Idiom story is a sword carving a boat

The idiom story of carving a boat for a sword is as follows:

During the Warring States Period, a Chu man crossed the river by boat. When the ship reached the center of the river, the Chu people accidentally slipped a sword they were carrying into the river. He quickly reached for it, but it was too late, and the sword had fallen into the river. The people on board are very sorry for this.

However, the Chu people seemed to have planned for a long time, and immediately took out their knives and carved a mark on the ship's side, and said to everyone, "This is where the sword fell into the water. I want to carve a mark."

Nobody understood why he did it, so they stopped asking him.

After the ship landed, the Chu people immediately launched in the marked place on the ship to catch the fallen sword. The Chu people fished for a long time, but never saw the shadow of the sword. He felt very strange and said to himself, "Didn't my sword fall from here?" I also carved a mark here. Why can't I find it now? "

After hearing what he said, those people all laughed and said, "The boat has been moving, but your sword sank into the water and stopped moving with it." How can you find your sword? "

Idiom implication

It is common sense that a sword will sink only when it falls into the water. It's ridiculous to look under the bottom of the boat for a sword that has long fallen into the water when it's far away. If the ship is stationary and the sword sinks to the bottom of the water, mark the place where the ship fell, and you can naturally find the sword. But the sword sank to the bottom of the water and stopped, but the ship moved on.

This objective fact is not reflected in the mind of the sword seeker. He is bent on finding the sword where it fell, and he will find it. His understanding is inconsistent with the objective facts, and the result is naturally failure. It is very powerful to use such a metaphor to satirize people who cling to dogma.

This idiom has two meanings. One is that if people's ideological understanding does not conform to the objective reality, they will not succeed in doing things. On the other hand, objective reality is constantly developing and changing. If we regard the old rules and regulations as a magic weapon to solve new problems, we should also make jokes. The author's thoughts are simple materialism and dialectics.