reasoning here may not be obvious to every reader. Why is it that, when a ruler’s form and position are indeterminate, he 1s able to determine accurately the proper form in government? Thanks to the work of Herlee Creel, as well as more recent scholar-

ship by Huo Cunfu, Karen Turner, R. P. Peerenboom, Wang Xtaobo, and others, we know that in bureaucratic theory determinate form (xg) is a technical term referring to performance in office.’* It can signify a recognizable set of dispositions and abilities, or what one might call a public role. In the passage just cited, the monarch is advised not to prefioure his own response to affairs. Instead, he situates himself tn a fluctuating space of indeterminate form. Since his own “position” on policy is not prejudged, he is free to observe his officers without bias. The opening lines of the same essay drive home this point by treating political affairs as a question of form: Whoever holds fast to the course of flow/dao in viewing the world has no fixed opinion, no fixed position, no intervention (wuwez) and no personal bias/sz.!°

KUALA Fis, BH, Be, BA, 4A.

To some this might sound like a strange construction of sovereignty. Why should a monarch not hold to his opinion? Why should he avoid intervening in administration? How can a monarch be “biased” if he 1s the standard for all morality? As noted in Chapter 7, the Chinese mon-

194 Bureaucracy and_Agency atch had been desacralized as early as the time of Mozi. The term sz here clearly indicates the possibility of bias owing to family connections or

personal feelings, for the monarch is assumed to have the same weaknesses as other men. This all-too-human condition necessitated a standard independent of the monarch’s personal opinions, positions, or family connections. The standard was to be found in an objective assessment of circumstances. If the standard is to be objective, it must be generated independently of the monarch, as the author goes on to explain: For this reason, whenever a matter for state policy arises, each person will de-

termine his own/z7 form, name, reputation and attributes. When the form [performance] and name [office or job description] are determined, and when reputation and attributes [of performance] have been established, then no scrap of evidence will escape [your knowledge and hence] no one can hide from his own traces [i.e., record] or [official] regulation.'4

ZUATAE, RTARUZRRR. UZES, RAL, ARPT ae Bi BER. The monarch lets individuals assume their own “form,” but not because he is a nice guy. He does so because he needs to know his administrators’ true potential. The key issue, then, is knowledge. The decline of a hereditary definition of social role had generated this crisis of knowledge. If a man’s ability is not inherited, it must be generated by him as an individual. He cannot be assumed to reproduce qualities associated

with his class type. But under these circumstances a monarch cannot know in advance what a candidate’s ability/power/de might be, and so he must devise some procedure/ja for determining this. The author of the /zngfa essay was not the first to make this argument.

By his time, the sorts of men who hung around academies would have been familiar with his argument from the writings of Han Feizi: Now every thing has an appropriate [place], and every material has its use. Each assumes its position [role] as is appropriate. That ts why relations between su-

perior and subordinate [monarch and officers] do not require intervention/wuwei [from the monarch]. Let the cock take charge of the night; let the fox

take charge of the mice. Each has its own competency; so the monarch has nothing to be concerned with. If the monarch advocates his own view [lit., 1s “long” on something], affairs will not appear squate [“true”].!°

REAR EL, MEA, FRAT LI RE. RAR, AR, Y Alsat, LOBE. LAPAR, SHR.

Bureaucracy and Agency 195 Han’s homely metaphors help to demystify some terms formerly seen,

in the West, as the product of Oriental mysticism. One of these 1s non-intervention/wuwe. In the Confucian classics the term alluded to a ceremonial mode of social control. To “do nothing” meant to follow

ceremonial rules properly and thus to set an example for persons of lower degree. In this way society could be governed without doing much other than choosing the right clothing.'® The locus classicus for wwwei in bureaucratic theory may be the Laozz. In Red Pine’s elegant translation, the author claims that “nothing to do means nothing not done”! $& Ay W'] $& 7 %& or, more literally, “If you do

nothing, there will be nothing left undone.” This passage has been treated as mystical by both Euramerican sinologists and scholars in China.!8 Herlee Creel, writing about 1970, already understood that wuwez

was subject to a pragmatic interpretation, but it was only with the archaeological discovery of texts dealing with bureaucratic theory in the 1970s that the administrative implications of Zhuangz’s and Laozrs dia-

lectic became apparent.'? Writing about wae: in early Han texts, Ssu Hsiu-wu understands it to imply “not interfering with the people’s activities.”20 Working from similar texts, R. P. Peerenboom recognized wuwei in Han Feizi’s thought as implying “hands-off management by the ruler, who assigns the details of daily operations of the government to his ministers.” He further relates wuwei to other arguments common in texts

associated with bureaucratic theory, including the notion that “appointments are made on the basis of ability, duties are clear and do not ovetlap, one person responsible for one post, nature is impersonal” and so on.7!

As Han explains in the passage just cited, deliberate action by the monarch is not necessary or even desirable if the right man can be matched to the right job. Why should the king run about chasing mice if the fox does it well? Once this is understood, the key to good government becomes the objective assessment of the fox’s ability.2? This cannot be accomplished if the monarch has preconceived views. As soon as he shows himself to be “long” on one view, the situation can no longer be perceived “squarely.” “Square,” here, is close to the older English sense of “true,” as when one “trues” an arrow. In Chinese it is close to zheng, which, likewise, means “square,” as in the angle made by a carpenter’s square. As Han put it, “By ‘square’ we mean the correspondence of internal with external, the

196 Bureaucracy and Agency agreement of word and deed.” But this presupposes that the object of truth, the dragon and his response, has a nature of its own, independent of any quality heredity might have conferred. It 1s this autonomy of the object of knowledge that demands a role for objectivity in the theory. Han sees the danger to objectivity as twofold. Naturally if the mon-

arch has preconceptions, such as the notion that noblemen are better than commoners, this will skew his assessment of things. This is why Han insists that “(Under the law] punishments will not escape even the highest officers, [while] rewards will not discount even the commonest

man” WIS RAKE, BS KHL 4 Following the same reasoning Han worries that, should the monarch reveal his own preferences, his men ate likely to cater to his prejudices. Playing up to these biases, they will simply “carve and polish” their views so as to suit the rulet’s preconceptions, just as a craftsman prepares ceremonial t1mplements for show. In Han’s view, this renders a true assessment of the situation

impossible: |

Therefore it is said: “A monarch should never reveal his own preferences.” If he reveals his preferences, his officers will naturally contrive [lit., “carve and polish” to suit his fancy]. A monarch should never reveal his intentions. If he reveals his intentions, his officers will naturally /z7 exaggerate [their abilities]. Therefore it 1s said: “If you eliminate [evidence of] your preferences, your officers will naturally / An officer facing a task 1s allowed to produce his own claim, a hypothesis. Again, Han Fetzi says it like it 1s:

The monarch promotes them according to the title assigned. If he does not know the appropriate title to assign, he seeks the answer by reviewing the man’s form |petformance] again. When the form [performance] and the name [title] match, then [the monarch] puts the product to use.**

LAXBRZ, Rho S, USL. USE, MILT. Because no transcendent standard is required, this ideal of political action has profound tmplications for individual agency. The model presumes that the men who potentially serve as offictalk—men who do not yet boast official status—possess abilities of their own. These abiltties cannot be predicted from family origin but must be determined by

202 Bureaucracy and Agency experiment. Human worth is not inherited, nor 1s it imposed from above. It is generated by the self/z7. Such a conclusion is required by arguments in Han Feiz7, but is stated explicitly in an essay on the “principles / dao” of rulership in the Huainanz, an essay recognized as closely allied in thought to the Jzngfa:>

Although there may be executions in the nation, it is not because of the monatch’s wrath; although there may be promotions at court, it is not because the monarch grants them. If criminals are executed, they do not resent the monarch because their punishment 1s the consequence of their own crime; if men are

promoted, they do not feel they owe it to the monarch because this is the consequence of their own accomplishments. [In this way] the people/n will know the [true] source of promotions and punishments; they will know that it all depends upon their persons.*°

AA MERRH, WAR AMBRE. RACE, KAZAKH HU,

HA REN, AZM. RAR R, FAG Hb.

This passage does nothing less than to take the source of agency away from the monarch and situate it physically in each and every person who

is responsible for his/her own actions. In such a theory, individuals without inherited status could acquire some voice in government because the true source of agency is said to le within the physical bodies/shen of individual persons. This claim applies even to the common people, the vn, who are to understand that their condition is a consequence of thetr own behavior. While this point of view can be traced to Han Feizi, the concept of knowledge underlying it more likely goes back to Zhuangzi. The Zhuangzian element is easier to see in another passage from the same essay: In making decisions about how to act, one should respond to the times, and your action should follow the pattern [of circumstances]. Do not judge something as foul or fine based on what you like or dislike. Do not reward or punish based upon your inclinations or anger. In this way each title will define itself/, each [administrative] category will define itself/2z and government affairs will be natural [zzran].°’ (Emphasis added)

ik ENF, HAP, FAMAGH, FAD ASR, 4O8 4, BSAA, # 7h AOR.

The iran at the end is that of the ZAvangz. In the absence of an ultimate “cause,” the burden of identity falls back upon the responding individual.

Bureaucracy and Agency | 2.03 It is the responses of individuals and their ability to fit circumstances that ultimately give rise to bureaucratic structure. Because the underlying metaphor for this passage is dertved from the crafts, craft informs the writing at a deep level. Perhaps the clearest hint is the use of the dragon metaphor. The decision to take action or retreat,

and the need to “respond/yng’ to ever-changing circumstances, is one with the dragon metaphor as we find it in other Warring States texts. Likewise, conceiving “circumstances” as a “pattern//’ of flow whose course one can follow to advantage (xm) suggests a visual field rem1niscent of Figure 24. Lz literally refers to the reticulate patterns of natural jade, marble, and other stones, a network of lines that, in the viewetr’s eye,

can disclose a certain logic, where “logic” is understood as interconnecting paths rather than as compartments. In this manner 4, in bureaucratic theory, becomes a spatial model for underlying principles. But

the pattern is a mobile one, a course that dragons can “follow” to advantage. A man of action follows this path, not as one follows God’s commandments, but rather the way a swimmer might follow the current so as to save effort. Now we can understand how the Jzmg/a could figure a monarch as riding “in the vastness of indeterminate form” so as to “deal with the world correctly.” A monarch could only view things objectively if he did not assume a fixed position. This is what is meant by “natural.” But “natural,” in this tradition of theory, implies wuwez “without deliberate intervention by the monarch.’’8 If an individual’s identity is not

conferred by the monarch, then it must be derived from itself. ‘This passage hammers that idea home with three successive clauses, each employing “self/z7’ in exactly the same grammatical position. The first 27 refers to the individual who determines his own title. The second 2% re-

fers to the individual’s demonstration of appropriateness for different administrative categories. The third z shifts to a higher level of abstraction. It is the 27 of z7ran, meaning “generated from out of itself.” The areument is that bureaucratic functionaries will themselves determine the bureau and task best suited to their talents by demonstrating their ability in real-time performance. The importance of a fluid model for bureaucratic theory can hardly be

overstressed. As discussed in the introduction to this study, S. N. E1senstadt identified the existence of “free-floating” resources— “manpower, funds and cultural value systems which are not completely tied to ascriptive and particularistic groups”—as critical for the historical

204 Bureaucracy and Agency evolution of bureaucracy.*? Throughout much of history one of the most difficult resources to free up for rational allocation was human talent.

Persons cannot become free-floating resources until personhood 1s understood as intrinsically mobile and the self as self-generated. In China

the dragon-in-the-clouds served as the perfect figure for the mobile conception of self that evolved in late Warring States times. Bureaucratic Practice

To what degree did bureaucratic theory take shape in actual practice? Mark Lewis notes that the theory requiring a match between claim and performance “corresponds to the use of contracts and annual verifications described in accounts of administrative practice.”4? The discovery of legal documents in the tomb of a Qin local official named Xi (d. 217 B.C.) suggests a surprisingly close relationship between theory and praxis.4! These documents, combined with traditional sources, reveal a clear evolution of standards from ascripttve to merit-based criteria. These developments, 1n turn, signal a radical reformulation of the concept of human worth. Huang Liuzhu has distinguished twelve different methods of official assessment and has divided their evolution into three periods.” In the first period, heredity seems to have been the overriding

factor in official appointments. In the second period, in the fourth century B.C., inheritance and special favor from the sovereign had become secondary in importance. This development shows that official status was already being dissociated from royal favor, thus anticipating the later claim that “rewards and punishments should not be based upon [the monarch’s] inclination or anger.” By the third period, in the late third century, “the main tracks [to office] were knowledge of law and promotion of petty officials,” which is to say, promotion up the hierarchy based upon performance.# All this implies a fundamentally different attitude toward aristocratic rank. The new attitude was institutionalized in the practice of offering such rank to anyone who performed certain meritorious actions, such as killine the enemy in war. This means that the concept of biological continuity was legally dissociated from the concept of aristocracy: “These degrees of rank were a means to incorporate all members of the population into the state and a strategy to break down the ascriptive status system inherited from earlier times.” Such rank, moreover, “was not just

Bureaucracy and Agency 205 an honorary distinction; it incurred an ongoing obligation to the state.” Apparently, even “aristocratic” rank was being concetved in terms of performance. This made it possible to treat such rank as a commodity that could be exchanged for other kinds of privileges. In other words, aristocratic rank had been disjoined from personal substance, betng defined largely through personal action. Substance can be inherited, but action originates with a person. A prominent feature of bureaucratic theory is the correspondence of “performance” and “name/title,” or alternatively “claim” and “actuality.” Such a concept requires procedures enabling the bureaucracy to check performance against assigned duties or claimed achievement. Robin Yates found that theory and practice tallied quite well in this regard, with “rules for checking the performance of officials [being] very detailed... . These rules were intended to ensure that officials given specific duties were actually held responsible for discharging them. This was a concrete application of the theory of government found in so-called legalistic writings concerning the matching of name and reality and demanding actual performance of what the official stated he would do.” Special terms were fashioned to articulate that new authorizing activity called “performance.” We have already noted the technical use of “form” (xing 73), but in addition we find the term “not straight” (bazhi AS EL) being used to designate bureaucratic “irregularities,” departures from standard procedure. ‘The use of a shape term in such documents 1s reminiscent of terms such as “straight/ zheng’ or “square/fang’ in bureaucratic theory. Like “form,” such terms derived from the language of craft. Other important criteria for performance included “absence of private bias” (wusi #244), another key concept in bureaucratic theory. At this stage we also find new terms with no obvious metaphoric origin.

One of these is xiao ®£, which designates a special set of rules for checking performance. Yates translates the term as “Verifications” or “Checking,” but it might also be translated as “Efficacy.” Such rules were for checking an offictal’s level of performance; the term x7zao makes it clear that the emphasis was on “results.”

By tracing the new meanings accorded to old craft terms, we can detect a new set of scales for measuring human worth. Under a familial social order, human worth was measured in the terms of craft, but these terms were actually instantiated in objects such as a decorated hy. Differences in size, thickness, or levels of density created a material scale

206 Bureaucracy and Agency upon which a man’s putative de could be both measured and displayed. In mature bureaucratic theory, the material scales of ceremony gave way to numeric scales measuring performance and salary. Official performance was etraded on a scale from best to worst and ranked, one, two, three, and so on. Performance ratings, in turn, formed the basis for both salary and official rank, with the salary scale betng standardized nationwide, and ranging from roughly 350 bushels of grain per month to some 16 bushels per month. Fine adjustments were made in criteria for both rewards and punishments. Evaluation of performance, for example, took into account the size of an officer’s charge, while culpability took into account a man’s rank, with higher officers being punished ~more severely for

infractions of rules.*° In brief, bureaucratic officers were expected to perform, not as private agents seeking private gain, but as professionals working in tandem with others toward a corporate goal. The invention of salary was of major importance in the grand scheme of world history, as Ltu Zongyuan (773-819) recognized in his theory of the rise and decline of feudalism.*’ In our analysis this invention represents a new concept of how material wealth is deployed in the assignment of social agency. Recall that, in feudal times, grain paid to a lord was abstracted in ceremony, which ts to say, “style,” so that its transfer from producer to nobility could be justified in terms of a nobleman’s virtue/ de.

By the third century B.c., “style” had been dissociated from material, yielding raw grain. At this basic level it could be treated as a universal measure of value, transformed into an impersonal state and thus transferable to anyone who “deserved” it under the new criteria of worth. This transfer from farmer to official was not justified on the basis of the monarch’s charisma, but on the pragmatic argument that a good official is of benefit to the people.*8 In place of style, we have numeric assignments keyed to individual performance. Yates notes that such practices ate fully consistent with Choyun Hsu’s account of the overall direction of change during the Warring States period: “This system of giving salaries for rank and services represented an important change from hereditary,

asctiptive rank and office in earlier times and constituted an important method of controlling officials and keeping the finances of the empire under control.’”49

If the monarch no longer justified the transfer of wealth with his charisma (de), what was his role? In bureaucratic theory, the monarch’s position and role were described with the term “non-interference,” or

Bureaucracy and Agency 207 wuwet. Yates finds that this principle informs bureaucratic writings in the sense that “officials are to be active, performing the last details of their jobs with utmost care and precision, exhausting themselves to carry out

the ruler’s affairs, but the ruler himself is to be above all those petty concerns.” He further reviews an anecdote in the Book of Lord Shang which argues that, due to the great distances involved, there 1s no way a lord can personally make decisions on local affairs. Indeed, the narrative suggests that “it was only when the king personally listened to the reports and fell asleep that corruption arose.”*? In other words, the bureaucracy should work like a machine that can make decisions on the basis of the objective situation without intervention from the monarch. ‘This is what is meant by wawez. Only within such a tradition would it be concetvable to imagine, with the Huainanzi, that “when we speak of the demise of a state, it is not because it has lost its monarch; it is because it has lost its law”

Pr ori t- BY, JERR AL, BA. In bureaucratic theory, /a refers to those fixed procedures governing the operation of government, more akin to a constitution (in the eighteenth-century sense) than laws about theft or murder. The Huaznanzrs comment marks the culmination of a tradition that conceived of the state and its operating procedures as distinct from the person of the monarch. Still, there were plenty of kinks. Robin Yates, for example, finds echoes of older religious terminology here and there in bureaucratic theory.* Feudal holdovers continued to plague the design the way horse-andbuggy technology restrained the potential of the early automobile. This was particularly conspicuous in the monarch’s failure to observe the principle of non-intervention. As if intoxicated with the technology of rational administration, the architects of bureaucratic theory placed far too much faith in the new machine, demanding unreasonable efficiency from officers and applying “measures” with unrealistic precision. ‘The bureaucratic theorists had not reckoned with human fallibility. The tragic flaws inherent in a mechanized justice system run by humans were fully exposed by one of Zhuangzi’s followers writing, perhaps, just before or after the Qin dynasty: At this stage the axe and the saw were applied [to human bodies] and death was determined [“objectively’] with carpenter’s tools, while the hammer and the gouge performed the executions. ...

ARETE, BLAS, WRB...

2.08 Bureaucracy and Agency At the present time those who have been sentenced to death are so numerous as

to lie against one another like pillows. Those wearing the cangue are so numerous as to bump into one another on the roads. Those suffering from beatings can see each other everywhere. And now the Confucians and the Mohists begin to stand on tiptoe, looking shocked among the fettered and manacled crowd! Such brazen callousness and studied ignorance is incredible! Strange that they should be slow to recognize their “wisdom and knowledge” in the bars of

the cangue, or their “humanity and justice” in the rivets of the fetters and handcuffs!>>

ZUR ICA TAAL, Hi ae FATAL, FRA AB EL, An fis SB 70 AG BEI ER

SHEL. BS, HAR! Lette Fa LES! SRMENMAZFT AH

Pte FAL, TAZ Bs Boa.

This is powerful language, deftly employing hyperbole to render a caustic indictment of the fetishization of rational “knowledge.” In this passage the Zhuangzi exposes the hypocrisy of established “morality” by identifying “humanity” with “the rivets of the fetters and handcuffs.” Although considered one of the later chapters of the Zhuangzz, the irony of this passage recalls that of Zhuangzi himself, who credited one man’s mutilated body to the “humane” actions of the “sage” king Yao.*+ Perhaps more than a century later, one of Zhuangzi’s followers employed this same unerring logic and, like his predecessor, treated the dignity of human life as the ultimate source of authority for his argument. Granting the system its shortcomings, the significance of salaried administration at such an early date is not to be treated lightly.> We can appreciate better the rarity of salaried administration and meritocratic selection by recalling that seventeenth-century Europeans had considerable difficulty articulating Chinese principles of equal opportunity. Pressed to describe bureaucratic rank for European readers, many were forced to employ more familiar ascriptive terms like “dignity” or “honourt.”°° The Englishman Robert Burton (1621) was unable to discuss bureaucratic office without presenting it as a peculiar species of “nobility”: Out of their philosophers and Doctors they [the Chinese] choose Magistrates; their politick Nobles are taken from such as be morakter nobiles, vittuous noble; nolihtas ut olim ab officio, non a natura, as in Israel of old, and their office was to defend and govern their country, not to hawk, hunt, eat, drink, game alone, as too many doo. Their Lausie, Mandarins, Litterates, Licentiates, and such as have raised themselves by their worth, are their noble men, only thought fit to govern state.?/

Bureaucracy and Agency 209 Samuel Pufendorf (1632-94) understood that a commoner might at-

tain high office in China, but merely thought that the system placed certain constraints on the nobility: “This 1s inculcated by sage men [in China] that noble people should not rely on their noble lineage only, but much more on their virtue.’ He seems unable to imagine a situation 1n which the names of examinees were covered so that one’s nobility would not have been a factor at all. Both Burton’s and Pufendorf’s word choice sugeests that Europeans of this period had difficulty separating the man

from the office, or human worth from birth. If Westerners had truly been individualistic at that time, as social psychologists claim, neither Burton nor Pufendorf could have had any confusion regarding merttocratic appointment. Such excursions help us to establish a more historical perspective in

two ways. First, we are reminded that many of the practices we have come to associate with modern life can and have occurred at multiple times and in multiple places, often in streams of development better described as transnational than national. Those institutions making up a oiven repertoire of contention (such as job performance vs. marital ties) are not the product of national gentus but more often a consequence of practical circumstance and opportunity. Also, such comparisons help us to appreciate how critical a fluid concept of identity 1s for early bureaucratic theory wherever it evolves. In China, treatises of the third century

B.C. made practical use of a spatial paradigm whose implications Zhuangzi was among the first to articulate. But it may well be that Zhuangzi was not the inventor of this graphic model, for we find much the same logic in both literary and pictorial descriptions of dragons. ‘To put it another way, the generic condition of dragons and clouds presumed the same sort of geometry as Zhuangzi’s epistemology. Warring States writers, like thetr Greek contemporaries, used visual imagery as a framework for thought.*?

TEN The Poktiecs of Personhood

One of the most widely accepted views of Asian personhood matches poorly the material reviewed in previous chapters. ‘This is the theory that Asian concepts of self—all of them—can be described as interdependent while the Western self has always been independent, or inherently individualistic. In this theory, the evolution of personal agency is understood as rooted in ethnicity rather than in historical circumstance. If we accept

this account, and regard the social practices of Classical China as expressions of this Asian essence, then it would be necessary to dismiss the evidence just discussed. It follows that, before we can examine graphic paradigms as /estorical phenomena, it will be necessary to examine the ethnicity theory more closely. In a widely cited article Hazel Rose Markus and Shinobu Kitayama apply the intuitive analogy argument to Asian personhood by constructing a contrast between what they call “independent” and “tnterdepend-

ent” concepts of self.! Robert C. Solomon has taken this study to task, questioning the “so-called Western view of the individual as an independent, self-contained, autonomous entity who (a) comprises a unique confisuration of internal attributes ... and (b) behaves primarily as a consequence of these internal attributes.”? In particular, he found the distinction between “independent” and “interdependent” construals of self... ovetly stmpleminded and only clumsily applicable to the hardly homogeneous societies mentioned by Markus and Kitayama. The United States and Canada are, despite the prevalent themes of certain sorts of movies, not at all so obviously

wed to their own romantic conception of the tndividual, and the idea that all non-Western, [or?] non-individualist societies can be understood together under

a single rubric, “interdependent,” flies in the face of so much of the rich anthropological evidence that Markus and Kitayama cite in their discussion.?

Lhe Poktics of Personhood 211 This “independent/interdependent” dichotomy remains influential among students of China, yet a persistent problem 1s that the thesis 1s difficult to reconcile with historical data.+ Given the theory, one would predict that acts of personal assertion in defiance of the state—such as student demonstrations—should have occurred in Europe but not in Asia, yet the earliest recorded student demonstrations (as opposed to riots) occurred in China.’ Likewise one would predict that independent Western writers should have become politically active at an early date, yet traditionally few English poets were praised for their political activism

while a long line of Chinese poets were valorized for such acttvities.° Equally hard to explain is why it took Western artists so long to abandon aristocratic standards (as occurred in the nineteenth century), whereas Chinese painters claimed the authority to express their own thoughts and feelings as early as the eleventh century.’ Perhaps the most difficult evidence to reconcile with the Kitayama/ Markus theory is sustained European resistance to merit-based appointment for public office. If it were truly the individual that counted in the West and not the family, why would anyone object to publicly administered, blindly graded examinations, as these would enable the individual

to perform qua indtvidual, without regard to family pedigree? Modern prejudice notwithstanding, the weight of hereditary status in European history can scarcely be denied, and this cannot but cast a shadow upon traditional claims about Western individuals. When Plato, Aristotle, or even Descartes speak of the abilities of “man,” the object of their attention would have been, for the most part, members of an aristocracy. Such men tell us little about attitudes toward individual assertion because,

when a nobleman asserts himself, he does no more than exercise hereditary privilege.

So powerful was hereditary status in Greece that Aristotle ultimately

“excluded from his citizenry not only slaves proper, but mechanics, tradesmen, husbandmen, women, and resident aliens. Lacking as they did the ‘faculty of deliberation,’ such people were not fit to play any role in political affairs.” During the early modern era a long line of prominent

European thinkers repeatedly introduced the notion of merit-based appointment, pointing again and again to Chinese practice as a model, yet it would be hundreds of years before Europeans would actually embrace

these ideals.? As late as the eighteenth century the persistence of the “Great Chain of Being” model and the acceptance of nepotism as le-

212 The Politics of Personhood sitimate suggests that some two millennia of particulate paradigms did little for nonaristocratic persons hoping to move up in the world.’ Indeed, if European concepts of self favored the individual as opposed to the family, why were nineteenth-century aristocrats horrified by the Chinese policy of equal opportunity?! Finally, if Western intellectuals truly believe that individuals generate their own selves, then why do contemporary theorists continue to maintain that selves are shaped by ethnicity—“Western” or “Asian”? It will not do to dismiss these observations as “apologetic,” as if any evidence not flattering to Western pretensions should be treated as illesitimate. The problem rather, as recent scholarship suggests, may be that a long tradition of biased interpretation by Western writers has seriously skewed our understanding of social evolution by constructing it as the expression of national genius.!2 Jack Goody, reviewing such bias itn modernization narratives, quipped, “In looking at Europe, and specifically England, our natural egocentricity has often led us to assume a priority at deep, sociocultural levels whereas the evidence for this 1s e1ther thin or non-existent.” Even taking bias into account, the evidence reviewed above does not prove that individualism is characteristically “Chinese”; 1t shows, instead, that race-based dichotomies are fundamentally flawed. Barry Alan Shain, in The Myth of American Individualism, observes, “Like Plato, Aristotle countenances widespread legal and social compulsion of

individual behavior without any suggestion that compulsion, the overriding of individual choice, involves moral loss or sacrifice, so long as tt prevents people from doing wrong.”!4 Speaking of the moral traditions of the Christian and Classical West, he adds: “Traditionally, personal independence had compromised neither the interdependent relation that existed between the independent male and his family nor that which existed between him and the local community.”'> The fact is, no society permits anything like perfect personal independence. What we find historically is that different societies offer different “contentious repertoires,” different arenas of discourse within which personal prerogative can be negotiated.’ It is the number and kind of negotiable arenas that can vary in countless ways across time and space. Clearly it becomes difficult to make sense of a process of zndividuation

of the self if our chosen tool of analysis permits only simple black-orwhite choices. It is the limitation of the Kitayama/Markus model that

The Poktis of Personhood 213 makes it hard to understand how an atomistic paradigm, presumably individualistic, in fact supported a long history of biological determinism, while an integrative model, presumably non-individualistic, justified a merit-based system that, by definition, privileges individuation.'’ Perhaps it will be necessary to work outside the framework of ethnically charged binarisms in order to learn something about how personal agency can be constructed, not by Westerners and not by Chinese, but by anyone at all. Figure/ Ground Dialectics

My basic claim is that the epistemological problem of certifying social identity is one with the visuval problem of determining pictorial identity. Visual dialectics require that every figure have a ground. The relationship

between the two can be openly acknowledged, as when figure and sround are roughly equal in size and complexity (Fig. 33); or concealed

such that the ground we fashion appears to be neutral and absolute (Fig. 34A). There is no escape from this condition; we must tilt in one direction or the other, but the level of certitude (in Zhuanezi’s terms, the degree of prejudice) invested in our reading will depend upon how figure and ground are disposed. In the former case (Fig. 33), the figure’s shape

Fig. 33. Conceptual design of a visually ambiguous figure.

214 The Politics of Personhood

_||a | —_— Ol Fig. 34. Figure on a ground in four variations, A—D (ft to right).

may limit the number of viable interpretations, but visual ambiguity will ensure room for alternative readings. In the latter case we may feel so certain of a figure’s identity that we imagine it to be entirely independent of our own perspective. Let us suppose that the identity of the object in Figure 34A is absolute

and therefore “autonomous.” What makes it so? Not the figure, for clearly the figure would have no discernible identity without the ground. True, the ground has been fashioned so as to appear boundless and neutral, but in fact it is not. Suppose we wish to remove the ground so that the object can become truly autonomous. Whatever color we choose, as long as it differs from the figure, the ground remains (Fig. 34B). We

might try to “remove” the ground by making it the same color as the fisure and the figure the same color as the ground (Fig. 34C), but even so the distinction remains, now in reverse. Finally, we might make the figure

the same color as the ground (Fig. 34D), but if we do this, the figure ceases to exist. Eliminating the ground eliminates the figure because our knowledge of either depends upon the other.!® The dialectics of vision leaves us no

alternative. If we are to have a figure at all, there must be a ground, a difference between “this” and “that.” It follows that there is no such thing as an autonomous figure because every figure acquires identity agonistically in relation to an environment, just as personal independence need not “compromise” the interdependent relation that exists between

a petson and the local community. It is simply the case that some pictorial schemes enable the artist to pretend the figure is autonomous by discuising the dependence of figure on ground. In much the same way, some types of rhetoric enable writers to disguise the interdependence of

The Pottics of Personhood 215 individual and community so as to transfer inordinate amounts of power to some individuals rather than others.

This visual dilemma is identical to the epistemological problem of determining personhood. Supposing two persons, X and Y, have agreed that there is a “thing” out there and that it should be called an “Asian.” For X, “Asian” might include a faculty of deliberation; for Y, tt might not.

Obviously an Asian will be treated very differently depending upon whether or not her social classification implies a faculty of deliberation. Granted that X and Y recognize their differences, how should they decide what an Asian “really” is? Each will be attached to his own view. If either is to suppose there is a correct answer, independent of X or Y, he

must postulate the existence of a detached observer, a God. But as Zhuangzi noticed, though God might be out there, in practice she never shows up to say, “By the way, Asians in fact have (or don’t have) a faculty

of deliberation.” When we assert the action of a transcendent observer, what we do 1s to place our own words in “God’s” mouth. We fabricate a supra-systemic authority to speak for us, carefully disguising the fact that this absolute ground 1s, in fact, the product of our own figuring. Should we confess that no one outside the system can step in to resolve our disputes, then things get more complicated. Zhuangzi put it

this way: |

Whom shall we get to provide a correct judgment? If we get someone who agrees with you, since he agrees with you, how can he [stand outside the system to] provide a correct [objective] judgment? If we get someone who agrees with me, since he agrees with me, how can he [stand outside the system to] provide a correct judgment? If we get someone who disagrees with both you and me, how can he provide a correct judgment? If we get someone who agrees both with you and me, how can he provide a correct judgment? In this way you and I and all others would never be able to arrive at knowledge recognized mutually by all.!°

SRR EL RP SAPS RASA RK, SHEL? RA FRA?

RALRE, BREL? RRFRMEA EL? MRAFRMER, BBE

2? RA FRRES ED? RAPSRMER, BES? ROR MA 4B. AS He AA KOAL, to 4 HAL AB

Zhuangzi argues that there is no absolutely “correct” view, but he is not speaking of technical questions such as what kind of metal makes the most lethal weapon. As the many references to technology in Zhuangzz

216 The Poktics of Personhood testify, he knew that agreement could be reached on such matters. He and his followers were concerned with questions such as how one man should be called “noble,” or another common (see Chapter 4). Such questions are not subject to “scientific” treatment (not that some haven’t tried).

Likewise, in matters of human worth, we have only two alternatives for defining social categories. First, we can acknowledge that the assionment of human worth is the product of social convention. In that case, should we take a position on what “Asian” means, we must assume personal responsibility for it. Ironically, in doing so, we unambiguously assett our own agency. Alternatively, we may attribute our own interpretation to a supta-systemic being. This relieves us of personal tresponsibility by shifting the authority for the identification to a fictitious

transperspectival viewer, and so we necessarily relinquish our own agency. Our subjective relationship to the “things” thus generated will be disouised and so these forms will appear as discrete figures on a ground. In reality, the “ground” is of our own fashioning, even though presented as if it were God’s. Comparative Perspectives

The conceptual problem we are wrestling with here 1s peculiar neither to ancient China nor to this book. The problem of figure and ground 1s an

epistemological one: every artist’s mode of figuring requires specific assumptions about how it 1s that we know what an object is. Some recent

critiques of traditional epistemology shed light on the argument I am pursuing here. One such critique comes from the discipline of nartatology:

The epistemological notion of objective truth and impersonal knowledge 1s bound up with the narratological notion of “third person narrative,” external and invisible narrator, and neutral representation. But if we realize that the Cartesian cogéo that sustains the objective epistemology 1s z/se/fa mininarrative in

the first person, we don’t even need Descartes’ personal expressions of anxiety to realize that this conception of knowledge is inherently contradictory.”

Mieke Bal’s ingenious disassembly of Cartesian logic exposes the sleight-of-hand underlying third-person narrative. In this analysis, such narrative disguises the narrator’s identification with a putative external observer much as, in the argument pursued here, figure/ground con-

The Poktics of Personhood 217 ventions diseutse the figure’s dependence on the ground. And just as the conventional artist suppresses the viewer’s subjective role in creating the

fioure/ground dialogue, so is it in third-person narrative in the realist tradition, “where subjective traces of narratortal intervention must often

be erased or disguised. They must not be shown as responding to an implied second person thanks to whose curiosity, antagonism, or interest the narratortal ‘? can constitute itself.”*! Bal’s analysis shares some features with the argument being pursued here. In either case the subject fashions itself in response to a challenge that, in my view, corresponds to the ground against which the figure is constituted. The relationship between the figure’s legibility and the logic of narration has also been explored by Norman Bryson. Building upon Barthes, he reasoned that Renaissance painting was rhetorically effective largely because the image “is not experienced by the viewer as ‘read’—1n this 1t 1s

like a realist novel; it is no longer Text, but Life.” The message of the painting is not stated baldly but rather is situated amid information about “perspective, spatial location, modeling, surface light” and a host of other “cogent irrelevancies.”?2 Naturalistic styles are no less a product of artifice than “stylized” styles, but by vastly enhancing a figure’s legibility, such a style may cajole viewers into forgetting the operation of artifice. The advantage of this mode of analysis ts that it permits historically srounded readings of representation. For Bryson, Renaissance natural-

ism could be understood not as a symptom of the inevitable rise of the West, but as a tool adapted to a particular historical order. Overdetermined images are not the handmaiden of Science, but rather clever fictions allowing subjective interpretation to pose as objective Truth. It follows that any picture offering a crisp figure/ground contrast and illusionistic forms presumes a single, “true” reading. This is not because tts

interpretation is actually “true”; it 1s simply that the artist presents as distinct elements that, in reality, can be seen as interdependent. Bryson is not alone in reading style as epistemology. Hubert Damisch has written an entire book exploring the conceptual premises informing styles that privilege delineation and those that pursue the indeterminate. The latter he classifies under the metaphor “cloud,” a concept he tries to establish as a general principle in the analysis of style.*> After tracing from Massaccio through Turner the principle of /cloud/ as the negation of solidity, permanence, and identity, Damisch devotes the better part of a chapter to clouds in Chinese painting and theory. His core concerns, if

218 The Poktis of Personhood I understand them, resonate in some ways with those of social psychologists, but his logic is more rigorous and so he avoids intuitive analogy arguments. He notes that clouds posed a difficult problem for post-Renaissance European artists because of Classical misgivings toward impermanence. He duly records the early modern European 1nterest in the geometry of perspective, and the delineation of identity, and observes the breakdown of these categories of thought in the late nineteenth century.*4 He examines in detail the logic informing the analytical opposition of line and color in European painting theory and therefore ts intrigued by some traditions of Chinese theory that acknowledged the interdependency of what Europeans might have called linear and pictorial functions. Where a European artist would employ outline to delineate his figure, chiaroscuro to give it volume, and perspective to place it in

space, a Chinese literati patnter might serve all three functions with brushstrokes that were neither line nor shade, but a bit of both: From this follows a notion of form—if that is the right word and if it is acceptable here—that owes nothing to delineation in the Western sense, nor to the

Aristotelean distinction between color and figure (since the painting of the “scholars,” which is the subject of most of the Chinese treatises on landscape painting, first and foremost among them Shitao’s Comments, is monochrome painting that uses only tonal differences). If ink makes the forms of the landscape expand, it is insofar as it confers its flesh upon the skeleton that the brush

must provide. ... And it is this that makes the technique known as “blowing clouds” and that of “spattered ink” [techniques which lack brush quality] so aberrant; 1t is also the reason why such techniques do not deserve to be called “painting.” Taken literally, such a technique surely leads to separating what should not be separated and isolating one of the terms of an opposition that makes no sense unless it is presented as dakctical, unlike purely formal or analytical oppositions of the line/color, linear/pictorial, or even form/matter type. Ink 1s not the same to brush as color ts to line, nor as matter is to form; for (and this is the point that needs to be stressed in order to avoid any interpretation of an idealist nature, of the kind that abounds in Western literature devoted to Far Eastern art) bones ate no less material than flesh.*°

The dialectical form of this logic recalls Zuangzz, where we found that the dragon is no less real when it appears as a cloud. Things that change are not regarded as less real. ‘This understanding forces the adoption of a dialectical mode of reasoning rather than a linear one, but Damisch does not infer that dialectical reasoning is less rational.

The Poktis of Personhood 219 Damisch recognized another kind of logical interdependency in some Chinese painting, namely, the role of the viewer in determining the image’s identity. Damisch quotes Bertolt Brecht’s 1970 essay on Chinese painting to emphasize this point: “Chinese artists also have a great deal of room on their paper. Some parts of the sutface seem unused. .. . In these gaps, the paper or linen has a value of its own. The artist does not wish to deny the surface as a whole by covering it entirely. A mirror in which something here 1s reflected retains its value as a mirror. What this implies 1s a happy rejection of the complete submission of the spectator, for he can never be totally persuaded by the illusion.” In the West, the fact is that the brush is called upon to cover the canvass, in other words, to make it disappear under the applied layer of preparations, oils, pastes, and varnishes, thereby, at the level of the senses, magnifying the “annihilation” of the substratum that ts implied by the perspective construction.*°

Following the analysis of selfhood offered earlier in this chapter, some might suppose that, if illusionistic styles suppress the viewetr’s subjective contribution, then an artist’s only other alternative would be to employ

ambiguous figure/ground relations. This is not the case, as Brecht’s analysis shows. There are many ways an artist can alert the viewer to her subjectivity. Some devices common in later Chinese painting include the introduction of incongruous historical styles into a work, the deliberate

flattening of space, and a radical emphasis on the materiality of both paint and its substrate. It is common as well in so-called “Zen” painting and in much of literati painting. In none of these instances is it necessary

to make fieure/ground relations ambiguous. Instead, the status of the painting itself becomes ambiguous: are these figures in the round, or merely flat designs? is this a painting of a forested cliff, or just a splotch of ink? In each case the viewer is forced to face the contingent nature of

interpretation. Techniques such as we find in “Zen” painting appear relatively late in time, only after illusionism had been first established and then rejected as an ideal in China.” Nonetheless, they force the viewer to

question her role in the construction of the image no less than the ambiguous dragons on a Warring States mirror. Norman Bryson has explored the epistemological implications of “Zen” style painting, recognizing in it pictorial analogues to the dialectics

of selfhood.*® At the core of his study is Ketji Nishitant’s critique of Sartre’s nihilism. Bryson recounts Sartre’s relationship to the European

220 The Poltacs of Personhood tradition, which appears to place the person at the center of experience, but then he introduces a different perspective from across the globe: Nishitani remarks that the Sartrean eis capable of reaching a level of nthility in which everything that exists is cast into doubt, except the fundamental irreducibility of the je which does the doubting. For example, when the je fully understands the death of God and comes to doubt the viability of an ethics imposed on the subject from outside, the Sartrean je reacts by falling back in on itself, and by struggling to locate an authenticity of the self from which ethical action can emanate directly: when the forms of ethics pass into the field of nihility and are annulled there, that annihilation is overcome by the je’s assertion of itself as authentic core of moral agency.??

Like Nietzsche, to whom he refers, Bryson here 1s wrestling with what to do when God drops out of the picture. When Zhuangzi removed God, he was forced to adopt zzran as the spatial paradigm for individual action (Chapter 8). Zzvan means there is no higher-order standard; figure and

eround fashion one another, as neither can claim prior status, and interpretation remains open to debate depending upon the viewer’s perspective. Following this much of Bryson’s account, it appears that Sartre simply appropriates God’s authority for the self by “redoubling the force

of self as it operates on nothingness outside.” But where did that “nothingness” come fromp In fact, it is not really “nothing.” In pictures it is the ground that defines the figure; in epistemology it is the Lord who certifies the identities of all things, including the doubting self. Understood in fieure/eround terms, Sartre simply denies the ground and proclaims the figure to be pre-existent and, therefore, “natural.’”’ But we have already seen that this is merely a sleight-of-hand. To claim self-existence

apart from a ground ts either solipsism or self-deception. Without God, there are no grounds for claiming a privileged perspective. According to Bryson, there is yet another problem with what might be called Sartre’s spatial paradigm. A self-existent self presupposes an unchanging form, a discrete figure against a stable ground; but in reality, the sround within which that form finds itself 1s always changing: The concept of the entity can be preserved only by an optic that casts around each entity a perceptual frame that makes a cw¢ from the field and immobilizes the cut within the static framework. But as soon as that frame is withdrawn, the object is found to exist as part of a mobile continuum that cannot be cut anywhere. .. . Moved onto the field of svnyata or radical impermanence, the entity

The Poktics of Personhood 221 comes apatt. It cannot be said to occupy a sng location, since its locus is always the universal field of transformations: it cannot achieve a separation from that field or acquire any kind of bounded outline.*”

Here sunyata and the absence of bounded outline both refer to “Zen”

painting. Bryson is arguing that Sesshu’s “Zen” landscapes are the product of an epistemology markedly distinct from that which informs,

say, eatly modern European painting. But this is not to say that the noncentered gaze is somehow “Asian”; more likely it has its roots in a logic of indeterminacy. Alex Potts, in an extended meditation on MeleauPonty’s thought, had this to say about determinacy, or its absence: Yet if for practical purposes we assume that we live in an objective world, dealing with the things we encounter as objects with definite functional properties, that is not the whole story. In the physical world we see and inhabit, however closely we look, the things around us never quite become determinate objects whose attributes are exhaustively fixed. Both their existence and our apprehension of them are subject to the passage of time.?!

If this sounds reminiscent of Z/huangz, we need not attribute it to the popularity of Zen-inspired writings among intellectuals in the 1950s and 1960s (though this shouldn’t be suppressed either). Once one accepts indeterminacy as a structural property of things, a variety of visual consequences follow. Among these is the dissolution of centeredness, in-

cluding one-point perspective. Reviewing and citing the thought of Rosalind Krauss, Potts notes, “What she saw as being given to the viewer

in the experience of the sculptural works she admired was not some immanent sense of centered structure or form that transcended all one’s partial views, but ‘the infinite sum of an indefinite series of perspectival views in each of which the object is given but in none of which it is given exhaustively.’””*?

A nation-centered account of history will have difficulty accommodating parallels among the concerns of recent Euro-American writers and ancient Chinese texts. If modern thought is the flower of “Western” genius, then for some it may sound absurd—if not offenstve—to think that some part of that flower could have existed in the ancient “Orient.” The position adopted here is that whether an epistemological field 1s centered or not has nothing to do with Hegelian evolutionary schemes. The relationship between art and epistemology is intrinsic to the beast—

222 The Politics of Personhood no arttist can avoid making epistemological assumptions, consciously or unconsciously. Granting that, the range of choices available is limited to the space between the two ends of the spectrum. In China, it happens to be the case that a discourse of indeterminate form was used to figure the concept of self early on, possibly because substance-ontologies were not favored in that part of the world. Whether one adopts indeterminacy or fixed centrality as part of the structure of

vision, a number of inferences follow from the nature of the graphic paradiom. Either we center our subjects, or we do not. If we do not, either we work with an overall composition such as one finds at Mawangdui (Chapter 11), or we accommodate some limited number of multiple viewpoints. The two ends of the spectrum are congruent with the limits of vision: strict legibility on the one end and perfect ambiguity

on the other. Bearing this in mind, should we wonder that writers so distant in time might make similar observations? Presumably this 1s why

neither Bryson nor Damisch privilege European painting as unique in having an epistemological stance; they recognize that all painting requires

such assumptions, whether or not explicitly articulated. Bryson’s core claim seems to be that the ambiguity of status of the tmage one finds in “Zen” landscapes must have been informed by a special understanding of the relationship between subject and what he calls its “field.” Such painting, by the nature of its visual structure, offers an alternative to the centered-subject approach. We are now ready to return to the paradox entertained at the beginning of this section: if one places the person in the center of the epistemological field, it seems natural to suppose that this paradigm would favor a discrete, and therefore independent, concept of person. On the other hand, if you see the individual as embedded in a field of “transformation,” how do you draw the line between self and environment? How can a person be truly independent if she 1s embedded in a matrix made up of others? Again, Mieke Bal draws open the blinds, recognizing that the first person, the subject in the center, is never truly independent, for each person emerges as distinct only in response to some other second person.*? Traditionally, of course, “It 1s this dependency on others that constitutes the scandal, the stumbling block, of orthodox epistemology, and hence, it is the traces of that grafted status of the knowing subject that must be erased.’’>4

The Politics of Personhood 223 A cognate analysis can be applied to figure/ground dialectics. The reason an “independent” figure appears more “individual” than an “interdependent” figure is that we tend to interpret these two paradigms according to the rules of a simple intuitive-analogy argument, but the contrast in the two paradigms is not between independent and embedded concepts of self: there 2s no such thing as a non-embedded self. The contrast,

therefore, is between two kinds of rhetorical ploy: 1n one tradition, the self claims to speak for a God who 1s not, in fact, present for comment; in the other tradition, the self defines itself by responding to a challenge

that constitutes the ground for its identity. In the first case, the individual’s relationship to God 1s precisely that of a feudal vassal to his Lord. As a consequence, even though God may be declared “dead,” the spatial

paradigm underlying the argument makes it difficult to imagine a self without a higher source of authorization, so God simply comes to be disguised in the self, just as the artifice of style is disguised by naturalistic detail. While speaking in God’s voice may be egorstic, it 1s not individualistic

because the self does not take responsibility for its own views. One cannot be an agent without taking responsibility for one’s actions, and without agency, there are no individuals.

It would appear that a genuine concept of empowered agent must allow the person to figure its identity through willful action in response to change.*> This is what is meant by xan. Ironically, a substancebased ontology encourages quite the opposite, for it seeks justification through intrinsic substance (being “Western,” for example) while denterating action as impermanent. In a word, where substance ontologies take “form” (whether you’re black, yellow, or white) as the basis for identity, process ontologies foreground performance (what you've accomplished).

THE GROUND If a view of personal action from multiple perspectives does not obviate the possibility of individual agency, neither does it entail the rejection of certainty. Again, Mieke Bal recognizes that cognitive activity should be

situated in the projects of “specifically positioned subjects,” but she further understands that narrative’s “capacity to map positioned subjects in relation to knowledge does not entail a facile rejection of all standards of objectivity.”°° The same reasoning could apply to the fluid paradigm

224 The Politics of Personhood of bureaucratic theory.’ The figure’s response can affect the ground, but the ground is not a figment of the figure’s imagination. It is out there, and

so atguments from “objective” fact are entirely possible within the otaphic logic of this system. Han Feizi and other bureaucratic theorists aroued precisely this point. A bureaucrat should be able to address actual circumstances just as the monarch, in assessing his work, must consider his actual performance. In this tradition, however, “objective” need not mean “eternally true in the mind of God.” Instead, truth 1s determined locally by a match between word and deed, claim and result. Such an epistemology is by no means incompatible with science as practiced in the twentieth century, though it may not readily encourage the formative stages of science that, in Europe, postulated a God to guarantee a set of absolute answers. How could the objectivity sought by bureaucratic theorists take shape

in att? In painting or sculpture, a descriptive style implies objective conditions because it effaces the subjective contribution of artist and viewer. A higher degree of random texture, or a lack of periodicity, suggests the absence of artifice. This is why a descriptive picture’s ref-

erent is not the artist and not the owner but the putative world “out there.” As the referent changes, so does the source of authority. A highly ingenious “cloud” pattern (Fig. 24) may demonstrate the level of ingenuity the object’s owner can command through purchase. But a more descriptive cloud (Figs. 28 and 35), while displaying a high level of skill, invokes as well the knowledge of what clouds are “really” like. But of coutse any appeal to “fact” implicitly recognizes the existence of some source of authorization outside and independent of inherited station. If there are sources of authorization beyond inherited station, then those soutces ate available for negotiation, to some extent, even by those who

lack inherited status. For this reason, the more an ornament takes the world “out there” as referent, the less it can serve as an emblem of tntrinsic honor. All this suggests a radical change in the rhetorical use of ornament.

Recall that ornament used to offer a direct record of the motions and decisions that produced it. It made no attempt to disguise its origin in human artifice. Rather, the ornament’s “character” as determined by production was the source of its social value. The abstraction of ornament permitted the values encoded to be detached from their maker and transferred to the owner. But abstraction is the opposite of legibility.

The Politics of Personhood 225

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As just noted, a highly legible figure’s identity seems so certain that there is no need to attribute its character to either maker or owner. In tact, the more legible the figure, the less we notice the character imparted by production. The qualities inscribed in such a figure are attributed to

a fictitious space that does not directly record the circumstances of production apart from the artist’s ability to fool the eve. Any work that can thus tool the eye will naturally testify to the artist’s ingenuity and the owner’s taste. but it can do much more than that. It can make

claims about the world whose authoritv 1s independent of owner or maker.

The capacity to appeal to external authority was no doubt becoming more useful in the highly critical climate of Warring States China. Once bureaucratic theory subordinated subjective, personal motives to public

needs, then a more objective source of individual authorization was needed. In other words. the collapse of ascribed status required a new ground upon which individual persons could figure their identity and agency. We have seen that individual “dragons” could rise in rank depending upon their response to circumstances. but how was the agency of these dragons to fit into a structure of authority informing a

226 The Pokies of Personhood centralized state? On what “ground” could the edifice of salaried administration restr This crucial need was met by a body of writing that could justify political action at both tndividual and state levels. The “ground” provided by these theories was predicated upon a new spatial paradigm modeling

the laws of natural process. These laws, most notably revealed in the movements of clouds and water (Figs. 28, 34), were supposed to exist “out there,” independently of either ruler or ruled. The detachment of these “laws” from the subjective claims of the ruling elite provided justification for the policies dertved from them. It is just at this moment in Chinese history that more descriptive images acquire a critical role in the

making of ornament.

ELEVEN Patterns, Pictures, and Fractals

The relationship of form and meaning offers a constant challenge to the historian of art. Consider the mutable dragon paradigm discussed in

previous chapters. One can find transformative designs on Chinese vessels as early as the Neolithic period, and it has been suggested that such imagery had cosmological connotations even before the Western Zhou dynasty (ca. eleventh century B.c.—-771 B.c.).! Still, just because an

atabesque looks “metamorphic” to us doesn’t require us to infer that it was treated as a representation of metamorphosis by those who made it. Other sorts of logical relations could be mapped onto designs permitting smooth, ambiguous transitions between one shape and another. Even for the Han period (206 B.C.—A.D. 220), one cannot assume a priori that viewers interpreted those patterns we call “cloud scrolls” as being in

motion. Is there any way to determine whether Chinese viewers of the period shared with us the impression that such designs (Fig. 36) appear to be in flux? One might begin by trying to get a sense of the generic condition of clouds in Warring States and Han times. In the Songs of the South, clouds are characterized by curvilinear motion. Most likely composed between the fourth and second centuries B.c., the Songs were long believed to have been derived from the ancient prayers of shamans or shamanesses. More

recently Michael Puett has argued that these and other “narratives of ascension” developed in relation to divinization practices “in order to assert the ability of individuals to transcend their roles, the political order,

and the world of forms itself’? Puett’s analysis is congruent with much of the material discussed in earlier chapters. It also suggests that metaphors of motion were being used in a variety of discursive

228 Patterns, Pictures. and lractals

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realms, where they could serve to transpose an order of bodily motion to the plane of sociocultural order. Among the Songs af the South, several lines from ““The Lord of the ( ‘lk yuds”’ pre vide a beautiful description oft be rdily motion in the world ot clouds and spirits: Open wide the door of Heaven! On a black cloud | nde 1n splendor. Bidding the whirlwind drive before me, causing the rainstorm to lay the dust. In sweeping circles my lord 1s descending: Let me follow you over the Kongsang mountain.’

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Patterns, Pictures, and Fractals 229

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climbed into the wild, chaotic flow, rising in circling spirals like those of

the ram’s horn” #E #, AEB, KOE, RAE I, 2 A _L.4 The structure of the spiral form conveyed a sense of radical freedom and unrestrained flight. The very same shape was used to impart a sense of swift motion in Han dynasty ornament (Figs. 36, 37). The Generic Condition of Cloud Designs

Passages such as these provide some insight into the social coding of clouds, but they make no comment about artifacts bearing cloud designs. One of the earliest literary references to such designs appears in the late third century B.c. Mao commentary for the Book of Songs: “The /e7 is a wine vessel. ... The Book of Rites says: ‘In summer one uses the “hill’’-style éz.

Its shape 1s like that of a dw... . It is carved and decorated with the shapes

of clouds and thunder.’” Elsewhere the commentator adds: “Although

230 Patterns, Pictures, and Fractals distinctions in rank are generally reflected in the decor of the vessel, members of all ranks may own vessels bearing the shapes of clouds and

thunder.” Mao presumed that cloud designs could signify political authority at all ranks. This symbolic function may be related to the fact that he saw in these designs the shapes not merely of clouds but of thunder as well. In early times, the action of thunder and rain was manifest in the figure of a dragon emblazoned on the clothing, vessels, and jade artifacts of the nobility. Thunder was the dragon’s roar, and its fearful tone served as a metaphor for awesome dignity (Chapter 6). Thunder also announced the

arrival of spring clouds and rain. Since rain could be ensured only through proper attention to ceremony, its arrival was a conspicuous manifestation of aristocratic agency. The Book of Changes presumes as much when it compares the rulet’s legal power over life with thunder and rain. Just as spring thunder releases life from winter’s “bondage,” we are told, so does the monarch have the authority to forgive crimes.° But by late Warring States times, as Zhuangzi and other works attest, natural phenomena were conceived as a realm quite distinct from ceremonial order. As ceremony lost its power to compel belief, clouds acquired a

more metaphorical function, much as the dragon had. It is just at this time that meandering arabesques emerge as a distinct complement for dragon designs (Fig. 24). What qualities of atmospheric form did cloud designs preserve? Some evidence survives in the work of Han dynasty authors. Writing around

A.D. 100, Xu Shen treated the twisting shapes of cloud designs as an unambiguous representation of meandering motion: “Clouds are the va-

pors of mountains and rivers... . [The character is a] figure of thettr

twisting and revolving shapes” © ih A+... RE PR IG.7 The description for thunder likewise conflates twisting motion with the creation of living form: “When the hot and cold (yin and yang) fluids shift, then

thunder and rain give rise to all things ... [The character is a] figure of

their twisting and revolving shapes” FE hy iS oy eA... ZA #2 73.8 In his otherwise laconic remarks on the ceremonial // vessel, Xu again chose to note the quality of meandering movement: “The “7 vessel . . . 1s carved in wood with figures of clouds and thunder represented on it. These figures wind about endlessly” 4] AVE EH KK Fe AR Be 4,2 The term shi refers to the winding motions of flags in the wind,

Patterns, Pictures, and Fractals 231

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yang [warm] g/ shooting forth” 3 HPT AZ, of SEU IS, VL BDA Z At ih 1° Gao stressed the “interpenetrating” appearance of cloud scrolls (Figs. 24 and 36), interpreting two-dimensional lines as trajectories

of moving vapor. In other words, both Gao and Xu were reading ornament as representation.

The pictorial content of cloud designs emerges most poignantly in a minor but interesting chapter in the early history of Chinese science. The issue at hand was the cause of thunder. The skeptic Wang Chong (A.D. 27-97) was annoyed at the way contemporary painters portrayed thunder as if it were a deity beating drums (Fig. 38). Denouncing such

232 Patterns, Pictures, and Fractals fancies, he argued that thunder was caused by collisions between moving yin and yang, or hot and cold vapor. To illustrate his point he cited an old passage from the Book of Raves:

The Book of Rites says: “Carved wine vessels have the shapes of thunder fashioned upon them such that one thunder cloud rushes forth while another retracts; one is stretched out while another other curls up, just as [clouds] rumble and collide against one another producing a sound.” “Rumbling and colliding” shapes [such as one finds in thunder clouds] do resemble rhythmically piled up

and twisting forms. Those images (on vessels) truly resemble such shapes [compare Fig. 36]. [You see,] when air/gz collides and rumbles it splits, producing a rolling sound, the sound of the collision. The sudden crash is the sound of the air/gz shooting forth."!

2A AWS RELY, —h-A,—R—-1P, BIR AB.” RY ZK, AP ZH, BZ HAM ILRFAZE. MUR DR, MERLE, RAZA. WA

RRA, RU ZAR.

What is remarkable in this passage is the fact that Wang considered

the cloud meander an accurate depiction of thunder because of its structure. The meander was not conceived as a static arrangement of lines. Rather, each scroll “stretched” forth and “‘recoiled”’; each was seen as thythmically twisting or piled up. Clearly, for Wang, physical condi-

tions such as colliding bodies of air are no longer understood as the consequence of spiritual power. Instead, he claims that the structure of cloud designs tells us something about real clouds. He must have assumed his readers would see something in his description that they could find in the sky as well. In other words, he was deriving authority for a pictorial claim by reference to the putative structure of real clouds, a structure he found adequately represented in cloud meanders. Wang Chone’s argument reflects the shift in discourse away from nature deities in favor of dynamic accounts of physical process. This trend began long before Wang’s time. The term wuwei, so important for bureaucratic theory, meant that nature did not act with any conscious purpose. Wuwei was the logical opposite of spiritual intervention. It was the complement of zzran, for ziran tmplies that identity is self-generated. This tendency toward the secularization of nature was not limited to

bureaucratic theorists. The historian Li Chen detects a rejection of spiritual causation in a wide range of schools dating to the third and second centuries B.c.! Rhetorically speaking, this would have been an

Patterns, Pictures, and Fractals 233 effective stratagem at a time when both ancestors and nature spirits seemed helpless to offer aid in a violent world.’ It is precisely under such

conditions that one would expect to find the emergence of cosmopolttical systems in which the authority for the status quo could be projected onto an impartial and universal “nature.” What impact would this have had upon ornament?!* That depends upon how ornament confers authority upon its bearer. In order to appropriate the authority of nature, ornament would have to take nature as its referent. If ornament was to appropriate the authority of nature, it would have to become more pictorial, sacrificing periodic designs for the

more random shapes of natural clouds. What I’ve called the “rule” of permutation corresponds to this need. By introducing irregularities into their designs, artisans could encode the basic properties of natural clouds.

Of course, as Ludwig Bachhofer observed, “Different times have different ideas about what is accidental and what is basic.” In early Han China, it was structured movement that was most basic to the generic condition of clouds. Cloud Designs at Mawangdua

The most detailed cloud designs left to us may be those adorning the lacquer caskets of the Countess of Dat (d. ca. 170 B.C.) discovered at Mawanedut (Figs. 37 and 39). The occupant of this tomb is believed to

have been the wife of Li Cang, prime minister of the Kingdom of Changsha, and the Count of Dai. The Kingdom of Changsha was a remnant of the once great Kingdom of Chu, allowed to exist for a time under the good auspices of the early Han emperors. The site 1s a pit-style tomb in the tradition of aristocratic burials from Shang times onward. The contents, also, are largely ceremonial, along with daily-use objects typical of noble burials (wine jars, musical instruments, upscale cosmetic boxes, eating utensils, etc.). Tomb artifacts reveal much concern with the life of the deceased in the more rarified world of the dead. Drugs for extending life were found, as well as a variety of foods. Both the challenges and the joys of the afterlife were reflected in the many spirits adorning her burtal “banner” and caskets.»

Figure 37 shows a drawing of the left side of the so-called black eround casket, one of four protecting the countess’s body. A synthetic-

234 Patterns, Pictures, and Fractals

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style design runs along the top edge, with alternating volute motifs arrayed in glide symmetry. A narrow border of rectangular shapes divides this register from a frame of cloud designs. Another border partially separates these designs from the main field, filled with swirling cloud forms. On closer inspection many clouds resolve into intricate figures: animals and spirits dancing, chasing, hunting, fighting. Nonetheless, it ts the clouds that dominate the composition and determine the character of the casket’s decor.

To speak of these swirling patterns as clouds at all may seem odd to twentieth-first-century sensibilities. When a modern reader thinks of

clouds, she 1s likely to imagine a cumulous mass on a bright day— billowing, soft, sharply sculpted by the sun (Fig. 40). While the humidity within the cloud will be high, the air outside may be dry; the two fluids

do not mix and so the boundaries remain sharp, giving the cloud a sculptured appearance. Despite this fact. close observation will reveal constant, turbulent motion due to cells of hot, moist air rising upward in columns. When these columns reach the cooler air at the surface they round off. forming multiple nodules. An artist wishing to paint such a cloud would need to capture its crisp contours.

Patterns, Pictures, and Fractals 235

or a a) ’ _/-

fa.) Wy _ ig. 40. Cumulous cloud over Ann Arbor, Michigan, 2002.

Cumulous clouds can be seen on many a fine day, but the fact that we

treat this form as typical may reveal more about the heritage of Baroque church decor than the physical nature of clouds. Not all clouds are sculptural. Clouds like those in Figure 28 more readily reveal the

dynamics underlying their form. Such clouds may be found 1n a jet stream, a river of air that can flow at rates of better than one hundred thirty miles per hour. When this flow sweeps up high-altitude clouds, they leave behind long streamers of crystals. This process produces a record of two distinct types of motion typical of fluids. Recently two scientists explained the physics of this motion as follows: Open a kitchen tap only a little bit, and the water that flows from the faucet will

be smooth and glassy. This flow is known as laminar. Open the tap a little further, and the flow becomes more roiled and sinuous—turbulent, in other words. The same phenomenon can be seen in the smoke streaming upward and into still air from a burning cigarette. Immediately above the cigarette, the flow 1s laminar. A little higher up, it becomes rippled and diffusive.'®

The same kinds of flow can be discerned in jet stream clouds. As the long streamers stretch behind they acquire a laminar structure revealing the presence of stable layers in the stream. The bulk of the cloud mass,

however, being heavier than the surrounding air, resists the forward thrust, giving rise to countercurrents and manifold eddies. The flow within this area will be turbulent rather than stable, a condition revealed in the cloud’s form.

236 Patterns, Pictures, and Fractals While the artists at Mawanegdui could not have understood the physics

of gases, it would appear they had observed the structure of air flow rather closely. Figure 35 shows a detail of the left midsection of the casket’s left side (Fig. 37), where a spirit scampers along a moving cloud. The

cloud itself seems to have been pushed at high speed toward the left, leaving smaller wisps and streamers behind. Judging from Han dynasty writers like Xu Shen, such shapes must have been seen as “shooting” forth. In either case, the smoothly layered streamers mark the trail left by the cloud’s passing. Suddenly, as if caught by a powerful gust, it sweeps

around over the spirit and toward the right. This section of the stream also consists of a leading “head” trailed by layered streams. Unlike the smooth jet behind, the “head” splits into eddies, which in turn give rise to smaller eddies and in some cases another set of eddies develops at still smaller scales. This feature, in which a given structure repeats itself at different scales, is typical of turbulent flows: “A distinguishing characteristic of turbulent flow 1s that it is composed of eddies, also known as vortices,

in a broad range of sizes. These vortices are continually forming and breaking down.’’!” In addition, a number of small wisps flake off the lead cloud as it streaks by, sheared by the force of wind. These smaller wisps exhibit the same structure as the cloud itself, with their long curves coming to a head in a cluster of cusps. The recurrence of the same structure at different scales is an intriguing feature of the casket’s style. When mathematicians find the same shape

repeated in variations at different scales, they call this property “self-similarity,” a term made precise by Benoit Mandelbrot: “When each piece of a shape is geometrically similar to the whole, both the shape and the cascade that generates it are called se/Psemilar.”'® Self-similarity 1s typical of a class of shapes Mandelbrot calls “fractals.” Such structures

are common in many natural objects, including clouds, tree branches, and some rocks. Fractal structure is especially characteristic of turbulence, and Mandelbrot observed that the curving, fractured shapes in the att of Leonardo and Hokusai convincingly suggest turbulent flows. The same observation would have to apply to the Han meander, where the number of scales employed is especially rich. At the smallest scale both kinds of flow (laminar and turbulent) appear 1n the small wisps. We find them also in several substreams within each cloud, darker ones below and lighter ones above (Fig. 35), for each “cloud stream” 1s itself com-

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posed of smaller cloud streams, all exhibiting the same structure. At a larger scale this structure can recur in orchestrated clusters of cloud streams (Fig. 37).

A close look at the spirits dashing among blustery vapors shows that they, too, exhibit this structure, with suitable adaptations of form (Figs. 35, 41). Each figure’s body consists of a long, laminar extension coming quite literally to a “head.” The head consists of nodules properly modified to resemble animal parts—nose, ears, and so on. At this level, however, small, detailed adjustments reveal an unexpected degree of knowledge about how material behaves under stress. A good example can be seen in Figures 42 and 43. In Figure 42 a goat-like spirit grins slyly toward the viewer as he tugs at a recalcitrant phoenix. Because the word for “felicity” (later written xiang #) was written exactly like the word for goat (yang -+-), Han viewers may have read “goat” as a pun for blessings.'? This goat seems engaged in getting an aerial mount, perhaps for the countess. The unwilling phoenix rears up, head erect, tail raised and wings lifted off the body defensively, as geese do, in a threatening posture. Its legs are planted firmly on the ground at the angle of best mechanical advantage, and its toes are held stiffly at the same angle.

238 Patterns, Pictures, and Fractals

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The goat spirit, for his part, seems perfectly confident of the outcome of the struggle. His toes grasp a stray fleck of cloud for support, putting the weight of his body against the straining of his quarry. His confidence is manifest in the fact that only his left hand holds the line taut; the rc ype visibly slackens between the left and right hands. As 1f to underscore the same point, the absence of strain on the upper part of the body ts evident from the loose strands hanging from the cheek, and the casual way the hairs on his right elbow slacken after having been lifted. All the tenseness of the body 1s concentrated 1n the legs and thighs. Unlike the shoulders, the contours of the thigh are smooth and taut, maintaining a gradual rise in thickness from the ankle to the rump. Even the small portion of the right leg visible is stiff and firm. Both the slackness of the cheek hairs and the tautness of the thighs are achieved primarily by means of a stroke of the brush tn response to the motion of the hand. whether casual or firm. But the overall structure of the goat’s body still follows the pattern of laminar streaks, dark under light, coming to a head in nodules that may be adjusted to look like head, horns, toes, or wisps of fur.

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Patterns, Pictures, and Fractals 239

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lig. 43. Goat spirit raising sword and shield perparing to defend itself. Detail of the nght side of the black-ground lacquer casket from Mawangdui tomb 1, near Changsha, Hunan. Second century B.c. Courtesy [lunan Provincial Museum. Photograph by the author.

In Figure 43 we can see clearly the transformative power of the artist’s

brush. This goat kneels upon a cloud whose trajectory brings him into proximity to another goat with a spear, causing him to raise his sword defensively. The long hairs at the goat’s elbows fall slack with the feel of unwashed fur. The sword. on the other hand. appears rigid, taught, and downright sharp, vet both the elbow hair and the sword were made with single strokes of the brush. In each case, the key to the level of tension lies in the artist’s ability to control pressure and flow in his brush as a structural analogue to cloud, muscle, string, or steel. This serves as a reminder that the first masters of the brush tn China were not the edu-

cated painters of later times, but craft workers such as these whose names will never be known.

Creating a figure in this manner requires a pre cedure that its the conceptual antithesis of the analytical method used in modular decor. Rather than boundary-oriented, the Mawangdui figures are extensionoriented—tform is generated from within. The tioure is both conceived and created in terms of extended areas that. like clouds. may sweep be-

hind. around, or in front of other “streams” of motion. The basic

i' St

240 Patterns, Pictures, and Fractals

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® Their function in many of the so-called Huanglao essays unearthed at Mawangdut ts much the same. From these essays it would appear that a human actor has two sets of variables to consider: first, the fixed laws of fluid dynamics; next, consciously adopted policy, which can either take advantage of the

pattern of flow or go against it. The terminology of fluid dynamics distinguishes between these two factors. “Follow along/shun” or “go against/ mz” implies a conscious choice to follow some condition, such as

the people’s customs. Xu, on the other hand, implies simply allowing oneself to be carried along by the pattern/Z of the current. In the end, what is it one “follows” or “goes against’? A transcendent standard? Peerenboon has compared the normative role of dao with the thought of Plato.’ As he reads the /zug/a and related texts, “Just as nature

is rule governed, structured by constant, impersonal, untversal laws of nature, so is human society rule governed, structured by constant, impersonal laws that arise from and are implicit in the cosmic natural order. Humans must simply discover and abide by these laws.”4? This exemplifies what Peerenboon calls “correspondence naturalism” as opposed to “interpretive naturalism.” In the latter, humans may concetve of many ways to adopt behavior compatible with natural law; in the former, nature provides an inflexible norm that must be followed exactly. Peeren-

Nature and Society 283 boon believes that the texts found at Mawangdui, many of which have

been cited in this and previous chapters, offer an example of correspondence naturalism. It is not difficult to see how one could arrive at this conclusion. The Mawangdui texts often stress that certain consequences will arise necessarily from certain actions. They are beyond appeal and so provide, as Peerenboon notes, a check upon the actions of the monarch. Moreover,

human law must be compatible with natural law if disaster 1s to be avoided. However, none of this necessarily implies that dao was conceived as prescribing a moral norm in a Platonic sense. The fact that the speed of light is fixed does not imply that there is only one way to respond to that fact. When Western writers suggest following the laws of nature, we call it “proto-scientific.” Why 1s it that, when Chinese writers do the same, we call it an inflexible norm?

Peerenboon’s analysis may well apply to some texts among those discovered at Mawangdut. In both Master Lii’s Anthology and the Mawanedui texts one finds a surprising diversity of views ranging from old-fashioned ceremonial theory to offbeat schools no longer well understood. Because most of the texts treat dao as a point of reference, it would be easy to presume that dao suggests a consciously established moral norm throughout. For example, the “Four Limits” passage says

that just punishments will conform to the patterns// of nature. It is therefore possible, in this passage, to construe natural patterns as a moral norm similar to Christian Natural Law. I would hesitate to do so for this

and other texts using a fluid-system model of natural order. Why? A Christian-style dao suggests a spatial paradiom of separate units with the dao construed as an all-powerful agent to be imitated from afar. ‘The reason this resembles Plato is because its spatial paradigm is the same as Plato’s. However, the geometry of dao in bureaucratic theory 1s anything but Platonic. Were we to consider dao simply a Chinese substitute for Plato’s god, then it would be difficult to explain why bureaucratic theotists developed the complex theory of fluid dynamics revealed in Chapter 13. Moreover, there is no need to presume a consciously created moral norm in order to explain the text. “Four Limits” makes no appeal to any supranatural moral norm, only the laws of fluid dynamics exhibited in dao which, as Huainanzi stresses, is without moral qualities. In case the reader might have any doubts about what the laws of nature might be, the author summarizes them for us:

284 Nature and Society When [a trend] reaches its extreme, then it reverts//am; after it reaches full development, then it recedes. This is the course of flow/dao in nature/tandi and the pattern// of mankind. Going with the current/ shun or against it/ a produces

different patterns/Z, but they are all part of the same system/dao. He who thoroughly understands [the difference between] going with the current/shun or against it/m can be said to understand the rhythmic intervals [lit., weave] of the system /dao.*!

Ft, etn Re, AAW, AZZ). HII] a ty SD, 1H ROTH IB, A oF 18 4B.

Here it is clear that humans have a free choice to create different patterns with different responses. The text does not say that, when a ruler goes too far, dao will hit him with a lightning bolt. It simply notes that “when [a trend] teaches its extreme, then it reverts//an,” just as a stream of water eventually becomes turbid. Li here is to be contrasted with fa. Should he choose to do so, a ruler can fa the dao, but dao does not itself possess fa because fa is a manmade pattern of procedures. [7 ts a natural pattern, like veins in marble, something that is as it is “by itself.” Likewise the pattern// of man 1s as it is because of human nature, not because Nature made it that way in its infinite wisdom. In this we find a profound difference between dao and 4 on the one hand, and European Natural Law on the other: “In all these systems [Aristotelean, Stoic, neo-Platonic, and medieval Christian], nature is concetved as a rational attist; and in medieval Christianity it becomes commonplace that nature is the subordinate instrument of divine art.’’*? In traditional European

thought, nature is the product of God’s purposive design. Since all agency begins with God, the individual is morally obliged to obey. Following dao, on the other hand, 1s more like paying mind to the law of eravity. If you disobey the law of gravity, you could lose your life, but not because you did something bad. The best example of such a law is the law of reversion//an. FAN J&R

“A Theory [of Dialectics]” states as a general principle, “When [a trend] reaches its furthest extreme, it reverts. This is the nature of Nature/ “an”

Katyn RG, RZ. Fan, like xwn, does not refer to willful action. If you go too far in opposing the local distribution of resources and their

Nature and Society 285 dispositions, the system will guarantee that things revert//an. This is not a

matter of choice, and not the consequence of Heaven’s will or moral action. It results simply from the force of circumstances, like water flowing downhill. More than any other property of dao, the fan principle appears to have

been directly applied to questions of justice. “A Theory of Dynastic Decline” / “Wang lun” states, “If you wantonly murder law-abiding people/mn, or murder people who have surrendered [in battle], or if you punish the innocent, then these crimes will all revert back to yourself”

KARR, FRA, FS SE, 2878) RA Raw. Although the author’s concerns ate clearly humane, the argument being made is pragmatic. The rationale is more fully explained in a chapter of Master Lii’s Anthology, written decades before the Mawangdui texts. At the outset of the essay the author explains the basic spatial logic of reversion in a fluid system model: In government affairs it is often the case that what seems to work against you actually works for you [lit., flows with you], while what seems to flow with you actually works against you. Whoever knows how a flow working with you can turn against you and how a flow moving against you can come to flow with you is in a position to discuss the transformation//wa [of conditions]. Whatever has reached the extreme of its length, must revert//an to a shorter length, whatever has reached its shortest limit must revert/fam to a longer length. This is the law/dao of nature /tandi.>

S Sel tA, VA el. HAW A Sl, SIZ AAR, WIT SICK.

BR RH, BRAK, AMZ.

The Huainanzi used hua to characterize water’s change of state from laminar to turbulent flow and back again. Here that term refers to all such reversions of state. As an illustration of how the same principle manifests itself in society, the author offers the following anecdote: King Zhuang of Chu once wanted to invade the state of Chen; so he sent a spy to obsetve the conditions there. The spy returned saying “We cannot attack Chen.” King Zhuang asked: “How come?” The spy answered, “Their city walls ate high, their moats are deep, and they have stockpiled large stores of provisions.” Then [the minister] Ningeuo said, “[On the contrary] Chen can be attacked! Chen is a small state, yet it has stockpiled large stores of provisions. This means that taxes ate heavy. It follows that the people will deeply resent their

286 Nature and Society ruler. If the walls are high and the moats are deep, it means that the people will have been exhausted. If we taise troops to attack it, Chen can be taken.*°

FRE EO RIR, PARMA. HHA: RAB Ra”. HEE: HT’? HB:

“WS, kik; SRS. SHAS: RT Rw. AM, BL: Wee ZS MGS, HRGLA; WH, Hae, MR ARR. RAERZ, RT

FR 4,.”

The anecdote shows that reversion is not a moral law ordained by some deity, but the inevitable consequence of physical limits. Every state’s resources ate limited. These resources, plus the system of exchange within which they are employed, constitute a closed system. If a state uses too large a portion of its resources to make itself strong, it will

in fact become weak. If it extracts too much in labor from its wn, the physical strain will give rise to resentment and, potenttally, violence. ‘The author is not saying that a ruler ought to obey the principle of reversion because this is the Natural Law God reveals to mankind and which must

be inflextbly obeyed. Nor is the author being pragmatic, arguing that humane government is merely convenient. To say that reversion applies to the flow of resources in society as well as in nature does not negate morality unless we believe a priori that morality can only come from God. This author’s argument simply implies that morality, like

a human being, is a product of the laws of nature and the force of circumstances. The same principle recurs in several of the Mawangdut texts, such as “The Ruler’s Government”: When the people/#n are not of a mind/xzm to rebel, when they have sufficient food and clothing, then the laws will necessarily /i be obeyed. If you guard [your state] with surplus, then no one can uproot [your rule]. [On the other hand] 1f, [suffering from] deficiencies, you attack [other states], the calamity will revert back/fan to you, yourself. +/

RIBS, REE tH Sila. Uae, FT RAR RK, RE RAL, The political principle of reversion derives from the physical principle that any flow within a closed system will give rise to periodic changes

between two possible states. But a deeper premise underlies the application of fan to social order: the assumption that government and the mn are interdependent. The geometry of fluid dynamics within a closed system requires this. That is why the author describing the water cycle in

Nature and Society 287 Master Li’s Anthology stated that orders ultimately return to the ruler. Under this paradigm the ruler does not embody all virtues and powers within himself, because he is no longer the source of all agency. Bureaucratic theory instead advised the ruler to relinquish personal command of affatrs to his officers (Chapter 9), and to the multitude of people, from whom his officers are chosen. An essay entitled “On Utilizing the Multitude” states the theory explicitly: Whatever [laws, institutions] a monarch may establish, it is all dependent upon the multitude/ zhong. Having once established [laws or institutions], to then abandon the multitude 1s to abandon what 1s truly important for what is merely of secondary significance. .. . Therefore if you rely upon the courage of the multitude, you need not fear the fiercest adversary. If you rely upon the strength

of the multitude, you need not fear the strongest man. If you rely upon the observations of the multitude, you need not fear an eagle-eyed man like Li Lou. | If you rely upon the knowledge of the multitude, you need not take second place to the wise kings Yao and Shun. Therefore one should consider the multitudes the monarch’s greatest treasure.*®

LELMRAS, HP, ZLEMSER, LALRMAEA.. UM RRP RAR AR, BRE ERK, ARM, BRRBR, UR

fa, BR FER. KURA, WLBAZKE A.

Multitude/z/ong is an interesting term. Ho Ping-ti has shown that, already in Shang times, the term referred not to just any “multitude” but

to those who carried out various functions on behalf of the monarch, including assisting in the hunt and taking charge of various official duties.

Once interpreted as referring to slaves, Ho notes that, in Shang times, “not only were the [z/ong] not slaves but they were the very foundation of

the Shang state and soctety.”# It may be that, even in Warring States times, zhong retained some connotation of functionality, for in this passage it is conceived as a collection of individuals, each with different talents. Some are strong, some are wise, but their abilities can be utilized by the state that provides institutions permitting them to exercise their talents. This alters fundamentally the nature of x/ong vis-a-vis its more ancient meaning. In ancient times the z/ong labored on behalf of the king but one presumes that the king retatned agency, whereas here the king’s agency is seen as dependent upon the multitude, thus altering the terms of power negotiation. Indeed, this essay transfers the knowledge, virtue, and power traditionally embodied in the monarch to the people.

288 Nature and Soctety Dao and Pubhe Potty

Karen Turner, R. P. Peerenboon, and others have established unambtcuously the rule of law’s centrality in what they call Huanglao texts.*? It 1s

important to understand that this concept of law was far more than a passing phase in Chinese history. A number of historians have noticed parallels linking Han administrative practice with the cosmopolitical texts at Mawanedut. One of the most obvious 1s the latter’s arguments against punishing the innocent, or the need for the punishment to fit the crime: If you murder law-abiding people/n, or murder people who have surrendered [in battle], or if you punish the innocent, then these crimes will all revert back to yourself.>!

AARAR EE, ERIE A, FSR SE, 2848] A OB Bt.

If executions and prohibitions do not suit [the crime], then the harm will revett/fan back to you.>? —

KERE, REAR. Karen Turner has shown that concerns such as these inspired reforms providing checks against the judicial power of local officials in the Han dynasty. The first emperor of the Han, Emperor Gaozu (Liu Bang), issued an edict stating that if the decision in a criminal case were doubtful, the case should be sent up to a higher level to be reviewed. If the case could not be decided there, it should be sent to the “ngwei 3€ Ji}, the chief law enforcement official in the central government. If this failed, the case should go to the emperor himself.5> Though imperfectly enforced, the principle continued to be cited in later times. Such procedures, according to a statesman of the second century A.D., “showed that men’s lives were regarded as tmportant.”*4 Another legal principle promoted in bureaucratic theory is the insistence that laws be observed not only by the people but by the ruler as well. Karen Turner has tested this idea by tracing actual disputes between the

, tingwet and the emperor. The issue at stake was who “had the authority to determine a proper punishment.’> In one case, the emperor felt that a man who insulted him personally did not recetve a sufficiently stiff sentence, but the “ngwei argued, in Turner’s paraphrase, that “once [the man] was brought into the process, he had to carry out his duty as “ngwei to assure that all people would be treated fairly. The Emperor was persuaded

that the punishment he [the “agwez] had determined was indeed cor-

Nature and Society 289 rect.”°6 In another case involving an offense against the imperial person, “the ruler admitted that, according to the law, the “ngwe was correct but he made clear that in his eyes, the legally prescribed punishment was not adequate to compensate an offense against the dynasty’s most important mortuary temple [1.e., the dynastic founder]. Zhane [the “zgwez| replied: ‘The sentence prescribed by law is sufficitent.’” Turner observes that “offenses against the imperial person or symbols of the dynasty did not merit special consideration once the “ngwei was called into the process nor did they warrant more severe punishment than crimes against an or-

dinary person.” In the end, the emperor accepted these arguments. Turner concludes: “It was by no means taken for granted that the ruler’s will carried more weight than the laws or that he held sole legislative and judicial powers. His authority constituted but one parcel within the legal system.’’?’

The lesson we learn from such examples 1s not that emperors always respected the law. Instead we have a concrete instance showing how the new institutions and theories expanded the range of negotiability such

that, on occasion, the emperor himself had to back down; it does not imply that he would have to back down in every case. The institution most responsible for this expanded range of negotiability was a firm distinction between court and state. Note that, once under the authority of the state, even a crime against the monarch was considered no different than the same crime against “an ordinary person.” This principle found its roots in the Warring States demystification of the monarch (Chapter 7). More immediately it grew out of the rising notion that political agency originated with the mn.

THE POLITICIZATION OF THE MIN Both the history and the thought of Qin and early Han China testify to a oradual politicization of the people. The Han government’s response to this situation was substantively shaped by statesmen familiar with the logic of yen, shun, jing, wuwel, and other terms based on fluid dynamics. Two of most prominent of these were Chancellor Xiao He (d. 193 B.C.) and his successor Cao Can (d. 190 B.c.). The basic trend among these and like-minded men was to simplify Qin’s unyielding laws and soften their harsh, mechanical quality. According to Sima Qutan’s Records, Xiao He

“made use of (yz) the fact that the people hated the Qin legal code.

290 Nature and Soctety Flowing along with/shwn the situation, he made a new start together with

them”? HRZKARA, WAAR LZ # 46.5% This brief passage is spiked with terms derived from Daoist-inspired cosmopolitical writings, such as yin 1K\.°° Recall that zz does not have the negative connotations that “take advantage of” may have in English because it doesn’t imply taking wnfair advantage of something. Rather, it suggests an astute utilization of people’s natural disposition, as in laissez-faire economics.

The second line, “Flowing along with the situation,” literally introduces the dialectical geometry of fluid dynamics. This is why the end of the passage avoids a cause-and-effect account of Xiao’s reforms. It doesn’t say that he caused the people to begin anew, for that statement would suggest separate figures, one commanding, the other complying. This would have been inappropriate because we had already been told that Xiao was “flowing along” with the people’s hatred of Qin’s laws. Instead the passage says that “he made a new start sogether with them.” The

old paradigm of causation based upon feudal relations between lord and

subject is here forsaken. The fact that the zn have an agency of their own means that X1ao does not try to force a change in their disposition, but must make use of it so as to bring about a “new beginning.” Even this phrase was politically loaded. Xiao was quite conscious of the need to start from a clean slate and so had the capital moved from Xianyang to Chane’an to make it easier to break with Qin precedent. Arguably, what made it easy for him to break with tradition was his understanding that the guide for policy was the will of the people rather than any particular historical tradition. X1ao’s idea that the people should serve as a guide for policy appears also in the chapter on “Laws” in the Hastory of the Former Han: “Xtao [He] and Cao [Can], as chancellors, compensated for [the empire’s deficiencies]

with non-interference/wuwei. They went along with the people’s wishes and did not throw them into disorder [with finicky laws]. In this way [Le., wuwet| they nourished and propagated the people with food and clothing,

while being sparing in the use of penal laws” #], & 4 48, 2% BB, 4k RZ aK Ay RH RL. VAR BIBI, WK A Ap. The term wuwei places both men: squarely in the tradition of Daoist-inspired cosmopolitical theory. The term “compensate/#an” belongs to the same dynamical framework. Recall that, in the Huainanz?s account of fluid dynamics, “‘it [the dao] manages the gtve-and-take within the random flow/wuxing.” Because dao is a closed system, a surplus here must always balance a defi-

Nature and Society 291 ciency there. When Xiao began governing the empire, there were serious deficiencies due to the wars at the end of the Qin. Xiao “compensated” for these—not by causing the people to do anything, but by doing nothing. By doing nothing, he allowed them to follow a natural disposition to improve their own lot. Such a policy can only be understood in the terms of Daoist irony, for 1f “they nourished and propagated the people with food and clothing,” it was only because, unlike Qin, they were “sparing in

the use of penal laws” and therefore did not “throw [the people] into disorder.” Notice that the emphasis 1s on flexibility and adaptability, just

the opposite of what one would expect from the inflexible norms of correspondence naturalism. Oingjing 1s another buzzword derived from Daoist writings.©! When Han historians used it in connection with Xiao He and Cao Can, readers would have understood the entire agenda represented by the term. Sima Qian was no doubt aware of this when he summarized Cao Can’s administration: “As chancellor, Can thoroughly practiced [the art of] being at ease/ginging in speech |i.e., policy recommendations] and [in action], and was always consistent with the [principles of| dao” $ A 40 A, AF ka S 414. What did Sima Qian mean by being “consistent” with dao? The remainder of the passage provides some good leads: “Thus, once the people/baixing had escaped from Qin’s tyranny, Can practiced [a policy of] easing up and non-interference/wuwei. Thereupon it seemed that the

entire world sang his praises” 7A 4 RESEAME IS, FRR EBA, UA PB ARBRE RRO In this passage it appears that gzngjing is the opposite of “throwing [the

people] into disorder.” It suggests easing up on the micromanagement

techniques of the Qin and giving the people room to do what they naturally do well. Ozngying 1s closely allied to wawei. Being consistent with dao 1s the same as being wuwei because to wez, to act forcefully or artifi-

cially, is to willfully go contrary to the actual disposition of things. This would be the opposite of yz, “taking advantage” of the situation.

All such terms imply a certain spatial paradigm of identity, one in which each individual fashions his own being in response to a “field” or

situation. The dialectical nature of this paradigm is exposed in the wording Sima Qian adopted in his biography of Cao Can. There he remarks that Cao “brought in his [policy of] being at ease/gingjing and the

people, with this, became peaceful and unified” # Hig a, R vA. AA policy of ease made it possible for the people to achieve peace. The

292 Nature and Society people did not comply with Cao’s policies; they only responded to and reinforced his aims like overtones 1n an echo chamber.

Despite the strong aversion to the term “Huanglao” among some eatly China specialists, it is only fair to acknowledge that there 1s some reason to associate this kind of rhetoric with the body of writing Sima

Qian referred to as “Huanglao.” The Grand Historian tells us, for example, that Ji An AX, governor of Donghai, studied the writings of the Huanglao [thinkers]. In administering the officials or regulating the people/min, he relied upon gingjing, choosing his officers and permitting them to do their jobs. In governing, he paid mind to the general thrust [of the law] and was not excessively strict about minor infractions.©

SRELS, ORL, Hat, FRE MEL. Hie, HAMMEL. F

oh.

What Sima Qian called “Huanglao” resonates with that tradition of bureaucratic theory discussed in previous pages. In that tradition of thought, administrators should pay mind to appointments, but once appointed an officer should be allowed to determine “his own form.” This is the sentiment underlying the contrast between ze, “to select,” and ven, “to be appointed to an official position.” The term ven means to be appointed, but the implication is to “take charge of.” Fangren 9x44, for example, means “unconstrained,” while remy 4£% means “willful.” In other words, ren suggests having discretion or agency. Once appointed, an officer has discretion over his own duties. The distinction between ze and ren belongs to the rhetoric of géngjing for, having selected a man for the job, an

officer eases up and lets the appointee do his job. Likewise, Ji An abandoned the Qin practice of demanding obedience to the letter of the law. He remained at ease with respect to minor infractions, guided by the spirit of the law. THE PEOPLE AND THE LAW

That Ltu Bang chose as administrators men like Cao Can or Ji An demonstrates more than mere tolerance for their policies; it suggests sympathy for the discursive ground from which those policies emerged. Further evidence of such sympathy can be found in the emperotr’s off1ctal acts. Shortly after taking office, one of his first moves was to simplify the demanding Qin legal code. He eased up on tax requirements as well,

Nature and Society 2.93 hoping to alleviate widespread hunger and starvation.“ One of his edicts permitted people to regain the lands and roles they had occupied prior to the period of chaos following the fall of Qin: “Now that order has been restored, everyone ts to return to his former county with his former lands and rank. The local officials are to use civil/wen law to teach and persuade

[the people] and are not to humiliate them with beatings [as before]”

GRC, SOME, RUGS, FAXLKLERWMHS, WD & 4.7 The character wen X once referred principally to patterns and designs worn by cultured aristocracy. Now, in this passage, it marks

clearly the contrast between martial, authoritarian controls and a civil/wen style of persuasion. This distinction is a key element in bureaucratic theory, particularly as 1t survives in the /zmgfa from Mawanedut.

Further on the same edict frees all who had sold themselves into slavery due to poverty during the wars: “People/min who sold themselves as male or female slaves due to hunger and starvation are all to be freed and to return to the general populace” K. YA BURR EI a Awe, # %, By FRA.© This passage is interesting because it suggests that the term min included female slaves. Even women who had sold themselves due to poverty were presumed to have the right to demand their freedom and return to the general population. Clearly such edicts helped to protect fundamental human dignities. Students of China may wax cynical at such language, claiming, for instance, “When the state really chose to crack down, all opposition was silenced, loyal or otherwise.’ But in an era of secret evidence and secret trials, it is no longer possible to believe that it is only Asian nations that “really” choose to crack down on the opposition. And just as we cannot presume that any government will forever remain innocent of totalitarian

practices, so is it the case that none is ever purely totalitarian. Peter Brown has shown how, even within the Byzantine Empire, Classical thetoric could serve as an arena of political negotiation.”! The premises of verbal negotiation for early Han scholars were different from those of Byzantine intellectuals, but it is hard to deny that the language of the Han emperors provided more legal and rhetorical leverage for common citizens than did the ceremonial system of earlier times. The principle underlying this new level of negotiability is revealed in a Mencianesque passage in which Emperor Wen vetoed the suggestion that the practice of collective punishment be retained:

294 Nature and Soctety I have heard that when the laws are reasonable, the people will be honest, and when criminal sentences are appropriate, the people will obey the law. Now it is the duty of the local officials to care for the people and lead them to goodness. If they are not able to lead them and, moreover, incriminate them with unreasonable laws, then this would on the contrary be harming the wn, which would be tyranny. How then should we avoid this? I have never been able to see any advantage [in the collective punishment laws]; how should we make plans to use

them?’

KE AEN RE, PSMRA. HARK MEZEA, SL. HRP, RVR REZAEL, RREMRAKA YL. AARZ? KRARAL, HA

af?

The language of this passage closely resembles any number of passages from the /zugfa cited earlier. What provides leverage here is the assumption that tyrannical behavior is dangerous for the ruling elite. This understanding, in turn, seems founded on theories such as we find tn the Jingfa, theortes that predict that straining human resources—as tyranny inevitably does—teflects harm back upon the governing elite. Weak as

they might seem today, such principles were laying the groundwork for basic checks on arbitrary power both in the court and among local officials.

To avoid anachronistic comparisons with “the West” it may help to review negotiations about arbitrary authority as they occurred tn another premodern society. Consider the situation in France in 1670, the year that the torture laws of the ancien régime were codified. Recognizing that tor-

ture could be applied arbitrarily by local officials, Lamoignon recommended uniformity in the application of torture “in order to put an end to the arbitrary action of the judges.” However, “his view was opposed by one of the members of the committee, M. Pussort, who stated that ‘it would be difficult to make torture uniform. ... The description which

it would be necessary to make of it would be indecent in an Ordinance....’” Pussort’s view won the day.” In short, an appeal to courtly decorum was sufficient to overturn an appeal to humanity. What is significant about Emperor Wen’s argument, then, is not that it reflects a more humane national character, but that the basis for argument was not the decorum of an earlier period but rather a set of universal principles identified with the dgo of nature. With all its blemishes, the impact of cosmopolitical theory on Chinese political practice was far from nil. The distinction between monarch and

Nature and Society 2.95 state did take form in separate budgets for the court and bureaucracy during the Han dynasty and, as we have seen, this distinction could justify the demand for universal adherence to law. This separation placed

definite restrictions upon the monarch. Beyond this, the fluid model theories of late Warring States and Early Han China generated some surprisingly liberal policy principles, most strikingly:

1. Government decisions should be based not upon revelation but upon an unbiased assessment of actual political and economic conditions. 2. As a corollary, the assignment of office should be based not upon birth but upon an individual’s actual performance irrespective of social backsround. In other words, selection for office should be meritocratic.

3. [he chief business of government lies in the selection of personnel. The business of production and trade should be left, for the most part, to the people. 4. Justice, like office, should be dispensed impartially, depending upon the actual conditions of the case.

5. [he monarch is not sacred and does not himself constitute the standard for the realm, hence the need for an external ja.

6. Government should consider the needs and will of the people in framing and executing policy.

7. lyranny and injustice will always fail because they generate an imbalance in the distribution of human and material resources. This list describes a set of policy ideals found in early Han political theory, edicts, and memorials. These principles influenced the range of power negotiation; they did not guarantee the outcome of each negotiation.

Moreover, they mark what one might call the liberal end of political theory. On the conservative end, it would be easy to identify a heavier reliance on government authority and a tendency to disregard Mencian considerations. However, conservative arguments are common fare in most political organizations, including the U.S. Congress. All too often, historians have taken the conservative view as typical of an essentialized Chinese character, but what distinguishes one premodern society from another is not its conservative end—this varies little among cultures— but the range of the liberal-conservative spectrum. In this respect premodern China is unusual in having had a highly developed tradition of political checks on arbitrary authority, much of which had been incor-

296 Nature and Society porated into official parlance by the time European travelers began describing such notions for European readers. Indeed, in the mideighteenth century J. B. Du Halde showcased several of Emperor Wen’s edicts—including those cited here. The preface to the English translation of 1740 cites such edicts as key examples of enlightened administration 1n contrast to European practices of the time.’* Such reflections remind us that, in assessing the history of power negotiation tn China, it would be best to avoid anachronistic comparisons with an idealized “West.” The Daoist tradition of cosmopolitical thought fell from grace before

the end of the second century B.c. and was eventually replaced by a hierarchical paradigm much closer, in certain respects, to some European models. Nonetheless, in the long run, several of these principles reappeared and persisted in late tmperial times. Among the most 1mportant of these were the demand for impartiality in law and government,

the stress on merit instead of birth, and the distinction between public and private, state and court, civil and military. All these principles remained key features of Chinese political discourse throughout the Song and later dynasttes.

FOURTEEN Identity and Possession

Previous chapters attempted to demonstrate how concepts of personhood can be framed within a graphic paradigm. Such a paradigm can influence the way identities are assigned, and this, in turn, shapes the way

individual agency can be articulated. In order to avoid the impression that graphic paradioms are a peculiarity of “Oriental” culture, it has been useful to refer periodically to social practice at the other end of the Eurasian continent. One of the best-known paradigms in that tradition is the Great Chain of Being and its associated graphic manifestations. The aristocratic hierarchy of early modern Europe found its image in the center-periphery structure of the solar system, a fact of nature whose existence could not be denied. Likewise, the architects of bureaucratic

theory appealed to the patterns of circulating fluids, a structure no monarch could alter. Such constructs are ingenious, but not entirely arbitrary. Just as there is no such thing as a figure without a ground, so is

there no spatial paradigm without some pattern of prerogatives and dependencies. It follows that every paradigm permits a unique pattern for construing identity and constructing a self. The kinds of patterns permitted by fluid-circulation models will be different from those imposed by genealogical models. Possession is one of those arenas in which such patterns may emerge as distinct. In early imperial China, the separation of state and min from the court permitted a concept of private possession distinct from feudal

possession. For example: the notion that the state provided a space for the people beyond the monarch’s sphere of authority permitted the #gwet to successfully oppose the emperor’s will in legal cases (Chapter 13). The same distinction served as the foundation for popular unrest during

298 Identity and Possession the late Han dynasty (second century A.D.). At that time, the court, under eunuch initiatives, gradually extended its grasp to encompass operations

properly belonging to the state. In response, outspoken officers wrote memorial after memorial reaffirming the fundamental distinction between the monarch’s possessions and those that belonged to the people.! Writing in the late second century a.D., LU Qiang wrote a memorial complaining that “the Western Garden [under the court] draws upon the collected produce of the Minister of Agriculture [under the state], and your [majesty’s] private stables gather up horses meant for public use”

E45) 4 22m, PRIA EZ BH? Clearly, in Li’s mind, the monarch was not the government. The very same premises spawned much stronger protests, including student demonstrations and, ultimately, the downfall of the dynasty.4 What made it possible for this concept of

possession to arise in the ancient world? ,

The short answer is that the public/private distinction evolved as a necessary feature of bureaucratic theory. If a man was to change his role

depending upon performance, then his identity could not have been conceived in hereditary terms. But the short answer does little to reveal the graphic logic underlying this concept of possession. Possibly the best discussion of that may be found in the Zaiyou 7147, or “Letting Be,” chapter of the Z/uangz7. The entire chapter takes as its subject that style of “letting be” which informed the policies of the early Han empire. An examination of key passages from that essay will serve as a final summary of themes explored in this book. Independent Possession 43) A

In his study of the dating of the Z/vangz7 chapters, Liu Xiaogan places the Zatyou chapter in his “second” category, a group of texts that “should be

seen as works of Zhuanezi’s later followers.” The so-called Huanglao school then would be the Huanglao school from among the ranks of Zhuanegzi’s later followers. It 1s also the later followers who are sometimes associated with Huanglao theory.* There ts much to recommend this view, as this author seems to subscribe to the principle of noninterference. The text states clearly that the monarch should not himself engage in government because that is the task of his officials: Those who possess territory possess the greatest of all things/ww [a kingdom and its people]. Yet those who possess the greatest of all things/ww cannot be treated

Identity and Possession 299 as a thing [cannot be employed as a thing]. They [rulers] are things and yet cannot

be treated as things, that is why they are able to employ/w things/ww. If one understands that the one who employs things [persons] is not himself a thing [cannot be employed in action], would he be content merely to rule the people of the world? He would move about freely through space, roam across the continents, independent in activity. This is what is meant by “independent possession.” The man of independent possession is the most noble of all.°

KALA, AKI. BRKMA, BTV, itn FY, EAD. Af 4a A ZF, SBA PT AMOUR, HAAS, BHAI, BEBR, & BA. WAZA, RABH,

What makes this passage interesting is the fact that 1t uses the common doctrine of non-interference to fundamentally alter the traditional concept of royal possession.’ The argument turns on using wu 44, “object”

or “thing,” as a verb to mean “use as an object.” Since the subject under consideration is “the most valuable of all things”—territory and persons—then “using things” actually means to “employ” or to “be employed” as an official. Of course, from a ruler’s point of view, it 1s officials who are employed to do things, and from the perspective of bureaucratic theory, a ruler is a ruler precisely because he is of employed. This is contrary to the traditional notion of “possession,” which naturally presumes that a possessor can decide what actions should be taken with respect to the possessed object. A traditional ruler, for example, would himself decide how to rule his kingdom. But if this author 1s writing in

the tradition of bureaucratic theory, then the ruler should not be interfering with government actions as that 1s the officials’ job. This means the author must alter the original idea of “possession” such that one 1s able to “possess” without interfering with what 1s possessed. This apparent paradox can be resolved if we remember Han Feiz1’s advice. He counseled the ruler not to reveal his own ideas about governing because, should he do so, officials would be able to use that information to curry his favor, thus making an objective assessment of affairs impossible. The Qing dynasty commentary on this passage says as much explicitly: “If you look at government under the three sage-kings, [a ruler] cannot employ things [people] according to his own whims; if he does, he will on the contrary end up being used by things. [This 1s be-

cause, if the monarch] himself is a thing/wu, how can he treat other things as things? There is no way to draw the line” 4} R= E2ZB, Fat

4£4y BE, ah Fl. 0 eI, & eh! BT

300 Identity and Possession The logic here fits the geometry of a fluid paradigm, and sure enough

in the next paragraph the author reveals the dialectical nature of his thought: The teaching of a great leader 1s like the relation of form to shadow or the emission of sound to its echo. When asked a question, he simply responds |to the situation], so that each [person’s] concerns are fully expressed. [In this way] he can serve as the complement to the entire world. He resides where there is no echo and moves where there is no boundary.’ He takes you and helps you to return to a state of self-initiation [and in this way] can roam endlessly, coming and going without peet, like the sun without beginning [or end].'° He praises [the strong points] of each person, being united with the great commonality. Being thus united, he is without self/jz. Being “without self,” how should he need to “possess” what he already possesses? Looking after possession was the manner of the gentlemen of ancient times. He who can look for the absence of possession is the friend of the entire world."!

KAZHK, BUZRH, RLS, AMZ, BRAK BATH. RF

RAE ATS RA. PARMAR, VG, HARE, A JE, FARM, AM MBL. BRL ATA AMAA, BAZ T BRS, RUZ. The action-and-response dialectic underlying this passage should be obvious. It may be less obvious that it also adopts the protocol of bureaucratic theories in the /zngfa and Huainanz:, which tend to see government as properly responding to the people’s will. Guo Xiang tnter-

prets “form” and “emitted sound” as metaphors for “the will/xz of the people.” A great leader’s teaching, on the other hand, “1s as shadow

to fotm ot echo to sound” A #23, BHwWw;: KAZAA, B #5 44,12 In order to respond to the people, a leader’s position cannot remain rigid. Being unbiased, a true leader will not impose his own agenda, but will allow each person to express his own concerns. ‘The use

of huai here, “to harbor in one’s heart,’ underscores the indtvidual character of the concerns being expressed. Guo Xiang says: “[a leader] allows the inner concerns//wai of each thing/wu to come out fully” 4% 49 Z PAIR A7% AH. The Qing commentary chimes in: “A wise ruler’s heart follows the feelings of ‘things.’ In this passage, as 1s common in bureaucratic theory, “things/wx” refers to “persons” (ren). If it is correct to interpret this chapter in terms of the ideals of bureaucratic theory (what some call “Huanglao thought”) then it would appear that the passage extends to all people the ideal encapsulated 1n the

Identity and Possession 301 word “roaming”: “He takes you [each and every one] and helps you to return to a state of self-initiation, so that you [also] may roam endlessly, like the sun without beginning [or end].” This line projects onto everyone the same ideal of agency that other texts apply to talented “dragons” ot to the ruler. The key term in this line is zaonao 44%. Guo Xiang explains: “Naonao means ‘self/z/-initiated.’ [A leader] supports all things and allows them to return to their original nature of self/z-initiation.

This is the acme of wuwer’ #24#, 8 SAL. FRE By, 1 HZ,

BP AZ Bal, As is often the case in texts found in ZAuwangzi, Huainanzi, or Jingfa, the

language is replete with paradox and hyperbole and makes frequent use of the imagery of free-roaming dragons and clouds. Nonetheless, the underlying theme is not far removed from the more mundane policies of men like Xiao He and Cao Can. This author ts arguing that the people of a state should develop their natural ability to act themse/ves/z2, but this can be accomplished only if the government assumes a policy of wuwer. Wet and wuwei constitute a political dialectic, with the state serving as the

sround within which the people can develop their farms, families, or businesses. A tyrannical government, on the other hand, would force the people to conform unnaturally to the ruler’s whims.

In the end what this passage describes is a move from monarch as feudal potentate toward that of monarch as chief executive of the state. The monarch’s power of personal possession has been inverted, for in the wet/wuwei dialectic, agency can revert to the people only if the monarch does not assert his own agency. That is why the text quite literally

says that the ruler should be without “self”/7 G. The absence of “self” means that, as head of state, the monarch will not impose his personal will on others, for that would be wez. He will allow the perspective of each

“thine” to assume its own form depending upon its performance. In eraphic terms, this condition is conceived as the dissolution of fixed boundaries, ot the “great commonality” / datong. Within this “great commonality,” the monarch does not regard anything as belonging personally to his “self” because agency is being shifted toward the people.

When this has been accomplished, then all individuals can respond to one another because no fixed boundaries—such as hereditary roles— hinder exchange.

Concrete examples of this logic have already been cited. Han Fetz1 argued that “Although you will [in fact] be brave, this will not be because

302 Identity and Possession you show yout rage. Rather, you will allow all your officers to completely exercise their martial abilities.” Master Li's Anthology argued that “if you

rely upon the courage of the multitude, you need not fear the fiercest adversary. If you rely upon the strength of the multitude, you need not fear the strongest man.” Lu Qiang’s memorial, cited earlier, opens up with a discussion of this very problem: All the wealth of the world comes from [the operation of nature in] yin and yang and [therefore ultimately] comes back to Your Majesty. Since it [ulttmately] returns to Your Majesty, how should [you] distinguish between public and private? Yet now the Bureau of Palace Craftsmen is collecting all the treasures of the empire’s [citizens] while the Bureau of the Imperial Wardrobe is collecting all the silk. The Western Garden [under the court] draws upon the collected produce of the Minister of Agriculture [under the state], and the court’s stables gather up horses from the state stables... . This increases the suffering of the people, and much is wasted but little actually contributed. Corrupt officers take advantage of the practice, and the people bear the brunt of 1t. And then the sycophants like to

contribute their private possessions, fawning and flattering like an unwed maiden, and this is how it all started.!°

AFAM, ZFEZEB, HAZE, BARA? HSH AMZ, P RRMA TZ, SH 5] Rm, PRRAELH... ABA, SRY, BSAHA, GHEEM. LAMZE, HREM, SHS, Ast

iy ie.

This passage opens with a list of properties—either those of the citizens or of the state—which had been improperly seized by the “private” offices of the court. Thus the entire passage is an argument against the court’s appropriation of the people’s wealth. Although the cosmopolitical thinking of the Latter Han was different from that of the Former Han, in regard to property Lu draws on a tradition of legal thought reflected in Zazyou. Lu treats wealth as generated by a fluid system that constantly changes state. As head of an empire that functions within the © natural cycle, the monarch should not consider any part of the empire’s wealth as belonging to him personally, because his personal self/77 is not supposed to intrude into affairs of state, court and state being distinct. His public self, on the other hand, should identify with the welfare of the state and its people. But if this 1s the case, then nothing would be gained by appropriating what is already encompassed by the state. Such action would be redundant. This is what is meant by the “great commonality” in Zaiyou. There the idea of redundancy is cleverly expressed by repeating

Identity and Possession 303 the word for “possession.” Literally it says “he would disdain possessing [what he already] possesses (you you).”” He possesses the empire’s wealth, of course, but only as head of state, not as a private person. At the end of the Zazyou passage, the author returns to the contrast between a feudal concept of possession and the one he advocates. He reminds us that the “gentlemen,” or aristocratic rulers of ancient times, sought the possession of things. Guo Xiang glosses this line: “It stmply means they were able to glorify their names [with their possessions]” |

Ag &H ZA. This is precisely what the Guwoyu had claimed (see Chapter 3). The Qing dynasty commentator makes the point more explicitly: “Those [rulers] who practiced ‘humanity and righteousness,”!4 reoulating ruler and minister with ceremony, were no different from in-

terfering (youwer) rulers” 471-#&, BBR, FHA BS FY A genuine leader, instead, will understand that his public self should identify with the state and the people. This is why he can be a friend to the

entire world. The argument implicitly recognizes that people possess things of their own; otherwise, the anxiety over the monarch’s interference would make no sense whatever. Seeing as the people are the source of those individuals who ultimately serve in government, then in theory anyone from among the people potentially can possess political agency. Indeed, in the opening statement of his discourse on possession, this author took as a premise the notion that political agency finds its soutce in the great mass of the people: Most men of the world like those who agree with them and disdain those who do not. This [habit of liking those who agree and disdaining those who do not] arises from their desire to distinguish themselves from the multitude. But do those who wish to distinguish themselves from the multitude really manage to do so? Take advantage of/yzu the multitude so as to stabilize your knowledge, [for] it is better to let the arts of the multitude multiply. Yet those who wish to administer states grasp after the [personal] profits of the ancient kings without seeing the troubles that arise from such practices. This is to make the destiny of the state depend upon the vicissitudes of their [personal] luck!!°

HUSZA, FEAZEFUM BAZAAR. ARACMAZ, BOM

RB VRP RRL AMP Re Se, BP RR! ARS

PRB], Rho KARA. MRAEAZAA, HFS EZ AM FLAS AU. HOEVAAZ EW 6 FEAL.

This passage offers historians of society much food for thought. It opens with the word shiv. The compound occurs once in the inner

304 Identity and Possession chapters of the Zhuwangz (late fourth c. B.c.), but becomes common only in the later chapters of that book (late third c. B.c.), in Master Lii’s_Anthology, and in Han dynasty texts. Typically it refers to the mass of ordi-

nary men, as opposed to men of great talent, but is not to be confused with the illiterate crowd. In this passage, for example, it is evident that shisu includes men of high political ambitions. Yet it also reveals that these same men arise from within the general mass of the people. The author of this passage did not miss the trony of the dialectic, for while such men wish to distinguish themselves from the multitude, yet they are no different from the multitude in wanting to rise above them. The irony exposed here is one with the conundrum of identity explored in Chapter

10. In graphic terms, these men portrayed themselves as figures on a eround. They did not realize that the ground was made up of other figures no different from themselves! Assuming his readers understood his point, does this not mean that large numbers of people were presumed to regard themselves as having the agency to participate in government? I don’t see how we can escape

this conclusion, for Zazyows argument is all about agency. As in the passage from Master Lii’s Anthology cited earlier, this author wishes to replace a feudal ideal of exemplary personal knowledge with a new ideal of collective knowledge. No matter how intelligent a monarch might be, how could his limited personal experience possibly compare with the

combined skills of the mass of the people? This is a basic premise of bureaucratic theory. The single gentleman who once stood as model of virtuous action has been replaced by the multiple intelligences of those who have determined their own roles through performance. Those multiple intelligences, in turn, are seen as recruited from among the larger mass of the people. Such an argument presumes that all people, in theory, possess the potential for political agency.!” Zalyou’s negative example here 1s the feudal notion of the gentleman as virtuous model for his subordinates. The geometry of that ideal, as noted earlier in this study, was such that all individuals received their identity in relation to some larger category under which they were subsumed. We can visualize such a relationship between individuals and their lord more ot less as in Figure 50, where the large triangle enclosing all others is the

royal “pattern.” All individuals try to imitate this pattern but, due to humanity’s imperfections, the results will vary with each person, whether

Identity and Possession 305

Fig. 50. Conceptual diagram of individuals imitating a royal “pattern.”

ot not those differences are valued. Variations in color would be interpreted, then, not as positive qualities to be matched to a situation, but as the different degrees to which persons approximate the tone standard established by the monarch. There is no movement within the design because the standard doesn’t change. Such a model graphically describes a society in which fashion, for instance, is determined by the royal court and imitated to varying degrees by the wealthier members of the population. In Chapter 7 we found evidence of such a society in the writings of the Mozz. In eighteenth-century Europe, Montesquieu lampooned a similar sort of society in his Persszan Letters: “Vhe French change their cuftoms according to the age of their king. .. . The Prince communicates

his own fentiments to the court, the court to the city, the city to the provinces. The foul of the fovereign is a mould in which all the reft are formed.”!8 Xunzi couldn’t have said it better.

306 Identity and Possession

cf | @ fy

‘Fig. 51. Conceptual diagram of individuals acting within a collectivity.

Zaiyou’s argument, on the other hand, is typical of bureaucratic theorists who subscribe to wuwei as a managerial stratagem. This argument derives from a very different geometry, which might be visualized more as in Figure 51. Let’s assume that the ovals float freely as a loose cluster, can change shape and color within limits, and that the cluster is meandering in the direction of the arrow. In such a case, the “multitude” that takes shape results from the collective actions of many individuals, each of whom “walks independently amidst the crowd.” As a collective the mass assumes a shape—an identity—but this identity is neither fixed nor imposed from above. The figure has shape, but no contour. Instead, its outer form is the effect of multiple “paths” expanding or contracting in

dendritic fashion from within. It is precisely the absence of an outer boundary that permits each individual in this construct to remain an individual. Color within each figure can change over time but is constant at

any given moment because its color isn’t understood as a poor approximation of some royal standard. If identity is construed as “character,” and character is conceived as a matter of disposition—one’s response to circumstances—then the identity of each unit in the figure will

Identity and Possession 307 be determined by its disposition in relation either to adjacent units or to the whole, which is to say, society or the state. In this example then, the white oval to the far right would take on a leading role by virtue of its position in relation to the others. Likewise, the white oval below, situated within the group, might assume a more supportive role. It follows that these identities could change depending upon the ways in which others respond to those “persons.” This is another way of stating Zhuangzi’s comment that each “this” is someone else’s “that,” and each “that” 1s someone else’s “this.”” Each individual, in other words, can appear either as a dragon, or as a crowd.

BLANK PAGE

EPILOGUE Sources of Seif

This book attempts to trace the role of material culture in the social thought of Classical China. The aim is not to produce a definitive or comprehensive account of a culture, but only to examine provocative texts and a few ideas in the hope of exploring the cognitive dimensions of material design. The literary record of Classical China offers many challenges and puzzles which some readers, I hope, have enjoyed putsuing in this book. Two tissues run throughout this study: the role of graphic paradigms in fiouring personal agency and selfhood in Classical China and the repre-

sentation of cultural identities in “modern” (that is, nationalistically charged) scholarship. This double concern has required occasional forays into comparative material so as to separate graphic paradigms as a phenomenon from the traditional conceptual framework of “Chineseness.”

Admittedly, comparisons between China and Europe can be tricky, some categories being all but taboo for students of non-western cultures.

The result of such taboos is that the same sorts of evidence can be treated very differently depending upon the ethnicity of the agents.! As Michael Sullivan observed: “For Zao Wu-kt to be stimulated by Jackson Pollock showed how derivative he was; for Mark Tobey to be influenced by Chinese calligraphy showed how receptive he was.’ For a long time the double standard has permitted western scholars to argue that Asians lack a wide range of mental capacities associated with fundamental forms of agency, including even the ability to imagine counterfactuals.? One reason for such equivocation is that topics such as identity and self are so basic to human experience that claims about the object of analysis cannot be neatly separated from claims about the agent of analysis. Supposing one sets out to better understand how traditional con-

310 Fxpilogue fiourations of personhood were negotiated during the formative period of bureaucratic theory. The nature of the primary sources ts such that this very enterprise requires challenging traditional accounts of “Asian values” as mythologized in contemporary scholarship, but those very myths

are intrinsic to the way the “West” defines itself. In the twenty-first century, when constructed cultures have become a tool of international

positioning, this ambiguity is quite unavoidable. As Robert Solomon | observed: The problem of personal identity might be taken more generally to mean, What is it to be a human being? The answer to this question is built into virtually every language, 1f not every philosophical tradition, oral and mythological as well as

scientistic and epistemological; and in most cultural contexts, not excluding Europe and North America, to be a human being means to be a person much like us, where “much like us” refers 1n one instance to Aristotle’s fellow male Athenian aristocrats, in another to Clifford Geertz’s Javanese, in another to George Bush’s faithful Republicans, and in still another to the Chinese. “Human being’ is not a biological category. It is a clumsy and often oppressive political

weapon. But it could be argued that human dignity 1s the principal subject of art and literature. For the reasons Solomon raised, the assignment of human

worth in ancient and modern times is inextricably linked and of equal interest. Both might be understood through the geometry of their constituent eraphic paradigms. In the Spring and Autumn period, the measurements (du, shu, cheng) allotted to a nobleman’s artifacts signified his possession of personal qualities such as honor/charisma/de or humanity/ren. People who lacked those qualities were not human in quite the same sense, and so one of Zhuangzi’s followers was able to argue that 1t was craftsmen who dehumanized humanity. Even today the efforts of craftsmen can enhance or degrade one’s dignity, should we choose to purchase a high-status watch or car. More comparable to the craftsmen of old, perhaps, are the custodians of culture: historians, anthropologists, sociologists, social psychologists, and their media counterparts. These modern professions sometimes share with the ancient craftsmen the work of extolling the humanity of those they serve and denigrating that of others. In the hands of psychologists, as revealed by Stephen Jay Gould, the measurement of humanity can indeed become a clumsy and oppressive political weapon.*

This occurs whenever basic, shared properties of humanity—such as

Expilogue 311 intelligence or the capacity to reason—are treated as the private preserve of a single, privileged, cultural group: Well before the fifteenth century, these values and the mentality that goes with them had been tmplanted in the European mind... . Galileo and Newton made their discoveries not just because they could not be readily suppressed, but because of their curiosity and critical habits of mind. Now of course the East 1s drawing on the Western stockpile of ideas at an ever-increasing rate.°

Ironically, the governing metaphor informing such thought is one of biological lineage, a paradigm favored tn feudal societies. Indeed, as long

as we cajole ourselves into thinking that noble thoughts are unique to one cultural tradition, that “uniqueness” will always imply that culture, in

the end, is nought but the unfolding of biologically determined endowment. It was in just this manner that the Zhou nobility considered themselves unique possessors of genuine honor. If Zhuangzi could question their pretensions, why should modern writers fear to do likewise for current theories of hereditary nobility? Of course, not all are as optimistic as the social psychologists. As Jack Goody observed, all too often students of “Western” culture have attempted to draw lines that not only overemphasized and deepened historically the differences (especially the critical differences of which we have spoken) between the two parts of the Eurasian landmass, but also in my view those lines often overlooked the common heritage of the major societies of that region in the great Near Eastern civilisations, tending to “primitivise” Eastern institutions, domestic, economic, religious and political, in unacceptable ways, at least in comparison with those of early modern Europe.’

In doing so, scholars create a hierarchy of human worth just as surely

as did the bronze-casters of the Spring and Autumn period; this hierarchy, moreover, is every bit as artificial And because this hierarchy enforces a particular distribution of human dignity and power, it will be defended by modern scholars with a need to feel superior, just as some Confucian ritualists rationalized a graded social order in their own time. As we have seen, a common feature in many constructions of dignity, both ancient and modern, is a belief that human worth is somehow inherited, so that we get “Asian” values or “Western” values. This manner of speaking presumes that cultures are normatively “pure,” whereas the historical record suggests just the opposite. At the root of such a theory lies an atomistic paradigm in which national essences are construed as

312 Epilogue discrete and particulate. The problem with all such constructions is that there 1s no reason to stop the atomization process at the level of nation. If “Western” and “Asian” are mutually exclusive particles, then within each of these regions, why not conceive “northern” and “southern” populations as exclusive, or “man” and “woman,” or “doctors” and “lawyers”? The fact that you can divide any individual along a variety of prismatic facets pretty much obviates any grounds for atomistic identity. In a word, cultural purity appears to be a fantasy of the Romantic historians. If this 1s so, then it is hard to imagine what it could mean to say that one or other

concept is “Western” and therefore beyond the comprehension of other races. True, scholars generally identify the vehicle of inheritance as “culture” rather than race, but as Walter Benn Michaels observed, though “culture is characteristically meant to displace race... culture has turned out to be a way of continuing rather than repudiating racial thought’: It is only the appeal to race that makes culture an object of affect and that gives notions like losing our culture, preserving it, stealing someone else’s culture, restoring people’s culture to them, and so on, their pathos. ... Race transforms people who learn to do what we do into thieves of our culture, and people who teach us to do what they do into destroyers of our culture; 1t makes assimilation into a kind of betrayal and refusal to assimilate into a form of heroism.®

One of the reasons essentialist thinking survives is that it is hard to deny the persistence of certain patterns of reasoning over long periods of time in different geographic regions. The body/mind dichotomy, for instance, can be found in a wide range of ideological systems produced on the European continent over a period of thousands of years. It would be natural to construe this as the expression of some inherited essence,

but this is where the notion of a graphic paradigm may be useful. Graphic paradigms can persist for long periods of time because they operate on a subverbal level. However—unlike national essences, “mentalities,” or “Westernness”—they are no mote intrinsic to a people than, say, a preference for knives and forks rather than chopsticks. Given the need to change, people can, as when Enlightenment intellectuals, having

become aware of China’s civil service system, began to question the concept of hereditary worth which had dominated European thinking for several millennia.

Almost the reverse may have occurred at the beginning of the twen-

tieth century in China. Despite a long tradition of performance-

Expilogue 313 oriented evaluation, May Fourth intellectuals blithely embraced theortes of ethnic determinism so popular among Europeans at that time. That

paradigm of personhood appears to have been adopted by the Communist party of the twentieth century and, now, might be treated by some as a typical expression of “Chinese” culture. If we understood more about how eraphic paradigms get transferred and absorbed, we might be able to explain more effectively some of the paradoxes of recent history. That has not been the task of this study, which is based rather on the hunch that spatial relationships can figure cognitive relationships. In otder to establish the viability of this type of analysis, 1t seemed useful to focus on the earliest and simplest examples of graphic paradigms in a culture rich in both visual and verbal documentation. The written record for the Spring and Autumn period shows that artifacts were a natural site of reference in discussions of social prerogative. It is not simply that artifacts symbolized social relations articulated verbally—tather, it looks as

if social relations were understood artifactually. Only later were the concepts expressed in artifacts lifted from their material substrate to setve as the basis for theory. Terms originally intended for measuring material properties were abstracted so as to serve as scales of social value. By late Warring States times, some of these terms were further abstracted and incorporated into bureaucratic theory.

The term dy offers a typical example of this kind of development. During the Spring and Autumn period, dz designated material degree: thickness, breadth, or degree of ornamentation. Over time the term was used more frequently to signify various kinds of social limits. In bureaucratic theory the notion of limits was further generalized to refer to legal limits on an official’s jurisdiction—as opposed to prerogative. What had originally been a material “degree” demonstrating personal privilege eventually became a fully abstract concept setting limits on the duties of a public official. Later still, gtven that ornamental pattern had for centurtes _setved to figure personal status, Warring States thinkers quite reasonably

turned to ornament as a model upon which to figure the notion of a changeable persona. In this case it was the fluidity of form in cloud and dragon designs that offered theorists a new kind of graphic model. Referring time and again to this model, Chinese thinkers developed the unintuitive notion that a self can define itself through its own response to a challenging environment.®

314 Fxpilogue But what about the almost infinite kinds of meanings that artifacts can

express in relation to their specific histories of iconography and styler What about the political messages that might have been present for a particular marquis who bore a winged dragon on his shield so as to show his allegiance to the neighboring duke? This kind of artistic content will no doubt remain a primary focus of art-historical research, my own 1ncluded. But such matters emerge within shorter historical time scales and so belong to the realm of micro style, personal style, patronage studies, and so on. They should not be confused with the object of investigation

here. This book is concerned with a level of signification sometimes ignored in traditional iconographic or stylistic histories. What I’ve referred to as “generic condition” and “macro style” operate on a different scale, a scale of centuries rather than years. Their presence in no way diminishes the countless ways tn which creative individuals may manipulate any given style, but they are no less deserving of our attention. A

study of macro style can reveal much about how artifacts can make claims about social order and individual prerogattve outside and underneath the normal system of iconographical signification. How does macro style accomplish this? As mentioned above, artifacts can serve as material templates for scales of value. The value “stored” in an object will refer directly to whoever has possession of it. Possession seems to be a fundamental condition of human agency; it is possession that permits the social capital invested in an artwork to be transferred to its owner through the abstracting power of style. This is why, in Ziuangzz, a basic shift in the concept of self required a thorough rethinking of the concept of possession. Artifacts also can make claims about human agency through references to natural objects or cosmopolitical order. ‘These can be conveyed in figural or diagrammatic representations. In such cases, the referent for the representation is not the artifact’s owner, but instead is some thing

“out there,” whether it be an eagle or the water cycle. The broad, undifferentiated quality of cosmopolitical order generates a social scale that may be hierarchical but 1s less strictly compartmentalized. Persons can compete along a single scale of worth, from cheap to luxurious, or from

simple to brilliant, but the scale itself is not graded as in a ceremonial system. This use of artifacts becomes attractive when mere hereditary status comes to be seen as insufficient to justify the unequal distribution

Expilogue 315 of resources. The artifact then makes claims, not merely about the individual owner, but about an external and unshakable order. The naturalization of this order can benefit properly placed individuals, and so these may be happy to invest in the display of such artifacts. Both compartmental and single-scale macro styles and social systems will incorporate within their structure the means for theit own subversion. In general a single-scale template will offer greater negotiability than a graded, “feudal” system because persons of nonaristocratic—if

privileseed—tanks can attempt to insert themselves into the scale at higher levels. In principle, social status comes to be negotiable on the basis of acquired qualities such as wit or taste. In reality, hereditary groups may find ways to hold on to their privileges for many centuries, but the terms of negotiation will nonetheless have changed significantly. The deepest level at which an artifact can encode norms of selfhood is in its mode of figuration, its spatial epistemology. The premise here is that the epistemological problem of certifying social identity corresponds logically and perceptually to the visual problem of determining pictorial identity. For this reason artists cannot avoid making epistemological assumptions whenever they set pen to paper. These assumptions need not be conscious. Most often they are shared social conventions—not mentalities—and will have been encoded into the very procedures required by whatever macro style the artist has inherited. Such assumptions reveal themselves in two ways. First, if an object is to be recognized as a specific object by the artist’s visual community, then it must display

the proper generic condition for whatever kind of thing it is. PostRenaissance haloes required dimensionality to be recognized as “real” haloes, while Warring States dragons needed to display mutability of form. The other manner in which concepts of selfhood enter into figuration is in the assigned level of legibility. To the degree that a macro style presents a figure as unambiguous, it presumes and asserts a determinate identity. That identity might have been fixed by God, by the king, or by heredity, but it is not presented as negotiable. Such assertions do not require an illusiontstic style—Old Kingdom figures are highly legible and do not suggest the possibility of multiple, equally valid interpretations. Still, there are limits to the degree to which illusionistic styles can suggest the normativity of multiple identities tn premodern contexts. I am aware

316 Expilogue that postmodern writers are fond of searching for ambiguity in post-Renaissance art, seeking to project modern sensibilities onto the past, but such readings need to stop short of contradicting the standard, Aristotelean claim that an object cannot be X and not X at the same time,

a claim to which most educated Europeans would have subscribed before the late nineteenth century. In the absence of an articulate celebration of logical and artistic ambiguity in early modern writings, I don’t think we have much basis for forcing illusionistic styles into that particular Procrustean bed. To do so, in fact, would only obfuscate their beauties and achievements. On the other hand macro styles that exploit visual ambiguity force upon the viewer an awareness of her own participation in the assignment of identity. For this reason they necessarily demonstrate the possibility of alternative or mutable identities. In Classical China the ubiquity of such

styles in the material culture made them available to social thinkers as models of a more fluid, self-actualized self. Such a model was requisite for the evolution of rational, bureaucratic theory. Ambiguous figure/ eround relations offer one way of encoding the mutability of identity, but other possibilities abound. Post-illusionistic or anti-tllusionistic styles, such as so-called Zen-style painting, call into question the very status of

marks of representation. Is this mark here just a slash of the brush, or does it represent a cliffP!? Chinese literati painting, when it combines in one work references to two incompatible historical styles, also forces upon the viewer an awareness of the relativity of visual codes. The painting of Manet achieves a similar effect, and for similar reasons. These effects and the suppositions they imply about selfhood should not be construed as expressions of the collective psychology or “mentality” of one or another ethnic group. They are social practices that can be learned and appropriated by any group when historical conditions favor their adaptation. Manet does not express a “Chinese” concept of mutable self any more than makers of Song dynasty illusionistic sculpture (Fig. 52) possessed a “scientific,” “Western” mentality. Soctal practices

are more mobile than either Plato or modern architects of human hierarchy would be apt to admit. I am assured that other interpretations of ornament in Classical China are possible, and some of these may be compatible with those presented here. I offer these views in hopes of broadening the range of interpretive

F:pilogue 317 . ti , 7.4

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.' -~are-4~~:o"| :

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ig. 52. Lohan mending his clothes. Clay sculpture from Lingyan s1 lemple, Shandong. Twelfth century. Photograph by the author.

avenues tor the material culture of ancient China and to suggest that some of the more fundamental problems ot human experience cannot be adequately understood within an exclusively Eurocentric frame of reference. More generally, I have tried to show that the concept of graphic paradigms offers an alternative to Ze/gezs/e, mentalities, “Asian” concepts, “Western” concepts, and other essentialized accounts of persistent cultural practice. It need hardly be said that a “clashless” mode of understanding cognitive paradigms seems especially desirable in the densely interdependent

world of the twenty-first century. Yet the need to rank persons and things in relation to ourselves 1s unlikely to gO away—tt 1s encouraged by

the nature of human perception and seems all but unavoidable in complex societies. Surely it may help to understand better the logic informing the way pec yple draw boundaries between high and low, him and her, us

318 Epilogue and them. Tracing how the lines get drawn has long been an important function of historical study. The problem has been approached from the perspectives of ideology, episteme, philosophy, religion, literary discourse, and so on. In addition to these, historians might consider also the inconspicuous operation of spatial metaphor, the subtle geometries that shape human dignity over centuries by defining the very ground upon which we figure our selves.

Reference Matter

BLANK PAGE

Notes

For complete author names, titles, and publication data for works cited here in short form, see the Brbhography, pp. 355-67.

Introduction 1. “My master (you ask)? My master? (My master, [natural process]) smashes (the bodies) of all creatures (in winter) without pretending to administer justice. It dispenses generosity to all ages (every spring) without pretending to be benevolent. It 1s older than antiquity, yet does not pretend to be old. It overspreads the heavens and sustains the earth; it carves and fashions the forms of all creatures, yet does not consider this any feat of skill. It is in the contemplation of this that (my spirit) soars.”

Si fFl\ 4eflOBewynmtRA FRRUMF AH, RAL MFA, B

RA We FG IG ty HB By A4. SEPP. Zhuangzi ji shi #2 -F EB FE, ed. Guo Qinefan $8 BES, 4 vols. (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1961 [1985 printing]), 281-82 (hereafter ZZ). Translation adapted from The Texts of Taoism, trans. James Legge, 2 vols., ‘The Sacred Books of the East series, ed. Max Muller, vols. 39—40, reprint ed. (New York: Dover, 1962), I: 256. 2. John Ontans, “Idea and Product: Potter and Philosopher in Classical Athens,” Journal of Design History 4.2 (1991): 68. See also John Ontans, Art and Thought in the Hellenistic Age: The Greek World View, 350-50 B.C. (London: Thames and Hudson, 1979), 9.

3. Onians, “Idea and Product,” 68. 4. Oleg Grabar, The Mediation of Ornament (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992), 128-29. 5. See Grabar, Mediation of Ornament, 19-20. 6. Claude Lévi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology, trans. Claire Jacobson and Brooke Grundfest Schoepf (New York: Basic Books, 1963), 264. 7. Margaret Conkey, “Boundedness in Art and Society,” in Symbolic and Structural Archaeology, ed. lan Hodder (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 115-28.

See also Ian Hodder, “Post-Modernism, Post-Structuralism and Post-Processual Archaeology,” in Ian Hodder, ed., The Meanings of Things: Material Culture and Symbolic Expression (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989), 64—78.

322 Notes to Pages 4-5 8. David Keightley, “Archaeology and Mentality: The Making of China,” Representations, no. 18 (Spring, 1987): 91-128, esp. 92-93. Recently Michael Puett has offered

original views on craft and humanity in early China, and these will be discussed in later chapters. See Michael Puett, The Ambivalence of Creation: Debates Concerning [nnova-

tion and Artifice in Early China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001). 9. Nancy Munn, Walbint Iconography: Graphic Representation and Cultural Symbolsm in a Central Australian Society (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1973), 217. ro. Ibid.

i. Fritjof Capra, The Web of Life (New York: Anchor Books, 1996), 106-7. 12. For an analysis of the historiography of such notions, see J. M. Blaut, Ezght Eurocentric Historians (New York: The Guilford Press, 2000), esp. 20-29.

13. A case in point: Vincent Yang was not the first to notice the resemblance between Su Shi and the Romantics, but when he wrote a book examining this issue, his work seemed to imply that some cultural achievements thought of as uniquely Western were not so unique. Wotse yet, it implied that some of these achievements occurred earlier in China than in Europe. The book thus inspired a stern review with the warning that such comparisons should not be attempted unless the author can

“muster the clearest concepts, most flexible faculties, mammoth amounts of learning, broad experience, and above all to spend inordinate, pre-twentieth century amounts of time.” In other words, best not to try. See Jonathan Pease’s review article of Nature and Self:_A Study of the Poetry of Su Dongpo with Comparisons to the Poetry of Wilham

Wordsworth, by Vincent Yang, in the Journal of the American Oriental Society 112, no. 3

(July-September, 1992): 517-18. For another example of this genre, see Jonathan Spence’s review, “China: How Much Dissent?,” New York Remew of Books 28, no. 3 (August 13, 1989), 32-36. 14. Richard Vinograd, in Jason C. Kuo, ed., Dzscovering Chinese Painting: Dialogues with American Art Historians (Dubuque: Kendall/Hunt Publishing, 2000), 137-38.

15. “Power in this sense—the legitimization of force—depends on a stock-intrade of laws, rules, and codes, of conventions and customs (in short, of institutions) that in turn produce all sorts of possibilities for oppositional maneuver. .. . In short, power is necessarily a mediated phenomenon; and so it produces in the means of its legitimization the very instruments that can be used against it oppositionally—which means that, conversely, the practice of opposition 1s itself a function of power.” Ross Chambers, Room for Maneuver: Reading Oppositional Narrative (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 56. 16. See Peter Brown’s elegant analysis of this problem in his Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1992), esp. 3—I5.

17. Chambers, Room for Maneuver, 7.

18. I have reservations about nation-centered narratives of historical change, preferring to think that many developments in history involve transcultural or transnational processes. For examples of transnational analysis of social change, see Philip Curtin, Cross-Cultural Trade in World History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984); Andre Gunder Frank, ReOment: Global Economy in the Asian Age (Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1998); Nicholas Mirzoeff, ed., “The Multiple View

Notes to Pages 6-10 323 point,” in Diaspora and Visual Culture: Representing Africans and Jews (London: Routledge,

2000). 19. Alex Potts, Flesh and the Ideal: Winckelmann and the Origins of Art History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), 34-36, 54-60. 20. See E. H Gombrich, Sense of Order (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1979), 43-45. 21. Cited in Dorothy K. Washburn and Donald W. Crowe, Symmetries of Culture: Theory and Practice of Plane Pattern Analysis (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1988), 33.

22. Evelyn Payne Hatcher, Vzsual Metaphors: A Methodological Study in Visual Communication (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1967), 9. 23. Ibid. 24. Ibid., 58 and 37. 25. Washburn and Crowe, Sywmetries of Culture, 33. 26. Cf. Ronald Knapp, China’s Traditional Rural Architecture: A Cultural Geography of

the Common House (Honolulu: University of Hawatt Press, 1986). Throughout the book Knapp uses the lexicon of Cold War China watchers, with almost everything described either as “orthodox,” “canonical,” or “rigid,” when often all that is meant is “customary” or “preferred.” A good sample can be found on pages 91-99. 27. T. J. Clark, Image of the People: Gustave Courbet and the 1848 Revolution (Greenwich,

Conn.: New York Graphic Society, 1973), 10-11. 28. Ontans, Art and Thought in the Hellenistic Age, 105-12, 143-46, 155-60. 29. Robert C. Solomon, “Recapturing Personal Identity,” in Roger T. Ames, ed., Self as Person in Asian Theory and Practice (Albany: SUNY Press, 1994), 23. 30. Richard Nisbett, Te Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently (New York: The Free Press, 2003), 26. 31. [bid., 69-70. 32. Sherry Ortner, “East Brain, West Brain: Do Ways of Thinking Cleave Along Lines of Geography?,” New York Times Book Remew, Sunday, April 30, 2003, p. 17. 33. Stephen Toulmin, Coswopolts: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity (New York, 1990), 13-14.

34. Nisbett, Te Geography of Thought, 2.

35. While there is no reason to think that such patterns cleave neatly along racial lines (““geography” here seems to serve as a politically correct stand-in for “race”’),

my book will investigate the ways in which people in China appropriated what Nisbett might call context-dependent and context-independent paradigms to solve problems of personhood. 36. The contract for this book was issued by Harvard University Asia Center in 2001, when the manuscript was essentially complete and when I was unaware of Professor Nisbett’s work. Once I received a copy of his book, I found it both interesting and alarming and so have added some comments prior to publication. 37. Harrison C. White, Identity and Control: A Structural Theory of Social Action (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 287. 38. John Onians, “Architecture, Metaphor and the Mind,” Avchitectural Haestory 35 (1992): 192-207, esp. 194.

324 Notes to Pages 10-16 39. Ronald W. Langacker, “Reference-Point Constructions,” Cogmitive Linguistics 4-1 (1993): 1-38.

40. George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), 14, 25, 56-59, and 127. 41. Rudolf Arnheim, Vzswal Thinking (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), 278-79. Daniel Sperber and Deirdre Wilson, in Relevance: Communication and Cognition (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986), 46-50, set out the basic thesis that humans

ptocess information with an active view to identifying features relevant or meaningful to them, but the thesis requires most of the book to explore. ‘They also present a thoughtful critique of the failure of semiotics on pp. 3-9. I am grateful to Randy LaPolla for this reference. 42. Arnheim, zsual Thinking, 274. 43. Ibid., 281.

44. Ibid. 45. Toulmin, Coswopols, 127. 46. Tzvetan Todorov, On Human Diversity: Nationalism, Racism, and E:xoticism in French Thought, trans. Catherine Porter (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993), 7-

47. There is a long history of art historical contributions to the larger question of identity and image. Both the Gestalt psychologists and E. H. Gombrich have associated ornament with some sense of order underlying cognition. For Gombrich’s review of the problem, see his The Sense of Order (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1979), Introduction. In Chapter 10 of this study, Norman Bryson’s views on the dialectics of selfhood will contribute much food for thought. Another work relating spatial and conceptual categories in interesting ways is Louis Marin’s To Destroy Painting, trans. Mette Hjort (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), especially 45-64. 48. White, Identity and Control, 296. 49. Cho-yun Hsu, Ancient China in Transition: An Analysis of Social Mobility, 722-222 B.c. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1965), 1-2. 50. Ibid., 3. 51. Ibid., 19, 55, 70-71, 99, 109, IO. 52. Ibid., 20.

53. Xu Yuan #870, Lidai feng shixuan FER zy FFE (A selection of social critical poetry through the ages) (Hefei: Huangshan shushe, Anhui sheng xinhua shudian faxing, 1986), 19. 54. Hsu, Ancient China, 1, 78. 55. Stephen L. Collins, From Divine Cosmos to Sovereign State: An Intellectual History of the Idea of Order in Renaissance England (New York: Oxford Untversity Press, 1989), 16. 56. Ibid., 17. 57. See A.C. Graham, Disputers of the Tao: Philosophical Argument in Ancient China (La Salle, HL: Open Court, 1989), 213 ff. 58. See Joseph Alsop, [he Rare Art Traditions (New York: Harper & Row, 1982). 59. See Jonathan Powis, Avistocracy (London: Blackwell, 1984), 1-22.

Notes to Pages 17-23 325 6o. It hardly need be said that, in practice, one would expect heredity and social connections to have weighed in fairly heavily, as they still do, judging from recent elections in the U.S. The pertinent site of comparison, however, is not the modern

world but Spring and Autumn period social order. In comparison to that, late Warring States bureaucratic practice operated on a different set of rules allowing more opportunity for non-aristocratic individuals to tise in social and political stature. 61. Sarah Allan, Shape of the Turtle: Myth, Art and Cosmos in Early China (New York,

1991), 138, 166-70; Elizabeth Childs-Johnson, “Metamorphic Imagery in Early Chinese Art: Long-dragons, Feng-phoenixes, Gui-Spirit Masks and the Spirit Journey,” Ketkoda Journal (February 1998): 31-51; Hayashi Minao MAAK, “Chi-

goku kodat no ibutsu ni arawasareta ‘ki’ no zuzo teki hyogen” P AFRO BAI Remnk | Rl O BH RH, Toho gakuho 61 (Match 1989): 1-93; Teng Shu-p’ing, “From Severance to Linkage—Communicating with Heaven in Prehistoric China,” National Palace Museum Bulletin 26, nos. 1-2 (March—April, May—June, 1991): 1-44. See

also Teng Shu-p’ing Site $8, Lan-t’ien shan-fang ts’ang yii pai hsuan % Ly Fh BH 4 3 (Taipei: National Palace Museum, 1995), 21-29. 62. Jessica Rawson, Mystenes of Ancient China: New Discoveries from the Early Dynasties

(New York: Braziller, 1996), 16.

63. Throughout this study the dates provided are those one finds in standard reference manuals. I am aware that scholars continue to debate the fine points of dynastic dating but am not equipped to enter the fray and so, like virtually everyone else, will use the standard dates until such time as the dust settles. 64. John Markoff, “Governmental Bureaucratization: General Processes and an Anomalous Case,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 17 (1975): 491. See also

S. M. E1tsenstadt, [he Pohtical Systems of Empires (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1993), 26-29.

Chapter I 1. Four recent, monumental studies have greatly advanced our knowledge of bronze vessels and their ornament: Robert Bagley, Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections (Washington, D.C.: Arthur M. Sackler Foundation; Cambridge: Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University, distributed by Harvard University Press, 1987); Jessica Rawson, Western Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections (Washington, D.C.: Arthur M. Sackler Foundation; Cambridge: Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University: distributed by Harvard University Press, 1990); Jenny FP. So, Eastern Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections

(Washington, D.C.: Arthur M. Sackler Foundation; in association with the Arthur

M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; New York: distributed by Harry Abrams, 1995); Rawson, Mysteries of Ancient China.

2. E.g., La Xueqin, “Chu Bronzes and Chu Culture,” in New Perspectives on Chu Culture During the Eastern Zhou Period, ed. Thomas Lawton (Washington, D.C.: Arthur

M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; Princeton: distributed by Princeton University Press, 1991), I-22; Jenny F. So and Emma C. Bunker, Traders and Raiders on

326 Notes to Pages 23-30 China’s Northern Fronter (Seattle: Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, in association with University of Washington Press, 1995). 3. Noel Barnard, Bronze Casting and Bronze Alloys in Ancient China (Canberra: Australian National University, 1961); W. Thomas Chase, with the assistance of Jung May Lee, Ancient Chinese Bronze Art: Casting the Precious Sacral Vessel (New York: China

House Gallery, China Institute in America, 1991). See also Bagley, Shang Retual Bronzes.

4. An older but useful study is that of Zheng Liangshu BRB #f, Yih shi sangh muzxang yanjiu 8 KE. # HER HEA (Funeraty ceremony, tombs, and the Classic of Rites) (Tatpet: Tatwan Chunghwa Publishing, 1971). See also Cho-yun Hsti and Katheryn M. Linduff, Western Chou Ciufization (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988), chaps. 5, 6, and 7.

5. E.g., Hayashi Minao, In Sha jidai seidoki no Renkyat RE Rt KR a A BO AE 3%, (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1984); Sarah Allan, “Myth and Meaning in Shang Bronze Motifs,” Early China 11-12 (1985-87): 283-89. An accessible introduction to the iconography of early jades, in Chinese and English, can be found in Teng Shu-p’ing BB ike-F, Guol gugong bowuyuan cang xinshigishidai yugi tulu AES ELA ay HT 4 SAE TK, BS le (Illustrated catalogue of Neolithic jades in the National Palace Museum) (Taipei: National Palace Museum, 1992). 6. Jessica Rawson has pioneered this field. Rawson, “Statesmen or Barbarians? The Western Zhou as Seen Through Their Bronzes,” Proceedings of the British Academy 75 (1989): 71-95. 7. K. C. Chang, Art, Myth and Ritual: The Path to Poktical Authority in Ancient China

(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983), 124-25; see also 1, 41, 110. See also K. C. Chang, “The Animal in Shang and Chou Bronze Art,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 41, no. 2 (December 1981): 552-53.

8. K. C. Chang, “The Chinese Bronze Age: A Modern Synthesis,” in The Great Bronze Age of China, ed. Wen Fong (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1980), 45.

9. Mozi jijie SF 3% A (Taipei: Wenshizhe chubanshe, 1971), 8.303—4. Translation consulted, The Works of Morse, trans. Yi-pao Mei (Taipei: Confucius Publishing Co., 1980), 352-53. 10. Bagley, Shang Ritual Bronzes, 37-38; see also 18-19, 23.

u1. Bagley was among the first to stress the importance of design processes. See also Martin J. Powers, “Unit Style and System Style: A Preliminary Exploration,” in The Integration of Chinese Archaeology and History: An International Symposium,

ed. C. H. Tsang, 2 vols. (Taipei, 1998), 1: 743-91; Jessica Rawson, “Design Systems in Early Chinese Art,” Ovientations 30, no. 9 (November 1999): 49-58.

12. For more on the uses of symmetry in ornament, see Washburn and Crowe, Symmetries of Culture, 43-60.

13. Jessica Rawson, “Ancient Chinese Ritual as Seen in the Material Record,” in State and Court Ritual in China, ed. Joseph P. McDermott (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 42.

Notes to Pages 3i-44 327 14. Ursula Martius Franklin, “The Beginnings of Metallurgy in China: A Comparative Approach,” in George Kuwayama, ed., The Great Bronze Age of China: A Symposium (Seattle, 1983), 94-99, especially 96.

15. [his distinction has been explored by Lothar Ledderose, “Module and Mass Production,” in Proceedings of the International Symposium on Chinese Painting, 4. vols. (Yat-

pet: National Palace Museum, 1992), 821-47. See also Jessica Rawson, “Ancient Chinese Ritual Bronzes: The Evidence from the Tombs and Hoards of the Shang (c. If00—-1050 B.c.) and Western Zhou (c. 1050~771 B.C.) Periods,” Antiquity 67, no. 257 (December 1993): 805-6, 818. 16. See Robert W. Bagley, “Shang Ritual Bronzes: Casting Technique and Vessel Design,” Archives of Asian Art 43 (1990): 8-11; and Chase and Lee, Chinese Bronze Art, 22-31.

17. Robert W. Bagley, “Replication Techniques in Eastern Zhou Bronze Casting,” in Steven Lubar and W. David Kingery, eds., Hzstory from Things: Essays on Material Culture (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian, 1993), 232-36. 18. Ibid., 237-38. 19. So, Eastern Zhou Ritual Bronzes.

20. Michael W. Levine and Jeremy M. Shefner, Fundamentals of Sensation and Perception (Reading: Oxford University Press, 1981), 222, 227. 21. See So, Eastern Zhou Ritual Bronzes, 42. 22. Bagley, “Replication Techniques,” 238-39. 23. Grabar, Mediation of Ornament, 136. 24. Keightley, “Archeology and Mentality,” 111-12.

25. Ledderose, “Module and Mass Production,” especially 826, and 909-31. See also his fascinating study of modular techniques throughout Chinese history: Lothar Ledderose, Ten Thousand Things: Module and Mass Production in Chinese Art (Princeton:

Princeton Untversity Press, 2000). 26. Ledderose, “Module and Mass Production,” 830. 27. Robert Poor, “The Circle and the Square: Measure and Ritual in Ancient China,” Monumenta Serica 43 (1995): 164-65.

28. Zhang Yanyuan jk ik, Lidai minghua ji PEK 4 EF (Famous paintings through the ages), Chinese plus translation in William Reynolds Beal Acker, Some Tang and Pre-T’ang Texts on Chinese Painting (Westport: Hyperion Press, 1954), 178-79; Potts, Flesh and the Ideal, 54-60. 29. Ludwig Bachhofer, A Short History of Chinese Art (New York, 1946), 48-49. 30. Ibid., 86. 31. Gombrich also observed how styles tend to be adapted to the needs and tastes of a society in [he Sense of Order, 197-204. 32. David Freedberg, The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989); see also Susan Barnes and Walter S. Melion, eds., Cultural Differentiation and Cultural Identity in the Visual Arts (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery), 1990. 33. Mary W. Helms, Craft and the Kingly Ideal: Art, Trade and Power (Austin: Untversity of Texas Press, 1993), 13.

328 Notes to Pages 44-54 34. Richard Hebdige, Swbcultures: The Meaning of Style (London: Routledge, 1979), 5-19.

35. John Ontans, “Idea and Product,” 66-67. 36. Ibid. 37. Helms, Kzngly Ideal, 1s. 38. White, Identity and Control, 199. 39. Helms, Kzngly Ideal, 69. 40. Grabar, Mediation of Ornament, 4s.

Chapter 2 1. Michael Baxandall, Pacnting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy (Oxford: Clar-

endon Press, 1972), 37-38. 2. For an erudite guide to Classical Chinese texts and their dating, see Michael Loewe, Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide (Berkeley: Society for the Study of Early China, Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 1993).

3. Hsu Cho-yun #22, “Cong Zhouli zhong tuice yuangu di funii gongzuo” HE Jel #2 PSE eS He LYE (Drawing inferences from the Zhouli regarding women’s work in ancient times), in Os gu bian & 4 (Taipei: Lianjing chuban shiye, 1989), 305-6. 4. Zhou li xhushu ji buxheng Jel #2 i=. Gt. BR 4 IE, Shisan jing xhushu + = Ei HR ed. (Taipei: Shijie shuju, 1969), 2.8a—gb. 5. Ibid., 2.9a—b

6. Ibid., 2.9. 7. For example, John Knoblock, trans., Xunzz: A Translation and Study of the Complete Works, 3 vols. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988), 2: 61, translates as follows: “When a skilled artisan is devoted to exact measurements [du F£], he is sure to be economical [je Bp].” I will offer a different translation later in this chapter. 8. Liji jijie F230. AAR (The Book of Rates with collected annotations), ed. Sun Xidan i Ar 2 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, Xinhua shudian Beijing faxingsuo faxing, 1989), 49.1268—69.

9. Ibid.

10. Zeng Yongyi # *K #&, Yi chema kao 178% # (A study of carriages as described in the Book of Retes and Manners) (Taipei: Zhonghua shuju, 1971), 35-42.

1. Guoyu 3%, ed. Shanghai Normal University Classical Texts Collation Group (Shanghat: Shanghai gujt chubanshe, 1978), 1.37. 12. Ibid., 1.38 13. Ibid., 1.38

14. The commentators go into considerable debate attempting to decide the true identity of the various articles of clothing listed in this passage. This is a worthy enterprise, but the precise nature of the article cannot always be determined, although the general usage may be clear enough. Therefore on occasion I may use an English-language term with similar connotations. In this case, the ceremonial jade tablet used in court is rendered as “scepter” because its ceremonial function 1s

similar to that of the European scepter.

Notes to Pages 54-66 329 15. James Legge, ed. and trans., [he Chinese Classics, 3d ed., 5 vols. (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1960), 5: 36-38. 16. Zuo xhuan hui jian, coram. 'Takezoe Shin’ichiro 77 48 — BB (Taipei: Guangwen shuju, 1961), 2: 13-15. 17. James Legge, trans., [he Chinese Classics, 3d ed., 5 vols. (Hong Kong, 1960), LA: 55:

18. Li, 35.933; translation consulted James Legge, trans., Lz chi: Book of Rates, 2 vols., reprint ed., Ch’u Chat and Winberg Chat (New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books, 1967), 2: 73. 19. Legge, Classics, 1: 371.

, 20. Liji, 16.458—59. 21. Thanks to Angela Sheng for advice interpreting this passage. 22. Legge, Classics, 5: 107. 23. Guoyu 3.109-110.

24. Keightley, “Archaeology and Mentality,” 110. 25. Angus Fletcher, A/egory: The Theory of a Symbolic Mode (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1964), 40. 26. Ibid., 59. 27. Ibid., 6o. 28. Ibid., 88.

29. In an otherwise brilliant study, David Keightley holds on to the nineteenthcentury notion of national mentalities, speaking of “an East Coast disposition to manipulate and constrain [being] confirmed by a closer look at pot construction. Unlike the more practically shaped Northwest pots, most of which would have been built up Aokstically by coiling and shaping at one time, many of the characteristic East

Coast pots ... would have required the separate molding and piecing together of several elements—feet, stand, legs, spout, neck, handle, and so on, in a prescriptive method of manufacture. This distinction between holistic and prescriptive is of fundamental importance to my attempt to link artifacts to mentality” (“Archaeology and Mentality,” 97).

Chapter 3 1. Grabar, Mediation of Ornament, 128-29.

2. Karl Marx, “Production and Consumption,” in Berel Lang and Forest Williams, eds., Marxism and Art: Writings in Aesthetics and Criticism (New York: Longman, 1972), 35.

3. Arjun Appadurai has refined Marx’s theories to show how social value, once embodied in objects, can shape many kinds of social exchange. See Arjun Appadurat, “Introduction: Commodities and the Politics of Value,” in The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, ed. Arjun Appadurai (Cambridge: Cambridge Untversity Press, 1986), 3-63. 4. See Grabar, Mediation of Ornament, 22-27. 5. Arnheim, W/zsual Thinking, 154-55. 6. Cited in ibid., 155.

330 Notes to Pages 66-76 7. Ibid., 156.

8. Ursula Martius Franklin, “The Beginnings of Metallurgy in China: A Comparative Approach,” in George Kuwayama, ed., The Great Bronze Age of China: A Symposium (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1983), 96; Keightley also comments on this passage, “Archaeology and Mentality,” 101. 9. Helms, Kengly Ideal, 160.

10. One is reminded of E. H. Gombrich’s observation that “it is the contrast between order and disorder that alerts our perception” (Gombrich, Sense of Order, 6). 11. Gombrich (abid., 290-94) addresses this classical problem. See also Norman Crowe, Nature and the Idea of a Man-Made World (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1995), esp. 63-69. 12. Robert C. Tucker, ed., Marx-Engels Reader (New York: Norton, 1972), 235. 13. Etienne Balazs, Chinese Cimization and Bureaucracy, trans. H. M. Wright (New Haven: Yale Untversity Press, 1964), 121; Su Xun & 74), “Tian zhi” W #!) (The land

tenure system), in Mu Gengcai 4 F and Ma Jiannone &# R, eds., Su Xun ji &f 14) 46 (The collected works of Su Xun) with notes by Qiu Shaohua Rf sy 3 (Beijing, 2000), 41. 14. Tucker, Marx-Engels Reader, 238. 15. Bagley, Shang Ritual Bronzes, 20.

16. Jan Deregowskt, “Illusion and Culture,’ in I[/usion in Nature and Art, ed. R. L. Gregory and E. H. Gombrich (New York: Scribner, 1973), 161—91. 17. Guoyu, 4\.156—57

18. What is translated here as “signs” is the character vhangt. “Ceremonial vessels” is my rendering for wv4 (things), following the third century a.D. commentator Wei Zhao, who glosses wu4 as “large vessels.” Note that w4 1s parallel to de2 (virtue). The ceremonial vessels were the material means of displaying virtue. 19. Guoyu, 2B: 64-65.

20. Ruan Yuan [7 (1764-1849), Yan jing shi ji Ee @ I (The Studio of Polished Classics collection), 3 vols., ed. Yang Jialuo (Taipei: World Press, 1964), 1: 197.

21. The inscription contains several unusual characters. For the original inscription and a transcription, see Gilbert L. Mattos, “Eastern Zhou Bronze Inscriptions,” in New Sources of Early Chinese Hestory: An Introduction to the Reading of Inscriptions and

Manuscnpts, ed. Edward L Shaughnessy (Berkeley: Society for the Study of Early China and the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 1997), 97-99. 22. Chongz @, literally means “lofty; sublime.” The gloss, however, interprets it as “ornament.” My translation incorporates this. The underlying idea is that their dignity was displayed in the ornaments that determined their appearance. 23. Guoyu, 2B: 65-66. 24. Ibid. 25. One of the most conspicuous uses of xiang KR in pre-Qin texts is its occurrences in the Book of Changes, where it refers to the hexagrams of that work. Clearly

this is a highly technical sense derived from some more basic idea. The Book of Changes itself speaks of celestial configurations such as constellations as xzang. 26. Pauline Yu, Ibe Reading of Imagery in Chinese Poetic Tradition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), 65. For an extended discussion of x/ang, see 39-43.

Notes to Pages 76-88 331 27. Yani chungin jishi FAR AK FE (Yanzi’s Annals and collected commentaties) (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1961), 2.135-37. Hereafter Yanzi. 28. Takezoe, Zuo xhuan 2: 10-16. See also Legge, The Chinese Classics, 5: 38, 40.

29. Hayashi Minao MUAH, “Tenshi no isho no juni sho” AR-FORROF —%, Shirin 52, no. 6 (1969): 37-89, esp. 74-80. 30. Takezoe, Zuo xhuan, 2: 15. 31. Ibid.; Lez 31.855—-56.

32. It goes without saying that the nature/artifice dialectic discussed here and by Helms is not that which was constructed toward the end of the eighteenth century. The eighteenth-century solution familiar to many today, however, was only one attempt to articulate a more fundamental difference that many societies have wrestled with. It would be naive to confuse that particular interpretation of the nature/artifice dialectic with the dialectic itself, just as it would be natve to think that no one ever noticed the difference between homo- and heterosexual practices until the term “sender” took on its current, more theorized sense.

Chapter 4 1. For the development of writing as a mode of authorization in ancient China, see Mark Edward Lewis, Writing and Authority in Early China (Albany: SUNY Press, 1999), esp. 78-83. 2. Mary Helms 1n Craft and the Kingly Ideal: Art, Trade and Power (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1993) cites Donald Tuzin’s work on the Atrapesh (Soczal Complexity in the Making: A Case Study Among the Arapesh of New Guinea |London: Routledge]), ar-

suing, “In their roles as social and political administrators of artistic-ceremonial activities, master artisans not only acquire a considerable authority base but can influence public policy by either agreeing to contribute to future ceremonies or by threatening to withhold such support” (Helms, p. 72). 3. La Xueqin, Eastern Zhou and Qin Civilizations, trans. K. C. Chang (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), 466-67. 4. Graham, Desputers, 306-11. 5. ZZ, 10.353-55; Legge, Texts of Taoism, 1: 286-87 6. ZZ, 10.334—-36; Legge, I: 277-78. 7. LL, 10.334-35. 8. See Xue He and Xu Kegian, X/angin faxue sixiang ziliao yizhu KR KS B78 A

#} S€ 7 (Elucidation and commentary on materials for pre-Qin legal thought) (Haimen county: Jiangsu guji chubanshe, 1990), II. 9. ZZ, 10.330—36; Legge, with minor changes, 1: 277-78. 10. Graham, Dzsputers, 19.

ur. Xunzi jishi 4 F #4 (Xunzi and assembled commentaries), ed. Li Disheng (Taipei: 1991), 10.202—4; cf. Knoblock, 124. 12. XUN, 10.195. 13. ZZ, 9.336; Legge, 1: 277-78. 14. Ibid.

15. Hsu, “Cong Zhouk zhong,” 305-16.

332 Notes to Pages 88-96 16. See, e.g., Xiong Chuanxin f& #47, “Chuguo di sizhi ye” # BY 4 24 (The silk industry in the state of Chu), Jianghan ji 1X 7% 4% 1982, no. 8: 62-65; Wang Shixiang

Ett ZB, Zhongeuo gudai qigong zashu F BW & KRiR THE (The various lacquer crafts in ancient China) Wenwu 1979, no. 3: 49-55. 17. Satd Taketoshi 44 fk 84, Chigoku kodai kogyoshi no kenkya F WS KRTAO

A 3%, (A study of craft industry in ancient China) (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kébunkan, 1962). 18. Lothar von Falkenhausen, Suspended Music: Chime-Bells in the Culture of Bronze Age

China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 44. 19. Jonathan Powis, Amstocracy (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984), 7. 20. Thomas Crow, Painters and Public Life in Eighteenth-Century Paris (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), 107-8.

21. Zhouk, 39.2a. ,

22. Puett, Ambivalence of Creation, 64-70.

23. Lest the reader find such a claim petty or quaint, she should think again. American art historians of the mid-to-late twentieth century often tried to trace everything new in Chinese art to “Western” influence. While most of these arguments have been abandoned as forced, nonetheless what was really at stake was human agency. Naturally art historians could not deny that paintings of the Han, Tang, or late Ming were produced by Chinese artists, so in order to claim credit for the power of invention, they tried to trace Chinese production to an abstraction called “the West.” 24. Mattos, “Eastern Zhou Bronze Inscriptions,” 97.

25. Zheng Xuan’s commentary on this line reads: “To carefully consider the appropriateness of [an artifact’s] color, shape, surfaces, form and execution so as to

govern them” F#R AGW BA BAZ BRGZ. 26. Zhoul,, 39.1a. 27. GuoyUu, 1.24—25.

28. Ibid.

29. Hsu and Linduff, Western Chou Cithzation, 231. 30. Sato, Kogyo shi, 42-43. It is worth noting that he also found alternative terms for what appears to be much the same office. 31. Zhouh, 39.1b.

32. Zheng Xuan glosses this character as “halberd.” 33. Guoyu, 4.3713. See also Sato, Kogyo shi, 46. 34. Li, Eastern Zhou, 60, 72, 121. 35. Li, Eastern Zhou, 470.

36. Ibid., 61-62. 37. Hsu, Transition, 99. 38. Guoyu, 6.226.

39. Ibid. 40. Sato, Kogyo shi, 43. Al. Li ji, 35.933; Legge, Li Chi, 2: 73. 42. XuNz1, 9.183—6; Knoblock, 2: 107.

43. Hsu, Transition, 126-29.

Notes to Pages 97-103 333 44. Ceremonial officers would draw upon the same body of regulations. The Zuo

vhuan, in a passage referring to the late sixth century, mentions officers of the “pheasant” emblem who “presided over the five classes of craft workers. They saw to the provision of implements and utensils and to the correctness of the du KE and measures of capacity (dang €) keeping (the apportionment of resources) equable among the people (min K.)” (Legge, Classics, 5: 666-67). 45. Falkenhausen, Suspended Music, 44.

46. Ibid., 63. This latter concern does not appear contradictory to me, as the Book of Songs provides instances in which noblemen were buried alive in the tombs of their superiors. See Chang, “Chinese Bronze Age,” 45. 47. Moz, Appendix, 748. 48. Li shi chunqiu piaoshit, ed. Chen Qtyou (Taipei: Huazheng shuju, 1985), 1.52-53 (hereafter LSCQ).

Chapter 5 1. White, Identity and Control, 28.

2. Helms has identified this phenomenon in a number of pre-industrial societies. Helms, Kengly Ideal, 72-77. 3. Guoyu, 1.9.

4. Thomas Aquinas, cited in Martin Warnke, Pohtical Landscape: The Art Hostory of Nature (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995), 95-96. 5. Hsu, Transition, 70-75, 89-91. 6. Legge, Classics, 5: 636, 639.

7. Ibid., 5: 497, 500. 8. For early evidence for the mandate theory see Herlee G. Creel, The Origins of Statecraft in China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), 82-99. 9. Benjamin I. Schwartz, The World of Thought in Ancient China (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1985), 47. 10. My translation here relies in part on Legge’s translation of a similar passage in

the Zuo xhuan. One cannot be certain, however, that the poems referred to were satires in any strict sense. From context it is clear that they possessed some critical content. I. Guoyu 1.9—10.

12. See, for example, Legge, Classics 5: 422, 424, 636, 639. 13. Ibid., 5: 282-83. 14. Ibid., 5: 674-75. 15. Ibid., 5: 421, 423. See also Sato, Kogyo shi, 47.

16. I am grateful to Cho-yun Hsu for this insight. ‘The situation for craft officers in Han times differed markedly from that of Eastern Zhou times. Under the conditions of imperial government, it was to the advantage of craft officers to encourage large-scale projects so that they could sell government articles for private profit or to

receive bribes from prospective contractors. For examples of such abuses, see Martin J. Powers, Art and Pohktical Expression in Early China (New Haven: Yale Untversity Press, 1991), 312-17.

334 Notes to Pages 104-19 17. Legge, Classics, §: 462, 466.

18. Guoyu, 6.244—46, discusses the dragon banners of the nobility. Zheng Xuan, commenting on the Lyi, also says the nobility had dragon banners, citing Erya as his source. Liz, 31.857.

19. Guoyu, 10.362-64, provides an interpretation of a hexagram. Throughout, thunder is interpreted as signifying martial or virile authority. Guanzr qingxhongpian xinquan (A new, annotated edition of the gingxhong [economic] chapters of the Guanz) (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1979), 13.556—-60, speaking of a great leader, says: “His orders issue forth like thunder; his actions are like wind and rain. He comes and

goes [makes his decisions] independently, and none can rein him in.” In ZZ, 30.1020—22, the author constructs an allegory of a wonderful “sword” (good government) with which one can rule the world. To express the authority conferred by this “sword,” ZZ says: “this sword, once used, can shake the world like thunder and lightning, so that the feudal lords all around will pay court and follow your orders.” 20. Legge, Iso chuan, 462, 466. 21. Ibid. Sat6, Kogyo shi, 44—45, also cites this passage to show that the gong had

an office. It is not clear that he understands the difference between genuine bureaucratic offices and the more feudal arrangement implied by these terms. 22. Ibid. 23. Ibid. 24. Hsu, Transition, 107. 25. [bid., 107-29. 26. Ibid., 112. 27. Guoyu, 3.122—23.

28. Ibid., 3.130—3I.

29. Legge, Classis, 5: 561, 565-66. 30. ZZ, 20.169—70; Yanzi, 2.96-99. 31. Falkenhausen, Suspended Music, 51.

Chapter 6 |

1. In her study of Chinese metalcasting and smithing techniques, Emma Bunker notes that Han sources indicate the use of special tools developed to “inlay, file, secute, and burnish” metal. See Julia M. White and Emma C. Bunker, with contributions by Chen Peifen, Adornment for Eternity: Status and Rank in Chinese Ornament (Denver: Denver Art Museum, 1994), 42. 2. 50, Retual Bronzes, 37-64. 3. Arnheim, Vzsual Thinking, 283-86, 288. 4. See Gombrich’s discussion of this effect in Sense of Order, 256. 5. Jingmen—Shashi Railway Archaeological Team, Baoshan chu mu él, ly EK (The Chu period tombs at Baoshan), 2 vols. (Beijing: Wenwu Press, 1991), I: 213-16, 277. 6. Gombrich, Sense of Order, 256. 7. Levine and Shefner, Fundamentals, 222, 227. 8. See Gombrich, citing the work of George Bain, in Sense of Order, 85. See also

Alberto Donaire, “Lace-Design Methods in Late Medieval Spain,” in World Art:

Notes to Pages 119-29 335 Themes of Unity in Diversity, ed. Irvin Lavin, 3 vols. (University Park: Pennsylvania State

University Press, 1989), I: 231-36.

9. Lawrence Sickman and Alexander Soper, [he Art and Architecture of China (London: Penguin Books, 1968), 36. 10. Ibid., 34. u1. Thomas Lawton, Chinese Art of the Warring States Period: Change and Continuity,

480-222 B.C. (Washington, D.C.: Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution; Bloomington: distributed by Indiana University Press, 1982), 20. 12. See Chang, Art, Myth and Ritual, 61-80. 13. Whether Shangd: refers to a single, controlling God or many gods remains debatable. Missionaries tend to prefer the former interpretation. I lean toward the latter. For a general discussion of Shang religion, see Poo Mu-chou, Zhwexun yojt xhi fu (In search of personal blessings) (Taipei: Yunchen wenhua, 1995), 39-48. 14. K. C. Chang, Early Chinese Civihzation (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1976), 193-94. 15. Ibid., 172. 16. Puett, Ambivalence of Creation, 86-91.

17. Jenny So, “The Inlaid Bronzes of the Warring States Period,” in The Great Bronze Age of China, ed. Wen Fong (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Att), 303-20, esp. 308-9. 18. Chang, Art, Myth and Ritual, 44—47 and 64-65; Graham, Desputers, 107-8. 19. Graham, Desputers, 107. 20. Moxz, 12.581; translation adapted from Mei, Works, 463-65. 21. Ibid.

22. Yan, 2.128. 23. Ibid., 2.128—29.

24. Ibid. 25. If Yanzi’s sentiments sound like Moz1’s there may be good reason for it. As

early as the ninth century Liu Zongyuan had argued that the Yanz7 was in fact a product of the Mohist school. Liu Zongyuan, vol. 3 of Tangsong ba da jia sanwen xinshang,

ed. Lu Qinegfei (Taipei: Digiu chubanshe, 1992), 1: 77-78. 26. Li 72, 17.489—90. cf. Legge, Li Chi, 1: 299. 27. Gombrich, Sense of Order, 171. 28. Moz, 1.51; translation adapted from Mei, 46. 29. Movi, 1.52-53; translation adapted from Mei, 46—48. 30. In this kind of construction the ww 1s not negative. Many thanks to P. J. Ivanhoe for this tip. 31. Moz, 8.306—7; translation adapted from Mei, Works, 354. 32. Lothar von Falkenhausen, “Late Western Zhou laste,” Etudes Chinotses 18, nos. 1-2 (Spring-Fall, 1999): 143-77. 33. Ibid., 172.

34. For a discussion of the rhetoric of classicism in early imperial China see Martin Powers, “The Dialectic of Classicism in Early Imperial China,” Art Journal 47, no. 3 (1988): 20-25. 35. Mozz, 1.51.

336 Notes to Pages 130-42 36. Yanz1, 2.96—-99.

37. Cho-yun Hsu shows that the Warring States period witnessed the growth of private markets and the rise of professional groups apart from the court. It was these artisans who must have provided elaborately decorated articles to fashionable urbanites. Hsu, Ivansition, 116-17, 126—30. 38. Powers, Art and Pohtical Expression, Chapters 1 and 2.

39. Han Feixi jisht ## 92 -F 46 # (Han Feizi and collected annotations), ed. Chen Qiyou FR 4 HK (Taipei: Huazheng shuju, 1959), 632-34. Translation based upon W. K. Liao, The Complete Works of Han Fei Tzu, 2 vols. (London: A. Probsthain, 1959),

2: 39-40. ,

Ao. It 1s difficult to determine exactly when the use of this dark purple came into use. eng Rensheng, in his Lacquer Wares of the Chu Kingdom (Hong Kong: The Woods, 1992), 101, fig. 16, describes a mid—Warring States lacquer _y¢ washer as having been painted in red, yellow, purple, and silver. Al. Han feiz, 11A.626—7; Liao, 2: 36.

42. Hsu, Transition, 128-29. Sato believes that craftsmen began to work independently as early as the Chunqtu period, but grants that craftsmen really came into their own during the Warring States period. Sato, Kégyo shi, 48-49. 43. ZZ, 19.658; translation consulted, Legge, Texts of Taoism, 2: 22. 44. ZZ, 1.14—17; translation adapted from Legge, Texts of Taoism, 1: 168. 45. LSCO, 1.52-53.

Chapter 7 1. Hsu and Linduff, Western Chou Ciuhzation, 256.

2. Tu Cheng-sheng #4iE.%, ““Bianhu gimin’ di chuxian ji gi lishi yiyi—bianhu

gimin di yanjiu zhi yi” ‘$m P FRR’ 6) bRRE ER EA PRR AESZ— (The emergence of peasant household registration and its historical import—patt one of “studies of peasant household registration”), Léshi yuyan yanjiu suo jikan 54, no. 3 (1983): 77-11. 3. Hsu, Transition, 93. 4. Collins, Divine Cosmos, 16.

5. David Keightley, “Craft and Culture: Metaphors of Governance in Early China,” in Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Sinology, Academia Sinica

(Taipei, 1989), 31-70. 6. Xue and Xu, Xzangin, 31.

7. Ibid., 33, cites a Guanzi passage that distinguishes between /a 7k, Mi 7#, and ling >. 8. See Hsu, Transition, 98. 9. Xue and Xu, Xzangin, 55-56.

10. Tu Cheng-sheng 44 iE, “Zhoudai fengjian zhidu de shehui jiegou, fengjian yu zongfa” FA] Lt Hl BO 44 @ 42 HR, 3432 HARA (Zhou dynasty feudal institutions and social structure: feudalism and the kinship system), Zhongyang yanjiuynan shiyue shtyu yanjiusuo jikan 50, no. 3 (September 1979): 584-88. I am grateful to Angela Sheng for this reference.

Notes to Pages 143-55 337 ut. Frank Whigham, “Elizabethan Aristocratic Insignia,” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 27 (Winter 1985): 327. 12. Ibid. 13. Ibid., 333-34. 14. Ibid., 326. 15. Collins, Dzvine Cosmos, 29.

16. Xue and Xu, Xzanqin, 9. 17. Ibid., 11.

18. “Francis Bacon advised James for England’s good and catalogued knowledge for society’s benefit. The Hermetic cause was no less socially conscious. Giordano Bruno undetstood that the ethic of social utility and public service served as foundation for a reformed society, the goal after which he strived. Elaborating traditional humanist educational values, he argued that all learning and invention were for the well-being of society” (Collins, Dzvene Cosmos, 12).

19. Xue and Xu, Xzanqin, 49-50. 20. Ibid., 137. 21. Ibid., 48. 22. Paraphrase by Pow1s, Avstocracy, 54. 23. Donald Munro, The Concept of Man in Early China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1969), 2—21. 24. Hsu, Transition, 89. 25. Cited in Hanagan, Challenging Authority, xvii. 26. Xue and Xu, Xzanqin, 107. 27. Hsu, China in Transition, 136. 28. Xue and Xu, Xzangin, 48; Keightley, “Craft and Culture,” 43-52. 29. Xue and Xu, Xzanqin, 140. 30. XUN, 12.273-75; cf. Knoblock, Xunz, 2: 182-83. 31. Xunz1, 12.273-75; cf. Knoblock, Xunzi, 2: 182-83.

32. For an analysis of de in both Confucian and Daoist traditions, see P. J. Ivanhoe, “The Concept of De (Virtue) tn the Laoz1,” in ReAgious and Philosophical

Aspects of the Laozi, ed. P. J. Ivanhoe and Mark Csikszentmihalyi (Albany: SUNY Press, 1999), 239-57. 33. Xunz, 10.211; cf. Knoblock, 2: 129. 34. XUN, 10.202—4; cf. Knoblock, Xunzi, 2: 124. 35. XUN, 10.204—5; cf. Knoblock, Xunz, 2: 125.

36. Xunzi, 10.2068; translation adapted from Knoblock, Xunz, 2: 126. The chief difference is in the line: “Not content with this, they also spy on people so as to entrap them, using their privileges to plot people’s demise, hoping to turn the tables against them and bring their enterprises to ruin. But when the people come to their senses they will know of their tuler’s wanton tyranny.” Knoblock has: “Thus they inhibit some and favor others, engaging in espionage and covert schemes, plot after power and foment rebellion. By attempting to overthrow one another’s positions, they only bring on their own ruin and destruction.” It is a difference of emphasis. I have tried to be a bit more literal. 37. Han Petz, 19.1078—79.

338 Notes to Pages Is§—71 38. Xunzi, 5.8586. 39. Xue and Xu, Xzanqin, 161. 40. Collins, Dzwne Cosmos, 6-7.

41. Toulmin, Cosmopols, 127. ! 42. If we understand that historical change is relative along a set of scales, then secularization is a useful concept. It is not a product of the spirit of Western Man, not any other ethnic essence, but is merely an analytical term we use to identify a cultural tool, one that weakens claims for intrinsic, religiously ratified worth and so permits mote flexibility in the assignment of political functions. This tool was employed in Classical China as well as elsewhere on this planet.

Chapter 8 1. Max Loehr, “The Fate of Ornament in Chinese Art,” Archives of Asian Art 21 (1967-68): 1213. For a general analysis of the style and iconography of Former Han works in this tradition, see Wu Hung’s “A Sanpan Shan Chariot Ornament and the Xianerui Design in Western Han Art,” Archives of Asian Art 37 (1984); 38-59. 2. Grabar, Mediation of Ornament, 132-33.

3. The choice of “structure” here is not meant to suggest a framework like a car chassis. The word is more useful in its geological sense, as when we speak of “fibrous structure,” “laminated structure,” or “crystalline structure.” In this usage “structure” describes a semi-periodic pattern consisting of a single shape-unit that gets repeated indefinitely, but not identically, throughout a region of space. 4. Regarding the Zhou Y7, see Willard J. Peterson, “Making Connections: ‘Commentary on the Attached Verbalisations’ of the Book of Change,’ Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 42, 10. I (1982): 67-116. 5. Han Fei, 17.886—89.

6. Yanzl, 596-97.

7. Another version of this story can be found in LSCQ, 828-29. 8. See Graham’s discussion of Yang Zhu’s “retreat to private life” in Desputers, 53-64. 9. Zhuangzi, 20.668; translation based on Legge, Classics, 2: 27-28. 10. Mencius in Legge, Classics, 7, pt. 1, 27. My thanks to P. J. Ivanhoe for this reference. u. White, Identity and Control, 164. 12. See Eric Henry, “The Motif of Recognition in Early China,” Harvard Journal of

Asiatic Studies 47, n0. 1 (1987): 5-30.

13. And so Michael Puett, Ambivalence of Creation, 81-84, notes that it is in the late

Warring States period that ministers come to be construed as creators, what I am referring to as possessing agency. 14. Stephen Jay Gould, Te Mzsmeasure of Man (New York: Norton, 1996), §1.

15. Plato, Izmaeus, trans. Francis M. Cornford (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1959), II. 16. Ibid., 16. 17. Ibid., 19, 37, 22—23.

Notes to Pages 174-82 339 18. Ibid., 24. 19. Mandelbrot, Fractal Geometry, 3-4. 20. Arnheim, Vasual Thinking, 283-84. 21. Zhuangr, 66.

22. Graham early on established this by pointing out Zhuangzi’s use of demonstratives, for this shows that Zhuangzi is speaking of assertions made from a particular “point of view.” A. C. Graham, “Chuang-Tzu’s Essay on Seeing Things as Equal,” Hastory of Regions 9.2-3 (1969-70): 142-43; Chad Hansen, A Daozst Theory of Chinese Thought: A Philosophical Interpretation (New York: Oxford University Press,

1992), 265. Hansen developed this idea, stressing the perspectival nature of statements in Zhuangzi’s philosophy. Hansen, Daozst Theory, 282-84.

23. He further argues against a strong form of relattvism which he believes Hansen attributes to Zhuangzi. See P. J. Ivanhoe, “Was Zhuangzi a Relattvistr” in Paul Kjellberg and Philip J. Ivanhoe, eds., Essays on Skepticism, Relativism and Ethics in the Zhuangzt (New York: SUNY Press, 1996), 196-214. 24. Toulmin, Cosmopolis, 125-29. 25. Cing here refers to circumstances, not feelings. See Hansen, Daoist, 276.

26. Zhuang, 2.5556. 27. Ibid., 2.56.

28. For intelligent discussions in English, see Graham, Desputers, 190, 302 ff; R. P. Peerenboom, The Si/k Manuscripts of Huanglao (Albany: SUNY Press, 1993), 191-97. Peerenboom’s essay includes a brief critique of the views of some Marxist scholars in China. 29. In contrast to Murotani, most Euro-American scholars have assigned a late Warring States date to the Laoz, but recent excavations support an earlier date.

30. Murotani Kuniyuki # 4647, “Shizen kannen no seiritsu ni tsuite’ AA PLS D MLZ) T (The establishment of the concept of zran), Nihon Chugoku gakkaiho A AR BY @ 4k 40 (1988): 16-30. 31. Wang Shishun 4 +#3# and Han Mujun ##38 #, eds., Laoxhuang cidian % Ft 33] #2 (A dictionary of the Laozi and Zhuangz7) (J’nan: Shandong jiaoyu chubanshe: Shandong sheng Xinhua shudian faxing, 1993), 781. 32. Here Zhuangzi uses shz and 07, rather than shiz and fez, but the logic is the same. 33. Zhuangxl, §.220-21. Compare Legge, Texts of Taoism, 1: 234-35; and Graham, Disputers, 190.

34. Some of the best examples of the concern for mental health are the “Xinshu” and “Neiye” essays in the Guanzi. Guanzi jin zhu jin yi "& $A SE 3% (Guanzi with

modern notes and interpretation), annot. Li Mian # #4, 2 vols. (Taipei: Tatwan shangwu yinshuguan, 1988), chaps. 36, 37, and 49 (hereafter Guanz?). 35. It follows, as Hansen notes, not that reality is one, but that it 1s many.

36. Of course, in practice, the artist does not personally “decide” what criteria must be met before audiences will recognize his painted marks as a flowerpot. As a member of a particular cultural and linguistic community, the artist knows the extent to which the audience regards an object’s identity as independent of adjacent objects. See Arnheim, aswal Thinking, 32 ff. 37. Lhuangri, 14.525. Compare Legge, Texts of Taoism, 1: 358.

340 Notes to Pages 182-91 38. The second 4e (gather, unite) is not the original character. My Chinese language software does not contain the required character, so I have substituted the gloss here. For the original, see Guo Qingfan’s edition. 39. Hayashi Minao MUBA, “Chugoku kodai no ibutsu ni atawasareta ‘ki’ no

zuzo tekihydgen” PR GAORDRbD ANE TA)OBARW AH, Toho gakuho 61 (March 1989): I-93, esp. 16. Ao. Hansen, Daoist Theory, 275: 41. Zhuangr, 1.69. Compare Legge, Texts of Taoism, 1: 183.

Chapter 9 I. Lewis, Writing and Authority, 63; see also 73-79. 2. See Knoblock, Xunzi, 1: 4-6.

3. See Li Xintai aT Z8, Oi wenhua daguan FH XAGK, (The culture of the Qi state) (Beying: Zhonggong zhongyang dangxiao chubanshe, Jingxtao Xinhua shudian, 1992): 500-524; Zhi Shui #e7K, “Lun Jixia huanglao zhi xue chansheng di lishi

tiaojian” Zy 4 PBZ BE OY AES AEF (An investigation into the conditions leading to the emergence of Huanglao thought in the Jixia Academy), Nanjing daxue

xuebao vey KF BAR (xhexue, renwen, shehui, kexue AB, AR, OS, AB), (1988—94): 82-83.

4. See Knoblock, Xunzz, 1: 33-35.

5. For a scholarly study of the origins and authorship of the Hyainanzi, see Charles Le Blanc, Huai Nan Tzu: Philosophical Synthesis in Early Han Thought (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1985), 1-2, 21-52. For a detailed analysis of some

of the more technical chapters relating to astronomy, ritual, and topography, see John Majors, Heaven and Earth, chaps. 3-5. This remarkable study is one of a very few that bring to bear a technical understanding of astronomical science on the literature of early Chinese cosmology.

6. At a minimum, I would consider the following essays to belong to this rhe-

torical tradition: La shi chungiu: BA; KAA; Be; Fo1t; BY B; WB; DR, AK;

SC; tHid, Jingfa. ik; Sk; OK; we; WA; 2H; WB; A, Auainanei. £445; IW aay; JR; FRG; ARE; WHOM. Several Guanzi essays and some of the later essays in the Zhuangzi also appear to fall into this rhetorical profile.

7. Liu Weihua #'] 2 3 and Miao Runtian 7 32] 8 trace the development of the Huanglao tradition in stages in “Huanglao sixiang yuanliu” #@ RBM IRA (The origins of Huanglao thought), Wenshizhe X ® WF 1986, no. 1: 24-33. 8. The literature on Huanglao thought has grown explosively in the past decade

and shows no sign of tapering off. Here I can recommend only a few soutces. In addition to articles cited above, Karen Turner, “Theory of Law,” 58—60, provides a good review of the English, Chinese, and Japanese literature on Huanglao theory up to 1989. Wang Xiaobo £ ME j&X, “Hanchu di huanglao zhi zhi yu fajia sixiang” # 47

4 & EZ IGHAR BA (Legalist thought and Huanglao policy of the early Han), Shihuo yuekan I, 10 (1982): 7-30, provides an excellent review of the historiography of interpretation of key Huanglao concepts in this century. Si Xiuwu’s #8] 18K, Huanglao

xueshuo yu Hanchu xhengxhi pingyi & FHL ES Ea FR (The Huanglao tradi-

Notes to Pages 19-95 341 tion of thought and early Han political criticism) (Taipei: Tatwan xuesheng shuju, 1992) is a well-documented study of the human-rights issues raised by the kinds of statements writers in this tradition typically made. John Major has written a detailed study which traces the impact of Huanglao theories on Han dynasty cosmological thought, especially its use by the court in calendrical matters or issues of sovereignty. See Major, Heaven and Earth in Early Han Thought, esp. pp. 11-14 for his views on Huanglao thought. 9. Huo Cunfu € 7 7% and Li Jing & 3%, “Huanglao di falii stxiang yu wenjing zhi

zhi? “eek TE BA RZ, Jilin daxue shehui Rexue xuebao 4 (1985): 15-21, provide a particularly good analysis of the sociohistorical dimension of this school’s activity and in doing so demonstrate how many terms once regarded as mystical actually had pragmatic applications. 10. While David Keightley tried to trace a penchant for bureaucracy back to Shang times, Michael Puett argues that “what we can reconstruct of Bronze Age religion reveals a highly agonistic world in which humans were constantly trying to force impulsive divine powers into roles defined by the living and to convince them to act accordingly.” Michael Puett, To Become a God: Cosmology, Sacrifice, and Self-Divinization in

Early China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002), 78. It would be interesting to investigate whether the agonistic concept of personhood which evolved tn the late

Warring States period may have developed from older practices of self-assertion among elites. This, however, would not alter the fact that an agonistic mode of defining person necessarily liberates individuals from the bonds of lineage. ul. Jingfa KE 7&, ed., The Mawanedui Silk Texts Compilation Committee (Betjing, 1976), 3.

12. Creel may have been the first to figure this out. See Herlee J. Creel, What Is Taoism and Other Studies in Chinese Cultural History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), 83-91 Often the nature and role of bureaucratic theory terms has been discussed mainly in the growing body of literature on so-called Huanglao thought, but this is a term with which no one seems quite pleased. On this problem, see Tu Wei-ming, “The “Thought of Huang-lao’: A Reflection on the Lao Tzu and Huang Ti Texts in the Silk Manuscripts of Ma-wang-tu,” Journal of Asian Studies 39, no. 1 (November 1979): 95—I10. 13. Jenga, 2.

14. Ibid., 1, 2. See Karen Turnet’s analysis of the implications of this idea for natural law in “Theory of Law,” esp. 60—61.

15. Han Feizi, 8: 121. See this author’s discussion of this material, “The Many Meanderings of the Meander in Early China,” in World_Art: Themes of Unity in Diversity,

ed. Irvin Lavin, 3 vols. (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1989) 16. Chen Li-kuei PR #£ reviews the history of the term in “Huainanzi di wuwei lun” if£ 4-69 $8 Az (Huainanzi’s theory of wuwei), Guowen xuebao BH XH FR 17 (1988): 93.

17. Red Pine, trans., Lao-tzu’s Taoteching (San Francisco: Mercury House, 1996), 96. For a study of the “Origin of Wuwet” in English, see Creel, What Is Taoism?, 48-78. On pages 55 and 56, Creel discusses and dismisses the mystical interpretation of this term.

342 Notes to Pages 195-200 18. Some modern Chinese scholars, perhaps too ready to accept Western views, adopted much the same thesis. Ch’ten Mu imagined a dichotomy between Laozi the pragmatic politician and Zhuangzi the mystic, and a similar thesis was later promoted by Herlee Creel (Creel, What Is Taotsm?, 37-47). In keeping with this, Ch’ien interpreted Zhuangzi’s descriptions of the dao as a normative standard that an ideal monatch should pursue through self-cultivation. The mystical theory, with its appeal to transcendent powers, is reminiscent of that of early modern Europe. This is why, when turning to wuwei, Ch’ien was forced to deny Zhuangzi’s dialectic. He claimed instead that the pragmatic Laozi posed dichotomies (male/female, honor/shame, black/white) rather than dialectical pairs, and came down squarely on the positive end every time. Laozi, in other words, became a Plato wannabe. Ch’ien Mu 3% 4%, “Daojia di zhengzhi sixiang” @ KA9HK BAA (Daoist political thought), Daojiao wenhua 8 AX XAG 1, no. 5 (1978): 5—6, 8.

19. Creel, in What Is Taowsm?, 65-70, came close, but still concludes (p. 78), in sympathy with Ch’ien Mu, that “the Taoist concept of ‘non-action,’ [was] based in a desire to withdraw from and take no part in the struggle of human affairs.” 20. Ssu, Huanglao xueshuo, 12.

21. R. P. Peerenboom, “Natural Law in the Huang-lao Boshu,” Philosophy East and West 40, no. 3 (1990), 309-30, esp. 321, 313. 22. For a discussion of the problem of objectivity in pre-Legalist Warring States

thought, see Ishida Hidemi 4 8 # #, “Kanshi ‘Shihen’ to Junshi ‘Seimeiron’ to ni

okeru ‘kotoba’ no mondai” (#+) Bim & (HT) ESM eles s*cer \P” D fe] x2 (The problem of “words” in four chapters of Gwanz7 and in the “Recttfication of Names” chapter of the Xwnzz), Nihon Chugoku gakkaiho 37 (1985): 47-60. 23. Chen Qtyou, Han Fe7z72, 345.

24. Xue and Xu, Xzangin, 80.

25. Han Ferzz, 67. 26. White, Identity and Control, 163, 197.

27. Han Feiz, 6.377; cf. Liao, 1: 200. This metaphor resonates closely with passages in the Laoz. See Keightley, “Craft and Culture,” 41-42. 28. LSCO, 3.171-72.

29. Ibid., 3.173. Another essay in the Li shi chunqiu 1s entitled “On Squareness” and begins with the remark that “Whosoever would govern his state [well] must first clearly distinguish [social roles]. When [the proper relations between] the six relationships of ruler and minister, father and son, man and wife, are established, then the subordinate member will not interfere [with the responsibilities] of the superior, while the superior will not lord it over the subordinate.” Ibid., 25.1669—72. 30. Jzngfa (Beying, 1976), 3.

31. The literature on xzng/ming in early bureaucratic theory has blossomed in the past decade or so. Chung-ying Cheng’s early discussion 1s full of insights, but at that time it was not yet clear that these were bureaucratic terms. See Cheng Chung-ying, “Metaphysics of Tao and Dialectics of Fa: An Evaluation of the HTSC in Relations to Lao Tzu and Han Fei and an Analytical Study of the Interrelationships of ‘Tao, Fa, Hsing, Ming and Li,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 10 (1983): 251-84, esp. 270~74. For a

more recent study, see Michael Puett, “Nature and Artifice: Debates in Late Warring

Notes to Pages 20-7 343 States China Concerning the Creation of Culture,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 57 (December 1997): 471-518. 32. An entire essay was devoted to this term in the /zmg/a. Its implications will be

explored in a later chapter dealing with bureaucracy and the laws of nature. 33. T (Regarding the place of the terms yin and xun in Huainanz?s “Primal Dao” chapter). Nippon Chuagoku gakkai ho 38 (1986): 1-16.

Hayashi Minao AT AA. “Chigoku kodai no ibutsu ni arawasareta ‘ki’ no zuz6 teki

hydgen” P Eb AO ia Rb XH TR] OBA KHL (Concerning the representation of gz in extant artifacts from ancient China). 10h0 gakuho 61 (Mar. 1989): 1-93.

——. In Shui jidai seidoki no Rkenkyai BR Jet 1 AS O AF (Researches into bronze artifacts of the Shang and Zhou periods). Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1984.

—_——. “Tenshi no ish6 no juni sho” K--O RS O-- == (The twelve emblems — of the imperial robes). Shain 52, no. 6 (1969): 37— 89.

Ishida Hidemi 4 8 # &. “Kanshi shihen to Junshi ‘Seimeiron’ to ni okeru ‘kotoba’

nomondai” (#--) Diy & (a)F) ESRMLICK( 2°S2 ULI ORA (The problem of “words” in four chapters of Guwanzi and in the “Rectification of Names” chapter of the Xunzi). Nippon Chugoku gakkai ho 37 (1985): 47-60.

Murotani Kuniyuki # 4 #847. “Shizen kannen no seiritsu ni tsuite” § ABAD IZ) T (The establishment of the concept of gran). Nihon Chigoku gakkat ho 40 (1988): 16-30.

Sato Taketoshi (47% HX. Chagoku kodai Rogyoshi no kenkyh P fH AK, LE PO BF 3, (A study of craft industry in ancient China). Tokyo: Yoshikawa kébunkan, 1962.

BLANK PAGE

Index

abstraction, 66—67, 71, 79-82 passim Baxandall, Michael, 47 agency: artistic, 90, 98; divine, 121, 174, Berkeley, George, 66 176, 179, 249, 284; individual, 3, 9, 85, Brecht, Bertolt, 219 174, 179, 210, 213, 216, 220, 223, 225, Brown, Peter, 293 271, 297, 301, 303; personal, 3, 5, 169— Bryson, Norman, 217, 219-22, 32447 70, 179, 186-87, I91—92, 197, 201-2, bureaucracy and natural law, 249-50, 308; political, 5, 11, 106, 139, 176, 206, 253-54, 257, 283 230, 271, 287, 314; popular, 26, 104, bureaucratic: office, 99, 147, 200, 207-8; 109, 128, 274-75, 276, 289-92 passim, practice, 204—7, 245, 248; system, 17,

303-4 20-21, 298-300, 304—6; terms, 195,

allegory, 7, 62-63 199—200, 205, 232, 268, 277-83 pasAllen, Sarah, 347m1 sim, theory, 20, 22, 122, 140-42, 146— allusive design, 76-80 passim 47, 149-53 passim, 159, 187-88, 190—

Aquinas, Thomas, 100 209 passim, 224-25, 276, 287-88, atistocracy, 9, 16, 89, Io9—I0, 205 292—93, 298, 313, 316 Aristotle, 9, 11, 174, 176, 21I—I2, 34474 bureaucrats, 138, 188, 199, 201, 203, 224,

artisan, 44, 89, 92, 98, 262 278

Arnheim, Rudolf, 10-11, 66, 172, 180 Burton, Robert, 208—9 authority: God’s, 139, 145-46, 157, 174—

76 passim, 191, 215—16; pictorial, 79; Cao Can, 289, 291-92 political, 14-15, 23-25, 66, 73-74, 81, Cave, E., 275 1O4—5, 121-22, 138-40, 148-56 passim, ceremonial grading system (4), 59-61,

200, 200, 215—16 158-59

autonotny, 3—4, 133, 196, 214 Chambers, Ross, 5, 83 Chang, K. C., 23-24, 121

Bachhofer, Ludwig, 38—43, 111, 233 Chen She, 271—73

Bacon, Francis, 146, 337718 Cheng, Chung-ying, 253-54, 342731 Bagley, Robert, 27, 29, 31-32, 34, 36, 72, Childs-Johnson, Elizabeth, 17, 346m

98 . Clark, T. J., 7-8

Bal, Mieke, 216-17, 222—23 Collins, Stephen, 15s—16, 139, 145-46, 157

Ban Gu, 273 Confucius, 14, 86-87, 142, 152, 182 Barthes, Roland, 217 Conkey, Margaret, 3

370 Index cosmology/cosmos, 22, 174, 254, 280, Franklin, Ursula Martius, 31, 67

282 Freedberg, David, 41

Courbet, Gustave, 7 craft, 44-49, 57-58, 83, 88-104 passim, Galileo, 11, 311

140-41, 149 Gao You, 134, 231, 256

craftsman, I, 33, 55, 83, 96-98, 268 generic condition, 180-84 passim, 187, Creel, Herlee, 193, 195, 341”12, 34218 209, 229, 233, 242, 244, 265, 314

Crow, Thomas, 89 geometry: in art, 2, 36, 164-65, 218; of

Crowe, Donald,7 nature, 265, 282-83, 286, 290; of

social order, 11, 137-39, 158, 244, 270,

Danmu Gong, 107 300, 304, 306; of thought, 9, 171-72,

Deregowski, Jan, 72 175, 209

Descartes, 211, 216 God, I, II, 45, 121, 150, 174-75, 215, dialectical reasoning, 10, 67—68, 156, 223-24

172-73, 218 Gombrich, E. H., 116-17, 126

dragon, 104, 167—69, 182, 187, 193 Gong Mengzi, 123-24

Du Halde, J. B., 275, 296 Gongsun Yang, 141-42

Duke Huan, 59 Goody, Jack, 212, 311

Duke Jing, 124 Gould, Stephen Jay, 170, 310

Duke of La Force, 148 Grabar, Oleg, 2, 36, 46, 65-67, 164

Duke Shao, 100 orade, ceremonial, 18-19, 49-59 passim, Duke Zhuang, 59-60 103, 125, 137, 141, 158, 242, 278, 314

| Graham, A. C., 86, 122—23, 143, 173, 273

E1senstadt, S. N., 20-21, 203 eraphic paradigm, 3, 6, 9, 12-13, 22, 64, Emperor Gaozu (Liu Bang), 272-73, 120, 138, 146, 165, 210, 257, 297,

288, 292 309—13 passim, 317

Emperor Wen, 293-94 Guan Zhong, 123

epistemology, 2, 10, 139, 171, 179-80, 184, Guanzi, 86, 94—96, 140, 145, 149-50, 156,

198, 213-24, 241, 243, 310, 315 189, 275-76 Guo Xiang, 85, 300-301, 303, 35375,

Falkenhausen, Lothar von, 88, 97, 109, 35307 129

familial society, 14, 46, 49, 94-95, 123, Han Feizi, 131, 155, 201, 224, 301

125, 149 Hansen, Chad, 173, 185-86

feudal: concepts, 87—88, 134, 167,178-19, | Hatcher, Evelyn, 6 268, 278, 297, 301—4 passim; society, Helms, Mary, 44-46, 67, 97, 33172 14-15, 64, 94, 124, 138-39, 147-54 heredity, 4, 9, 16-17, §2, 139, 150-51, 156,

passim, 29O, 311, 315 191, 204—6 passim, 315 feudalism, 13-14, 206—7, 270 hierarchy, 3, 7, 11-12, 42, 45, 50, 85, fioure/ground, 9-10, 72, 78-79, 115, 120, 91-92, 139, 165, 250, 311

139, 161-62, 180, 213, 216, 244 Ho Ping-ti, 287 fitness principle, 41-42, 158, 160, 242 Hobbes, ‘Thomas, 145—46, 157

Fletcher, Angus, 62—63, 120 Hokusai, 236 fractals/fractal geometry, 236, 244, 260 Hsiao, Kung-chuan, 275

Index 371 Hsu, Choyun, 14, 48, 88, 92,94,100-101, Keightley, David, 3, 36, 61,140, 268,

107, 122, 132, 138, 271, 336737 32.9129

Huang Liuzhu, 204 Kepler, Johannes, 11 Huanglao thought, 190—91, 253-54, 276, Keyser, Barbara, 31

282, 288, 292, 298, 300, 340 King Ding of Zhou, 73 i

Hutzi, 177 King Hut of Liang, 274 Huo Cunfu, 193, 271, 276, 34179 King Jing, 107 King Li, 100

identity: and epistemology, 171-72, King Ling, 60, 72 179-80, 198-99, 213-14, 241—44, 315; King of Nanyue, 135

and God, 174-75, 179, 223; and King Wu, 280-81 etaphic paradigms, 2, 13, 62, 134, 139, King Yao, 280 188, 202—3, 291, 304-6 passim, 310-12 King Zhuang of Chu, 285

passim, and hereditary status, §2, Kitayama, Shinobu, 210-12 143-44, 170—71, 298; and ornament, Knapp, Ronald, 323” 26 2, 4, 18, 44—46, 50, 52, 75, 79, 153; and Knoblock, John, 189 possession, 68—69, 297-98; and so- Krauss, Rosalind, 221 cial role, 59, 138, 149, 166-70 passim, Kuntyuki, Murotant, 176 192, 197, 209, 223, 225; and social

structure, 9, 14, 21, 59, 178, 232, 2713 L’Orange, L. P., 6-7

pictorial, 2, 12, 29, 76, 116, 158, La Brueyere, Jean de, 11 163-64, 180-87 passim, 209, 213-14, Lakoff, George, 10

217-19, 225 Lamoignon de Basville, Nicolas, 294

indeterminate form, 188, 192—93, 201, Laozi, 177, 182, 184-85, 187, 195, 253,

203, 217, 221-22, 241—45 passim, 276—77, 342n18

254-58, 267 law: institutional, 55, 140-41, 146—47, individual: and society, 4, 13-18 passim, 196, 204, 207, 247, 271, 274-79 pas- 21, 50, 59-60, 188, 215, 227, 301, 304, st, 286—96; natural, 139, 150, 191, 198, 307; performance, 166-67, 194, 206, 226, 245-50 passim, 253-54, 259, 264,”

295; worth, 133-34, 153, 178, 287. See 281-87. See also nature ,

also agency; identity Lawton, Thomas, 120 individuality, 7-9 passim, 179, 202-3, Ledderose, Lothar, 36 210-13, 220-23 passim, 250, 284, 306, Legge, James, 55, 86, 353710

312, 34110, 344n4 Lévi-Strauss, Claude, 3

insignia, 2, 18, 52, 54-56, 61-62, 72-76, Lewis, Mark, 188, 191, 204 88, 104, 123, 129-30, 134, 143, 153, 166, Li Xueqin, 84

185 , Linduff, Katheryn, 92, 138

interdependence, 8, 172, 185, 210-14 lineage, 15, 22, 209, 311

passim, 217-19, 223, 286 Liu Bang (Han Emperor Gaozu), intuitive analogy, 3, 6-9, 63-64, 210, 223, 2.72—73, 288, 292

267 Liu Xiaogan, 298 Ivanhoe, P. J., 152, 174, 339” 23 Liu Zongyuan, 206, 270, 272, 335725 Loehr, Max, 160

Ji An, governor of Donghai, 292 logic: of Dao, 254-56, 285, 289, 300;

Johnson, Mark, 10 and space, 23, 57-60 passim, 164—71

372 Index passim, 188, 198-99, 203, 224, 252, 298; Munn, Nancy, 4 and style, 23, 46—47, 55, 64, 137, 158, Munro, Donald, 148, 345717, 354717 187, 209, 217-19, 227, 243, 245, 346; and vision, 2, 13, 163, 213, 221, 315. See nature: and ceremony, 60-61, 120-21;

also allegory and craft, 1, 121-22; and Dao, 190,

Lord of Mengchang (Jixta Acadamy), 198, 248, 252-59, 262—64, 268-69,

189 294; and ornament, 63, 67, 166, 233,

Lu Buwet, 190, 198 244-45; and society, 157, 270, Lu Qiang, 298, 302 277-78, 281-85, 297, 302; deities, 62, 232-33. See also law, natural

Maine, Henry, 14 Newton, Isaac, 171, 176, 264, 311 Mandate of Heaven, Io1, 104, 273-75 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 220 Mandelbrot, Benoit, 236, 256, 260 Nisbett, Richard, 8—9, 323735

Manet, Edouard, 316 Nishitani, Ketji, 219-20 Marin, Louis, 324747 novelty, 126, 279 Markoff, John, 21

Markus, Hazel Rose, 210-12 Onians, John, I, 7, 10, 45

Marquis of Jin, 103 ornament: and social status, 41-45 pas-

| Marquis of Lu, 132 sit, 48-56 passim, 91-92, 98, 119,

Marquis of Zeng, 135 122—30 passim, 151-55; and virtue, Marx, Karl, 65, 69—71 108—10; as a vehicle for thought, 2, Master Kuang, 103-6 2.6, 36, 46, 60-71 passim, 81-82, 159,

Mattos, Gilbert, 74 187, 224, 258, 268, 313; as represenMentality, 63-64, 137, 311, 316 tation, 28, 72-78 passim, 160, 165,

Merit, 121, 144, 148-55 passim, 192, 200, 231-33 passim; design of, 113-16, 241.

204, 208—9, 211, 213, 295-96 See also ceremony; craft; identity;

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 221 nature; referent; style Mencius, 48, 168, 273-78 Metaphor: craft, 48, 60, 104,140—41,149, paradigm, graphic, 3, 6, 9, 12, 13, 22, 64, 155-56, 166, 245; spatial, 6—7, 10, 48, 120, 138, 146, 165, 210, 222, 257, 297, 139—4I, 167—69, 182—86 passim, 188, 309-13 passim, 317

193, 197-98, 203, 217, 264, 282, 318 Peerenboom, R. P., 193, 195

Michaels, Walter Benn, 312 people, the: as the object of governmin. as a political force, 25-26, 100, 107, ment, 15, 52, 93, 138, 141, 145-46, 124—29, 248, 270—79 passim, 285-94 152-55, 195, 199-202, 244-48; as a

passim, as a source for official re- source for official recruitment, 287, cruitment, 147, 202; as the object of 299, 301-4 passim; and dissent, 24, government, I7, §2, 74, 9I—92, 140, 60-61, 85-87, 100-108, 272—74, 278,

297. See also people, the 280, 285-88 passim, 289-94, 298, 302; modular, 32, 35-37, 44-47 passim, 57-58, will of, 108, 275-80, 300. See also

63—64, 70, III, 122, 137, 159, 165, agency; 1M

239-44 passim persons: and artifacts, 45, 51, 58-59, 72, Montesquieu, 305 81, 123, 137, 159; and social role, 2, Mozi, 24-26, 48—49, 98, 109, 123-28, 130, 14-16 passim, 21, 169-70, 214; and

132, 147, 150, 335725 vision, 9, 168—70 passim, self-

Index 373 determined, 177, 192-97 passim, of closure, 29-30, 32-35 passim, 44, 202—5 passim, 216-17, 220-23, 299— 114-15, 259; of consistency, 32-35, 44,

300, 307. See also agency; identity 113-16; of inclination, 113, 164; of personhood: and graphic paradigms, 22, intersection, 114; of permutation, 170-71, 204, 297, 310, 313; and style, 164, 233, 242—43, 266; single unit, 164

44,122; Asian, 210-12; European, Ruskin, John, 6 169, 21I—I2

Plato, 1, 45, 170-72, 21I—I2, 283 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 219-20

Poor, Robert, 37 Sato, Taketoshi, 78, 88, 92, 95, 332730, possession, 10, 26, 67—71 passim, 81-82, 33421, 336742

154-55, 274, 297-303, 314 scales, of value, 1-2, 38, 83, 99, III, 144,

Potts, Alex, 221 313-14

Powis, Jonathan, 89 self, 3-4, 10, 59, 146, 167, 187, 192, 197, Prince of Huainan, 190 202—4, 210-12, 219-23 passim, 271, procedural rules, 26, 29, 35, 43-44, 69, 279, 297, 300-303, 308, 313-16

99, 113 Schwartz, Benjamin, 101

procedures: design, 26—32 passim, 35, 37, Shain, Barry Alan, 212 43-44, 55-57, 72, 84-85, 96, I1I—-12, Shang Yang (d. 338 B.C.), 86, 141, 145-46 115, 137, 156—G1 passim, 164-65, 240, Shenzi (d. 337 B.C.), 146-47, 149-50, 167,

242, 261, 265, 315; government, 190, 247

200-201, 205—7, 284, 288 Shi Tao, 218 Puett, Michael, 90, 121-22, 227, 33813, Si Xiuwu, 273

341N10 Sickman, Lawrence, 119

Pufendorf, Samuel, 209 Sima Qian, 271-72, 289, 291-92 So, Jenny, 34, III, 122

Qian Mu (Ch’ien Mu), 342718 Socrates, 109, I70—7I Qing (craft officer), 59-60, 102-3, 150, Solomon, Robert C., 8, 210, 310

155 status, 2, 9, 13-15, 24-26, 65, 80-81, 86—90 passim, 97, 130, 143-44, 151,

Rawson, Jessica, 30, 46, 129, 347/14 202, 204, 211, 225, 313

Red Pine, 195 style: macro, 42-44, 47, 57-58, 63-64, referent, 2, 28, 78-81 passim, 156, 166, IlI—14 passim, 122, 132, 137, 158-59,

224, 233, 268, 314 164—65, 2.43, 314-16 passim; metarepertoire of contention, 83, 102, 148, morphic, 164-66, 227, 242-44; mi-

189, 209, 279 cro, 38, 42—44, 314; modular, 32,

representation, 3—4, 17, 29, 38, 65-66, 35-37, 44, 47, 57-58, 63-64, 70, III, 71-72, 75-78, 81, 158-60 passim, 180, 14, I19, 122, 137, 159, 165, 239-44

216-17, 230-31, 244, 314, 316 passim; synthetic, 111-16 passim, rhetoric, 9, 16, 79, 81-82, 88, 143—46 130-37 passim, 159, 161-62, 165, 233, passim, 1§O, 192, 214, 217, 223-24, 245, 241-43

253, 264, 277, 279, 292-93 Su Xun, 70

Ronegzi of Song, 133 Sullivan, Michael, 309

Ruan Yuan, 51, 74 Sun Xingyan, 76 rule: of rectitude, 34-35, 44, 113-14; of

alternation, 35, 115, 117, 163-64, 243; Tai Gong, 280

374 Index Takezoe, Shin’ichiro, 54, 78 White, Harrison, 9, 14, 45, 99, 169, 197,

Takuya, Arima, 282 344155

Tarrow, Syndey, 148 Winckelmann, Johann Joachim, 6 template, material, 2, 19, 37, 42, 58, 80, Wolfflin, Heinrich, 41

201, 269, 314 ; Wu Daozi, 38 Teng Shu-p’ing, 17 :

terms, analytical, 29, 42, 129; craft, Xiao He, 289 46-47, 48, 57-63 passim, 81, 104, Xu Kejian, 140 138—42 passim, 155-56, 1§9, 201, 205, Xu Shen, 230-31, 236 268; period, 42, 46—47, 72, 129, 140, Xue He, 140

142 Xunzi, 87, 96, 151-55, 189 Tian Wen, Lord of Mengchang, 189

Tobey, Mark, 309 Yanz1, 76, 124, 130, 132, 150, 167, 335725

Todorov, Tzvetan, 11 Yates, Robin, 205—7

Toulmin, Stephen, 8, 11, 157 Yellow Emperor, 246 Truth, 174-76 passim, 181, 186, 196, Ying Shao, 76

216-17, 224 Yu, Pauline, 75-76

Tu Cheng-sheng, 142

Tu Wei-ming, 190 Zaneg-sun Da, 54 Turner, Karten, 193, 217, 253, 271, 288-89 Zao Wu-k1, 309

tyranny, 154, 272-73, 278, 280, 291, Zeitgeist, 63, 267, 317

294-95 Zhang Yanyuan, 38 Zheng Xuan, 5O

Vinograd, Richard, 5 Zhou Jiu, 107, 109 Zhuangxt. on craft, 84—85, 91-92,

Wallace, Anthony, 6 121, 132, 264, 3211; on dragons, Wang Chong, 231-32 167— 68, 182-84 passim, 209; on

Wang Xiaobo, 193 God, I, 174-76, 179, 215, 220; on Wanegzi Wu, prime minister of the state sovernment/society, 86-87, 98,

of Chu, 74, 90 145, 195, 207-8, 298, 34218; on

Washburn, Dorothy, 7 individuals, 133, 146, 176, 303—4,

Watson, Burton, 272 307; on knowledge, 172-74, 180, Weber, Max, 253 185-87, 215, 339”722—23; on nature, Wei Zhao, 72, 75-76, 102 176-79, I9I, 202, 247 Whigham, Frank, 143-44

R cH

Harvard East Asian Monographs

(*out-of-print)

*y. Liang Fang-chung, The Single-Whip Method of Taxation in China

*2, Harold C. Hinton, The Grain Tribute System of China, 1845-1911 3. Ellsworth C. Carlson, The Kasping Mines, 1877-1912 *4. Chao Kuo-chiin, Agrarian Pohaes of Mainland China: A Documentary Study, 1949-1956 *5. Edgar Snow, Random Notes on Red China, 1936-1945 *6. Edwin George Beal, Jr., The Origen of Lakin, 1835-1864 7. Chao Kuo-chiin, Economic Planning and Organization in Mainland China: A Documentary Study, 1949-1957

I949-1957 , Examination System ,

*8. John K. Fairbank, Ching Documents: An Introductory Syllabus

*9. Helen Yin and Yi-chang Yin, Economic Statistics of Mainland China, . *to. Wolfgang Franke, The Reform and Aboktion of the Traditional Chinese

u. Albert Feuerwerker and S. Cheng, Chinese Communist Studies of Modern Chinese History

12. C. John Stanley, Late Ching Finance: Hu Kuang-yung as an Innovator 13. S.M. Meng, The Tsungh Yamen: Its Organization and Funchons "4. Ssu-yti Teng, Hestorography of the Taiping Rebelhon 15. Chun-Jo Liu, Controversies in Modern Chinese Intellectual History: An Analyte Bibhography of Periodical Articles, Mainly of the May Fourth and Post-May Fourth Era

*16. Edward J. M. Rhoads, The Chinese Red Army, 1927-1963: An Annotated Bibhography 17. Andrew J. Nathan, A History of the China International Famine Rehef Commission

*18. Frank H. H. King (ed.) and Prescott Clarke, A Research Gude to China-Coast Newspapers, 1822-1911

19. Ellis Joffe, Party and Army: Professionalism and Pohktical Control in the Chinese Officer

Corps, 1949-1964 *20. Toshio G. T'sukahira, Feadal Control in Tokugawa Japan: The Sankin Kotat System

Harvard East Astan Monographs 21. Kwang-Ching Liu, ed., American Missionaries in China: Papers from Harvard Seminars 22. George Moseley, A Szno-Sovzet Cultural Frontier: The Ih Kazakh Autonomous Chou 23. Carl F. Nathan, Plague Prevention and Pohtics in Manchuria, 1910-1931 *24. Adrian Arthur Bennett, John Fryer: The Introduction of Western Science and Technology into Nineteenth-Century China 25. Donald J. Friedman, The Road from Isolation: The Campaign of the American Committee for Non-Participation in Japanese Aggression, 1938-1941

*26. Edward LeFevour, Western Enterprise in Late Ching China: A Selective Survey of Jardine, Matheson and Company’s Operations, 1842-1895

27. Charles Neuhauser, Third World Pohtics: China and the Afro-Asian People’s Sohdarity Organization, 1957-1967

28. Kungtu C. Sun, assisted by Ralph W. Huenemann, The Economic Development of Manchuria in the First Half of the Twentieth Century

*29. Shahid Javed Burkt, A Study of Chinese Communes, 1965

30. John Carter Vincent, [he Extraterritorial System in China: Final Phase 31. Madeleine Chi, Chena Diplomacy, 1914-1918 *32. Clifton Jackson Phillips, Protestant America and the Pagan World: The First Half Century of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, 1810-1860

33. James Pusey, Wu Han: Attacking the Present Through the Past 34. Yine-wan Cheng, Postal Communication in China and Its Modermzation, 1860-1896

35. Tuvia Blumenthal, Savzng in Postwar Japan 36. Peter Frost, The Bakumatsu Currency Crisis 37. Stephen C. Lockwood, Augustine Heard and Company, 1858-1862 38. Robert R. Campbell, James Duncan Campbell: A Memoir by His Son 39. Jerome Alan Cohen, ed., The Dynamics of China’s Foreign Relations

40. V.V. Vishnyakova-Akimova, Two Years in Revolutionary China, 1925-1927, trans. Steven L. Levine *at. Meron Medzini, French Pokcy in Japan During the Closing Years of the Tokugawa Regeme

42. Ezra Vogel, Margie Sargent, Vivienne B. Shue, Thomas Jay Mathews, and Deborah 8. Davis, The Cultural Revolution in the Provinces

*43. Sidney A. Forsythe, An American Missionary Community in China, 1895-1905 *a4. Benjamin L Schwartz, ed., Reflections on the May Fourth Movement... A Symposium

*45. Ching Young Choe, The Ruk of the TaewOngun, 1864-1873: Restoration in Yi Korea 46. W.P. J. Hall, A Brbhographical Guide to Japanese Research on the Chinese Economy, 1955-1970

47. Jack J. Gerson, Horatio Nelson Lay and Sino-British Relations, 1854-1864

, 48. Paul Richard Bohr, Pawane and the Missionary: Timothy Richard as Rekef Adnunistrator and Advocate of National Reform

49. Endymion Wilkinson, Te Hestory of Imperial China: A Research Gude

Harvard East Astan Monographs 50. Britten Dean, China and Great Britain: The Diplomacy of Commercial Relations,

1860-1864 st. Ellsworth C. Carlson, The Foochow Missionaries, 1847-1880 52. Yeh-chien Wang, An Estemate of the Land-Tax Collection in China, 1753 and 1908

in Price Hestory

53. Richard M. Pfeffer, Understanding Business Contracts in China, 1949-1963

54. Han-sheng Chuan and Richard Kraus, Mzd-Ching Rice Markets and Trade: An Essay 55- Ranbir Vohra, Liao She and the Chinese Revolution

56. Liang-lin Hstao, China’s Foreign Trade Statistics, 1864-1949 *57. Lee-hsia Hsu Ting, Government Control of the Press in Modern China, 1900-1949 58. Edward W. Wagner, The Literata Purges: Pohtical Conflict in Early Yi Korea *59. Joungwon A. Kim, Divided Korea: The Poktis of Development, 1945-1972

*60. Noriko Kamachi, John K. Fairbank, and Chuzo Ichiko, Japanese Studies of Modern China Since 1953: A Bibhographical Guide to Historical and Socal-Science Research on the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Supplementary Volume for 1957-1969

61. Donald A. Gibbs and Yun-chen Li, _A Brbhography of Studies and Translations of Modern Chinese Literature, 1918-1942

62. Robert H. Stlin, Leadership and Values: The Organization of Large-Scale Taiwanese Enterprises

63. David Pong, A Critical Gude to the Kwangtung Provincial Archives Deposited at the

Public Record Office of London | ,

*64. Fred W. Drake, China Charts the World: Hsu Chi-yii and His Geography of 1848 | *65. William A. Brown and Urgrunge Onon, trans. and annots., History of the Mongohan People’s Republic

66. Edward L. Farmer, Early Ming Government: The Evolution of Dual Capitals *67. Ralph C. Croizier, Koxinga and Chinese Nationahsm: Hustory, Myth, and the Hero *68. William J. ‘Tyler, trans., The Psychological World of Natsume Soseki, by Doi Takeo 69. Enric Widmer, The Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Peking During the Ezghteenth Century

*70. Charlton M. Lewis, Prologue to the Chinese Revolution: The Transformation of Ideas and Institutions in Hunan Province, 1891-1907

71. Preston Torbert, The Ching Imperial Household Department: A Study of Its Organization and Principal Functions, 1662-1796

72. Paul A. Cohen and John E. Schrecker, eds., Reform in Nineteenth-Century China

73. Jon Sieurdson, Rural Industriahsm in China 74. Kang Chao, The Development of Cotton Textile Production in China 75. Walentin Rabe, The Home Base of American China Missions, 1880-1920

*76. Sarasin Viraphol, Tbute and Profit: Sino-Siamese Trade, 1652-1853 77. Ch’t-ch’ing Hsiao, The Miktary Estabhshment of the Yuan Dynasty

Harvard East Astan Monographs 78. Meishi 'l'sai, Contemporary Chinese Novels and Short Stories, 1949-1974: An Annotated Brbhography

*79. Wellington K. K. Chan, Merchants, Mandarins and Modern Enterprise in Late Ching China

80. Endymion Wilkinson, Landlord and Labor in Late Imperial China: Case Studies from Shandong by Jing Su and Luo Lun

*81. Barry Keenan, The Dewey Experiment in China: Educational Reform and Pohtical Power in the Early Repubhe

*82. George A. Hayden, Crme and Punishment in Medieval Chinese Drama: Three Judge Pao Plays

*83. Sang-Chul Suh, Growth and Structural Changes in the Korean Economy, 1910-1940 84. J. W. Dower, Empire and Aftermath: Yoshida Shigeru and the Japanese Experience, I878~-I954

85. Martin Collcutt, P2ve Mountains: The Rinzat Zen Monastic Institution in Medieval Japan

86. Kwang Suk Kim and Michael Roemer, Growth and Structural Transformation

87. Anne O. Krueger, The Developmental Role of the Foreign Sector and Aid

*88. Edwin S. Mills and Byung-Nak Song, Urbanization and Urban Problems

89. Sung Hwan Ban, Pal Yong Moon, and Dwight H. Perkins, Rara/ Development

*90. Noel F. McGinn, Donald R. Snodgrass, Yung Bong Kim, Shin-Bok Kim, and Quee-Young Kim, Education and Development in Korea

g1. Leroy P. Jones and II SaKong, Government, Business, and Entrepreneurship in Economic Development: The Korean Case

92. Edward S. Mason, Dwight H. Perkins, Kwang Suk Kim, David C. Cole, Mahn Je Kim et al., The Economic and Social Modernization of the Republic of Korea

93. Robert Repetto, Tai Hwan Kwon, Son-Ung Kim, Dae Young Kim, John fk. Sloboda, and Peter J. Donaldson, Economic Development, Population Pokey, and Demographic Transition in the Republi of Korea

94. Parks M. Coble, Jr., The Shanghai Capitalists and the Nationahst Government, 1927-1937 95. Noriko Kamachi, Reform in China: Huang Tsun-hsien and the Japanese Model 96. Richard Wich, Sino-Sovet Crisis Pohtics: A Study of Pohtical Change and Communication

97. Lillian M. Li, China’s Silk Trade: Traditional Industry in the Modern World, 1842-1937 98. R. David Arkush, Fes Xzaotong and Soctology in Revolutionary China

*99. Kenneth Alan Grossberg, Japan’s Renaissance: The Pohtics of the Muromacht Bakuju

100. James Reeve Pusey, China and Charles Darwin tol. Hoyt Cleveland Tillman, Uthtarian Confucianism: Chen Liang’s Challenge to Chu Asa 102. Thomas A. Stanley, Osugi Sakae, Anarchist in Taisho Japan: The Creativity of the Ego 103. Jonathan K. Ocko, Bureaucratic Reform in Provincial China: Ting Jth-ch’ang in Restoration Kiangsu, 1867-1870

Harvard East Astan Monographs 104. James Reed, The Misstonary Mind and American East Asia Pokey, 191-1915 105. Neil L. Waters, Japan’s Local Pragmatists: The Transition from Bakumatsu to Meaji in the Kawasaki Region

106. David C. Cole and Yung Chul Park, Fenancial Development in Korea, 1945-1978 107. Roy Bahl, Chuk Kyo Kim, and Chong Kee Park, Public Finances During the Korean Modernization Process

108. William D. Wray, Matsubishi and the N.Y.K, 1870-1914: Business Strategy in the Japanese Shipping Industry

109. Ralph William Huenemann, The Dragon and the Iron Horse: The Economics of Railroads in China, 1876-1937 m0. Benjamin A. Elman, From Philosophy to Philology: Intellectual and Soctal Aspects of Change in Late Imperial China

i. Jane Kate Leonard, Wet Yaan and China’s Rediscovery of the Maritime World m2. Luke S. K. Kwong, A Mosaze of the Hundred Days.. Personahties, Pokties, and Ideas of 1898

113. John E. Wills, Jr, Evbasszes and Iusions: Dutch and Portuguese Envoys to K’ang-hst,

1666-1687 114. Joshua A. Fogel, Poktecs and Sinology: The Case of Nazto Konan (1866-1934)

*t15. Jeffrey C. Kinkley, ed., After Mao: Chinese Literature and Souety, 1978-1981 116. C. Andrew Gerstle, Czrcles of Fantasy: Convention in the Plays of Chikamatsu

117. Andrew Gordon, The Evolution of Labor Relations in Japan: Heavy Industry, 1853-1955 *118. Daniel K. Gardner, Chu Hs7 and the “Ta Hsueh”: Neo-Confuctan Reflection on the

Confucian Canon |

m9. Christine Guth Kanda, Shinzo: Hachiman Imagery and Its Development *120. Robert Borgen, Sugawara no Michizane and the Early Heian Court 121. Chang-tai Hung, Gozng to the People: Chinese Intellectual and Folk Literature, 1918-1937

*122. Michael A. Cusumano, The Japanese Automobile Industry: Technology and Management at Nissan and Toyota

123. Richard von Glahn, The Country of Streams and Grottoes: Expansion, Settlement, and the Civthzing of the Sichuan Frontier in Song Times

124. Steven D. Carter, [he Road to Komatsubara: A Classical Reading of the Renga Hyakuin

125. Katherine F. Bruner, John K. Fairbank, and Richard T. Smith, Entering China’s Service: Robert Hart's Journals, 1854-1863

126. Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi, Antz-Forergnism and Western Learning in Early-Modern Japan: The “New Theses” of 1825

127. Atsuko Hirat, Indiiduahsm and Souahsm: The Life and Thought of Kawai Eire (1891-1944)

128. Ellen Widmer, The Margins of Utopia: “Shui-hu hou-chuan” and the Literature of Ming Loyahsm

129. R. Kent Guy, The Emperor’s Four Treasuries: Scholars and the State in the Late Chienlung Era

Harvard East Asian Monographs 130. Peter C. Perdue, Exhausting the Earth: State and Peasant in Hunan, 1500-1850 131. Susan Chan Egan, A Latterday Confucian: Reminiscences of Wilham Hung (1893-1980)

132. James T. C. Liu, China Turning Inward: Intellectual-Poltical Changes in the Early Twelfth Century

133. Paul A. Cohen, Between Tradition and Modernity: Wang T’ao and Reform in Late Ching China

1334. Kate Wildman Nakai, Shogunal Pohtics: Arai Hakuseki and the Premises of Tokugawa Rule

135. Parks M. Coble, Facing Japan: Chinese Politics and Japanese Imperialism, 1931-1937 1336. Jon L. Saari, Legaces of Childhood: Growing Up Chinese in a Time of Crisis, 1890-1920

1337. Susan Downing Videen, Tales of Heicha 138. Heinz Morioka and Miyoko Sasaki, Rakugo: The Popular Narrative Art of Japan 1339. Joshua A. Fogel, Nakae Ushikichi in China: The Mourning of Spirit

140. Alexander Barton Woodside, Vzetnam and the Chinese Model: A Comparative Study of Vietnamese and Chinese Government in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century

141. George Elision, Deus Destroyed: The Image of Christianity in Early Modern Japan

142. William D. Wray, ed., Managing Industrial Enterprise: Cases from Japan’s Prewar Exxperience

143. Tung-tsu Ch’t, Local Government in China Under the Ching 144. Marie Anchordoguy, Computers, Inc: Japan’s Challenge to IBM 145. Barbara Molony, Technology and Investment: The Prewar Japanese Chemical Industry

146. Mary Elizabeth Berry, Hideyoshi 147. Laura E. Hein, Puekng Growth: The Energy Revolution and Economic Pokcy in

Postwar Japan ,

148. Wen-hsin Yeh, Te Akenated Academy: Culture and Poktics in Republican China,

IJI9-1937 149. Dru C. Gladney, Muskm Chinese: Ethnic Nationalism in the People’s Republic

150. Merle Goldman and Paul A. Cohen, eds., Ideas Across Cultures: Essays on Chinese Thought in Honor of Benjamin L Schwartz

1st. James M. Polachek, The Inner Opium War 152. Gail Lee Bernstein, Japanese Marxist: A Portrait of Kawakami Hajime, 1879-1946 153. Lloyd E. Eastman, The Abortive Revolution: China Under Nationalist Rul, 1927-1937 154. Mark Mason, American Multinationals and Japan: The Pohktical Economy of Japanese Capital Controls, 1899-1980

155. Richard J. Smith, John K. Fairbank, and Katherine F. Bruner, Robert Hart and China’s Early Modernization: His Journals, 1863-1866 156. George J. Tanabe, Jr., Myoe the Dreamkeeper: Fantasy and Knowledge in Kamakura Buddhism

157. William Wayne Farris, Heavenly Warriors: The Evolution of Japan’s Miktary, soo-1300 158. Yu-ming Shaw, An American Missionary in China: John Leighton Stuart and ChineseAmerican Relations

Harvard East Asian Monographs 159. James B. Palais, Podtics and Pohcy in Traditional Korea 160. Douglas Reynolds, China, 1898-1912: The Xinzheng Revolution and Japan

161. Roger R. Thompson, China’s Local Councils in the Age of Constitutional Reform, I898—-I9II

162. William Johnston, The Modern Epidemic: History of Tuberculosis in Japan

163. Constantine Nomikos Vaporis, Breaking Barriers: Travel and the State in Early Modern Japan

164. Irmela Hitya-Kirschnereit, Retuals of Self-Revelation: Shishosetsu as Literary Genre and Socio-Cultural Phenomenon

165. James C. Baxter, The Mew Unification Through the Lens of Ishikawa Prefecture

166. Thomas R. H. Havens, Architects of Affluence: The Tsutsumi Family and the SecbuSaison Enterprises in Twentieth-Century Japan

167. Anthony Hood Chambers, The Secret Window: Ideal Worlds in Tanizaka’s Fiction 168. Steven J. Ericson, The Sound of the Whistle: Railroads and the State in Mei Japan

169. Andrew Edmund Goble, Kenmu: Go-Daigo’s Revolution 170. Denise Potrzeba Lett, In Pursuit of Status: The Making of South Korea’s “New” Urban Middle Class

171. Mimi Hall Yiengpruksawan, Hzrarxumi: Buddhist Art and Regional Pohtics in TwelfthCentury Japan

172. Charles Shiro Inouye, The Samhtude of Blossoms: A Critical Biography of Izumi Kyoka (1873-1939), Japanese Novelst and Playwright

173. Aviad E. Raz, Reding the Black Ship: Japan and Tokyo Disneyland 174. Deborah J. Milly, Poverty, Equahty, and Growth: The Polkitics of Economic Need in Postwar Japan

175. See Heng Teow, Japan’s Cultural Policy Toward China, 1918-1931: A Comparative Perspective

176. Michael A. Fuller, An Introduction to Literary Chinese 177. Frederick R. Dickinson, War and National Reinvention: Japan in the Great War,

I9I4-I9I9 178. John Solt, Shredding the Tapestry of Meaning: The Poetry and Poetics of Kitasono Katue (1902-1978)

179. Edward Pratt, Japan’s Protoindustrial Ekte: The Economic Foundations of the Gono 180. Atsuko Sakaki, Recontextuahzing Texts: Narrative Performance in Modern Japanese Fiction

181. Soon-Won Park, Colomal Industriahzation and Labor in Korea: The Onoda Cement Factory

182. JaHyun Kim Haboush and Martina Deuchler, Culture and the State in Late Choson Korea

183. John W. Chaffee, Branches of Heaven: .A History of the Imperial Clan of Sung China

184. Gi-Wook Shin and Michael Robinson, eds., Co/onzal Modernity in Korea

Harvard East Astan Monographs 185. Nam-lin Hur, Prayer and Play in Late Tokugawa Japan: Asakusa Sensoji and Fido Society

186. Kristin Stapleton, Czihzing Chengdu: Chinese Urban Reform, 1895-1937 187. Hyung Il Pat, Constructing “Korean” Origins: A Critical Review of Archaeology, Historiography, and Racial Myth in Korean State-Formation Theories

188. Brian D. Ruppert, Jewel zn the Ashes: Buddha Beles and Power in Early Medieval Japan 189. Susan Daruvala, Zhou Zuoren and an Alternative Chinese Response to Modernity

190. James Z. Lee, The Pohktical Economy of a Fronter: Southwest China,1250-1850 191. Kerry Smith, A Time of Crisis: Japan, the Great Depression, and Rural Revitahzation 192. Michael Lewis, Becoming Apart: National Power and Local Politics in Toyama, 1868-1945

193. William C. Kirby, Man-houng Lin, James Chin Shih, and David A. Pietz, eds., State and Economy in Repubhcan China: A Handbook for Scholars

194. ‘Timothy S. George, Minamata: Pollution and the Struggle for Democracy in Postwar Japan 195. Billy K. L. So, Prosperity, Region, and Institutions in Maritime China: The South

Fukien Pattern, 946-1368 196. Yoshihisa Tak Matsusaka, The Making of Japanese Manchuria, 1904-1932 197. Maram Epstein, Competing Discourses: Orthodoxy, Authenticity, and Engendered Meanings in Late Imperial Chinese Fiction

*198. Curtis J. Milhaupt, J. Mark Ramseyer, and Michael K. Young, eds. and comps., Japanese Law in Context: Readings in Society, the Economy, and Poktes

199. Haruo Ieuchi, Unfinished Business: Ayukawa Yoshisuke and U.S.-Japan Relations, T937-19 52

200. Scott Pearce, Audrey Spiro, and Patricia Ebrey, Culture and Power in the Reconstitution of the Chinese Realm, 200-600

201. Terry Kawashima, Writing Margins: The Textual Construction of Gender in Heian and Kamakura Japan

202. Martin W. Huang, Desere and Fictional Narrative in Late Imperial China 203. Robert S. Ross and Jiang Changbin, eds., Ke-examining the Cold War: U.S.-China Diplomacy, 1954-1973

204. Guanhua Wang, In Search of Justice: The 1905-1906 Chinese Anh-Amencan Boycott 205. David Schaberg, A Patterned Past: Form and Thought in Early Chinese Hestoriography 206. Christine Yano, Tears of Longing: Nostalgia and the Nation in Japanese Popular Song

207. Milena Dolezelova-Velingerova and Oldrtich Kral, with Graham Sanders, eds., The Appropriation of Cultural Capital: China’s May Fourth Project 208. Robert N. Huey, The Making of ‘Shinkokinshv 209. Lee Butler, Emperor and Aristocracy in Japan, 1467-1680: Resthence and Renewal

210. Suzanne Ogden, Inkhngs of Democracy in China

Harvard East Astan Monographs 211. Kenneth J. Ruoff, The People’s Emperor: Democracy and the Japanese Monarchy,

I94S-IIIS 212. Haun Saussy, Great Walls of Discourse and Other Adventures in Cultural China 213. Aviad E. Raz, Emotions at Work: Normative Control, Organizations, and Culture in Japan and America 214. Rebecca FE. Karl and Peter Zarrow, eds., Rethinking the 1898 Reform Period: Pohtical and Cultural Change in Late Qing China 215. Kevin O’Rourke, The Book of Korean S hijo 216. Ezra F. Vogel, ed., The Golden Age of the U.S.-China-Japan Triangle, 1972-1989 217. Thomas A Wilson, ed., On Sacred Grounds: Culture, Soaety, Politics, and the Formation of the Cult of Confucius

218. Donald S. Sutton, Szeps of Perfection: Exorcistic Performers and Chinese Region in Twentieth-Century Taiwan

219. Daqing Yang, Technology of Empire: Telecommunications and Japanese Expansion, 1895-1945

220. Qianshen Bai, Fu Shan’s World: The Transformation of Chinese Calhgraphy in the Seventeenth Century

221. Paul Jakov Smith and Richard von Glahn, eds., The Song-Yuan-Ming Transition in Chinese History

222. Rania Huntington, Aden Kind: Foxes and Late Imperial Chinese Narrative 223. Jordan Sand, House and Home in Modern Japan: Architecture, Domestic Space, and Bourgeois Culture, 1880-1930

224. Karl Gerth, China Made: Consumer Culture and the Creation of the Nation 225. Xitaoshan Yang, Metamorphosis of the Private Sphere: Gardens and Objects in TangSong Poetry

226. Barbara Mittler, A Newspaper for China? Power, Identity, and Change in Shanghat's News Media, 1872-1912

227. Joyce A. Madancy, The Troublesome Legacy of Commusstoner Lin: The Opium Trade and Opium Suppression in Fuyan Province, 1820s to 1920s

228. John Makeham, Transmitters and Creators: Chinese Commentators and Commentaries on the Analects

229. Elisabeth Koll, From Cotton Mill to Business Empire: The Emergence of Regional Enterprises in Modern China 230. Emma Teng, Taman’s Imagined Geography: Chinese Colontal Travel Writing and Pictures, 1683-1895

231. Walt Idema and Beata Grant, The Red Brush: Writing Women of Imperial China

232. Eric C. Rath, The Ethos of Noh: Actors and Their Art 233. Elizabeth J. Remick, Buc/ding Local States: China During the Republican and Post-Mao Eras 234. Lynn Struve, ed., The Qing Formation in World-Historical Time

Harvard East Asian Monographs 235. D. Max Moerman, Locahzing Paradise: Kumano Pilgrimage and the Rehgious Landscape of Premodern Japan

236. Antonia Finnane, Speaking of Yangxhou: A Chinese City, 1550-1850 237. Brian Platt, Burning and Building: Schooling and State Formation in Japan, 1750-1890

238. Gail Bernstein, Andrew Gordon, and Kate Wildman Nakai, eds., Pubs Spheres, Private Lives in Modern Japan, 1600-1950: Essays in Honor of Albert Craig

239. Wu Hung and Katherine R. Tstang, Body and Face in Chinese Visual Culture 240. Stephen Dodd, Writing Home: Representations of the Native Place in Modern Japanese Literature

241. David Anthony Bello, Opium and the Limits of Empire: Drug Prohibition in the Chinese Interior, 1729-1850 242. Hosea Hirata, Descourses of Seduction: Hestory, Evil, Desire, and Modern Japanese Literature 243. Kyung Moon Hwang, Beyond Birth: Social Status in the Emergence of Modern Korea 244. Brian R. Dott, Identity Reflections: Pilerimages to Mount Tai in Late Imperial China 245. Mark McNally, Proving the Way: Conflict and Practice in the History of Japanese Nativism

246. Yongping Wu, A Pohtical Explanation of Economic Growth: State Survival, Bureaucratic Poktics, and Private Enterprises in the Making of Taiwan's Economy, 1950-1985

247. Kyu Hyun Kim, The Age of Visions and Arguments: Parhamentarianism and the National Pubhe Sphere in Early Meiji Japan

248. Zvi Ben-Dor Benite, The Dao of Muhammad: .A Cultural History of Mushms in Late Imperial China

249. David Der-wei Wang and Shang Wet, eds., Dynastic Crisis and Cultural Innovation: From the Late Ming to the Late Oing and Beyond

250. Wilt L. Idema, Wat-yee Li, and Ellen Widmer, eds., Trauma and Transcendence in Early Qing Literature

251. Barbara Molony and Kathleen Uno, eds., Gendering Modern Japanese History 252. Hiroshi Aoyagi, Island of Eight Millon Smiles: Idol Performance and Symbohc Production in Contemporary Japan

253. Wat-yee Li, The Readabihty of the Past in Early Chinese Historiography

254. Walliam C. Kirby, Robert S. Ross, and Gong Li, eds., Normahzation of U.S.-China Relations: An International History

255. Ellen Gardner Nakamura, Practical Pursuits: Takano Choet, Takahashi Keisaku, and Western Medicine in Nineteenth-Century Japan

256. Jonathan W. Best, A Hastory of the Early Korean Kingdom of Paekche, together with an annotated translation of Vhe Paeckche Annals of the Samguk sag 257. Liang Pan, The United Nations in Japan’s Foreign and Security Policymaking, 1945-1992: National Security, Party Pohktics, and International Status

Harvard East Asian Monographs 258. Richard Belsky, Locahties at the Center: Native Place, Space, and Power in Late Imperial Bezjng

259. Zwia Lipkin, “Useless to the State’: “Social Problems” and Social Engeneering in Nationalist Nanjing, 1927-1937 260. William O. Gardner, Advertising Tower: Japanese Modernism and Modernity in the 19208

261. Stephen Owen, The Making of Early Chinese Classical Poetry 262. Martin J. Powers, Pattern and Person: Ornament, Society, and Self in Classical China

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