In the preface written by Chai Jing for this book, "Time makes people move from criticism to construction", he quoted a passage from Zeng Guofan: "There are no unchanging gentlemen and no unchanging villains in the world. Today we can know people." "If you know things tomorrow, you are a gentleman; if you don't know people tomorrow, you are a villain; if you are fair and bright, you are a gentleman; if you are private and secretive, you are a villain." This is actually Zeng Guofan's "gentleman". The view of people emphasizes the need to examine and recognize people from a dynamic, changing and developing perspective, and not to regard people as dead.

Indeed, humans are the most complex animals in the world. The complexity lies in the fact that it has spirit and can actively reflect and transform the world. Precisely because it reflects the world dynamically, the human spirit changes with changes in objective circumstances. Sometimes it reflects the world correctly, sometimes it reflects the world wrongly. So, sometimes the world is transformed correctly, and sometimes, the world is transformed incorrectly. Very few people go through life right without making mistakes. There are also very few people who are wrong all their lives and never correct.

So, a gentleman cannot always be a gentleman, and a villain cannot always be a villain. A person is actually the contradictory unity of a gentleman and a villain. But that doesn’t mean you can’t distinguish between a gentleman and a villain. In the contradictory unity of the gentleman and the villain, if the gentleman is the main aspect of the contradiction, then this contradictory unity is the gentleman. In the contradictory unity of the gentleman and the villain, if the villain is the main aspect of the contradiction, then this contradictory unity is the villain.

At the same time, we must also see that the two aspects of contradiction are in struggle, one is ebbing and the other is ebbing, and they can transform into each other. Therefore, a gentleman can be transformed into a villain, and a villain can be transformed into a gentleman.