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28 Cardozo L. Rev. 23 (2006-2007)
Innovation as Ritualization: The Fractured Cosmology of Early China

handle is hein.journals/cdozo28 and id is 39 raw text is: INNOVATION AS RITUALIZATION: THE FRACTURED COSMOLOGY OF EARLY CHINA Michael Puett* INTRODUCTION How does one create anew? Or, put in stronger terms: how does one break from tradition and create a new order? Such questions are often, and mistakenly, presented as modernist concerns: modernity is often defined, among other things, as based upon a willingness to innovate, to break from the traditional orders of the past. Theoretical discussions of innovation then proceed from the question of how one can legitimate such innovation without reference to the guiding tradition from which one is departing. By definition, premodern cultures would be seen as unable to contribute to such a theoretical discussion-since, after all, premodern traditions are the traditions one is breaking from. According to such a view, premodern societies were dominated by ritual traditions that were legitimated through some kind of a belief in cosmic holism: rituals were believed to be based upon either divine commandments or cosmic patterns. In contrast, the argument runs, it is only in modem times that such traditional forms of authority broke down, thus creating the problem of how we are to legitimate our actions without reference to traditional ritual norms. If political communities are understood to be guided by human laws, institutions, and decisions, then how can we legitimate such actions when there is no longer a divine being to follow or a set of cosmic patterns to imitate? Thus, theories have been developed around notions of individual autonomy, juridical notions of a self-willed populace, and so forth. Within such a framework, of course, premodern thought can only be of antiquarian interest; it could not conceivably be * Michael Puett is Professor of Chinese History and Chair of the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University. He received his Ph.D. in 1994 from the Department of Anthropology at the University of Chicago. His interests are focused primarily on the inter-relations between anthropology, history, and philosophy. He is the author of THE AMBIVALENCE OF CREATION: DEBATES CONCERNING INNOVATION AND ARTIFICE IN EARLY CHINA and TO BECOME A GOD: COSMOLOGY, SACRIFICE, AND SELF-DIVINIZATION IN EARLY CHINA.

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