The political function of theocracy and ritual system in the Western Zhou Dynasty

——An investigation and analysis of early Chinese political ideology

The tyranny of Shang Zhou was the root of Shang Zhou’s failure, and it was also the opportunity for the rise of a small state under his rule to finally replace it. Whether in the level of political practice or political concept, the substitutes did the opposite, and the way of their own failure achieved the way of the prosperity of others, which is the so-called failure of others and themselves.

Compared with the Xia and Shang Dynasties, the rulers of the Zhou Dynasty showed mature ruling art and wisdom. If we trace back to China’s early political and legal thoughts, after reviewing the limited literature of three generations, modern people’s eyes will be full of surprise and freeze in the Zhou Dynasty. Because of remoteness, simplicity, and the strong thinking of modern people, the events of the previous dynasty are particularly clear. Of course, the remaining ancient texts are the guide of vision, but the thinking of later generations will supplement the skeleton, and finally the flesh and blood will be full. The only possibility, this possibility may also be a defect, that is, in the present, we may use a modern perspective to analyze and treat the thoughts of our predecessors for thousands of years, that is, the skeleton is ancient, while the flesh and blood is modern, and the final result will be a non modern and non ancient weird. But in fact, the numerous texts of the past dynasties are not so weird in this sense? Taking the ideas and needs at that time as the blade, the sword as the pioneer, cleaning and cutting, and finally get what you want, and the meaning and direction of this need may be very different from its original existence. If it’s another thing to consciously do it, and for those who strive to restore history, it’s a risk. We know such a risk clearly, but it’s hard to take it off. For example, how can people walk out of their own skin?

Maybe it is not so pessimistic, maybe there is a way out, that is, respecting the remaining ancient texts, making reasonable logical inference, or rigorous and rational logical undercurrent, will give us a more real understanding of distant existence? This is an expectation. The fundamental premise of expectation is that the rationality of the ancients and the rationality of modern people are the same. Rational people can understand each other, know and communicate with each other, no matter at any point in the field of time and space. It is this expectation that gives modern people some courage, confidence and confidence to review history.

The highlight of the politics of the Western Zhou Dynasty is its political and legal thought, which spread in later generations, is the dominant political and legal thought at that time. In this sense, it is well-known to modern people, that is, the ideology at that time. If we examine the history of Chinese political and legal thought in the past dynasties and follow its orthodoxy, it is a continuous ideological history of ancient Chinese society.

Legal thought and practice originate from political practice and thought. In the initial stage, there is no distinction between two, and chaos is one. Even in modern society, disciplines are separated, but in practice, they are intricate and intertwined, and flesh and blood are connected. If they are strong and divided, it may be the situation that the trunk and branches are different from each other. This should not be too much. The study of the orthodox political and legal thoughts of the Western Zhou Dynasty, which is directly named after ideology, is also based on such considerations.

The ideology of the Western Zhou Dynasty has two major elements, one is the theocracy thought, the other is the etiquette thought. The theocracy thought centered on the ruling position of the king of Zhou, gave theoretical explanations for the king of Zhou to become the Lord of the world, and with the assistance of state power, spread throughout the king’s land and made the people believe in it. The thought of the rule of rites in the Western Zhou Dynasty mainly solves the distribution of state ruling power and the shaping and maintenance of social order under the kingship. If the theocracy thought has the meaning of transcendence and endows the king of Zhou with a sacred aura, then the ritual thought is practical, which is not only the rules and organization of daily political life, but also the development, operation and Realization of daily political life. Obviously, both the theocracy thought and the patriarchal thought linked by blood relationship and the corresponding social system formed by matching them reflect the agricultural economic form and productivity in the early stage of civilized society, and also reflect its direct impact on the human social concept and organizational system living in it.

1? Theocracy thought of Western Zhou Dynasty

Chinese theocracy thought, formed in the Xia Dynasty, flourished in the Yin and Shang Dynasties, and wavered in the Western Zhou Dynasty. Theocracy thought is the basis of the legitimacy of the three dynasties of Xia, Shang and Western Zhou.

In the Xia Dynasty, Miaoyuan was short of historical materials. From the scattered traces, later generations positioned the germination of theocracy in the Xia Dynasty. The rulers of the Xia Dynasty believed that the ruling power was obtained by adhering to the will of God or the emperor. If you do not obey the ruling order, the ruler can punish heaven on behalf of heaven. However, the rulers of the Xia Dynasty did not answer why they could obtain the destiny, but declared that they were obedient to the destiny in order to obtain convincing legitimacy for their rule on the basis of the existing control. Of course, if we trace the source, the power of the rulers of the Xia dynasty may come from trust, talent and force, but these factors, in the final analysis, cannot give their rule a universal and authoritative legal basis.

During the Yin and Shang Dynasties, theocracy developed completely and systematically. The theocracy thought of the Shang Dynasty answers an important question, that is, why did the rulers bear the destiny? The answer is that the ancestors of the rulers are closely related to God, or even have blood relationship. In this way, the integration of ancestor gods and God gods provides an authoritative reason for the Shang King to enjoy the destiny alone. In terms of system, it has also developed a system to ensure this exclusivity. For example, the ceremony of worshipping the heaven to listen to the will of heaven can only be carried out by the king of Shang alone, and then the king of Shang informs the subjects and the public. This is a very effective system to maintain the king of Shang’s adherence to heaven, and it is also an effective system to transform the will of the king of Shang into the will of God, so as to obtain divine authority and universal obedience. In view of its effectiveness, it was carried forward by the Western Zhou Dynasty.

Zhou replaced Shang, which was a blow to the theocracy thought and a smash of reality to a certain aspect of concept. But even so, the theocracy thought is developing under the new reality. This is the Western Zhou Dynasty’s God granted monarchy with virtue. To match heaven with virtue solves the problem of Zhou replacing Shang in theory, that is, to advocate a new concept, emperor and heaven have no relatives, and virtue is the only supplement. It is believed that the basis for heaven to grant destiny is not the blood relationship advocated by Yin Shang, but the virtue of those who bear it. A virtuous Walker protects the people. In this way, heaven and personnel are linked, and secular factors are included in the divine factors of ruling legitimacy. Even this secular factor, namely, the virtue of protecting and loving the people, is more decisive in the ownership of the ruling power. This is a great progress. The substantive basis of the legitimacy of rule established by virtue with heaven is virtue, and destiny is the recognition of this basis, but it has a formal meaning and retreats behind.

Matching heaven with virtue establishes a relationship of protection and obedience in the relationship between the ruler and the ruled. The obedience of the ruled comes from the virtue of the ruler. Otherwise, it is the lack of destiny, and you can disobey. This is not only a development of theocracy, but also the beginning of the end of theocracy as a powerful ideology.

Matching heaven with virtue also opened the path from theocracy to secular politics. The characteristic of theocracy is to make a direct and close personal connection between the ruler and God, which can be blood connection or intellectual connection, so as to highlight the divine supremacy of the ruler. Secular politics is the direct connection between the ruler and the ruled. The relationship between them is the relationship between protection and obedience, and the relationship between political power and the well-being of the people.

Matching heaven with virtue also shows the changes of Chinese dynasties in the following thousands of years. The rise and fall of several dynasties all take losing virtue to the people and having virtue to the people as the reason and call. In this sense, Chinese politics after the Western Zhou Dynasty, from its ideological point of view, was actually an element based on the people. Only because of the shackles of the system itself and other concepts, the actual effect of the concept of rule of virtue, only the part that this concept preached was even slightest, and it was only seen in the prosperous times. 2? Rites of the Western Zhou Dynasty

The core principle of the Western Zhou rites is to kiss, respect, and be long and different from men and women. These basic principles not only regulate and restrict the daily life of the regulated object, that is, the family life, but also transcend the scope of family life and play a direct role in a higher level of social and political life.

In the Western Zhou Dynasty, propriety was not inferior to common people, and propriety was a code of conduct to adjust the internal relations of the slave owner aristocracy. From the perspective of the space in which the rites of the Western Zhou Dynasty played a role, on the one hand, it was the internal life of the slave owners’ aristocrats and the communication life between families, on the other hand, it was also the political life of the Western Zhou Dynasty. Here, we mainly discuss the existence and function of rites in the Western Zhou Dynasty as a norm of political life. In fact, the function of rites in the Western Zhou Dynasty is, on the one hand, the adjustment of individual behavior based on the family, but on the other hand, there is a greater and deeper political implication. If we say, the political function of the rites of the Western Zhou Dynasty is much stronger than its color as a common code of conduct; Its political function is far more important than its importance of regulating daily life. This view may not be excessive, but it is also true.

Rites in the Western Zhou Dynasty, especially the principle of kinship, carried an important function of political power distribution, and at the same time, as a standard with a considerable degree of prestige, it also gave legitimacy to the existing political, economic and cultural pattern at that time. In this sense, the ritual of the Western Zhou Dynasty is more of a direct and present principle of political life, maintaining the current situation of the existing political pattern and maintaining its continuity. The space for its function is the space of political life, and its impact on politics is direct, not intermediary. In this regard, it is obviously different from the later Confucian rites.

The principle of kissing is the core of the rites of the Western Zhou Dynasty. Its meaning is that there are differences between intimacy and estrangement. Intimacy has other requirements, which not only occurs in ordinary daily life, but also in the field of political life. It is also the principle that governs the distribution of political power and the enjoyment of political interests.

The principle of kinship, which guides political life, is cronyism. In the discourse scene of modern society, cronyism has been obviously belittled, even equivalent to political backwardness or political corruption. But in China, there was the beginning of a dynasty and a country. Cronyism is the basic principle of legitimate distribution of political power and political interests.

The principle of cronyism ensures the continuity of the dominant position of the family that has obtained the dominant position in politics, so that “those who are expensive will always be expensive”. These nobles were all royal relatives of the Western Zhou Dynasty. The principle of kinship turns the political life of the country from top to bottom into the family life of a huge family with blood relationship. China’s integration of family and country, which has lasted for thousands of years, has been shaped with the backing of national coercion since the dynasty. It should be emphasized that the integration of family and country in the Western Zhou Dynasty is a real integration of family and country. Families with kinship have monopolized the right to participate in political life and the way for ordinary people to rise to the top of society through political channels, which is obviously different from the integration of family and country in the feudal society after the Qin and Han Dynasties.

The obvious feature of the political participation space generated by the principle of cronyism is that it is closed, with blood as a barrier, preventing other groups in society from entering political life and being officials. If there are many ways to close the political life space, the closure with blood ties as a barrier is particularly selfish. If autocracy can be defined as the closure of political life space, then autocracy with blood as the link and maintenance is particularly morally condemnable. If the autocratic system can also be divided into three, six, nine grades, then the autocracy based on blood is the lowest of autocracy.

Generally speaking, once the political life space is closed, it will become a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it does protect the interests of the ruling class, but on the other hand, it also lays a curse that endangers its rule.

The protective effect of the closed political space on the vested interests is only short-term. In the long run, on the one hand, because it is not competitive, the people in power have lost the sense of crisis, and at the same time, they have lost the spiritual will of struggle, self motivation and self-improvement. Therefore, the mediocrity, depression and even extravagance of politics have become inevitable; On the other hand, the general public in society, dissatisfied with the current situation, is bound to resist, which leads to the authorities’ extra reliance and favor on violent repression. The original intention of the users of violence is to eliminate the rebels and continue and ensure their own safety and interests, but when political life is full of violence and tyranny, it is not far from the demise of the regime that uses these violence and tyranny.

Like the principle of kinship, the principle of respect is also a principle of political life with directness and presence. However, the function of the principle of respect is auxiliary, that is, the political pattern shaped by the principle of auxiliary kinship is in a state of being respected and recognized. Compared with the two, it is obvious that the principle of intimacy is more fundamental and fundamental. It is the basic principle that determines the distribution of power and the basic principle of political life.

There is another problem here, that is, as a norm, the rites of the Western Zhou Dynasty are not universal, but special. The application of rites in the Western Zhou Dynasty strictly abides by the admonition of ordinary people, which is certainly a special expression or a need of the high-ranking classes in the hierarchy to reflect their superior position, but from a political point of view, there is a danger that rites, as a principle of distribution of state power, can be called the most basic principle of political life in any form of state, As a principle of giving legitimacy to the distribution of power, especially in the latter sense, the specificity and lack of universality of its scope of application actually weakens the persuasive power of etiquette to all levels of the whole society, and turns into distribution in a small circle, and then demonstrates the rationality or legitimacy of distribution in this small circle. Obviously, the legitimacy statement of the political power distribution system with the overall significance of the country bears a clear function of serving the political rule, and in terms of ensuring political stability, it should reach all the people of the whole society, so as to obtain broad public support. However, the rule that courtesy does not go down to ordinary people is actually to ignore the support and acceptance of the people, or even ignore or despise them. Such a power distribution system, due to the lack of the most basic political element – the support of the people, is one of its obvious defects.

3? The influence of Western Zhou ideology on later generations

The orthodox political and legal thought of the Western Zhou Dynasty, that is, the influence of ideology on later generations, is long-lasting and not limited to the Zhou Dynasty, and its major aspects are as follows:

First, the theocracy thought of virtue matching heaven ran through the ancient Chinese society since the Western Zhou Dynasty. The politics of ancient Chinese society with virtue matching heaven opened the way from theocracy to secularity. The legitimacy of political rule was finally established in personnel, that is, protecting and loving the people. Its mature form was the thought of benevolent government. The combination of virtue with heaven also extends the rationality for the change of Chinese dynasties. With thousands of years of ancient Chinese society, people’s recognition of the change of dynasties may not be too much if it stems from the combination of virtue with heaven.

Second, the thought of rites with patriarchal hierarchy as the core has become the core of the orthodox ruling thought in ancient China. Of course, in the subsequent era, the scope of application and function of rites shifted, from the principle of political power distribution function in the Western Zhou Dynasty to the mechanism of shaping and maintaining order at the level of social life after the Han Dynasty, but the basic principles of rites, kiss, respect, long and different from men and women, have not changed, but have been consolidated and strengthened.

Third, the ideology of the Western Zhou dynasty laid the basic pattern of social ideology in ancient China. From the Zhou Dynasty to the ancient Chinese society ending in the revolution of 1911, it lasted for more than 2000 years. In this process, it experienced the change of several dynasties, but the change of dynasties seems to be simply understood as the change of ruling families. In terms of social order, production and even social control strategies, the dynasties inherited and continued, and showed a high degree of similarity. Of course, in this process, It does not rule out some historical progress, such as the improvement of productivity brought by the renewal and development of production tools, but these progress can not change the homogeneity of social, political and economic rule in the past dynasties. Why did ancient Chinese society last for more than 2000 years? If we regard ancient society as a continuous whole, we can get some answers from its thought of political and legal rule. From a historical point of view, the ideology of ancient Chinese political system is an ideological system that transcends the change of dynasties. It contains the gene of the inevitable change of dynasties, including the inevitability of the demise of the old Dynasty and the rationality of the emergence of the new dynasty. Therefore, no matter how the old and new dynasties change, it does not get out of the nest of ideology that transcends all dynasties.

The ideology of the Zhou Dynasty has two pillars: one is the theocracy law thought, which advocates the divine authorization of monarchy, and advocates that people who are wise and virtuous can replace those who are not virtuous. This is a very revolutionary thought, and it is also a thought full of internal crises and worries. The second is the thought of ritual system, which shapes and maintains the social hierarchical order expected by the ruling class. Whether it was the divine grant of monarchy or ceremony, it was internalized into the core content of orthodox political and legal thought in ancient China. However, the establishment of the basic ideological pattern of social unification in ancient China can be traced back to the Zhou Dynasty.

The ideology of the Western Zhou Dynasty became the basis of the orthodox ideology of ancient Chinese society formed after the Han Dynasty, with Confucianism, especially Confucius, as the medium Confucius, who cherished the political ideals of unity, stability and peace, passed through the war-torn and disintegrated princes in the spring and Autumn period, and lamented, “I come from Zhou.” At that time, Confucius’ following Zhou Dynasty was still a scholar’s individual thought, which was of substantial value or significance to his family, country and world Since the Han Dynasty, when Confucius was respected as a saint and teacher, Confucius’ knowledge has become the mainstream of ancient Chinese society. Therefore, at the ideological level, it has followed Confucius from Zhou Dynasty. No wonder? No wonder.