在
18
世纪之前的英国，没有正式的
机构
来
可以让
下层民众
提供
政治反馈
，
所以没有以人们的反馈作为主题的图像。在中国，民间反馈的必要性在战国时期就已经出现，而与此相关的
图像
早在汉代就出现了。
在
18
世纪初，当英国的自由思想家们开始主张
“
出版自由
”
时，他们引用了中国的历史文本来支持他们的新观点。只有这样，我们才找到
了英国
描绘人民与政府之间对话的
图像
。卢梭也借鉴了宋朝时期的文章来发展他的
“
民意
”
概念，但他把这个中文术语误解为
所有
民间的观点，无论是合乎逻辑的还是空洞的
，
但中文的
“
公议
”
只指基于事实和逻辑的理性论证
，
这些对大众反馈的不同理解可以追溯到中国汉宋时期，以及
18
世纪到
19
世纪的英国和欧洲的图像中
。
Before the 18th century in England, there was no formal provision for political feedback from low-ranking people. And so there were no pictures that took feedback from the people as the main subject. In China the necessity of popular feedback appears already in Warring States times, and pictures relevant to the subject appear as early as Han times. In the early 18th century, when the English Free Thinkers began to argue for “liberty of the press,” they cited the Chinese histories in support of their novel idea. Only then do we find pictures portraying dialogue between the people and government. Arguably Rousseau also borrowed from Song period essays to develop his idea of “public opinion,” but he misunderstood the Chinese term as meaning any popular opinion, whether logical or inane. But the Chinese term
公议
referred only to rational argument based on facts and reason. These different understandings of popular feedback can be traced in images from Han and Song China, as well as in images from 18th and 19th century England and Europe.
