CHINESE HISTORY AND CHTNG INSTITUTIONS
dicating the wide spread of Chinese culture by means of both trade and
military expansion.2
The long-term cultural legacy of the Shang was primarily one of at-
titudes: an obsessive concern with ritual (H), a strongly bureaucratic outlook
(especially evident in an abiding love of hierarchy, order, and classification),
a consuming interest in the family and in ancestor worship, a fully articula-
ted script, and the beginnings of yin-yang style art motifs and metaphysics.
Significantly, we find in Shang culture “a congruence of function and ex-
pression between religious practice, political organization, kinship descent,
artistic expression, and divination forms,’” suggesting the remarkable
integrative capacity of traditional Chinese civilization as early as Shang
times.
The Chou dynasty (traditional dates: 1122-256 b.c.) replaced the Shang
in what became a familiar conquest pattern. In traditional Chinese
historiography the Chou is considered to be the “Golden Age” of Chinese
history, a time of peace and prosperity under sage kings and “feudal”
institutions.* But by the sixth century B.c., the political and social structure
of the early Chou had begun to break down. Widespread fighting among
contending Chinese “states” (kuo) proved disruptive and demoralizing.
New technological developments contributed to important economic and
social changes.’ In the midst of the chaos and uncertainty, the search began
for a means of restoring unity and tranquility to China. This quest led to a
flowering of Chinese philosophy as impressive as the roughly contemporary
great age of Classical thought in the West.
Between the sixth and the third centuries B.c., a succession of brilliant
and articulate Chinese thinkers offered a wide variety of solutions to
China’s pressing social problems. Confucius (c. 551-479 B.c.) and his
followers, notably Mencius (c. 372-289 B.c.)and Hsiin-tzu (c. 300-235 B.C.),
advocated a return to the lost virtues of the early Chou, to family-centered
ethics, ritual, and social responsibility. The followers of Mo-tzu (c. 470-391
B.c.) criticized the excessive ritual, lack of religious spirit and particularism
of Confucianism, but shared many of the same general social goals and
ethical concerns. By contrast, the Taoist philosophers Lao-tzu (sixth
century B.c.), Chuang-tzu (c. 369-286 B.c.), and their disciples sought
release from social burdens; they were at heart individualists and escapists,
concerned less with changing the world in an active way than with finding
their special niche in the natural order. Related to the Taoists, at least in
their interest in nature and natural process, were the followers of Tsou Yen
(fourth century B.c.), who developed an elaborate cosmology based on yin-
yang principles and the so-called “five agents” or “activities” (wu-hsing)
associated with the elements of wood, metal, fire, water, and earth (mu,
chin, huo, shui, t,u). Other schools of thought, such as the School of Names