Heaven’s warning or the monarch’s responsibility? What was the impact of the Jie Theory on East Asian politics and society?

The Jie Theory of the Eastern Zhongshu is a systematized theory that combines the theory of heavenly warning and the theory of natural response, which states that the heavens send disasters to reprimand monarchs who have lost their virtue. This theory has had a profound impact on East Asian politics and society, emphasizing the moral responsibility of monarchs and playing an important role in shaping the participation of subjects in political discussions and the moral norms of society as a whole.

 

A typical East Asian discussion of cause-and-effect relationships between natural phenomena and human events is the theory of disaster. The Han Dynasty’s Eastern Zhongzi systematized the theory by combining the celestial view that the heavens reprimand monarchs who lose their virtue with the theory of celestial sensitivity, which states that the heavens and humans are sensitive to each other through the yin and yang qi common to humans and the heavens. According to him, when a monarch commits a misgovernment, the heavens, sensitized by the changed yin and yang qi, issue warnings through jai, such as droughts, floods, solar and lunar eclipses, etc. In this case, jai was both a demonstration that the monarchy originated from the heavens and a warning to the monarch about his or her true condition.
These basic concepts of jai theory became an important framework for explaining the relationship between politics and natural phenomena in East Asian societies. According to the theory, a monarch’s actions against the will of the heavens inevitably resulted in disaster, which was interpreted as a warning message from the heavens to humans. Thus, through jai, monarchs felt the need to reflect on and improve their ways of governing. It served as a methodology for achieving political stability and social harmony.
The ambivalent nature of the theory of jie provided a rationale for subjects to participate in political discussions and was embodied in the tradition of the monarch asking for directives and subjects responding when jie occurred. However, after the Eastern Zhongshu, the individualized response method of explaining human history as a cause and disaster as an effect in a one-to-one correspondence was criticized as being too forced. This method led to a tendency toward prophecy, which led to a tendency to treat jai as a sign of human affairs and human affairs as a result of jai, and it also became an excuse for monarchs to suppress subjects who spoke directly to them for deceiving the people with their words.
Later, the prophetic interpretation of jai was criticized, and the theory of natural selection was denied. However, the theory of jie did not disappear from the political scene. By the Song Dynasty, Zhu Hui had adopted the trend of not considering lunar eclipses, which had become predictable due to the development of astronomy, as jie, and regarded jie as a natural phenomenon that was fundamentally difficult to explain by reason. However, the abandonment of the theory of jie, which up to that time had provided a safe space for journalistic activity by prompting an active response from the monarch to jie, meant the loss of a useful political mechanism for his subjects.
For this reason, he clung to the ash theory to find an appropriate way to keep the monarch on guard. Instead of individualized responses to jai, he proposed a general response theory that the heavens would respond to the accumulation of faults and misdeeds by the monarch, causing anomalous natural phenomena to occur, reducing jai to a matter of cultivating the monarch’s heart and mind, and prolonging the historical life of jai theory. In this way, the theory became more than just an explanation of natural phenomena, but an important standard for regulating the moral responsibility and political behavior of monarchs.
The influence of the Restatement was not limited to the political realm. It set the tone for an emphasis on moral norms throughout society, and it had a profound impact on education and culture. For example, ethics education in schools has been strengthened, and narrative structures and themes influenced by rethinking are common in literature. This cultural diffusion made re-theorizing more than just a political theory, but an important idea that was widely accepted and understood throughout society.
Re-theorizing also contributed to the scientific thinking and understanding of natural phenomena of the time. Attempts were made to analyze and predict natural phenomena by referring to re-theory in various fields of study, such as astronomy and meteorology, which laid an important foundation for the development of science in East Asia. These academic advances have provided valuable knowledge to later generations of researchers and remain an example of the lasting impact of re-theorizing.
In conclusion, re-theory was an important theory in East Asia that systematically explained the relationship between politics and nature, humans and the heavens. Beyond simply defining the relationship between monarchs and subjects, it served to promote moral norms and academic advancement throughout society. The impact of this re-theorizing remains an important topic of study for many researchers today, and it occupies an integral place in the history of East Asian thought.