"The Doctrine of the Mean" is a book that shows the ancient way of dealing with people. It is a must-read for scholars of all ages, so its status in literary classics is evident. This, of course, attracted many literary masters to annotate and comment on it, many of whom we are familiar with. This is of course very lucky for us readers, and it has the flavor of a hundred schools of thought contending. However, for me, I prefer Mr. Yi Zhongtian's reading of "The Doctrine of the Mean".

As for good old people, Mencius once said: There is nothing wrong with him, and there is no thorn in the prick; he is the same as the popular customs, and he is in line with the dirty world; he seems to be loyal and trustworthy in his life, and he seems to be honest in his actions; everyone is happy with him, and he thinks he is right. But cannot follow the way of Yao and Shun.

It means that when you judge a person, you can’t find anything bad about him, and you can’t say anything good about him. He behaves very clean, loyal and honest. Everyone likes him and he is proud of himself. Yangyang, in fact, he is complicit and cannot be compared with people like Yao and Shun. Such people are good old people.

I am reading the sage Confucius’s evaluation of good old people: Xiangyuan is also the thief of virtue.

Xiangyuan means good old people, which means good people are compared to thieves and said that they have harmed morality.

Why did Confucius hate them so much? According to Mencius, it was because he hated specious things. To explain this, Mr. Yi Zhongtian used a metaphor: a good old man is like barnyard grass in a rice field. It looks similar to rice, but it is not rice. If there are too many tares in the field, the rice will not grow well. It's like cancer cells. Cancer cells are cells too. Why is it bad? Because it "eats but does not work". Cancer cells, like normal cells, also need to absorb nutrients from our body, but they do not assume the functions of cells and grow very fast. As a result, it occupies a space and normal cells cannot grow or work. What if your whole body is covered with non-working cancer cells? People are dead! What if the whole society were good people? This society is dead. Therefore, a good person is a "thief of virtue", and a moderate person cannot be a good person.

I have to say that Mr. Yi Zhongtian’s metaphor is very vivid and easy to understand.

He made three points about "The Doctrine of the Mean"

1. The Doctrine of the Mean is not a good old man.

2. Moderation is not harmony.

3. Moderation is not without principles.

In fact, in Confucianism, the Doctrine of the Mean is not only about principles, but the Doctrine of the Mean itself is a principle, the highest principle.