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CHINA SOURCE - Coggle Diagram
CHINA SOURCE
SIGNIFICANCE?
Luxury and Social Hierarchy: Echoes broader early modern concerns about the destabilising effects of wealth (cf. Spain, Rome).
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Similar to European sumptuary laws, but China's system remained more static, revealing different relationships between state, market, and class.
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Wen’s distinctions reflect a desire to reassert elite status through refined taste, not just wealth.
CLUNAS
- failure and circumvention of sumptuary laws - cultural texts like Wen's became unofficial guides to proper consumption
- shows tension between legal authority and cultural taste
- luxury redefined social identity, transitioning toward consumer-driven culture
ZANASI
- some intellectuals viewed luxury as economically productive, not morally corrupt
- region of Jiangnan became a hub of new economic thinking
- argued that luxury supported artisanal employment, markets, and trade
CONTEXT
Wen Zhenheng: late Ming elite scholar, writing in a time of growing consumer wealth and social mobility.
Ming Dynasty (especially Jiangnan): economic growth, market expansion, and urbanisation.
reflect elite anxiety over status erosion, as artisans and merchants gained wealth.
Sumptuary laws tried to preserve Confucian social order where status came from scholarship, not wealth.
CONTENT
key points
Distinguishes tasteful vs vulgar, antique vs modern, practical vs decorative.
- Prefers ancient Chinese artefacts, eg: from the Song dynasties
- Offers moral-aesthetic guidance on proper elite consumption.
- Foreign or modern items = inferior (e.g., dismisses Japanese inkstones).
- Gives rules on proper placement and usage of objects (e.g., incense not for Buddha).