If we look at Chinese history, we will find that there are many surprising god-like figures. There is no shortage of people who are suspected of being time travelers because of their advanced ideas that surpass the society of the time. Among them, in addition to Wang Mang, there is another one who is today's protagonist, the founder of the Mojia School, Mozi.
Mencius once said, "The word of the world does not belong to Yang, but to ink." "Yang here is talking about Yang Zhu, another representative of Taoism besides Lao Zhuang. Yang Zhu is best known for his sentence, which damages the world and does not work with him; Serve the whole world, do not take it.
And the one who is completely at odds with this is what we are going to talk about today, the Moist school.
Mozi, formerly known as Mo Zhai, was a native of the state of Lu from about 468 BC to 376 BC, who served as a doctor of the Song state. Founder of the Mojia School, famous thinker, educator, scientist, military strategist. A native of present-day Kneezhou City, Shandong Province.
Regarding the birth of Mozi, Zhongtang Village, Zhaocun Township, Lushan County, Henan Province, carries this legend, "His mother's dream, the red bird in the middle of the sun flew into the room, the flame shone, and the eyes could not be correct." Alert, raw, named. This is also the reason why Mozi gave the name "Zhai". (Zhai, Toriya, Phoenix also).
The Mozi zodiac sign belongs to the chicken, which is born in the eighth month of the ninth month of the lunar calendar. There is a local Red Buddha Temple, there is a Moye Temple in the temple, and a chicken feather is inserted in the bun of the Mozi statue, as if it can be used as circumstantial evidence. Every eighth day of September to celebrate Mozi's birthday, mountain people will hold pit dyeing ceremonies, kneeling prayers, singing songs and other activities. The old man of Zhongtang Village even said very specifically that the Mozi zodiac sign belongs to the chicken and was born in the ninth year of King Chuhui.
According to legend, Mozi's ancestor was a descendant of the Yin Shang royal family, the elder brother of the Song monarch Song Xianggong, Muyi, who was the Grand Sima of the Duke of Song Xiang, and later his descendants were demoted from nobles to commoners for some reason, and later briefly became Mo. Mozi has been gifted and intelligent since he was a child. At first, he worshipped under the Confucian family, but because he was dissatisfied with the Confucian etiquette and harshness, he abandoned the Zhou Dao and used Xia Zheng to establish the Mojia School.
The core claims of Mojia thought are:
Love: Everyone is equal and helps each other and loves each other.
Non-offensive: against wars of aggression.
Shang Xian: There is no distinction between the noble and the poor.
Shangtong: The world is one and the same, striving for social harmony.
Tianzhi: Master the laws of nature.
Ming Ghost: Respect the wisdom and experience of ancestors.
Non-fate: My life is up to me, and my own life is in my own hands.
Non-music: Get rid of the shackles of cumbersome ritual music and abolish the extravagant chime making and playing.
Conservation: thrift and thrift, improve social productivity.
Thrift burial: Extravagance in the priesthood is not advocated.
These ideas of Mozi can be described as unique and blockbuster among the various schools of thought. It was as if a thunder on the ground had set off a trend of ideological emancipation in society. A large number of people from the bottom of society quickly gathered, and the school gradually developed and grew.
The Moists were a disciplined academic society whose leader was called "Juzi". Its members who go to various countries to serve as officials must carry out the Mojia ideas, and the proceeds must also be donated to the group. With the continuous changes in the social situation, the development of the Mojia school is divided into two stages, the early thinking mainly involves social, political, ethical and epistemological issues, and pays attention to the wars and turmoil of the world; In the middle and late Warring States period, Mojia began to gradually move closer to the fields of logic, education, mathematics, and scientific research.
In addition to unique insights at the level of social ethics. What is even more surprising is that Mozi put forward the cosmology of motion theory, which believes that the universe is a continuous whole, from which individuals are separated, and they are always in motion. This view, more than two thousand years ago, was an extremely rare materialist view.
In terms of mathematics, in the works of Mojia, mathematical problems such as decimal, square, triangle, and open square are systematically expounded, especially the understanding of triangles, which is exactly the same as the ancient Greek scientist Ouji.
In terms of physics, Mozi was the first scholar in Chinese history to propose action and reaction forces, and did the first small-hole imaging experiment in the history of science. And Mozi also discovered the principle of bar, which predates Archimedes by two hundred years.
Mozi is not only a giant of ideas, but also has great achievements in the real secular society.
In the Ink Sutra, the manufacturing methods of bows and crossbows, weapons of war, are elaborated in detail.
Once, when the State of Chu wanted to attack the State of Song, Lu Ban specially designed and manufactured a cloud ladder for the State of Chu to prepare for the siege of the city. At that time, Mozi was in the State of Qi, got the news, hurried to the State of Chu to dissuade, plain clothes and straw shoes, walked for ten days and ten nights, arrived at the capital of the State of Chu, and immediately found Lu Ban to go to the King of Chu together. Mozi tried to persuade King Chu and Luban not to attack the Song state.
After Mozi's continuous efforts to persuade, coupled with the social influence of the Mojia school at that time, the king of Chu finally agreed. However, Luban and some of the generals were reluctant to give up the newly built siege equipment, wanting to test its power in actual combat. So, Mozi proposed a sand table exercise. I saw Mozi untie his clothes, surround the city wall, use wood chips as weapons, and let Lu Ban perform with him on behalf of both the offensive and defensive sides. Luban used different methods to attack the city many times, and was blocked by Mozi many times. Luban's equipment for attacking the city has been exhausted, and Mozi's strategy for defending the city is more than enough.
Lu Ban refused to admit defeat, saying that he had a way to deal with Mozi, but did not say. Mozi said that he knew how Luban was going to deal with him, but he didn't say it himself. King Chu didn't understand and asked what it meant. Mozi said that Gong Yizi wanted to kill himself. Thinking that if he killed himself, there would be no one to help Song Guo defend the city. Where did Lu Ban know that there were three hundred of Mozi's disciples already guarding there waiting for the Chu State to attack. Seeing that he was not sure of victory, the king of Chu decided not to attack the Song state.
There are four generations of the Mojia school that have been recorded, and as the core figures of the school, they have great influence and prestige within the school.
In the "Lü Clan Spring and Autumn Go to Selfishness", it was recorded: "The Mo man has a giant belly, Ju Qin, and his son kills." Hui Wang said: The gentleman is old, and if he has no son, the widow has ordered the officials not to blame.
The belly is against the law: the law of the inker, the death of the murderer, the punishment of the wounded, although the king is given, the belly must not practice the law of the inker. He killed his son.
His son should be executed according to Qin law because of homicide, and King Huiwen of Qin considered that the belly servant was old and only had this son, so he decided to open the net, but the belly servant firmly refused and put his son to death.
Thus. I don't know how many levels the ideological theory of the Mojia school exceeded the era at that time. In this wave of operations, Mojia stood in the atmosphere.
Mojia has a strong spirit of social practice. The Mexicans endure hardships and stand hard work, are strict with themselves, and regard the maintenance of justice and morality as an unshirkable responsibility.
In the early period, the Mo family had a great influence at the beginning of the Warring States period, and was called Xianxue together with the Yang and Zhu school. In the later period, because its political views represented the interests of the broad masses of the people at the bottom, it seriously deviated from those in power. began to be gradually marginalized by the powerful, which led to the transformation of the later Mojia.
In the middle and late Warring States period, the Mo family began to divide into two branches:
A research team that focuses on epistemology, logic, geometry, geometric optics, statics and other disciplines is called "Mojia post-learning" (also known as "late Mojia"),
The other branch was transformed into a ranger in Qin and Han society. China's Xia was first from the Mo family. China's thousand-year-old chivalrous spirit comes from this. Its spirit has been influencing the entire descendants of Yanhuang until now.
After the Warring States, the Mo family has declined. After the Qin Dynasty's book burning pit Confucianism, because its political views were contrary to those in power, the Mo family was even destroyed. In the Western Han Dynasty, due to Emperor Wudi of Han's policy of exclusive Confucianism, the Mo family basically disappeared after the Western Han Dynasty.
It was not until the late Qing and early Min dynasties that scholars re-dug up Mojia from the pile of old papers and discovered its progressiveness. In recent years, after the efforts of some new inkers, the Mojia theory has once again entered people's field of vision.
The ideas of the Mojia school were compiled by later generations in "Mozi". There are still seventy-one records in the Book of Han and Art Wenzhi, but only fifty-three are left now, and these fifty-three are also thanks to the Eastern Jin Dynasty Taoist theorist, Ge Hong, who wrote Mozi into the "Legend of the Immortals", so that "Mozi" can be sheltered in the "Orthodox Daozang" and preserved in the world.
Among the hundreds of families of the pre-Qin dynasty, the most influential ones were naturally the four families of Confucianism, Mo, Taoism, and Fa.
But since the formation of the unified empires of the Qin and Han dynasties, their fates began to diverge: Confucianism became the orthodoxy and mainstream of Chinese culture; Although the Legalists were not well received in public opinion, they actually dominated the temple politics of the authoritarian court for two thousand years; In contrast to Legalism, Taoism occupies a vast area of civil society and becomes the spiritual home of the hermits. Only the Mojia, after a moment of brilliance, whether as a doctrine or as an organization, disappeared into smoke and disappeared into the long river of history.
Why did the Mo family end up so sad? Is Mojia's thinking not smart enough? The answer is clearly not.
The Moist ideology is full of great humanism and scientific spirit, and even from today's perspective, it is still so shining. It can be seen that what history leaves behind may not be all the essence, and what is eliminated may not be all garbage. History has its own limitations. Saints are always lonely, difficult to understand, and even intolerable in certain periods.
The demise of the Mo family is not an accidental fate. There is a historical inevitability. Just, what is the reason?
As different schools of thought, Mojia differs from Confucianism, Taoism, and Law in that it not only has a set of doctrines, but also its own organization.
In this respect, it is similar to the late Taoism as a religion and Buddhism that was introduced to China after the Eastern Han Dynasty, and Hu Shi even directly regarded Moism as a religion, so we might as well compare Moism with Shi Daoism.
From the perspective of external factors, the historical environment of deposing the hundred schools and Confucianism may be an important reason for the demise of the Mo family, but Taoism, which has not always been able to occupy the height of the temple, has not died out like the Mo family, but has developed among the people and deeply affected the bottom folk culture of the Chinese nation.
In my opinion, the demise of the Mo family has an inherent reason:
If a person wants to join the Mo family, he must have a strong spirit of sacrifice and dedication, "self-correction with rope and ink, and prepare for the urgent needs of the world"; It is necessary to be able to endure the hardships of life, "to wear fur brown, to kneel, day and night, and to self-suffering." And can't be like Confucius, "not tired of eating, not tired of fine"; It is necessary to have a heart of fraternity for all, not personal feelings. Mojia hopes that everyone can become a noble person and a pure person. Now it seems that this is obviously impractical, Mozi imagined the world's first utopia, whose ideals are too dreamy.
In contrast, being a Taoist disciple seems to be much happier. The goal of Taoism's practice is not to live in the afterlife of Elysium, but to live forever and become an immortal in this life. Therefore, Taoism, especially the long-established Zhengyi, does not have many abstinence regulations, and Fangzhong Shu is even a kind of immortal secret art.
Of course, the ascetic lifestyle is an important reason why Moism is not easy to accept, but this point is not enough to explain everything, because Buddhism, which is superior to Moism in terms of asceticism, has been incense since its introduction into China, and it is still the number one religion in China.
Moism and Buddhism also advocate abstinence, why are their fates so different? The reason is that Moism is a secular doctrine and the wisdom of entering the world. Buddhism, on the other hand, is a religion of birth, a philosophy of living the next life in this life. Buddhism can provide believers with a set of methods of soul salvation, so that they can enjoy spiritual satisfaction while abstinence, so that all suffering can be regarded as a raft to the other side of happiness. Buddhism advocates ignoring metaphysical hardships in favor of metaphysical Zen.
Another reason why the Mojia had to die was that under a unified autocratic monarch, an interest organization with strict internal discipline would inevitably make the imperial court extremely wary. What autocratic monarchs fear most is precisely not greedy villains, but sages with the ability to mobilize politically. As the so-called heart has a sharp weapon, killing heart arises. Therefore, after the ancestor of Han Gaozu sat firmly in Jiangshan, Prime Minister Xiao He's disciples advised Xiao to buy more land and learn to self-defile, so that the emperor would be at ease. Xiao He listened to the advice, so he forcibly bought the people's houses and fields at a low price, and as a result, Gao Zu was really happy. If Xiao Chengxiang thinks like Mozi that "Moding will benefit the world", maybe there will be another headless ghost in Weiyang Palace.
Song Taizu wanted to "release the right to the army with a glass of wine" and let his old subordinates become rich people. Absolute monarchs must be wary of all secular organizations, and the reason why "forming a party for private gain" is a very serious crime, the key is not "private business" but "party formation". Of course, it is impossible to "form a party for personal gain," but "forming a party to run a public interest" shows even more ulterior motives.
Therefore, the Mojia as an organization must only exist in the era of the nations, when the great unification of the four seas had not yet been formed, and the greatest danger faced by the monarchs of the countries was the enemy countries around them, and they had to be much more relaxed about the people under their rule. Once "six kings are finished, four seas and one sea", the monarch is bound to take his subjects as enemies, and the rangers who take the elimination of violence and good health as their mission are even more intolerable by the imperial court because they "forbid by armed forces".
Although the Buddhism and Taoism are organized, in the final analysis, they preach the wisdom of birth. Teach people to obey secular regimes, and even if secular rule is brutal, subjects should be submissive. "If you do not depend on the lord of the country, it is difficult to establish the law", which makes the Buddhism and Taoism highly dependent on those in power. It is precisely because the Buddhism and Taoism are not threatening, but to a certain extent, it is conducive to Anbang Dingguo, so it has been passed down to this day.
From the perspective of WTO accession, Mozi's series of scientific theories are ahead of their time, which is desirable. But being too ahead of the curve at the ideological level is the main cause of its own destruction.
In terms of respecting human nature and respecting interests, Mojia is lacking. And paid a terrible price for it.
However, although the Mo family has become a distant extreme, its ideas still radiate brilliant light today.
If Mozi is lucky enough to meet Ghost Guzi, he can have an understanding at the level of the laws of human nature. Perhaps we can still get a glimpse of the Mo family today.