A true philosopher is generally not liked by the ruling class, whereas a philosopher who is not a true philosopher is generally liked by the ruling class. Is it difficult for the ruling class to distinguish between the real and the fake?
Of course not, but the ruling class always proceeds from its own interests and wants people to be honest and obedient to the people, not to think about the great principles between heaven and earth, nor to think about class differences and the problem of people's living conditions. In a word, it is imperative for people to farm the land honestly, and even from generation to generation, to be honest farmers. And the more this happens, the more it will ensure the long-term profitability of the ruling class. If there is a common philosopher, the ruling class will be very nervous, and it will be necessary to co-opt him, let him enter the ruling class, and give him an official position with no power or power, even if he is gaged and prevented from propagating his ideas. is like Sun Wukong in "Journey to the West" who was recruited by Heaven, became Bi Ma Wen, and later became "Monkey King", but he always has a job and no power, which is not interesting. Sun Wukong has seen through the secrets of the heavenly court and knows that resistance is the best way to gain recognition. It's just that the peasants don't understand that they will only rebel when they have no food or drink, and this rebellion itself is a rebellion. But in the eyes of the peasants, it was an uprising, not a rebellion.
During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, hundreds of schools of thought contended and philosophers emerged one after another. Confucius led his students around the world to ask the princes to accept the idea of benevolence, but the princes did not buy it and did not think that what Confucius said made sense. And when it came to Mencius, there was the preaching of righteousness, which was linked to the doctrine of Confucius, which was the idea of benevolence and righteousness. In the heart of King Liang Hui, Mencius was like a philosopher who spoke a lot of profound theories, but he did not have any help for the current political situation and the problems that urgently needed to be solved, so he could only listen to him and stay away. When it comes to Xunzi's theory of sexual evil, no king is willing to accept it. The original Confucian ideology needed to be reformed in order to adapt to the rule of the king. As a result, later kings have reformed Confucianism, removed the idea of "the people are noble and the monarch is light", and also removed the idea that everyone is equal, retained the hierarchical concept of "monarchs, ministers, ministers, fathers, sons", and strengthened the tradition of etiquette and religion. As a result, the feudal ruling order was stabilized by reformed Confucianism without much change.
Confucian philosophers would never have dreamed that Confucian thought would have been transformed beyond recognition, nor would they have thought that from the original "people and nobles and gentlemen are light" to the later "depose a hundred schools of thought and respect Confucianism alone." "It has developed until "Wenchen dies, and the generals fight to the death." "It doesn't matter if the emperor is a good emperor or not, he must be loyal to the king, and he must be foolishly loyal. According to Confucius and Mencius's thinking, the emperor is a competent and good emperor, and people can assist him, and if the emperor is a faint emperor, people can overthrow him and choose someone to be the emperor again. It is called "The world is the world of everyone, not the world of one person and one surname." "Later, it was orthodox to develop into an emperor, and all the ideas of rebellion were against the current, and it was a great rebellion. But people seem to be more snobbish, as long as someone succeeds in resisting and becomes an emperor, they will become orthodox, not a traitor. Whoever is in power has the final say, and people seem to have learned to survive in troubled times and learn to submit to power, instead of learning some kind of philosophy all day long, saying that everyone is equal.
The emperor was most taboo about equality, and preferred to maintain the existing class system, and to enjoy the benefits of the system for generations, so he made a move to curb the philosophers. After all, philosophers are not necessarily politicians, but will preach free ideas and even rebel against imperial power. In particular, some liberal philosophers are not figures in the system, and they are not willing to enter the system. All philosophers who enter the system are not real philosophers, because their philosophical ideas are subject to power, and they have been adapted by power to become so-called philosophical ideas that are conducive to the interests of the ruling class, but they do not have universality, nor do they have comprehensive attributes, and even doctrine has become a one-sided thing, and it has also become the art of domination, the art of fooling the people, but it is not the study of truth. It is difficult to say, "Depose the hundred schools of thought and respect Confucianism alone." "It's spreading true Confucianism, and it's hard to say that there's been any big progress. As for the thinkers of the Legalists, they are even less liked because they advocate that "everyone is equal before the law". Kings don't like to be restricted, and with the restrictions of the law, they become unfree, and even want to abolish the law and kill the representatives of the Legalists.
The greatest significance of the Shang Dynasty reform is that it abolished those chaotic rules, but also abolished the privileges of the king, and insisted that everyone should obey the law, but when the king wanted to arrest him, he never dreamed that he would die under the laws he had made. He fled to the inn, and no one dared to take him in, because the law he had made was that if the fugitive criminals were taken in, the innkeeper's entire family would go to jail. No one even dared to provide him with a meal during his escape, because the person who provided him with food would also go to jail, so he had to flee alone and eventually be arrested. The spirit of Shang Ying's jurisprudence is very valuable, and in later generations, it was changed by the ruling class, and it became a sub-class law-making, especially when it was implemented, and it was never possible to realize the rule that "the prince who violates the law is guilty of the same crime as the commoner". People have been domesticated by the reformed Legalist ideology, which is equivalent to being domesticated by the ideology propagated by the ruling class, as long as there is a stutter, they will not rebel, let alone question the gap between the rich and the poor, and will not question the rationality of being an official. Lao Tzu's rule by inaction is not without a little truth, and the later monarchy has long violated the principle of rule by inaction, and has become a governance with a very large cost of governance, but it has been made a reasonable and stable system by the ruling class. Despite the advent of representative democracy, it still cannot solve the problem of the high cost of governance, nor can it achieve a high-level governance program that governs by inaction.
The true philosopher does not enter the system of power, or he will face the result of the transformation of his mind. Thus, the true philosophers of antiquity were not liked by the ruling class and were not reformed. Rulers keep a close eye on philosophers so that they do not "confuse the people" and shake the foundations of their rule. Because the rulers always believe that it is dangerous for people to have ideas, they are likely to discover the truth about the power of the ruling class, and they may also "use the Tao to disrupt the government" and overthrow the ruler's regime. As a result, neither Socrates nor Copernicus, nor Confucius and Shang Yang were liked by the ruling class, and the philosophers who were liked by the ruling class were not real philosophers. This phenomenon seems to be a paradox that can never be solved.