More than 2,000 years ago, the Warring States Period was an era of controversy among the sons and hundreds of schools of thought, and the collision of various schools of thought and ideas produced many precious crystals of wisdom. During the Qin Dynasty, the ideas of the Fa and the laws of the state were combined to influence China for two thousand years; Confucianism established an orthodox position in the Han Dynasty's "deposing a hundred families and respecting Confucianism alone"; And Taoism was transformed into a religion that was passed down for thousands of years. The rest of the families gradually declined from the "deposing of the hundred families" and lost their heritage.
In fact, Confucianism, Law, and Taoism were not the mainstream in the Warring States period, and the mainstream schools at that time were the Mojia School and the Yang Zhu School, known as "Xianxue". Teng Wengong has clouds: The words of Yang Zhu and Mo Zhai are in the world, and the words of the world do not belong to Yang, that is, to Mo. The remarks of Yang Zhu and Mozi were widely circulated, and neither the Confucian nor the Legalists could compare with them. As a Confucian yasheng, Mencius scolded the two opponents of the Mo family and the Yang Zhu school without mercy: "The Yang family is for me, and there is no junye; Mo's love is fatherless also. Fatherless and unduly, it is also a beast. One is a kingless, one is fatherless, almost like a beast.
Yang Zhu, who was scolded by Mencius as a beast, was a thinker in the early Warring States period, some people classified him as a Taoist, and some people thought that Yang Zhu should belong to a famous family, but although Yang Zhu absorbed some Taoist ideas, and his descendants included famous figures such as Gongsun Long, Yang Zhu's thought was incompatible with the quiet And indifferent Taoists and the famous masters who debated the truth. Yang Zhu's thought, which has been mentioned the most is "pulling out a maori world without doing it", but in fact, there is a corresponding sentence of "taking a millimeter to damage the world and not for it", which is the core of Yang Zhu's thought, "noble self", "for me", "rebirth", plucking a hair from my body can be beneficial to the world, I will not do it, on the contrary, taking a hair from others will damage the world, and I will not do it either. Yang Zhu, who is "indomitable", has a political proposition of building a society in which "everyone does not lose a single cent, and everyone is unfavorable to the world", in which everyone only does it for himself, but he will not do anything harmful to others, which can be said to be the ultimate of individualism.
Yang Zhu's doctrine was actually deliberately misinterpreted by Mencius, emphasizing that he was "a dime" and an extremely selfish person, so he was called a "beast". But Yang Zhu's real intention is that "everyone does not harm themselves, everyone does not harm others and benefit the world, and the world is ruled." Obviously beyond selfishness, he pursues a kind of individualistic rule of the world.
Yang Zhu's thinking is diametrically opposed to Mozi's, Mozi emphasizes "both love and non-attack", advocating that everyone can love others and take care of others, and Yang Zhu advocates "noble self for me", which requires everyone not to take care of others, and not to hurt others. The doctrines of Mozi and Yang Zhu can be said to be the crystallization of two very different ideas of collectivism and individualism, which also represent two opposing human natures, so these two ideas once became the most popular trends of thought in the Warring States era. However, the Mojia school is too idealistic, and the Yang Zhu doctrine is too realistic, so it is impossible to truly realize it in ancient times and establish a social system, so the Mo family school and the Yang Zhu school gradually declined after the Qin Dynasty, and confucianism that pays attention to the "way of moderation" will flourish for thousands of years.