In addition, "The Romance of the Gods" has another huge problem, that is, it has very serious problems with its core three concepts.
Looking at the entire Fengshen Romance, ordinary readers may think that it is just a very ordinary story about the confrontation between two camps in the Shang Dynasty and Zhou Dynasty, between Chanjiao and Jiejiao.
But the real situation is not that simple. As a good author, you always have to put some of your own thoughts and concepts into the novels you write.
Fengshen Yanyi is the kind of person whose personal views are very simple, and even put it directly on the surface.
For example, what the author supports is Chanjiao, which is the three views behind Chanjiao: the idea of elite governance.
In the setting of Fengshen Yanyi, Chanjiao advocates "inheriting destiny". The principle of establishing religion is to conform to the trend of Heaven's way and abide by the intention of Heaven's way. Explain the truth of the Great Way to all sentient beings!
Therefore, the standard for recruiting apprentices is to be elite, and only those innate beings with good foundation and extraordinary qualifications will be recruited. In modern terms, it is to select the best from the best and select the most outstanding talents from each city and region. This is the recruitment strategy of Tsinghua and Peking University.
On the contrary, the teaching of interception refers to intercepting a glimmer of life, the so-called great road is fifty, the heaven is forty-nine, and escapes to one. This escaped one is the glimmer of life that Jiejiao wants to intercept.
To put it simply, although fate dictates that my probability of failure is as high as 98%, I still try my best to capture the last 2% success rate. This Jie Jiao is very consistent with what Jie Jiao did later.
After all, even if the leader of Tongtian clearly knew that the way of heaven was the death of Zhou Xing and Shang Dynasty, and that the probability of Shang Dynasty's failure was as high as 98%, he still risked all his fortune desperately in the end to try to win the poor 2% success rate.
As for the strategy of recruiting disciples, Guangchengzi, a disciple of Chanjiao, has a saying that can be described very well, that is, "No matter whether people are wearing hair or horns, or people who are born with wet eggs, they can all live together in the same group."
This sentence can be understood to mean that their interpretation religion only recruits noble mammals, while the Jie religion not only recruits mammals, but also other insects, invertebrates, oviparous animals, etc. Even flies and mosquitoes can enter the Jie religion and become A disciple of Jie Jiao.
In the words of the leader of Tongtian, he advocates teaching without distinction. Regardless of the disciple's qualifications or whether he is an outstanding elite, as long as he has a heart to learn upward, he can become his disciple and receive his own teachings. .
The most direct result of these two concepts of recruiting disciples is that the core of Chanjiao only has 12 golden immortals, Ran Deng, and some third-generation disciples and non-staff disciples, and the total number does not exceed 100 people.
The number of disciples of Jie Jiao exceeded tens of thousands. In the end, the leader of Tongtian Cult was even able to be as arrogant as the Ten Thousand Immortals Formation, trying to have another fight with Chan Jiao.
So here’s the question. Readers agree that the teachings must comply with destiny and do whatever God tells you to do. At the same time, elite education is respected and only those few elites need to be taught.
Or is it better to accept the fact that Jie Jiao is a student? Even if God decides, he will never admit defeat. At the same time, there is no distinction between teachers and students. As long as everyone has a heart to learn, they can get the concept of unified education?
Well, no matter what you think, the author of Fengshenyan must have more recognition of the concept of Chan Jiao and respect compliance with destiny and elite education. Otherwise, he would not arrange for Chan Jiao to help Zhou Guo, but would transfer it to arrange it. Jie Jiao went to support Zhou Guo.
But Liu Xu strongly disagrees with this. As a child of an ordinary family, Liu Xu must have nothing to do with elite education. If the education system at that time still pursued elite education, then it would be impossible for a small-town scholar like Liu Xu to engage in any historical research, and he would have to be a hard-working bricklayer.
Therefore, Liu Xu actually likes interception teaching very much, but hates interpretation teaching very much.
However, the author cannot be blamed too much for this, because this concept was a common concept at that time.
During the Ming Dynasty, the imperial examination system was pursued, which was an elite education system.
Except for a very small number of poor families who are willing to give up their families and businesses and sell a little bit of land to support their children in education.
The vast majority of scholars are from middle-class families, and only such people can be separated from production, qualified to receive education, then take the imperial examination, and finally become social officials.
It is precisely because only officials and wealthy businessmen can afford to send their children to study. After their children become successful and gain fame, they can send their grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and even their descendants to study endlessly.
This is also the reason why various aristocratic families, such as the so-called scholars’ families, the scholarly family, the poetry-reading family, etc. have emerged, because it is precisely this family of officials one after another who, through high-cost elite education, have controlled the world from generation to generation. The ruling class of society.
In this way, the sons of soldiers can only fight, the sons of farmers can only farm, and the descendants of officials can serve as officials one after another, thus completely solidifying the entire class.
The author of Fengshen Yanyi is obviously a beneficiary of this system. Of course, he cannot be willing to destroy such a system. Instead, he must constantly advocate the correctness of this elite education and criticize the idea of education without distinction in the novel. .
According to the plot in Fengshen Yanyi, the reason why Jiejiao failed was because they had religions but no class, and absorbed many bastard demons into them, creating a mess within the entire Jiejiao, and killing tens of thousands of people at every turn. While refining magic weapons, they also promoted plagues, natural disasters and other cruel and inhumane methods to demonstrate the rationality of the demise of Jiejiao.
This completely negates the idea of education without distinction and fully promotes the concept of elite education.
In the entire novel, the only concept that satisfied Liu Xu was probably related to Western education.
In Fengshen Yanyi, the Western Sect was an extremely poor sect at the beginning, with only a few disciples, and even the second leader of the family had to fight in person when fighting.
However, with the end of the Great Tribulation of the Gods, Dongfang Ming became the biggest winner. Not only did he take away Kong Xuan, the most powerful person among the saints, but he also took away almost the entire Jie Jiao.
The 10,000 immortals of the Jie Sect were taken away by the Western Sect, and 3,000 mortals were taken away by the Western Sect. In addition, several powerful disciples of the Jie Sect were also taken away by the Western Sect.
Even Chanjiao's own Master Cihang and the Twelve Golden Immortals were taken away by Western teachers.
By the way, this real Cihang was the later Guanyin Bodhisattva, who was born as a boy and became a girl.
It is worth mentioning that the historical Guanyin Bodhisattva was still a boy in the Tang Dynasty. However, after Wu Zetian, the image of Guanyin Bodhisattva gradually became a daughter.
Therefore, in the author's writing, the rise of Buddhism is actually a matter of sitting on a mountain and watching the fight between tigers and shamelessly seizing the most elite disciples of Taoism. This is how the later stories of the prosperous age of Buddhism and Journey to the West came about!
(End of chapter)
