VOLUME IV, CHAPTER 2, SECTION 3
The Five Laws of Enfeoffment
The last classes walked through all six kinds of enfeoffment, one by one: of land, of office, of the electorate, of the army, of the bloodline, of the party. Six forms as far apart as a Zhou feudal state and a modern polling place, an army barracks and a palace. This section gathers them together and asks one overall question. Do these six share a single skeleton? They do, and it is those five laws. This section sends the six kinds past the five laws, one at a time, and then says at last, fully, what the character for enfeoffment itself means.
First bring the five laws back. We set them down in the pride, and here they are again, before we test them. First, a position must exist. Wherever there is a group, there must be that front-most pivot. Second, a position must be accepted by the group. The pivot cannot crown itself, it must be accepted, continuously. Third, acceptance is dynamic. Accepted today is not accepted tomorrow, it refreshes every second. Fourth, when acceptance drains past a point, the position vanishes. The acceptance beneath runs dry, and the position is gone overnight. Fifth, a new position necessarily arises. The old pivot falls, and the group will not stay long without one, a new one is pushed up. These five are life-level laws that pick no era, from the hive to the pride, from the tribe to the nation. Now see whether all six kinds are bound by them.
Take the enfeoffment of land. A position must exist, the lord is the pivot. A position must be accepted, the lord accepted by the people of his state and by the Son of Heaven above. Acceptance is dynamic, the lords submitting when the king is strong, drifting when he is weak. When acceptance drains past a point the position vanishes, the Zhou king in the end a head in name only, acceptance drained near zero. A new position necessarily arises, the lords swallowing one another until Qin, a new pivot come. Land, not one law off. Take the enfeoffment of office. A position must exist, the governor and magistrate are the pivots. A position must be accepted by superiors, peers, subordinates, the people together. Acceptance is dynamic, steady with a good record, shaken by failure. When acceptance drains past a point the position vanishes, removal and dismissal are this law. A new position necessarily arises, one leaves and the next fills, the position empty not one moment. Office, not one law off.
Take voter enfeoffment. A position must exist, the pivot of the president or mayor cannot be spared. A position must be accepted, the ballot being acceptance turned into a count. Acceptance is dynamic, the polls changing by the day. When acceptance drains past a point the position vanishes, a failed reelection, an impeachment, a recall, all this law. A new position necessarily arises, this one down and the next term lifts another. Voter enfeoffment looks the most modern, yet not one law off. Take military enfeoffment. A position must exist, the commander is the pivot. A position must be accepted, resting on the army's obedience, obedience being the acceptance the army gives. Acceptance is dynamic, steady when the troops can be used, in danger when their hearts scatter. When acceptance drains past a point the position vanishes, a mutiny, a defection, being the army withdrawing its acceptance. A new position necessarily arises, one strongman down and another soon up. Military enfeoffment, not one law off.
Take dynastic enfeoffment. A position must exist, the emperor is the pivot. A position must be accepted, the emperor accepted by the royal house, the officials, the army, the people, the acceptance resting on the habit of the bloodline. Acceptance is dynamic, steady when the emperor is worthy, the people drifting when he is muddled. When acceptance drains past a point the position vanishes, the dynasty collapsing, the last emperor leaving the stage, this law. A new position necessarily arises, the old house down and the new one's emperor soon set up. Dynastic enfeoffment ran thousands of years and still not one law off. Take party enfeoffment. A position must exist, the party's leader is the pivot. A position must be accepted, resting on the raising up within and the recognition without. Acceptance is dynamic, a shift of line within or of sentiment without and the position moves. When acceptance drains past a point the position vanishes, the leader down, the party out of power, this law. A new position necessarily arises, one leader gone and the party raises another. Party enfeoffment is the most modern enfeoffment, and still not one law off.
Six kinds walked through, and one thing is clear. A thousand differences of form, one skeleton beneath. Why can these five hold one ruler against them all? Because these five are not the rules of one institution, they are the rules of every life-level group. So long as a crowd of living people gather and must produce a front-most position, these five are at work, whatever you call it, lord or governor, president or commander, emperor or leader. See this layer clearly and many an argument can be set down. Some argue which kind of enfeoffment is advanced and which backward, but before these five laws the six kinds are equals. None escapes, none stands on high ground looking down on another. Their difference is not whether to keep the five laws, but by what means they make the group accept, how wide the range of acceptance, how violent the shock when acceptance drains. That is where to look when looking at enfeoffment, not at which sign it hangs out.
Walk this far and it is time to say, stroke by stroke, what the character for enfeoffment means. Its oldest meaning is to mound earth and plant a tree along the boundary of a piece of land, marking out a range. In the old bronze script the character shows soil below, a tree above, and a hand setting the tree onto the mound. To mound earth and plant a tree is to set a boundary for a patch of land, and that patch is from then on in the charge of one person, one family. That is enfeoffment in its most original shape, a range entrusted to a person. Feel the word entrusted. Enfeoffment was never the person running off to seize it. Someone, some group, hands this patch, this position, into his hands. The many mound the earth, the many plant the tree, the many recognize the boundary. The one enfeoffed is lifted, set in place, by all of them together. So from its very first day the direction of enfeoffment runs from below to above, from outside to inside. It is not one person reaching out to the many, it is the many entrusting to one. And this locks exactly onto the first sentence of the whole volume: the position is lifted up by the group.
For just this reason, the word for enfeoffment was never meant to be an insult. To mound earth and plant a tree, to mark a boundary and entrust it, is a neutral thing, a solemn thing even. A child given a name, a band of conscripts raising a man to king, a village recognizing one to lead it, a nation handing a stretch of country to one person, all use the same motion, enfeoffment. It can be done well, a worthy one enfeoffed and the many at peace. It can be done badly, a muddled one enfeoffed and the many in misery. But good or bad, the motion itself is clean, neutral, the plainest procedure by which human groups have run for thousands of years. To carry those insulted words back out of the scorn, and return them their neutral, original face, is the one thing this half of the book has done from beginning to end.
So here is the position this section lays down. We set the six kinds before the five laws and tested each, of land, of office, of the electorate, of the army, of the bloodline, of the party, and every one is bound by all five, a position must exist, a position must be accepted, acceptance is dynamic, when acceptance drains the position vanishes, a new position arises. We said the word through, to mound earth and plant a tree, to mark and entrust, the direction always from below, the many handing a position to one, neutral and solemn. A thousand differences of form, one skeleton beneath, one ruler laid against them all. Here Chapters One and Two finish the half that asks what enfeoffment is. We started from a name given to a child, walked through the pride and the six kinds, said the word through, and set down the skeleton and the laws of enfeoffment.
But then, we have spoken only of enfeoffment itself, and not yet of a deeper question. Does enfeoffment have a lifespan? Why does one enfeoffment collapse in a few centuries and another last thousands of years? The same position lifted up by the group, so why does a dynasty turn over every two or three centuries while the words of Confucius are still read after two thousand? The next chapter walks into the lifespan of enfeoffment and the law behind that difference.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.