From "The Analects of Confucius, Yang Huo", the view on the difficulty of raising a woman as a villain, see the misunderstanding of Confucius' humanism in history

Introduction: Confucius in "The Analects of Confucius Yanghuo"

There is a sentence in "The Analects of Confucius Yanghuo", that is, "Only women and villains are difficult to support. , You will complain if you are far away". This sentence has long been regarded as evidence that Confucius despised the majority of women comrades and manual workers. Even many people who truly admire and inherit the spirit of Confucius feel that this sentence is obviously different from the profound thinking of Confucius. They believe that Confucius, as a historical figure, has a value beyond history in learning. But Confucius himself was still living in his time, so it is impossible for every sentence to be true.

But for the understanding of this sentence, in fact, there are many problems in our usual ideas, and in fact, Confucius's view of women has also appeared extremely misunderstood. This misunderstanding is actually the direct result of directly separating Confucius's words from his own life experience and so on.

For example, the "little man" he mentioned here is not what we generally think of today. "Little people" are ordinary people without some ambitious goals, and their pointing is not directly derogatory. The understanding of this distortion is entirely a misunderstanding of Confucius by later generations. From the perspective of the meaning of the word, the sentence "It is difficult to raise a woman and a villain" according to its logical analysis, as an adverb, it can only be used in the usage of "mere".

His true meaning is actually "it is difficult to raise only women and men among women", not "all women and men are difficult to raise", so this sentence Words are not actually a universal judgment, but a special judgment.

On the other hand, the word "唯" can also be used as a modal particle at the beginning of a sentence. Translated in this way, the meaning of this sentence becomes "women and villains are difficult to raise, they will not have grandchildren when they enter, and they will only complain when they are far away."

Although this sentence is a declarative sentence, it is obviously a conclusion of some things, which can be called a full proposition, but from its true meaning, this sentence is still a special proposition. As an argument, and then evidence is the argument.

1. This "woman" is not the other "woman"

"If you are near you will not have grandchildren, if you are far away you will complain", this is the reason why women and villains are difficult to raise. It is also the true meaning of the woman and the villain appearing by Confucius. These two are really meanings. In fact, it does not mean that all women are difficult to raise, but the "women" among women are difficult to raise, which is not the same as All women. Similarly, the villain does not refer to all men among men, but only among men that fits the second half sentence.

That is, "the one who is near is not the grandchild, and the one who is far away is complaining". Referred to. Therefore, judging from the above direct analysis of sentences, women and villains are actually not judgments on all women and all men. However, it is a pity that in the interpretation of Confucius by people later, from the earliest Qin and Han dynasties to the present, there are still many misunderstandings of him, and this kind of contempt for working women and contempt for the working public is directly given to Confucius. .

The Analects of Confucius is a quotation-style work, many of which are just empirical summaries of sentences, rather than statements with strict logic. Words without their specific speaking environment and the orientation of the language will often be completely misunderstood. Afterwards, people had a literary interpretation of "The Analects", completely overshadowing the original meaning.

Some people also think that the phrase "only women and villains are difficult to raise" should actually be based on "Only! Women and villains are difficult to raise, and those who are near are not inferior, and those who are far away are complaining." The main basis for this type of sentence segmentation to explain this type of sentence segmentation lies in a person's growth process. The main source of this explanationIt is believed that a person’s children learn from those with moral problems, which means that there will be many disasters and blessings in life. The main reason for this is that the person who learns is wrong, that is, the wrong target.

If you learn from these people, and have a certain purpose of success, it will be even more There are other arrogant mentalities, and they think they are smart, which leads to even greater disasters. Long-term appearance will produce some bad emotions, such as resentment, loss of confidence, or thinking that life is meaningless.

This kind of thinking is the main cause of various disasters in a family. And there is another most famous sentence in Confucius’s writings, “Do not do to others what you do not want to do to others”, and Confucius’s greatest proposition is the “benevolence” mentioned earlier, so Confucius would not follow Despise other people in terms of personality and gender. Therefore, it can be inferred that Confucius never thought that some people were difficult to raise, but that people in later generations had a huge misunderstanding of his theory, and this misunderstanding was the most deadly.

2. "Women" and "little people" refer specifically to

, but some scholars have inferred that in fact, women and villains directly have a person's direction. For example, in the records of "Zihan" and "Wei Ling Gong Pian" in "The Analects", there is a sentence "I have never seen good virtues as lustful people". According to later historical records, this sentence was only said after Confucius went to meet Nanzi. After Nanzi saw Confucius goodbye, he was extremely envious of Confucius' knowledge and personality, and even mentioned Confucius to others to see him, in order to advertise his identity, and he wanted to talk about it everywhere.

Therefore, it can be speculated to a large extent that Confucius said "it is difficult to raise women and villains" is probably a sentence he said after meeting Nanzi. Nanzi is the wife of Wei Linggong, and the villain refers to the lustful Wei Linggong himself. The latter's difficulty in raising refers to the personality defects of the two individuals themselves.

When Confucius came to Weiguo, he once placed his hope of promoting humanity on Duke Wei Ling, but found that Duke Wei Ling himself was even like a puppet, so Confucius himself was disappointed. Therefore, this kind of speculation also has some truth, but Wei Linggong himself does not want to see Confucius. In the long dissatisfaction, Confucius is very likely to infer that this idea has formed the "female villain theory." And on the other hand, for example, the villain mentioned by Confucius must not be an insult to ordinary people, because one of Confucius's greatest contributions in the doctrine is the respect for every ordinary individual.

For example, he once said, "The three armies can win the command, but everyone can't win."" Gai Fuzi retired and said, "It hurts people, don't ask horses", etc. It can be seen that Confucius treats even the lowest horseman as a person of extremely important significance, which is different from that of the time. Therefore, Confucius himself does not discriminate against people of low social status.

3. Confucianism based on filial piety

And on the other hand, Confucius lost his father when he was three years old. Wandering around with his mother and going through hardships, this also aroused Confucius' pursuit of social justice and morality. When he began to form a certain degree of influence in academic aspects such as "young and good manners", he was also squeezed out by high-level officials. It was precisely because of this life experience that Confucius developed his own human-centered Confucian culture system. The most important aspect of benevolence is with all common people. Because of this, Confucius would not even speak. "It's hard to raise a villain". Its a villain. Not even those ordinary people.

mainly refers to those who have the path of petty people. As Confucius said, "a gentleman is like justice and a villain is like profit." The morally noble people only need to exercise it with "righteousness", while those of relatively inferior quality can only be compared through financial resources.

and lost his father at the age of three, and the life of an orphan and a widow who depended on each other together, maternal love and his mother Education has a huge impact on Confucius. He can never say that all working women, including all mothers, are as difficult to raise as villains. What's more, the core of Confucianism itself is that "people are based on filial piety", so it is even more impossible to say that. As a natural manifestation of human nature, filial piety is the rationality of the entire society by maintaining the entire family and extending it to the entire society. This kind of filial piety is more important to repay and support your parents, and serve your parents out of inner affection.

Therefore, what Confucius said, "It is difficult for women to raise them" is not to mention all women. But it is only those women who specifically refer to those women who are "near the grandchildren, and the distant ones".

References:

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