Moral education played a vital role in ancient times, and the emperors of the past dynasties attached great importance to moral education, and it should be widely practiced.
After the formation of human tribes, moral education has always existed, but at that time, moral education was only a kind of education dominated by superstitious thoughts, and there was not much moral component. When society has a ruling class, there are laws and social rules, and there is the morality that the ruling class proclaims. It can be said that morality and law are the same thing, which are generally applied to the people and have a certain effect on the common people. In particular, moral education is universally accepted. People understand etiquette, honor and disgrace, and it seems that they can live in peace and contentment. However, the ruling class is constantly looting, and it is easy for the people to be overly looted, and it is also easy for the people to make a living. But the common people abide by morality, will forbearance, will live secretly, and will never rebel until they are oppressed and cannot live.
Ancient morality required people to abide by the law and discipline, abide by the tradition of etiquette and religion, especially abide by what the emperor and ** said, pay taxes according to the rules, respect each other, and help each other. It can be said that ancient morality played the role of a social lubricant and would play an important role in the contradictions between the government and the people. Most of the common people cannot afford to read and write, but they often accept moral indoctrination, knowing that abiding by morality is the foundation of human beings, and losing etiquette and morality is almost like a beast. The saints often taught people in this way, asking them to observe liturgy and morality. After all, society has developed to the point where people need to abide by etiquette and morality, and not act recklessly. The emperor took the lead in practicing morality, or rather, in performing morality. The emperor not only wants to call himself the Son of Heaven, but also has to sacrifice to heaven and earth, temples, etc., in the face of famine and plague, to invite high monks, immortals to the capital to do things, which is a kind of moral performance, and at the same time let the divine right be popularized, and use the divine right to rule people's thoughts. People are generally superstitious and often receive superstitious education, and even most of the knowledge and ideas in the books of sages and sages have the idea of loyalty to the monarch and the idea of feudal superstition. People do not seem to be able to gain freedom of thought, nor can they escape the constraints of feudal morality.
Confucianism was rewritten by the ruling class and became an effective tool of feudal rule. The idea of "the people are noble and the king is light" has been eliminated, the idea of "people-oriented" has also been eliminated, and the ideas of "sexual evil" and "sacrificing life for righteousness" have also been eliminated. In this way, morality will be universally applied to all classes, and it will be divided into grades, standards, and time and place of practice. People all know moral norms and use them to restrain their behavior, and the society will become harmonious, thus saving the emperor and the ** a lot of things. Originally, the cost of the state's governance was very good, and not only did it have to collect taxes on time, levy conscription, and military service, but also manage farmland, water conservancy, finance, money, and grain, and so on, and one or two people could not manage it at all. If everyone is a bad person, it will make the management cost high, spend a lot of money, manpower, material resources, and even a lot of money in the treasury, and the emperor and ** will often send troops to suppress it, which will cost a lot. If you govern ethically, you will get twice the result with half the effort and save a lot of money. And when the money saved arrives, how to dispose of it is not something that ordinary people can know.
Both the emperor and the ** will vigorously promote morality, and they will also take the lead in performing morality. Although they don't necessarily believe in moral preaching, and even want to break through moral norms secretly, they have an exemplary role when they perform, so that people can see and confuse people's eyes. People should learn morality, etiquette, peacemakers, and ordinary people who are content with the status quo. However, will the emperor and ** be content with the status quo? Of course not, the emperor was happy with the people during the Lantern Festival, and on the other hand, he lived a luxurious life, and he had to steal to the Qinglou to spend. **On the one hand, during the spring ploughing, he went to the farmland to "fight spring cattle", and on the other hand, he raised taxes privately, formed gangs, bribes**, and sold officials. In this way, morality becomes a performance. Both the emperor and the ** are performing morality, but they don't believe in morality. They believe more in the unspoken rules of officialdom and the role of silver. If there is no money, everything is in vain.
The common people do not believe in the role of morality very much, but the school administrators perform morality to prove that they are people of the civilized era, but when it comes to practice, they do not believe in the role of morality. The most basic means of subsistence need to be satisfied, to be able to eat, and to have a place to sleep is the general life. If there is no food to eat and no place to sleep, what life will we have? Morality can only maintain superficial harmony and stability, or even just a performance, but it cannot be eaten, sleeped, or spent as money. So, does morality really play a role?
In an era when people were well fed and clothed, morality played a huge role. Social development requires the joint efforts of people, and the relationship between people is maintained by morality. "Cang Liao is real, and he knows etiquette. "When people have food and surplus food, they will consider metaphysical morality, if there is nothing to eat, what is morality? The emperors of all dynasties knew that the most basic governance plan was to let the people have enough to eat. However, the emperor and the ** at all levels looted too seriously, so that the common people could not eat, and there were many peasant uprisings, and even the change of dynasty.
Morality is not omnipotent, but it is absolutely impossible for social development to lose morality. Morality is a metaphysical ideological guidance, and of course it can also be a kind of ideological misdirection. Ancient morality requires people to be content and happy, which is a kind of ideological misdirection, but ignores class differences and the oppression of **. But people blindly believe in morality, and even think that even ghosts are afraid of moral people, and dare not approach moral people, is it a pure superstitious thought at work? People advocate morality and saints, which seems to have something to do with being uneducated and not seriously discerning. Ancient morality can play a great role, but it is not omnipotent, and there are even some elements of foolishness. People need to maintain a clear understanding, but they cannot negate the role of morality, they need to advocate and practice, but they cannot fool the people and kill themselves.