VOLUME IV, CHAPTER 4
The Lifespan of Enfeoffment, Part Two
Last chapter split enfeoffment into two kinds and made clear why the enfeoffment of power decays every few centuries while the enfeoffment of faith and culture can last thousands of years. This chapter walks into the deepest ground and does three things, then closes the whole subject of enfeoffment. The first section opens the sharpest paradox of all: what happens when a faith and a culture turn around and take up worldly power. The four problems arrive at once, two samples, the Papal State and the Caliphate, both get pulled back into the cycle, and the separation of church and state is what lets both live longer. The second section brings out nine words from Laozi, spoken more than two thousand years ago, that governing a great state is like cooking a small fish, the deepest piece of counsel there is for anyone in a position: stir little, stay clear-eyed, own your own limits. The third section closes this half of the book by answering the plainest question of all, what a person in a position can actually do, and the answer is three things, know that you are only passing through, hold the will of the people, and stir little. This chapter shows one underlying color: enfeoffment cannot escape the cycle, but the cycle is not a tragedy, it is the way life itself is.
Chapter contents
Section One. The four hard problems when faith becomes power
Section Two. Governing a great state like cooking a small fish
Section Three. The close of enfeoffment, what a person in a position can do
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.
Section One. The four hard problems when faith becomes power