What kind of person is a hypocrite? What is the relationship between hypocrites and Confucianism?

What is the relationship between hypocrites and Confucianism? Unclear readers can watch it with the editor.

As one of the representatives of China traditional culture, Confucianism is called "hypocrisy". This may be due to the rigid application of Confucianism by selfish people, which makes the practice of Confucianism gradually become a form that most people don't know its true meaning in unknown so.

At the same time, Confucianism contains a lot of ethical knowledge and some etiquette norms. These knowledge and norms are manifested in behavior. Confucianism pursues a modest demeanor of body and mind. However, modest and polite behavior can be "disguised" and "gentleman" can be a pseudonym. Many times, only you know whether a gentleman's name is worthy of the name. Should we say that Confucianism is hypocritical? No, it's not the hypocrisy of Confucianism, it's the hypocrisy of those who pursue fame and gain.

1. Why is Confucianism always criticized?

Confucian culture is easily criticized as hypocrisy, which is actually related to its cultural characteristics. There are many contents about morality and noble behavior in Confucianism. Whether morality is noble or not, it is difficult for us to simply define it by behavior, and we can only judge it by behavior. Therefore, hypocritical morality is often confused with falsehood, so Confucian moral theory is also criticized as hypocrisy by later generations.

To judge whether a person is moral, we can't go deep into other people's hearts to see if they really think so. We can only judge a person by his words and deeds. However, people can "disguise" themselves. Many times, when a person does this and says this, he doesn't think so.

Confucianism requires that "thinking" and "doing" should be consistent. However, out of the pursuit of the reputation of "gentleman", some people use "disguise" to make themselves look moral. Based on this, people pursue fame and fortune under the guise of Confucianism. Can this be attributed to Confucianism?

2. A Confucian gentleman is a gentleman without selfish interests.

From the above analysis, we can easily see that the difference between a hypocrite and a true gentleman may lie in the word "selfish". Undoubtedly, the true gentleman advocated by Confucianism has no self-interest. A true gentleman is kind, loves others and all people. A true gentleman regards the people around him as his relatives, abandons his own interests and always cares about the feelings of others. In Confucianism, a gentleman always has the selfless existence of "don't do to others what you don't want him to do to you", which is why Confucian gentlemen have been praised by future generations for thousands of years.

"hypocrite" is different. What a hypocrite does may eventually prove to be altruism, but whether he is out of altruism or egoism depends on his thoughts. Many times, "hypocrites" use "excellent means" to make things look "altruistic", but they are actually "selfish". Therefore, whether a person does something out of goodwill must be comprehensively investigated, rather than simply defined by temporary gains and losses.

You know, the starting point of a gentleman should not be "being good to me", but "being good to others". A gentleman acts without considering his own interests. For a gentleman, "profit" usually means "not asking for what he wants", which is the icing on the cake. What hypocrites want is actually "profit".

The difficulty in distinguishing a gentleman from a hypocrite lies in the fact that we must reason from their "motives", which is somewhat similar to Wang Yangming's motives in judging good and evil. However, behavior is the same as behavior, and the result is the same. Only one person is "selfish" and one person is "altruistic". If a person does not say, who knows? Therefore, it is a bit difficult to distinguish between a gentleman and a hypocrite. Otherwise, our ancestors would not say "seeing people for a long time".

Based on this, we can also make a small summary: the gentleman advocated by Confucianism is a gentleman without self-interest. This kind of "egoism" is often manifested in motivation. Motivation itself is "selfless", and the result of behavior is "what is private"?

3. Falsification lies in the falsity of material desires, not in Confucianism.

Based on the above analysis, we can easily see that if Confucianism is hypocritical, it is not surprising that it is "false" here. Confucian sages have made it very clear that a gentleman's "thinking" and "doing" are consistent, without selfishness. But Confucianism said so, but later generations did not. What can Confucianism do? At the same time, the name of "gentleman" advocated by Confucianism is highly praised by many scholars and is really attractive. Therefore, some people are called "gentlemen" and may be real "knowing and doing in one" gentlemen. However, some people are not worthy of the name. Their actions seem great, but in fact they are all out of deep-rooted self-interest desire. So I think it is not objective to say that Confucianism is hypocritical. Hypocrisy often lies in people's material desires, not in Confucianism.