Chapter 17 Chapter 17 Although there are tens of millions of people, I am thick

Confucius said to achieve benevolence, and Meng said to obtain righteousness.Among the figures in the Confucian classics, Confucius ranked first, and Mencius ranked second.Therefore, Mencius, a must-read book for Confucianism, is one of the most important books. Mencius' thoughts, thousands of words, boil down to one word: righteousness. So, what is righteousness? Righteousness means having a correct attitude towards life and doing the right thing.Just as Mencius said: "If you shrink back from yourself, even though there are tens of thousands of people, I will go." This sentence means: No matter how many difficulties, how many difficulties and obstacles, how many opposing people and opposing opinions, I will never will give up.

Although these words are sonorous and forceful, they have left readers with endless confusion. Since you have a correct attitude towards life and are doing the right thing that benefits the country and the people, how can there be tens of millions of people who oppose it? How about you? Then again, how can you be sure that you are right when your attitude towards life and what you do are faced with thousands of opponents?Don't these tens of millions of people have any brains?It happens that you are the foresight, naturally correct? The eyes of the masses are discerning, the masses are real heroes, and the masses are truly wise. Whether your attitude towards life is correct or not, and whether your actions are in line with righteous ideas, the masses can see clearly and understand.In this world, will there be a situation where thousands of people are crying and shouting to stop you when it is obviously a great thing that benefits the country and the people?

This sentence of Mencius makes us feel more wrong the more we think about it. Could it be... Let's open the history books and have a look. According to records, during the reign of Emperor Ai of the Western Han Dynasty, the residents in the area east of Hangu Pass suddenly blew up their nests, and all the people panicked, crying and running around, with a stick of straw or hemp stalk in their hands. When I met someone while running, I handed over the stalks and said, "Hurry up, hurry up, this is the Queen Mother of the West's plan, and spread it to the world quickly..." The person who took the stalks didn't ask what happened, just like Like a relay race, he continued to run while holding the stalks.On the road at that time, there were thousands of people running wildly holding straw and hemp stalks. Because the running time was too long, some had their hair loose and some had bare feet, but they still kept running.

Frightened by the crazy behavior of the people, officials from all over the country hurriedly closed the checkpoints and cut off the post roads.But these were useless, the crazy crowd walked around the pass in the dark, some climbed over the wall, and some rushed into the post station, snatched the horses of the post station, rode on the horses and galloped on the official road, no one knew about them Where exactly do you want to go? These running people swept across twenty-six counties, and more and more people joined them. People holding straws had rushed into the capital. The people in the capital were in chaos, and the local officials were powerless to stop them. They could only watch these people Running around like crazy.

In this way, from spring to autumn, the crazy people finally got tired of running, and they gathered in the streets and fields, but no one who attended the party could tell what was going on, so the party became a gambling meeting , Some people sang and danced inexplicably to worship the Queen Mother of the West. Just like this, they made a lot of noise, and in the end, these people had nothing to eat and drink, and finally dispersed slowly.But what happened at that time, but no one can tell. This chaos can also be called "the madness of the crowd", which means that the crowd is not as smart as we imagined, and the crowd is much more confused than a single person.No matter how confused a person is, it is impossible to be so confused.

Once we understand that crowds are not sufficiently rational and have a higher IQ, then we understand what Mencius meant. Self-defense shrinks, although there are tens of millions of people, I will go.This sentence means: Once the public loses their rationality and falls into a state of madness, if you want to prevent the public from being stupid at this time, you need a lot of courage.This kind of courage means that you must be the enemy of everyone. At this time, no one will understand you, agree with you, or appreciate you.On the contrary, since you have become an enemy of the public, the public will certainly not treat you politely.

In other words, it's not that you need a thick skin and a black heart to do bad things. Even when you are doing good things, you also need a strong enough psychological quality.This kind of strong psychological quality can only come from the power of thick black.If you don't have a thick skin, you won't have the courage to stand up to the stupid masses.If the heart is not dark enough, you also cannot restore the public to rationality. Confronting the masses requires not only thick courage, but black wisdom is more important. During the reign of Emperor Huan of the Han Dynasty, Dushang, the governor of Jingzhou, led an army to suppress bandits. After all, the bandits were a mob. They were defeated in one blow and all fled into the mountains. The officers and soldiers took this opportunity to loot all the gold, silver and jewels that the bandits had robbed. When they became rich one by one, they no longer had the mind to fight wars. They all wanted to go home quickly to buy fields and maidservants, and live the happy life of the local rich.Therefore, when Du Shang gave the order to pursue the remaining bandits, the soldiers immediately became noisy and refused to obey.

Seeing this situation, Du Shang rolled his eyes, and immediately agreed to the soldiers' request to stop the pursuit, and announced a three-day holiday.All the soldiers cheered loudly, and took advantage of the holiday, they all ran out of the barracks and went to restaurants to enjoy life.Unexpectedly, when his barracks was empty, Du Shang secretly lit a fire, and burned all the jewels looted by the soldiers to ashes.When the soldiers came back, they all burst into tears when they saw this situation. Du Shang took the opportunity to persuade: "Everyone, don't be sad. Your jewels were set on fire by thieves. If you want to take revenge and get back more jewels, then obey my order, continue to chase the enemy, and wipe out all the thieves." ..." At this point, the soldiers had no choice but to fight against the enemy, follow Du Shang's order, continue to chase the bandits, and finally flattened the bandits.

Here, the firmness and wisdom of "although there are tens of thousands of people, I will go" shown by Du Shang all embody the purpose of Houhei.It can be seen that the great ideas of Confucius and Mencius, without the theoretical support of Houheiology, cannot be applied to practice at all.