Event

The “aesthetic turn” in both political thought and mental health care centers around Western aesthetics and Euro-American psychology. This paper attempts to indigenize both by focusing on “bureaucratic aesthetics” in Chinese officialdom, which constitutes both a source of distress and a potential resource for healing. Traditional Chinese aesthetic principles have been widely practiced in Chinese officialdom since ancient times. These include anshi “suggestiveness”, hanxu “reservedness,” and liubai “intended blank,” as well as key aesthetic methodologies such as cha yan guan se (observing one’s speeches and facial expressions). These practices intensify the opaqueness of zuzhi power, and unintelligibility of widespread “hidden rules” (vis a vis written laws). Adhering to aesthetic principles require acculturation and a high level of artfulness on the part of bureaucrats. This artfulness, anchored in xin, “the heart,” allows officials to achieve success, gain respect from peers and superiors, and bridge untenable contradictions such as between party and state structures, and between rational decision-making and what saves “face” to maintain harmony. While smooth, artful behavior can be gratifying, it has led to a crisis of “heart exhaustion” (xinlei) among officials. Paradoxically, aesthetic practices might also be a resource for alternative healing. In this paper I discuss this paradox between xinlei/mental distress and the prospect of aesthetic healing. I argue that the artfulness of officialdom constitutes a hegemonic means of political reproduction, solidifying and extending the continued rule of the party while masking the human cost and limits of its bureaucratic power.