Mr. Qian Mu: Mozi's thoughts

Editor's Note

This article is selected from Mr. Qian Mu's History of Chinese Thought. Excerpts are hereby taken for the benefit of the reader.

Confucius talked about benevolence, and Mozi talked about "both love" and love. The opposite of "simultaneous love" is "don't love." Mozi believes that although Confucian benevolence is a kind of fraternity, this kind of love is still different. He who loves his parents will love his own family more than the father who loves others, and he will love his family more than the family of others. Love your own country more than you love others.

If so, countries compete with each other, homes compete with homes, and people are different from each other. It is not necessary for individualism to produce human selfishness. Confucian benevolence will also promote human selfishness and self-interest. Therefore, Mozi advocates simultaneous love, which is a kind of indiscriminate love. Therefore, Mozi advocates:

See the father of man as his father.

"Old man and old man" is not love, this is a kind of love with differences. "Treating the father of man as his father" begins with simultaneous love, equal love. But aren't other people's parents obviously different from their own parents? How does Mozi teach people to "regard the father of man as his father"?

In the meaning of Mozi, if you look at it from the world of life, you will see that there are differences in life, and if you look at it from the cosmic world, you will only see equal aspects in life. Therefore, Mozi also put forward the view of "Tianzhi" as a basis for his love theory. He said:

Heaven and earth love. (Mozi Tianzhizhong)

Why?

Heaven and the world and eat, I know that it is also the person who loves the world. (Mozi Tianzhixia)

Tianxu regards human beings as equals, and human beings should look at each other differently, so Mozi said:

Today's gentleman knows the small but does not know the big.

Confucius spoke of humanity from the standpoint and standards of man, so he advocated benevolence. Mozi speaks of humanity from the standpoint of heaven and the standard of heaven, so he advocates both love and love.

In other words, Confucius established the theory from the world of life, but Mozi changed his theory from the world of the universe. Advocating both love and equality of all things, and treating the father of man as his father, there should be no courtesy, and etiquette represents a difference between people.

In Mozi's view, ceremony is a luxury in human life, especially the funeral ceremony advocated by Confucianism, depriving the living of the living of the living to enshrine the dead, is this not a luxury? Therefore, although Mozi advocates "Ming Ghost", he advocates:

The heavens are exalted, the ghosts and gods of the middle, and the lovers of the lower. Mozi also advocates ghosts because he advocates that there is a heaven. (Mozi Tianzhishang)

However, it also advocates frugal burial. He said:

The ancient holy king system is the method of frugal burial, that is, the three collars of the clothes are enough to decay the flesh, the three inches of the coffin are enough to decay the skeleton, and the digging of the cave is not deep in the spring, and if it is not vented, it will stop. The dead are buried, and the living do not mourn for a long time. (Mozi section in use)

Mozi advocated that the purpose of the festival funeral was intended to be used sparingly. Mozi stood on the point of view of "frugality" and was indecent and unhappy. Mozi wants people to "regard the father of man as his own father", but in fact, he has achieved "seeing his father as the father of man". Mozi advocates that love should be equal and undifferentiated, but it is actually limited by the economic and material conditions outside, and it is also limited by the energy of one's own mood on the inside, and if it cannot be equally thickened, it can only be equally thinned.

If you can't treat other people's fathers like your own fathers, you can only treat your own fathers like other people's fathers. In other words, he should not look at his own father, but only as someone else's father. So Mencius said:

Mo's love is fatherless also. (Mencius Teng Wengong)

"Fatherless" refers to rebuking his indiscriminate aspect, which is the equal realm of Mozi's ideal.

But Mozi did not make this argument empty, Mozi can really practice it. Zhuangzi said mozi:

Most of the ink people who will make future generations take fur brown as clothing, and they take their knees as their clothes, day and night, and take self-suffering as the extreme. (Zhuangzi Tianxia)

It can be seen that the spirit of Mozi is not only thinning his father's treatment, but also reducing his own treatment. He cannot let people live a high level of life equally, so he can only teach people to live a low level of life equally.

He led by example in teaching people to live a life of the lowest standard, a life of self-suffering day and night. But where is this the ideal of life? Isn't it in the name of loving others that they are closer to the truth of not loving others? Mozi Dao: No!

In the past, Yu's annihilation flood, breaking the rivers, and through the four Yi Jiuzhou also, three hundred famous mountains, three thousand zhichuan, and countless small ones. Yu himself the nine rivers of the world, the phyllis without the gall, the shin without hair, the mu wind, the chestnut rain, and the nations. Yu Dasheng is also the same, and the same is true of the world of shape and labor. (Zhuangzi Tianxia)

Isn't Yu the great sage that everyone worships? Isn't Yu Zhizhi's rule of the flood for the sake of loving the people of the world? Yu is such a form of hard work, this should be our ideal standard of life for human beings. So:

Can't be so, non-Yu Dao also, not enough ink. (Zhuangzi Tianxia)

But then Zhuangzi criticized him for saying:

His life is also diligent, his death is also thin, and his way is great. It makes people sad and sad, and their deeds are difficult, and I am afraid that they cannot be the way of the saints. The heart of the world is against the world, and the world is unbearable. Although Mozi can be alone, what is the world? Far from the world, its going to the king is also far away. (Zhuangzi Tianxia)

This is to say: Although Mozi has the heart to think about the people of the world, the heart of the people of the world cannot accept Mozi's thoughts!

In modern times, some people say that Moxue is very similar to Yejiao, but Mozi never imagined another life outside the world of life, and he never provided heaven and paradise after death as compensation for this life.

He worked hard in life and did not inspire people to die. In this regard, Mozi is still in Eastern thought, and he can only be a saint in the East, not worthy to be a western sect leader.

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