All this might be thought to imply that acceptance by the common peoplewas necessary for holding the Mandate.
Legitimacy
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- Feb 2025
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The people, especially the poor and the disad-vantaged or disabled, should be treated kindly by their social superiors (‘leadthem, work them . . . Do not weary them’: CA 13.1).21 This was in accordancewith the view stated in the Odes: the people are ‘indeed heavily burdened and itis time for them to rest a while’.22
Similar to Egypt
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deviate from the way of virtue and behave oppressivelyand licentiously, they will lose Heaven’s Mandate’
Sacred monarchies have some expectation of virtue and proper rule for the monarch. Their fitness as a leader is not just a political concern but a religious concern. Poor leaders have disgraced their sacred duty.
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The difference between the nobleand the ‘small’ man was that the former ‘concentrates on right’, the latter on‘advantage’, especially financial gain
Based Confucius
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But discussion was limited to monarchy and did not, as in Greece, considerother types of state.
An important distinction. All Chinese political thought originated with a top-down perspective.
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The revolution of c. 1046 BCE was based on, or gave rise to, the beliefthat the ‘Mandate (or Decree) of Heaven’ (tian ming) had passed to theZhou lineage, because of the Shang’s misrule and the virtue (de) 5 of theZhou.
Interesting how religious authority was able to be transferred. Could a new lineage of Pharaoh's have done the same?
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. During this period of politicalflux and frequent warfare, Chinese philosophy got started—much as it didduring the age of independent poleis in Greece
Interesting how a plurality of impermanent and at risk states births great political creativity.
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Egypt’s was the first expression of sacred monarchy. It was effective for anenormous stretch of time because it was tied in to the current view of the waythings were.
I think that Egypt's sacred monarchy is the ultimate form of this system. The religion is not used to justify the monarchy, the monarchy is the religion. Thus its legitimacy is powerful, but also the king's responsibilities to the people are powerful and real. By comparison, Christian monarchies made use of a religion which was largely inaccessible to laypeople and which had long been reduced to its simplest, most superstitious pieces. The hailing of a king as appointed by god was fabricated entirely outside the context of the religion and the moral attributes were discarded and unacknowledged. Thus the king's legitimacy was created by using the religion as a vehicle and did not actually originate within the religion.
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I made the four winds that every manmight breathe thereof like his fellow...I made the great inundation that thepoor man might have rights therein like the great man...I made every manlike his fellow’ (c. 2000 BCE : ANE 7–8). Appointments should be made on thebasis of merit, not status (‘do not prefer the wellborn to the commoner, choosea man on account of his skills’) (Merikare, in Lichtheim: i. 101). Male andfemale were on the same moral plane. Was this related to the wide gulfbetween pharaoh and all subjects
Again we see that religion informs the society's politics far more than the actual political structure it has.
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urged to ‘administerequal justice to all’ regardless of wealth, status, or affinity to the judge
This is something which we often consider as a core tenet of modern liberal democracies, yet it is an incredibly old idea which existed under absolute religious monarchy.
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The wealthy and powerful have an obligation to provide for the poor andvulnerable. This was a central principle of the patrimonial state
Its interesting to see how much this idea was repeated. I wonder how this actually played out in Egypt, if most Pharaohs could be considered just and kind rulers. Its interesting to think how absolute monarchy could play out in very different ways depending on the culture and beliefs of the state and society.
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Partly as a consequence, it was themost extreme theory of absolute monarchy.
Similar to how medieval states revolved around central authority, yet even more extreme. Egypt is Egypt because of the pharaoh, and the people can call themselves Egyptians because they are ruled by him.
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nationalist religious imperialism
In this sense we can have both empire and nationalism. The Egyptians believed in empire simply to conquer land and take what was rightfully theirs. There is no desire to bring other people into the empire and thus it can be limited while seeking to expand.
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