Since the Accounting: A Chronicle of the Roman Khanate

Chapter 298 Moral Duress
Guo Kang considered for a moment, and quickly decided to ignore Zhu Wenkui.

Little Jeanne seemed to think the same way.After she stopped Zhu Wenkui, she skipped the topic and asked about other things.

"If you follow this line of thinking, you will declare to the court in the future that you are not the legal system of Seris, so there is no competition, right?" She thought for a while and said.

"Yes." Guo Kang nodded: "But on the other hand, we are people who can communicate."

"We have stayed here for a long time and have dealt with many people. We are experts on barbarian issues. How should I put it... Most of the barbarians are actually unreasonable."

"It's not that these people are inherently morally inferior—that's what the Greeks were. The main problem is that they don't really understand."

"When we communicate, especially at the level of trade between countries, the first thing to consider is not good and evil. Ah, no, it is good and evil." Guo Kang said halfway, and suddenly changed his words: "Accurate In other words, there should be a different kind of good and evil—that is different from the good and evil in personal relations."

"I understand that. Different classes in society have different morals." Little Jeanna nodded: "This is common sense in politics, so it doesn't matter if you say it directly."

"This can't be said directly. After all, we have to deal with the civilization of the Central Plains." Guo Kang said: "I plan to explain it this way: Different from the evaluation of good and evil between individuals, countries mainly judge whether they obey the rules. If It is good to obey the rules and pay attention to order; it is evil to follow one's inclinations and destroy order."

"People in the Central Plains like to spread moral evaluation to all aspects. It is better for us to propose a set of moral standards and use it as a banner to explain. In this way, it will be easier to be accepted and not easy to be attacked."

"Why?" Zhu Wenkui couldn't help asking.

"Because the Central Plains civilization has a very large middle and lower class group." Guo Kang replied: "The development of other civilizations is the expansion of the lower class, but the Chinese civilization is the expansion of the upper class downward."

"For example, in Europe, with the recovery of economy and culture, the bourgeoisie gradually emerged, and they belonged to the common people. Their common people's culture emerged from the market and formed its own system."

"But this is not the case in the Central Plains. Since Confucius opened his private school, these newly emerged lower-class cultural people are all from the 'scholar' class. They are positioned as lower-class nobles. Confucius insisted on this very much, even though many of his students He is already a commoner, but he still uses the requirements of 'gentleman' and 'scholar' every day, which clearly belong to the status of nobility, to teach everyone."

"Others may not support the idea of ​​Confucianism, but their education system and even the textbooks they use are imitated by everyone. Therefore, even this kind of atmosphere has been fixed and has become an important part of Central Plains education. "

"Of course, with the rapid promotion of education and the increase in the number of people, the social class of the new 'shi' has become more and more downward. In fact, they have changed from nobles to commoners. But these educated commoners still learn the same as before. The same books, the same education. And this Confucian-style education system is very open, so that those who have some money to go to school begin to consider themselves nobles."

"Really?" Zhu Wenkui was a little surprised: "Why can't I see it?"

"Because Confucius and his colleagues blurred the boundaries between nobles and citizens; frequent wars blurred the boundaries between citizens and free people." Guo Kang replied: "So in the end, the educated There is no clear boundary between householders and nobles. With a hukou like Chen Ping, as long as he has gone to school, he can call himself a 'traveler', and he can indeed gain channels for advancement. Even if there are various repetitions in the middle, this trend cannot be stopped. "

"Besides, the nobles are also a very large group, and they don't necessarily count as nobles if they live in luxury. But there is the simplest criterion for judging—you just need to see if they are keen on discussing state affairs."

"Ordinary people don't need to think about this, because state management has nothing to do with them. If any group habitually cares about these things, it means that they subconsciously think that this is something related to themselves. Now the scholars in the Central Plains are a typical example. gone."

"So that's what it means, and it seems to be true..." Zhu Wenkui thought for a while, and then said, "Then what impact does this have on morality?"

"Originally, morality is layered, but if it continues to develop like this, it will no longer be layered." Guo Kang explained: "Originally there were nobleman's morality, citizen's morality, and freeman's morality. Everyone's requirements are different. But If you mix like this, you won’t be able to tell the difference, and in the end there will be only one kind of morality left.”

"At the same time, the 'scholar' who originally dominated the culture were lower-class nobles, but later joined a large number of civilians, which will inevitably lead to changes in the overall atmosphere."

"And after these changes are completed, it is what we see now: the lower class has its own morality, and they will think that this morality should be universal, thus forcing their own morality on the upper class. This may be beyond Ordinary morality has been kidnapped, because behind the scenes are the self-cultivating farmers and small landowners, and the actual threat of force—a rare phenomenon in many civilizations.”

"Although the upper class doesn't want to accept it, it is because the lower class with a large number of people is the cornerstone of the dynasty. If they are dissatisfied, it will directly threaten the stability of the rule. So even if they pretend, the upper class has to pretend to be modest, filial, honest, kind, etc. Morality."

"Compared to Europe, it is obvious. Many of these morals are unnecessary or even harmful to the upper class. But there is no way, compared to the dissatisfaction of the lower class, this bit of suffering is nothing..."

"That seems to be the case." Zhu Wenkui nodded: "Serris' side is probably the most demanding place for the morals of the upper class. I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing."

"It depends on the situation." Guo Kang said: "The demands of Seris civilians only appeared in their environment. And their environment is a serious surplus of talents."

"Look at the founding of the country in the past dynasties, there are often only talents from one state, one county, or even two or three counties, which is enough to build a framework for a court that rules the country. There is no shortage of people with management skills over there. People just don't have the opportunity."

"So, they also have the confidence to choose people with good morals."

"In other places, there may not be such a condition - the upper class is more or less capable, even if there are moral flaws, everyone can only recognize it by pinching their noses. But in Serris, there are too many capable officials to count. Then why not ask a more moral person to come on?"

"So, although the actual candidates are still difficult to control, this requirement has been persisted until now. In the future, I am afraid it will continue." Guo Kang commented.

"Of course, any phenomenon must have side effects. The disorderly diffusion of moral requirements may be the other side of this custom."

(End of this chapter)