"Useless is a scholar", this is a well-known sentence from the poem "Miscellaneous Feelings" by the Qing Dynasty poet Huang Jingren.
This sentence expresses the poet's helplessness and sorrow for himself as a reader, and also reflects the contempt and discrimination of the society at that time.
However, the previous sentence of this sentence is even more profound and shocking, that is, ".Nine out of ten people are blinded”。This sentence exposes the ugliness of human nature and the darkness of society, and also shows the poet's indignation and unyieldingness.
Nine out of ten people can be white-eyed", which means that nine out of ten people can be regarded with white eyes, that is, most people in this world are not worthy of respect and trust, and they all have various shortcomings and evil deeds.
So, what happened to Huang Jingren, the author of this poem, that made him sigh like this?
Huang Jingren was a famous poet of the Qing Dynasty, his life was bumpy, but he wrote many beautiful and moving poems, leaving an immortal reputation.
Huang Jingren was born in the first month of the 14th year of Qianlong (1749), in a poor scholarly family in Jiuli Town, Wujin County, Changzhou Prefecture, Jiangsu.
He is a descendant of Huang Tingjian, his grandfather Huang Dale was a Gaochun school official, and his father Huang Zhilian was a county student.
But Huang Jingren's father died when he was four years old, and his mother Tu Shi raised him with hard work.
He showed amazing talent from an early age, he was able to write excellent essays at the age of eight, ranked first in the children's examination at the age of sixteen, was awarded the position of doctoral member at the age of seventeen, and began to study in Yixing. He became friends with Wang Zhongren and studied poetry together.
Huang Jingren had a poem name when he was a teenager, and his poetry style was bold and unrestrained, learning Li Bai's style, but without losing his own characteristics. His poetry collection "Liangdangxuan Collection" and poetry collection "Bamboo Sleep Words" have been widely praised and regarded as a treasure of Qing Dynasty poetry by later generations.
Although Huang Jingren was talented, he was never admitted to the imperial examination in his life.
In the thirty-first year of Qianlong (1766), in order to make a living, he began to travel around and became acquainted with many literati and artists, such as Hong Liangji and Zhang Huiyan.
He stayed in Jiangyin, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Anqing, Jiujiang, Changsha and other places, and wrote many emotional and lyrical poems.
In the thirty-third year of Qianlong, Huang Jingren once again failed in the imperial examination and lost his name to Sun Shan.
With emotion, Huang Jingren made a poem "Miscellaneous Feelings", one of which is:Nine out of ten people are white-eyed, and none of them are scholars.
It was not until the forty-first year of Qianlong (1776) that he was called to the second class because of the opportunity of Qianlong's southern tour, and obtained the position of chief bookkeeper, but there was no actual position.
In the forty-third year of Qianlong (1781), he was recommended by Bi Yuan, the governor of Shaanxi, and was appointed as a county governor.
But Huang Jingren didn't seem to have the opportunity to be an official, and the county governor didn't last long before he died of illness at the age of 34.
From Huang Jingren's life experience, we can see why a scholar like him wants to say "scholars are useless" and "scholars mislead the country", but they highly respected reading in ancient China?
Isn't it a contradiction?
Then we have to mention the ancient Chinese official election system and the best examination textbooks.
In order to maintain and consolidate their rule, the feudal dynasty formulated a system of selecting and appointing officials suitable for their own country.
Since Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, all dynasties have basically taken Confucianism as the orthodox ideology, but can Confucianism really replace Chinese tradition?
You must know that in the pre-Qin period, hundreds of schools of thought were rich and colorful, and hundreds of schools of thought contended, and Confucianism was not the mainstream of academics.
Although in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the controversy of a hundred schools of thought was represented by Confucius, Laozi, and Mozi, but most of the other doctrines did not look down on Confucianism.
The Taoist Lao Tzu once said:Confucianism likes to pursue ancient rites, which is contrary to the laws of nature.
The times are constantly changing, always pursuing the past, and they will certainly not be able to keep up with the torrent of the times.
Legalist Han Feizi is even more unceremonious:Confucianism does not think of change, but only fills its mouth with cannons.
With the development of the times, Confucianism has become more and more rigid.
For example, although Cheng Zhu Lixue was a great progress in Confucianism, it also had endless troubles, laying an uneasy factor for the development of later generations.
Cheng Zhu Lixue advocated taking reason as the foundation, preserving heavenly principles, destroying human desires, and opposing the cause and effect theory of Buddhism.
The theory of cause and effect refers to the fact that all things and phenomena have their causes and consequences, and that cause and effect are unpleasant, and advocates that people should accumulate good deeds and avoid doing evil in order to obtain good results.
Cheng Zhu Lixue believes that the theory of cause and effect is a kind of false superstition, ignoring the unity of human nature and heavenly principles, resulting in people being lost in external objects, unable to cultivate their hearts independently, and unable to reach the realm of benevolence and righteousness.
This viewpoint of Cheng Zhu Lixue not only had a very bad impact on the people's education and moral construction at that time and later generations, making people lack the judgment of good and evil and the responsibility to take responsibility, but also violated Confucianism's intention of persuading people to be good, and deviated from the fundamental purpose and value orientation of Confucianism.
Another example is the eight shares of the Ming and Qing dynasties.
Baguwen is a special style of writing stipulated in the imperial examination of the Ming and Qing dynasties, which takes the four books and five classics as the title, according to the fixed format and number of words, and uses the sentence pattern of comparison and duality to expound the meaning and truth of the scriptures.
The purpose of the imperial court was to select some civil officials who could maintain and consolidate the rule of the feudal dynasty, not to cultivate talents with real talents and learning.
Therefore, its requirements for candidates are to follow the annotations of the Cheng-Zhu school, without any innovation and dissent, and it is an extremely conservative and rigid style.
As a result, thousands of scholars have to study this cumbersome style day and night in order to become famous, ignoring other knowledge and practice, resulting in a poverty of knowledge and atrophy of thought.
Therefore, to put it bluntly, Baguwen cannot teach ** how to govern the people, and cannot teach the ruler to enrich the country and strengthen the army.
I don't even know how to be an official.
In the final analysis, Baguwen has nothing to do with political affairs, nor is it a kind of literary creation, the content is empty and the form is rigid and sluggish, which is a kind of word game.
It not only hinders the progress and change of society, but also harms the prosperity and diversity of culture, and is a harmful and unhelpful style.
Therefore, in the era of the prevalence of imperial examinations, there will be a contradiction in the saying that "scholars are useless".