As the founder of Confucianism, Confucius was also a top educator and thinker in ancient times, and his influence and position in history far exceeded that of most emperors. Especially after Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, Confucius' thoughts were adopted by emperors of all dynasties, and scholars worshipped him, making him more famous. The Analects of Confucius, one of the four books and five classics, is not written by Confucius himself, but it embodies the essence of his thoughts and is one of the compulsory subjects in the imperial examination, and its importance is self-evident.
Many words in The Analects of Confucius are still of great reference significance today, and some of them are used as mottoes by the world to inspire themselves. I reflect on myself three times a day, reminding us that we should always reflect on our own behavior in order to make continuous progress; Learning without thinking is useless, thinking without learning is dangerous, and the truth of learning is expounded. You should not read dead books, learn to think more, and you should not dream blindly without taking action.
No matter how classic it is, it has certain limitations of the times. After all, Confucius lived more than 2, years ago, and some of his famous aphorisms are puzzling and even controversial. For example, the next thing I want to say is that "only women and villains are hard to raise", which actually compares women and villains. Even if women's status in feudal society is not high, it will inevitably make people feel that there is great discrimination. This is not the case.
to understand the meaning of this sentence, we must combine the situation at that time, or the background of Confucius' emotion. When a hundred schools of thought contend, all theories want to promote their own views. Confucius lobbied the princes of the vassal countries, hoping that they could adopt Confucianism and govern the world through benevolent government, but they repeatedly hit a wall. Nevertheless, Confucius did not lose heart at all, and came to the country with his disciples, with a clear purpose.
Confucius, who was full of confidence, was once again given a cold shoulder in Weiguo. The monarch didn't listen to him at all. What made him even more angry was that some treacherous little people took the opportunity to dig at Confucius. Feeling cold and helpless, Confucius had to leave Weiguo and sighed before leaving: only women and villains are hard to support! It is not difficult to understand the "villain" in this sentence, which refers to a person with dark heart and bad conduct, as opposed to a gentleman. What does the "woman" mean here?
There have been many explanations about this issue since ancient times, and I think one of them is more reliable, that is, women are the concubines around kings, like da ji in Shang Dynasty and Xia Ji in Spring and Autumn Period. In order to compete for favor, concubines think of all kinds of tricks, which are strange and even very cunning. Their behavior is no different from that of villains, so it is reasonable for Confucius to say so.
There are two more classic words behind "Only women and little people can't support them", but they are often ignored, that is, "If you are near, you will be inferior, and if you are far away, you will complain". What does it mean? For villains and scheming concubines, being too fond of them will make them greedy, bully others, make rude moves, alienate them, be blamed and speak ill of them behind their backs, which is really difficult to get along with.