1. Repaying evil with kindness

One might say: "How about repaying evil with gain?"

Confucius said: "How can we repay kindness with kindness? Repay evil with straightness, repay kindness with kindness." Virtue."

——"The Analects of Confucius"

What does people usually understand by "repaying evil with kindness"? That is to say: Confucius taught us that when others bully you, you must endure it, use your love to influence them, and use your heart to move them.

But in fact, we have completely misinterpreted Confucius’ original meaning. People usually omit the paragraph after “repaying evil with kindness”. The meaning of the whole passage is that one of Confucius' disciples asked him: "How about repaying resentment with kindness?" Confucius said: "If a person has used kindness to repay resentment, what else does he have left to repay others? What about kindness? Repay resentment with fairness and frankness, and repay kindness with kindness.”

It can be seen that Confucius opposed repaying kindness with kindness and advocated a clear distinction between right and wrong. Why is this sentence of Confucius deliberately misinterpreted by others? Woolen cloth? The root cause is still the needs of the feudal rulers at that time. Their thoughts are nothing more than to make the thousands of people who believe in Confucius become obedient people who "repay evil with kindness". Only the people who "repay evil with kindness" will honestly obey their exploitation and oppression.

2. The people can follow it, but they cannot know it.

Confucius said: "Prosper in poetry, establish in etiquette, and achieve in music. If the people can do it, let them know it; if they can't, let them know it."

——"The Analects of Confucius, Qin Bo"

"The people can follow it, but cannot make it known." What does this sentence mean? It means that the state rules the people, just instructs and drives them to do things, but does not let them understand what they are doing. This admonition can be said to be vicious. It has been regarded as a treasure by China's feudal rulers for thousands of years, and it has obliterated much truth and people's creativity. But at the same time, our problem arises. Such a trick to fool the people, Is this really the original intention of Confucius, an educator dedicated to educating the people?

We know that articles in the Spring and Autumn Period did not have punctuation marks. If future generations want to study the articles at that time, they will have to go through a process of "sentence segmentation", that is, according to the context and meaning, they will add their own words at the beginning of the sentence. Add punctuation and pauses where appropriate so that you can come up with a smooth and coherent sentence. Judging from the original sentence, our Mr. Kong was discussing educational issues in the three aspects of poetry, etiquette, and music, but why did it suddenly turn into an injunction to teach emperors power? It turns out that this is because later generations took the meaning out of context with ulterior motives and deliberately used an inappropriate "sentence break" in the middle of the sentence to create ambiguity in this sentence. Combining the context, we can easily come up with the correct phrasing method of this sentence: Confucius said: "It is inspired by poetry, established by etiquette, and achieved by music. If the people can do it, let them follow it; if they can't, let them know it." "The whole sentence of Confucius means that poetry, etiquette, and music are the basis for educating the people. They must be grasped well. If the people have mastered poetry, etiquette, and music, let them develop freely. If the people still cannot master it, We need to educate them about these things and let them know and understand them. You see, this is the original intention of Mr. Kong, the great educator who "teaches without distinction". A good sentence was turned into Confucius's art of fooling the people and preventing them from seeking knowledge by those with ulterior motives.