Confucian philosophy has always taken "the benevolent person loves others" as its core.

In the relationship between people, Confucius advocated the "way of loyalty and forgiveness".

Loyalty means "If you want to establish yourself, you should establish others; if you want to achieve yourself, you should achieve others." If you want to succeed and have a smooth career, you have to help others succeed.

Forgiveness means "don't do to others what you don't want others to do to you." If you don't want others to impose it on you, you shouldn't impose it on others. We advocate a method of dealing with things by putting yourself in others' shoes.

The principle of loyalty and forgiveness is the Confucian value criterion for dealing with relationships between people. It reflects the emotional side of Confucian philosophy.

In fact, the benevolent person who loves others is just a moral ideal and an ideal state of goodness.

The world is chaotic and complicated, and it is obviously impossible to effectively manage a country and society by only advocating love. Confucius knew this well.

He knows that good requires evil to be achieved.

Therefore, with the dream of restoring the Zhou rites and building a harmonious world, he proposed "rituals" and raised the rites to the level of moral and social norms.

Confucius told his son, "If you don't learn etiquette, you can't stand up." If you don't abide by etiquette, it will be difficult to move forward in society.

In the eyes of Confucius, etiquette is not the red tape of bowing and giving, weddings and funerals, but etiquette is the order of social hierarchy.

Different from the legalist law, which is realized through the power of coercion, Confucius' ritual is a "soft law" at the moral level.

Confucius asked people to maintain full love and respect for etiquette.

He said, "If a person is not benevolent, what is the etiquette?" If a person does not have a heart of benevolence, even if he abides by the etiquette, he is hypocritical.

Benevolence and propriety are complementary to each other. Benevolence is an emotion from the heart, and propriety is an external social norm.

Without benevolence, there is no way to talk about propriety; without propriety, even the existence of society is a problem, and it is impossible to talk about benevolence and loving others.

The question is, are rituals really pure and good?

Is it really possible to regulate people's behavior without resorting to evil means?

Han Feizi, the master of Legalist thought, told such a story.

Confucius's favorite disciple Zilu became the local governor of the state of Lu.

The ruler Ji Kangzi sent the people to dig a large ditch.

Zilu saw that the people were working hard, so he used his own grain to cook porridge for them to drink.

After Confucius heard about it, he sent Zigong to the scene, smashed the porridge pot and poured the porridge.

Zilu was furious and ran to question Confucius.

Confucius taught Zilu that it was kindness for you to invite people to drink porridge, but you violated etiquette.

According to etiquette, the emperor loves the world, the princes love their country, the officials love their official positions, and the scholars love their families.

But if love exceeds the limit, it is called violation.

Now it is the king of Lu who governs the people. It is the king who should show kindness to the people, but you are not qualified at all!

You are about to be in trouble!

It turns out that love also has levels, and love also requires qualifications.

In other words, you must love whomever etiquette allows you to love, and you cannot love whomever etiquette does not allow you to love!

Zi Lu followed Confucius all his life, and learned only Confucius' benevolence, but not Confucius' etiquette; he only learned Confucius' gentle goodness, but not Confucius' rational evil.

Confucius' philosophy of governing the country is the integration of benevolence and propriety.

Benevolence is the emotion of human nature and an illusory moral level; while etiquette is the real social hierarchical order.

To the country, you can be unkind, but you must not be rude.

When Confucius was in the state of Qi, the king of Qi asked him how to govern the country. Confucius' words were meaningful.

"The king, the king, the minister, the father, the son, the son," Qi Jun understands this in his heart.

The true meaning of etiquette is "name", and performing etiquette requires "correcting name".

Just like installing screws, "name" puts everyone in their proper position, and allows them to accept their respective positions and their destiny with sincerity. This is the beauty of etiquette.

It can be seen from this that benevolence and propriety can never be integrated. The so-called integration of benevolence and propriety is just a beautiful illusion.

Benevolence is good, but etiquette is evil.

Good must be maintained by evil in order to build an orderly society, and a stable and orderly society is the Confucian ideal of kingship and the great benevolence and love in the world.

Not only are benevolence and propriety incompatible, but they are also a paradox similar to a catch-22.

As far as Zilu is concerned, if Zilu wants to practice benevolence, then he cannot practice benevolence, because according to the standard of etiquette, if Zilu practices benevolence, it means violating etiquette, and violating etiquette is evil; as far as Confucius is concerned, Confucius stopped Zilu from practicing benevolence.

It is good, but he asked Zigong to smash the pot, but it is actually a kind of evil; for the people, if they can drink the porridge, it is good, and if they cannot drink it, it is evil.

It can be seen from this that the goodness of benevolent people who love others is relative, but the etiquette that emphasizes hierarchical order is absolutely evil.

The purpose of the wise Han Feizi in telling this story is self-evident at this point - Confucian etiquette is actually the law, but it is just wrapped in a warm coat.