A Zhou Dynasty mirror: America's 'collapse of ritual and music'

There's a scene in "The Newsroom" that many viewers still remember. Anchor Will McAvoy is asked by a college student: "Why is America the greatest country in the world?"

He doesn't applaud. He doesn't smile. Instead, he calmly replies: "Why do you think it is?" Then he drops a string of cold, hard facts: America ranks seventh in literacy, twenty-second in scientific literacy, and forty-ninth in life expectancy. And it leads the world in exactly three things: incarceration rate, the share of adults who believe in angels – and military spending.

What makes this moment so powerful isn't that it "bashes" the United States. It's that it punctures a myth – even Americans themselves have long doubted the story of their own perfection.

When reality beats the script

The reality has since outdone fiction. As millions of pages related to the Jeffrey Epstein case have gradually surfaced through court records and investigations, a hidden network of politicians, billionaires and celebrities has come into view – one built on judicial loopholes, underage trafficking and elite impunity.

Public trust in the US federal government has fallen from a high of approximately 77 percent in 1964 to historic lows. As of late 2025, public trust in the federal government remains near historic lows, with only 17 percent of Americans saying they trust their government to do what is right "just about always" or "most of the time," according to the Pew Research Center. The very pillars of American self-image – rule of law, human rights, due process – now look disturbingly fragile.

Online in China, reactions have evolved in telling ways. At first, it was gossip and memes. But soon came deeper reflections: "We used to think the West had tamed human evil," one comment read. "Turns out, they just dressed it in a tailored suit."

Harsh? Maybe. But it captures a growing unease: when a society worships its institutions as infallible while letting moral guardrails decay, trust collapses long before the laws do.

A familiar pattern in ancient China

From a historical Chinese perspective, this phenomenon appears strikingly familiar. More than 2,500 years ago, as the Western Zhou Dynasty crumbled, Chinese thinkers described the crisis with four stark words: "li beng yue huai," meaning, "The collapse of ritual and music."

"Ritual" wasn't just ceremony – it was the code governing power, justice and social conduct.

"Music" wasn't mere entertainment – it symbolized the shared values and cultural harmony that held society together.

When ritual becomes empty performance and music loses its soul, order doesn't vanish overnight – but it is already rotting from within. In many ways, America today appears to be living through its own modern "collapse of ritual and music."

Laws grow ever more detailed, yet the moral floor for the powerful keeps sinking. Institutions still speak in lofty tones, but ordinary people are losing faith faster than ever. On Epstein's private island, there were no swords or blood – only a shameless conspiracy of power, more brazen than the intrigues of any ancient court.

The founding fathers' design and its limits

The American founders were not naive about this danger. James Madison warned in The Federalist Papers that power must be checked, or it will corrupt. The constitutional design of separated powers was meant to ensure that power is checked, or else corruption emerges.

Yet over two centuries, those checks have gradually been distorted – not to restrain elite networks, but increasingly to serve partisan warfare and mutual protection. Capital, media influence and political insiders now often operate as a single ecosystem. The framework remains, but its teeth appear increasingly blunt.

Law alone cannot sustain order

Traditional Chinese governance long emphasized the principle of "virtue first, punishment second." Laws set the floor – but virtue sets the ceiling. Without ethical restraint, even the most sophisticated system can be manipulated. Without shared moral intuition, even perfect procedures can become political theater.

The Epstein scandal may fade from headlines. But the crack it revealed will not heal on its own. When a society stops believing that its leaders possess basic decency, no amount of institutional polish can prevent a slow slide into disorder.

And the lesson from a crumbling Zhou court over two millennia ago sounds eerily familiar today.

Min Rui is a commentator on cultural affairs. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily those of CGTN.