The Tang Dynasty poet Li Shen once wrote two poems that can be sung for eternity, are well known and catchy:
Mercy nong two songs
One
Plant one millet in the spring and harvest ten thousand seeds in the autumn.
There are no idle fields in the four seas, and the farmers are starving to death.
Second
At noon on the day of hoeing, sweat drops fall into the soil.
Who knows the plate of Chinese food, the grains are hard.
The poem describes the author Li Sheng's worries about the living conditions of the peasants in the feudal era in China; his sympathy for the suffering peasants who worked hard; and his rebuke of the unfair status of the peasants in feudal society...
Reading only poetry, you must think that Li Shen is a poet who worries about the country and the people, "worries about the world", and sympathizes with weak groups, but the truth is just the opposite!
When Li Shen's career was frank and smooth, he had long forgotten the "amorousness" of his youth. At a time when his position was high, his official position was prosperous, and his financial resources were developed, he was full of extravagance, spent days and nights drinking wine, and abused his lascivious power, and completely lost the heart of "compassion for the peasants."
Ruthless and unjust to friends, difficult to the old, abusive authority over old enemies, and even more indifferent to the sufferings of the people... After death, he was punished by "cutting the three officials of the gentry, and the descendants are not allowed"!
From the "good youth" when he was nameless to the "obscene and cool official" after he became famous, Li Shen's life showed the "two sides" of human nature to the fullest!
The so-called "easy to change nature is difficult to move", will human nature really change?
Thinking of that year, the "Dazexiang Uprising", Chen Sheng and Wu Guang rose up. "Be rich and noble, and don't forget each other," this was Chen Sheng's "promise" at that time, and this sentence was said to the peasant rebels who "shared suffering." After Chen Sheng established the "Zhang Chu regime" and established himself as queen, his thinking began to change, and he threw his former "promise" out of the cloud of nine clouds, and eventually lost the hearts of the people and was killed by his own coachman.
Li Zicheng grew up in poverty, and after joining the "Great Shun Army" and becoming the "King of Chuang", he had to do everything himself, forge ahead with one heart, and vowed to establish a brand-new political regime. After "singing all the way" and "directly pounding the Yellow Dragon", he forgot his original intention, became arrogant and extravagant, wantonly amassed wealth, and the people did not talk about their lives, and finally lost the capital and died elsewhere.
Hong Xiuquan repeatedly failed to participate in the imperial examination, seeking to establish a "Taiping Heavenly Kingdom" to make everyone equal and the world at peace. However, after he established the capital in Nanjing, he also regarded the hierarchical system of feudal society as the standard, respecting and inferiority from top to bottom, and strictly hierarchical; excluding dissidents in personnel and killing colleagues; and in life, he coveted the prosperity of Jiangnan, built a lot of civil engineering, sat back and enjoyed his success, and did not think of making progress... In the end, a mighty peasant uprising was lost in the long river of history!
Why does human nature change? Is there "two sides" to human nature, or is there always a kind of "evil" hidden in human nature?
Mencius advocated the "theory of sexual goodness", he believed that human nature is inherently good, and man is good, which is the expression of his nature, and man's failure to be good is contrary to his nature. Xunzi, on the other hand, believes that nature has the moral value of evil and may develop in the direction of evil or in the direction of good.
Whether it is the "theory of sexual goodness" or the "theory of sexual evil", in the long river of history, we will always see the transformation of "good" and "evil": some people will change from being full of evil to a person who is willing to give good; some people will change from a humble man to a person who is extremely evil. It seems that "good" and "evil" can be transformed, so can human nature also change?
Yes, human nature changes!
I like to use Zhou Yi to explain human nature: in Zhou Yi, all things are divided into "yin" and "yang", and I use "good" in human nature to express it as "yang"; and "evil" in human nature is replaced by "yin".
Everyone is born, perhaps with "good" to the world, or with "evil" to the world. Because "Zhou Yi" pays attention to the complementarity, balance and symmetry of "yin and yang", the number of contrasts between "good" and "evil" of newborns is equal, which is why there are good people and bad people in the world.
Innate "good", when the external conditions can not reach the situation to change into "evil", people will be kind for a lifetime, this is why we sometimes evaluate an old man: "never done bad things in a lifetime", "a good old man in life", "a living Lei Feng in contemporary society"... But when the external conditions have changed dramatically: good or bad, or bad death, then the "good" in human nature may turn into "evil", such as the transformation of the great poet Li Shen's life.
The same is true of the innate transformation of "evil." It is possible to live a lifetime of "evil" or to be transformed into "good" when "stimulated" by the outside world!
So people seem to have "two sides"!
For individuals, according to the "Yin and Yang Theory" of "Zhou Yi", the individual itself carries "good" and "evil" is also certain, usually balanced with each other, when reaching "qualitative change", "good" or "evil" will be prominently manifested, so there is the seed of "evil" in the heart of the good, and the bud of "good" in the heart of the evil! Good and evil are like musical fountains, with high and low each other, which also explains why people have two sides!
There are many idioms to describe "two-sidedness": "Yang feng yin violation", "appearance is inconsistent", "mouth honey belly sword", "mouth is duplicitous" and so on. How terrible is a two-sided human nature?
A flight attendant's story is interesting: the flight attendant complains that she is most afraid of working on the flight to and from Japan, those Japanese passengers are polite on the surface, the etiquette is in place, you serve them and feel that they are extremely satisfied, but they get off the plane, they will immediately receive one complaint after another, in the end where the service is not good, the flight attendants themselves can't understand!
Anyone who has been to Japan knows that on the surface it seems to be a humble nation, a polite nation, a Sven nation... However, such a two-faced nation committed an unforgivable and heinous crime against the whole of Asia and even the whole world during World War II! If you only look at the surface, can you see the "evil" of Japan? It is not so much that they are two-sided, but rather that they are more likely to hide the "evil" in human nature!
Human nature is complex and difficult to crack!
Quiet night, have you ever thought about whether you are a good person or a bad person? Do you have "good and evil" in your heart at the same time?
I believe the "good" in your heart is greater than everything, don't you?
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