Rhetoric of Reorganization: Thinking beyond Millennialism through the Notion of Great Peace (<i>Taiping</i>) in Early Medieval Daoist Texts

This article juxtaposes the transcultural conceptions of millennialism and the Chinese notion of taiping (Great Peace), the former represented by the work of Richard Landes, Catherine Wessinger, and Stephen O’Leary, the latter by the early medieval Chinese texts ascribed to Tianshidao, or the Way of the Celestial Masters, a Daoist tradition that has been presented as crucial for the development of Chinese millennialism. The article aims for a symmetrical approach that does not subject taiping to the universalist notion of millennialism but uses the former to show the limits of the latter. The limitation stems from its roots in modern Western ontology, notably its specific notions of nature, transcendence, and rationality. Instead of providing a new definition of millennialism, the article offers a new approach focusing on rhetoric of reorganization: rhetorical strategies arguing for specific ways of reorganizing a given world, later being presented as either sustainable or unsustainable. Such an approach should be helpful not only for Chinese studies but also for analyzing religious and political images of possible futures.