Tell me about your understanding of gentlemen being harmonious but different.

According to some historical explanations, "Gentlemen are in harmony but not in harmony; villains are in harmony but not in harmony." means "Gentlemen are united but have different thoughts." The following "villains are in harmony but not in harmony" means " "Villains work together for profit but they are not united", shaping it into a profound thought of harmony by Confucius. However, if you analyze it carefully, it doesn't make sense. "Harmony" means "harmony" as intended, but we know that only when we are the same can we be harmonious. What is different? It is impossible to be harmonious, and Confucius once said, "If you have different ways, you can't work together." If you have different ideas and don't work together, how can you unite and harmonize? To explain this, we can only compromise. Only by entering into the historical background at that time can we understand what Confucius is talking about.

The Western Zhou Dynasty was able to obtain the "well field system" of land and official slave owners based on the ritual system of "Destiny Theory". The people and slaves who worked for free in various Analects made the ruling slave-owning class gain wealth. Due to their wealth, they indulged in excessive sexual activities and had children at will. The number of children began to increase in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, which led to the economic collapse. As a result, some ruling officials and nobles no longer abided by the original land system. , privately opened private fields to get rich, in order to compete for labor, they also violated the original regulations of free work for slaves and civilians, and paid them privately. In the eyes of the conservative Confucius, it was "disorder between noble and lowly" and completely disobedient. , the people are no longer like the people, and even in the eyes of Confucius, these unruly officials and nobles are like slaves and "little people" who only seek profit;

However, these people still have status and are still related to The gentleman in Confucius's eyes (the one who keeps the etiquette) also manages political and political affairs together. Therefore, when Confucius educates his disciples, he has to explain that this kind of villain is with the gentleman (the person who keeps the etiquette) in his eyes. Appearance, how to distinguish, rather than emphasizing the concept of harmony between the two types of people, so the whole sentence is interpreted as "people who observe etiquette correspond to everyone but not because they are the same, and villains who do not observe etiquette are not the same under the same situation." In order to correspond with the gentleman." What he pointed out is that it means that they have no choice but to do things together. It is a compromise. They will not have the same thoughts and they will not correspond. In this way, the gentleman and the villain can be distinguished. The relationship between people and others.

In short, according to Confucius' theory, "a gentleman is harmonious but different" does not mean what Youzi later understood as "the purpose of etiquette, harmony is precious", but Confucius said The appearance of teaching disciples to distinguish between a gentleman and a villain is, on the contrary, the realization of Confucius' concept of "the Tao is different and do not conspire with each other". If understood as the harmonious concept of the gentleman and the villain cooperating with each other, in addition to the contradictions and contradictions in the sentence itself, It is inconsistent with the historical background and contradicts Confucius.