First of all, the above two views should belong to two abnormal views in China's Confucianism. First of all, let's discuss the meaning of the sentence "starvation is small, dishonour is big". We don't intend to elaborate, but we have to say something about the criticism of this sentence. Anyone who has studied philosophy and history knows that productivity determines relations of production and economic base determines superstructure. In other words, all the so-called civilizations created by human beings are based on filling the stomach. For example, in the Spring and Autumn Period, a hundred schools of thought contended in China. This is because the iron age replaced the woodworking age and the productivity was greatly improved. Most people are no longer hungry. What I did in three days was finished in one day, so what's left in the next two days? It's simple. Think about it. So a lot of thinkers have emerged, that is, a hundred schools of thought contend. And "starvation is small, dishonor is big" tells us that when choosing between "material" and "honesty", we should encourage people to choose "honesty" instead of "material". From a philosophical point of view, this violates the principle that the economic base determines the superstructure; In a practical sense, you have lost your life. What's the use of more national integrity? Maybe someone will say, "Then, according to your logic, write: Since ancient times, no one has died, and Wen Tianxiang has a national righteousness. This is an eternal famous sentence, isn't it wrong? In that case, why did you win the admiration of so many future generations? " But what I want to tell you is that philosophy is aimed at the vast majority of groups, and Wen Tianxiang is a part of the vast majority of groups. There is nothing wrong with him, because he is a descendant of our national integrity and a typical representative. However, his behavior is not worth learning from each of us. If Kublai Khan unified China and all Han Chinese studied Wen Tianxiang, I'm afraid it wouldn't be today. We need Wen Tianxiang to choose honest people like this. We call such people "great men", but we object to everyone doing so. Of course, the premise of choosing "material" is not to encourage everyone to be "traitors". In order to survive, regardless of the lives of others, such behavior is completely different from what I want to express. You can thank others for their "material" and then repay them. You don't have to sacrifice other people's interests to achieve your goal of drag out an ignoble existence.

Personally, I think that the view of "preserving nature and destroying human desires" is too extreme. Zhu Hecheng and others believe that we should pursue the theory of the universe, and the so-called human desire is a stumbling block to our pursuit and needs to be eliminated. Here, I borrow a short story from Wang Yangming to refute this view. At that time, Wang Yangming inspired himself to become a saint, so he thought about the problem according to Zhu Hecheng's theory and tried to explore the principle of everything. Once, he came to a Taoist temple and meditated with the Zen master. After sitting for three days and nights in a row, Wang Yangming finally couldn't help asking the Zen master, "Are you homesick?" The Zen master nodded, and Wang Yangming asked, "Do you miss your relatives?" The Zen master shed tears. Wang Yangming went on to say, "In that case, why don't you go back and see them?" So the Zen master left the Taoist temple and went home. From this incident, Wang Yangming understood a truth: there is nothing wrong with missing your hometown and missing your loved ones, but what did Zhu He become for us to extinguish this desire? The reason is simple. They are wrong. Yes, it's wrong to "preserve justice and destroy human desires". Therefore, Wang Yangming set aside the influence of Zhu Cheng's Neo-Confucianism, founded his own philosophy of life and became a saint.

From a modern point of view, some traditional ideas will make us feel very funny. How can we have such an ignorant idea? In fact, that's because we have thousands of years more knowledge and vision than them. If we were born in those days, I'm afraid we are just one of many victims. But not all Confucian classics are wrong, and there are many places worth learning. However, in the history of modern literature, the slogan "Down with Kongjiadian" appeared. Their aim is to completely deny Confucianism, which is actually wrong. This slogan was originally put forward for a certain political purpose, in order to oppose feudalism and criticize Confucianism, so as to achieve the purpose of criticizing politics and society. Now our views on Confucianism are very clear; Critical inheritance. That is to say: we keep the good things, modify the wrong things, and discard the things that cannot be modified. It can be said that this kind of understanding should be the most correct way in our current cognition.