Lackner M (2024)
Publication Type: Book chapter / Article in edited volumes
Publication year: 2024
Publisher: Routledge
Edited Volumes: Myths of the Golden Age in European Culture
Pages Range: 160-174
ISBN: 9781003499909
This chapter deals with Chinese conceptions of a Golden Age. Although there was no term of a “Golden Age” in traditional China, there were ideas of an ideal state of humanity. However, Chinese cosmology, with its emphasis on the cycle of rise and fall of prosperous ages, did not allow for the prevalence of a consistent linear development from “paradise” to “decay.” Against the backdrop of this all-encompassing cosmology, which also included the political sphere, the article examines some of the proclamations of new dynasties, including the Chinese Republic and Mao Zedong's 1949 declaration. Confucianism (as a representative of the intellectual elite) vacillated between a cyclical and a linear view of history. The religious movements, on the other hand, tended toward a history of gradual decline, which they wanted to transform into a renaissance of the primordial state of universal contentment. Finally, a utopian location of an idyllic paradise is also illuminated.
APA:
Lackner, M. (2024). One Golden Age? Or Many? Chinese Conceptions of the Ideal Society. In Myths of the Golden Age in European Culture. (pp. 160-174). Routledge.
MLA:
Lackner, Michael. "One Golden Age? Or Many? Chinese Conceptions of the Ideal Society." Myths of the Golden Age in European Culture. Routledge, 2024. 160-174.
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