ABSTRACT
Classical sources in China frequently defend dissent as an essential feature of government. The two main arguments were: (1) that it acts as a safety valve by preventing popular frustration from breaking out as violence; (2) that all governments, being fallible, require popular feedback to correct policies harmful to the people. Several of the Han period policy documents translated during the 1730s address the issue of political speech, declaring that all officers and the people should reveal the monarch’s errors “freely, directly, and with exceptional candor.” This last passage was left out of the translation, but the translated portions still conveyed the idea that official and popular criticism was beneficial to government. Late Han writers took this right for granted, and one can find references to the principle in Han period engravings. Toward the end of the Tang dynasty both the theory and practice of critical literature developed markedly, but not in time to save the dynasty from collapse. In Song times the government created institutions encouraging feedback from the populace, including legal equality for taxpayers, legal suits paid for by the state, and whistle-blower agencies that protected the anonymity of the complainant. Correspondingly Song painting developed numerous methods for individuals to display their political views in public. Earlier artists relied upon allegory. Later artists made use of metaphor, metonymy, or synecdoche, and still others preferred reportage. A similar process of development would occur in England during the preindustrial period.
