In fact, this question is not something that no one has thought of before. After all, there are many schools of Confucianism, ranging from the theory of good nature and evil theory in the pre-Qin Dynasty; to the Zuishi school and Gongyang school in the Han Dynasty; to the Neo-Confucian psychology debate in the Ming Dynasty in the future. The debate over Confucian views has never stopped in history.
After so many years of debate, the thin volume of the Analects and the annotations of many great scholars from various schools have long since deviated from the original intention of Confucius. It is common for words to be taken literally and quoted out of context. Just pick out one or two words at random, and those "great scholars" can shake their heads and talk about this single word for so many days and nights. It is as if Confucius had millions of scheming thoughts, and every word he spoke had millions of hidden meanings.
Even if Confucius is resurrected, he will inevitably be dumbfounded and confused when he sees and hears these disciples and disciples making more and more far-reaching comments on the Analects.
Just like in the Chinese language test papers of later generations, those authors who read and understood the original text saw the analysis of the teacher's answer: "What is the hidden meaning of a certain sentence of the author?" The standard answer may not be what the author of the original text wants to express, but is often just a far-fetched interpretation by the teacher who created the question.
Over-interpretation, nothing more than that.
This truth is actually tacitly understood by scholars in the world. So why are these so-called Confucian schools still so popular in the world? It is nothing more than putting their own new wine in the old bottle of Confucianism.
The new wine has a mellow aroma and looks bright, so some people admire it.
To put it more bluntly, "New Wine" stands for a certain class and strives for the interests of a certain class, so it will naturally be supported by people in this class and be respected by the world.
For example, Neo-Confucianism served the imperial class, promoted "right principles" and "legal systems", and asked people to "preserve the principles of nature and destroy human desires." The rule of the emperor is the law of heaven, and the injustice in the heart is the desire of man. If one can adhere to Neo-Confucianism, the emperor will be born with great righteousness. Anyone who does not respect the emperor is a thief no matter what his reasons are. Women respect men, and men respect kings. Don't think about anything, just be bullied and serve the powerful. The world remains unchanged from generation to generation, and the rule of natural emperors will last for eternity.
This theory is designed to confuse people. It is so popular because in history, the emperors of the Song, Yuan and Ming dynasties all needed this theory to put a layer of shackles on the people of the world. It served as a platform for the scholar class and could be promoted by the emperor, so it was the most widely spread and accepted by the scholar class.
After the rise of Neo-Confucianism, there was a subtle influence on it from generation to generation, so scholars had long equated the now popular Neo-Confucianism with orthodox Confucianism.
Anyone who doubts Neo-Confucianism doubts Confucianism. Anyone who doubts Confucianism is naturally evil. In this way, these people who are mentally shackled will not think about whether there is any fallacy in Neo-Confucianism itself.
The world is actually like this. As long as you get used to the shackles, you often don't realize that you are actually trapped in them.
After all, most of our generation are mediocre, and not everyone can enlighten themselves, take off their ideological shackles, and become a sage.
Song Lian is a man of insight and has a lot of knowledge in his mind. But in terms of cultivation and vision, he is still far from the realm of the great Ming sage in later generations. But Zhu Su's advice undoubtedly helped him break through a little of the confinement imposed on him by Neo-Confucianism: Yes, those philosophies are outsiders, why is Neo-Confucianism absolutely correct?
Since it is correct, why did the Song Dynasty and Yuan Dynasty, which followed Neo-Confucianism, fall into such a situation?
There is nothing wrong with Confucianism, but Neo-Confucianism is not the same as Confucianism!
He only felt that countless thoughts were beating on his mind like the tide of Qiantang he had seen before. He had never experienced this kind of excitement except when he first read the Analects of Confucius as a child. This made him tremble with excitement, and he concentrated on capturing the passing thoughts, fearing that he would miss the slightest bit of inspiration.
Sometimes things in the world are just a piece of window paper. After this piece of window paper is pierced, it often becomes clear. Now he peels away Neo-Confucianism, and even peels away many Confucian schools layer by layer, and then looks at the subtle words and great ideas of Confucius and Mencius. Every time he peels off a layer, he will have many feelings that he has never had before. Song Lian did not expect that he would have such an epiphany when he was approaching old age.
"If you hear the truth in the morning, you will die in the evening! Unexpectedly, the old minister is already so old and can reach a higher level!" Song Lian said happily. "Your Majesty, the Fifth Highness, is indeed an extraordinary person! Let me bow to you as an old minister!" After saying that, he trembled and wanted to pay homage to Zhu Su.
"Master Song, you must not do this!" Zhu Su was startled and quickly used all his strength to help Song Lian up.
Song Lian was a great scholar in the world and was his own teacher. If word spread that he knelt down to worship her, not to mention adding a layer of hatred, Queen Ma, who demanded that the children must respect their teachers most of all, knew about it, and she was afraid that she would also invite Lao Zhu to have a fight with her. Mixed doubles.
He didn't know what Song Lian had realized. In fact, he was just trying his best to use clever words and tricks to change the scope that Fang Xiaoru was targeting from "Confucianism" to the relatively small "Neo-Confucianism".
Confucianism is a tiger's butt that cannot be touched, but Neo-Confucianism is just a ghost that relies on imperial power. Lao Zhu has learned from the lessons of later generations what the Ming Dynasty, which respected Neo-Confucianism, will become in the future. This traitor will never have the soil to continue to act as a mischief in the Ming Dynasty.
Although it was very helpless to be chased by Fang Xiaoru, Zhu Su was still willing to do it if he was just to be a pioneer of Burialism.
"Old minister, I have one more question." Seeing that he insisted on helping her up, Song Lian stopped insisting. He thought for a while and asked Zhu Su a question. His tone no longer sounded like he was asking for help:
"Why did Your Highness tell Yu Xizhi those remarks?"
"Are the remarks in Xizhi's mouth the 'truth' that His Highness truly believes? With all due respect, I must say that there are many contradictions and rebelliousness in those remarks. If you follow them, it is not the right way."
Song Lian's tone was serious. After being enlightened by Zhu Su and freed from the shackles of Neo-Confucianism, he fell in love with Zhu Su, the Fifth Highness, even more. If His Highness really fell into heresy, he, Song Lian, would risk his life to persuade His Highness to get back on track.
"Haha, Master Song is worrying too much." Zhu Su said with a smile. The philosophies that Fang Xiaoru was told were actually outdated philosophies. The only things he truly believed in were the great Thoughts of Mao and Deng and the Communist Manifesto. But of course, these cannot be said directly to Song Lian. He has already thought of other ways to respond:
"Although Mr. Fang has outstanding talent and learning, he sticks to the rules. He often doesn't have his own thinking about what is said in the book."
"That's why I used this method to let him think for himself, and I wanted to tell him that not all the truths said by others are right. Some truths, even if they are wrong, are often disguised as unfathomable. Specious.”
"It's just that I didn't expect that instead of getting rid of the shackles in his heart, he became obsessed with all the right and wrong views."
"I was even so tired that I was criticized by scholars..."
Zhu Su deliberately showed an awkward smile.
(End of chapter)
