The emphasis on practice directly inspired the birth of materialism of Xunzi and others.
The thought of benevolence and righteousness has a direct influence on Mencius. Mencius said: life is what I want; Righteousness, what I want, I can't have it both ways. I want to sacrifice my life for righteousness. Contrary to Mozi's escape from Confucianism, Mencius fled from Mohism. Although he has a lot of attacks on Mohism, many of his views are deeply influenced by Mohism. For example, he accepted the noble thoughts of Mohism and put forward that "the people are the most important, the country is the second, and the monarch is the light." He accepted Mozi's thought of "declining birthrate" (this thought was put forward again in the period of Emperor Wen of Han Dynasty, and was finally adopted, which created the first rule of "Wen Jing" in history).
People are most influenced by the idea of equality and inferiority. In the Guangwu Uprising at the end of Qin Dynasty, Chen Sheng shouted "What kind of princes would you rather have?" The slogan comes from Mohism.
Lu's Spring and Autumn Annals directly quotes the original words in Mo Ziran to illustrate the importance of making friends and getting along with the environment.
6. Reasons for the decline of Mohism
The thought of non-attack put forward by Mohism does not conform to the trend of great unity in the Warring States Period. Under the conditions at that time, it was impossible to really end the division and stabilize the world without fighting. Mozi and his later disciples didn't understand, at least they didn't put this idea into words: war is sometimes a means of peace. Therefore, the idea of self-destruction is unacceptable to those powerful vassal States. Universal love and non-aggression are the mainstream thoughts of Mozi, so Mozi's thoughts cannot be accepted and implemented by big countries. Mozi never realized his ideals in his life, especially his disciples. The main reason is that it is out of place.
The strict semi-military discipline, quasi-religious belief, generous spirit of dying and persistent pursuit of righteousness in Mohism led to many deaths and a large number of elites when they helped defend the city during the Warring States period. Mozi personally went to the state of Chu to surrender to King Hui of Chu, and he did not take life and death seriously at all, which can be imagined by later generations.
Mozi's thought is in direct opposition to Confucianism in many places and has been attacking each other. When Confucianism became orthodox, Mohism was regarded as heresy and was banned.
After Mozi, Mohist school did not have a genius master, so as to further improve its thinking, maintain its vigorous vitality, keep pace with the times and adapt to the requirements of the times. Taoism has Laozi first, followed by Zhuangzi and Liu An; Confucianism has Mencius, Xunzi and Dong Zhongshu since Confucius. Especially in the early years of the Western Han Dynasty, when the country was in great governance and the rulers were looking for a good strategy to govern the country, Dong Zhongshu put forward the story of Spring and Autumn Annals in time, and Liu An also put forward Huainanzi, while Mohism, as a prominent school at that time, did nothing in academic and governing thoughts. As a result, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty adopted Dong Zhongshu's theory, deposed a hundred schools of thought and respected Confucianism alone. Confucianism and imperial power formally combined to become orthodox thoughts, while Mohism became saints.
In the early years of the Western Han Dynasty, rangers became a fashion. Guo, a suspected Mohist disciple, has a very wide influence among the people. In addition, there is a complete reward and punishment system within Mohism. Mohist disciples punished themselves for breaking the law and completely ignored the government. As a feudal centralized ruler. How can you tolerate someone whose influence is greater than that of the government and the emperor? How can we tolerate that other organizations can legislate outside the law? So Emperor Han Jingdi began to crush Mohism. By the time of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, Confucianism had become the dominant ideology, and Guo Jia, Zhu Jie and others broke the ban by force, despised the powerful, and killed people thousands of miles away. At that time, Mohist children participated in the rebellion of the seven countries. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty was angry and attacked Mohism three times. Since then, the activities of Mohist children have gone underground and gradually declined. So the wind of the ranger declined, and it didn't rise again until the Tang Dynasty.