Political, Ritual And Power Order

Mostly speaking, the maintaining of political power order must be based on certain legitimacy, which is in essence the manifestation and direct result of our inner belief of legitimacy. But it must be visible actions by some external forms instead of just thinking about that kind of belief in our mind. One of the most important forms is the state political ritual. Through its repeated ceremony performing, the demotic political belief can be established and strengthened. Thus the legitimate foundation of maintaining social political power order is constructed, the social conformity smoothly implemented, and the political power order kept stable. On the contrary, once the existent legitimate belief is devaluated or ruptured, the corresponding political ritual will decline and the connatural political power order will also blow up.On account of the state sacrifice being the most important political ritual, this article takes the ancient Chinese "state sacrifice" as the studying topic to prove that it sustains "the supper stability" continuation of ancient Chinese political power order by political analysis.The ancient Chinese "state sacrifice" is divided into three stages. The pre-state stage, in which original religion brings forth sacrifice and power order. Early state stage, in which sacrifice becomes the cruxes of early state power order construction and function and tightly introjects with politics, at length advances toward "state sacrifice" . The third stage is Qin-Han era, in which the ancient Chinese "state sacrifice" comes into being. During this era the united empire is established, and the power order cored around the emperor is basically formed. In order to stick up for the belief requirement of power order under the united pattern, the rulers innovate early state sacrifice according to Confucian rituals which leads to the coming out of the ancient Chinese "state sacrifice" . In later dynasties the ancient Chinese "state sacrifice" not only is concerned with political legitimate construction, but also becomes rulers' important tool of social controlling.By deep-seated analysis the author thinks that there must be profound social ideological and economic sources for the ancient Chinese "state sacrifice" , since it as political ritual can successfully construct ancient empire political legitimate belief and realize social political conformity. Ancient Chinese society belongs to typical agricultural type, in which the "fatality" belief and ancestor adoration are "shared value" . The ancient Chinese "state sacrifice" , which regards "shared value" as main content, becomes its symbol. So the compere, no mater who is the specific person, can act as people's agent, and they are naturally easy to identify with him. By that the ancient Chinese "state sacrifice" serves as the steady headstone of maintaining "the supper stability" continuation of ancient Chinese political power order.With unprecedented society changing since late Qing, the Chinese situation is getting more and more complicated. The political tradition cored around the belief of "fatality" faces serious crisis, and the ancient Chinese "state sacrifice" is tending towards recession. Finally the power order of absolute monarchy falls apart. Nevertheless when post-imperialism people reconstruct their new power order, although unsuccessful, they appeal to traditional political ritual again and again.When the traditional political ritual such as the ancient Chinese "state sacrifice" is alone relied on in the perplexing Chinese modern circumstances in which the traditional social criterion changes remarkably, it has met great hardship when trying to construct the government legitimacy and to conform social polity, though the ancient Chinese "state sacrifice" as a set of power skills and a kind of power practice has an irreplaceable function in constructing and maintaining ancient absolute monarchy's special power structure and order. The reason is that with social transformation the construction of power legitimacy gets increasingly intricate and the political ritual should be adjusted according to changing social criterions. That is to say, the ritual of political legitimacy must be changed from traditional type of consanguinity, hereditariness and god-given regality into legal principle type in which the authority comes from and is approbated by people's vote; from subject type of passive moralized inculcation into citizen type of initiative study and free selection; from closed exclusive type into openparticipation type——the ritual of people participating in politicalactions is no longer controlled or confined in an extremely incapacious and closed spectrum.Under this circumstances the maintenance of political power order cannot any more just rely on implicit belief and its spiritual constructing mode. The traditional political ritual can merely act as the symbol of power. The realization of political legitimacy construction and society control and the stability of power order must through the strength of organizations recur to the political ritual corresponding to social politics development.