Dong Zhongshu
179–104 BC · Classical Confucianism · Little-known
Dong Zhongshu was a Han dynasty Confucian who taught that floods and eclipses are Heaven's complaints about the emperor, since the human order and the natural one move together through yin and yang and the five phases. The Chunqiu Fanlu, compiled in his name, rests a ruler's authority on Heaven's mandate and warns him through such omens. He pressed the Han court to train its officials in the Confucian texts.
Signature
The position Zhongshu is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Nature
- leans Harmony
- Theology
- Panentheism / Henotheism
Positions on the 6 axes the sources answer
- Natural Processes
- leans Purposeful (75 on a 0–100 scale from Mechanistic to Purposeful)
- Society
- leans Collectivism (25 on a 0–100 scale from Collectivism to Individualism)
- Meaning
- leans Inherent (75 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Order
- leans Vertical (25 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
- Nature
- leans Harmony (75 on a 0–100 scale from Mastery to Harmony)
- Polity
- leans Illiberalism (25 on a 0–100 scale from Illiberalism to Liberalism)
14 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Zhongshu refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Panentheism / Henotheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Monarchy
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Harmony
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Moral Realism
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - Knowledge
- Tradition / Coherence
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Natural Law / Virtue
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Divine Providence
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Beginning of Things
- Eternal Cosmos / Cyclical Recurrence
What is the origin of reality? - Time
- Cyclical Return
What is the fundamental shape of time? - Authority
- Divine Revelation
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Law
- Natural Law / Common Law
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Death
- Ancestral Presence / Multiple Souls
What happens at death? - Role of Emotion
- Virtue to Cultivate
What is the proper role of emotion? - Primary Bond
- Nation
What is your primary bond and loyalty?