Brief Comments of the Wrong Words within Xunzi and Mencius.
(PD) 惡非名 on Wang Ximeng's A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains (Cropping and modifications by Larry Neal Gowdy)
Copyright ©2023 August 11, 2023
Reading time: 25–32 minutes.
(Note: This is the full-length article that was divided into smaller articles on this website.)
James Legge's, Homer Dubs', et al, Mental Patterns
Confucian quotes are from around 500 B.C.. Xunzi and Mencius quotes are from around 300 B.C.. 'B.C.' is an acronym that implies 'before Christ'. Christianity did not begin until after about 30 A.D.. Confucian texts — including Xunzi's and Mencius' — could not have possibly been Christian hundreds of years prior to Jesus.
Nevertheless, James Legge, Homer Dubs, et al, translated the ancient Chinese texts by use of words that only relate to Christian terms and Christian patterns.
Word patterns describe the author's mental and educational background. James Legge's, Homer Dubs', et al word patterns prove that the individuals had no experience of nor understanding of firsthand observations, nor were the individuals mentally capable of reading ancient Chinese words.
An example of a verifiable religious hoax is briefly mentioned within Tao Patterns:
"...the wording and mental patterns were derived from 17th century northwestern European English literature — that was itself colored with Greek and other languages that spanned several thousand years of different social and cultural periods throughout Europe — and then arranged relative to the mental and social patterns of early 19th century North American English."
Another example of verifiable mental patterns within purposeful deceit are noted within Einstein Cosmic Religion Review and Commentary:
"The one unwavering pattern within almost all of Albert Einstein's opinions is that of his [1] presenting a topic, [2] inventing supporting evidence that was obviously false, and then occasionally following with [3] an attempt to appease and sway the insulted audience through his use of empty flattery. The mental pattern within the book's opinions is so prevalent and unmistakable... Relative to this topic is the patterning of words by each culture. The patterns of wording are very similar and noticeable among Boris Sidis, Sarah Sidis, William Sidis, Ayn Rand, and Albert Einstein, all of which were of the Jewish culture. The patterning is as obvious as the differences of musical patterns... And with each step he contradicts every word he spoke before: it is not the behavior of a rational mind. ...be one individual's feel-good opinions that were never cross-lighted to recognize that the opinions were contradictory. ...the contradictions in the book are too numerous to ignore.
...Lumping the religious experience of Jews' to be identical to the religious experience of Christian Protestants' to be identical to the religious experience of Christian Catholics' to be identical to Muslims' to be identical to Buddhists' to be identical to Wiccans' to be identical to Scientists', and to everyone else's, such a claim is careless and quite ignorant of what a 'religious' experience is itself. Individuals who claim theirs to be the ultimate path are individuals who — aside from their tiny insignificant personal experience — know absolutely nothing of the topic, period."
Compare Einstein's comments with Philosophical Natures:
"A quick comment on "All three religions agree": It is very common that all religions have bad followers, and it is also very common for bad Buddhists to attempt to take credit for all good things by the bad Buddhists claiming that Taoism, Christianity, Confucianism, and all others are of the same teachings as Buddhism. In the process of the bad Buddhists lying, the bad Buddhists also twist the other teachings' words around and around (philosophize) in an ignorant attempt to make it appear that the lying Buddhist's claims are correct. The Daodejing book is a prime example of having been perverted with different authors' voices claiming that the original author's ideas were Buddhist. The original author of Daodejing spoke of how ingredients create specific products, which is correct and the way (Tao) of Nature, but there, if Buddhism taught similar, then why does Buddhism not follow the identical same teaching? Mindful Buddhism has usefulness, but the bad Buddhists' teachings of selfish 'eternal bliss' and 'escaping suffering' are directly opposed to the concept of ingredients."
Of the countless scholar-philosophers who have purposefully altered ancient texts for the purpose of promoting the scholar-philosophers' religions, Albert Einstein did similarly. It is not uncommon for hypocrite frauds to claim that their false religion is the fulfillment of everyone else's religions. Buddhists do it, Einstein did it, Christians do it, James Legge and Homer Dubs did it, and all of them, including Albert Einstein, were frauds.
Within their ancient Chinese texts translations, James Legge, Homer Dubs, et al, used similar patterns as the religious hoax, only being different by arranging their words into the mental and social patterns of late 19th and early 20th century English. James Legge, Homer Dubs, et al also used similarly deceitful patterns as Einstein's — along with an endless stream of contradictions — that of presenting a topic, inventing ad hoc lies, and then following with lying 'explanations' that were obviously false.
According to the IQ test designer Lewis Terman, "Middle-grade imbeciles of adult age have much the same difficulty as normal children of 4 years in recognizing mutilations or absurdities... The stupid person... Intellectual discrimination and judgment are inferior. The ideas do not cross-light each other, but remain relatively isolated." (Terman, Measurement of Intelligence).
The evidence is solid and unchangeable: James Legge, Homer Dubs, et al, were intellectually inferior, educationally inferior, pompous liars, and "imbeciles".
Brief Examples of Legge's, Dubs', et al Patterns of Lies and Contradictions
Within Encourage Learning, Homer Dubs wrote: "To miss once in a hundred shots is sufficient to prevent a person from being classed as an expert shot... The goodness of the man on the street is little, his lack of goodness is great... the nature of the superior man is no different; he needs to use implements". John Knoblock wrote: "One who misses a single shot out of 100 does not deserve to be called an expert archer... The gentleman by birth is not different from other men; he is just good at "borrowing" the use of external things".
The one Chinese word that Dubs and Knoblock defined as meaning "expert", "good", "goodness", and "use" is 善 (shan).
The scholar-philosophers have given their definitions of shan, and the definitions are permanently recorded in the scholar-philosophers' own books that the scholar-philosophers themselves wrote. Therefore, unless Dubs and Knoblock themselves never scored below 100% on any test throughout all schooling, then Dubs and Knoblock could not have been 'good' scholars, nor be 'expert' scholars. If any student of Dubs and Knoblock ever scored less than 100% perfect on all tests within the scholar-philosophers' classes, then Dubs and Knoblock could not have possibly been 'good' nor 'expert' teachers.
Nothing in life is perfect. Dubs' and Knoblock's claims were literally insane.
If 100% flawless perfection is the definition of shan, then the word's meaning can never occur; ever.
Within the Xunzi book #23 popularly named Nature Evil, Dubs wrote: "The nature of man is evil; his goodness is only acquired training." Knoblock wrote: "Human nature is evil; any good in humans is acquired by conscious exertion." Dubs' "goodness" and Knoblock's "good" were what the scholar-philosophers translated shan to imply.
Within Encourage Learning, Dubs and Knoblock both demanded that a person cannot be "good" unless the person is 100% flawlessly perfect. Within Nature Evil, Dubs and Knoblock claimed that the 100% flawless perfection of "good" is able to occur if a person is taught by a flawed imperfect non-good and non-expert teacher. A person would have to be intensely stupid to believe what Dubs and Knoblock wrote.
An antonym of 'consistent-uniform speech' and 'walk the talk' is hypocrisy. James Legge, Homer Dubs, and Richard Wilhelm were Christian missionaries who ought to have acquired a knowledge of their religion's writings, but none of the authors were consistent-uniform of speech, nor did any of the authors 'walk their own talk'. All known English individuals of the Christian faith who translated ancient Chinese texts, behaved similarly as Legge, Dubs, and Wilhelm. The following is from Philosophical Natures:
""Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchers of the righteous, And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers." (Matthew 23: 24-32).
The behavior of scribes and Pharisees has not changed much in two-thousand years, beyond that of changing their noun-names."
Good Versus Evil
The article Xunzi All Born Bad, Mencius All Born Good, Science All Born Rage gives additional information, but the following is sufficient for the moment.
人之性惡, 其善者偽也
A rough draft word-per-word translation: 'People it inborn-nature heart-inferior, its consistency -ist false {also}.'
Dubs translated the same ancient Chinese words as: "The nature of man is evil; his goodness is only acquired training."
Knoblock translated the same ancient Chinese words as: "Human nature is evil; any good in humans is acquired by conscious exertion."
If 'evil' means the same "evil" as 100% of all known scholar-philosopher translators have claimed, and if 'good' means the same "good" as 100% of all known scholar-philosopher translators have claimed, then no one can be good because good is impossible. As previously mentioned, in Encourage Learning the scholar-philosophers claimed that missing one shot in 100 shots means that the shooter cannot be "good" nor an "expert". Since it is physically impossible for a shooter to always be 100% perfect, then never can there be a "good" person. If a college professor ever-ever scored less than 100% on any school test, then the professor cannot be a "good expert" professor. If a college professor ever had a student who scored less than 100% on a test, then the professor cannot be a "good expert" teacher. If there can never be a "good" person, then everything spoken by 100% of all individuals who spoke of being 'good' — including Legge, Dubs, Einstein, Aristotle, Plato, Xunzi, Mencius, Confucius, Jesus, Moses, et al — was a purposeful lie.
Within Encourage Learning, the scholar-philosophers defined what is 'good'. The definition is "100% flawlessly perfect". According to the scholar-philosophers, anything that is not 100% flawlessly perfect must therefore be the European Christian definition of "evil".
And you and I are fully expected to believe what teachers tell us to believe.
If scholar-philosophers knew what beauty, ugly, love, evil, kindness, caring, politeness, emotions, thoughts, etc. were, then the scholar-philosophers would immediately know what 惡 means. But the scholar-philosophers do not know, and their use of the European Christian idea "evil" proves it to be so.
Words Change Meanings Always
Seventy to eighty years ago, in the USA it was common for citizens to put on nice clean clothes and to comb their hair before visiting people and stores. A high self-value was of having one's lawn accurately mowed and trimmed, and of having one's hair accurately trimmed and combed. A young child might physically exhibit their happiness of being accurately combed of hair. There was a word that was commonly used to infer accuracy of hair combing, and another common word was used to speak of physically exhibiting happiness. Today, the two words have had their meanings changed, and we can no longer speak the words because the words now socially infer extremely perverted behaviors that do not relate to combing one's hair, nor of being happy. Name meanings change, always.
At about twelve years old, I became aware that my older brothers and their friends used words differently than other age groups. Words relate to one's own life, and the words are interpreted relative to one's own personal history. Two years difference of age between boys, caused the same words to mean slightly different things. Five years difference of age between boys, caused the same words to have a more distant meaning. Name meanings change, always.
A few decades ago, it became socially popular to name individuals with mental deficiencies as gifted. A high school in a city's poorest neighborhood had become used for young pregnant girls, drug addicts, and other children with behavioral problems, as well as for some gifted children. Today, some historians claim that the school was for children of high intelligence because the children were gifted. Name meanings change, always.
A common word of only twenty years ago was irregardless. The word was spoken with emotioned emphases on the 'ir-' prefix to infer a greater degree of 'regardless'. The word irregardless is in older dictionaries. Today, some people who believe in modern dictionaries, complain and say that irregardless is a wrong word. Even when a word does not change meaning, and even when some people continue to use the word irregardless, social trends may purposefully eliminate the word. Name meanings change, always, even when the words' meanings remain unchanged by the original speakers.
Old English of only a few hundred years ago is sometimes difficult to assemble rationally because phonetics and name meanings have changed. Studying ancient Greek proves to be irrational, because modern phonetic Greek words in dictionaries cannot possibly mean the same thing as what they meant when first written. The only known ancient texts that are still able to be meaningfully translated include the early Christian symbolism, and the earliest Chinese texts. The ancient texts remain sensible because the names were written from a firsthand description that is not phonetic. It is not possible to share the same firsthand understanding as the original ancient author, but the ancient Chinese scripts used ideograms, and if an individual is able to self-think and to self-observe while mentally assembling two or more concepts, then the ancient Chinese words are often obvious of meaning.
When an individual is unable to self-think, unable to self-observe, and unable to assemble two or more concepts, then then individual's translations must fail. Individuals who are not able to self-think, self-observe, and assemble concepts, are dependent on dictionaries. Dictionaries today cannot accurately define any word at all, and dictionaries are far less able to accurately define an ancient foreign word.
Memorizing a Word, Cannot Instill Understanding
Within John Knoblock's book Xunzi - A Translation and Study of the Complete Works, Volume III, Books 17-32, there is a useful introduction to the idea behind the Chinese word 惡 that is almost universally mistranslated into English as evil:
(Book 23, page 139, Man's Nature Is Evil.) ""Meaning of e 惡 "Evil." The character "惡" is used for two related words, the word e "evil; evildoer" and the word wu "hate; hatred." These two words are related to a larger group of words, also written with the phonetic ya 亞, that refer to persons suffering from various deformities which frighten or instill fear, to expressions of surprise, and to the sounds of laughter and disgust. The Shuowen defines ya as "ugly" (chou) and says that the form of the character 亞 imitates the shapes of a hunchback (cf. Kudo Takamura). The Chinese, like others, associated the ugly and evil with the natural revulsion and aversion they inspire, just as they associate the good and beautiful with the natural attraction they inspire.
As has been noted (Vol. I. p. 99), the term e 惡 "evil" does not carry the sinister and baleful overtones of the English word. Nor does the statement that man's nature is evil suggest that man is inherently depraved and incapable of good. That man's nature is evil causes Xunzi no difficulty in believing that he can be reformed by education and the effects of acculturation. Similarly, the belief that man's nature is good inspires in Mencius no conviction that at birth man is a "noble savage" who is ravaged by the destructive effect of society and civilization."
Eleven pages later, on page 150 Knoblock translated the first four words of 23.1 to be "Human nature is evil". Knoblock had previously written of the knowledge that 惡 does not mean 'evil', but still Knoblock continued to translate 惡 as "evil". Most all English readers will assume that the English word "evil" means "evil". All known scholarly translations of ancient Chinese texts have also translated 惡 as "evil", even when the scholar-philosophers have been told that 惡 does not mean 'evil'.
惡 is a good example of how difficult it is to explain a word's meaning to people of whom themselves have no capacity to perceive parallel thoughts as what the original Chinese author possessed. Numerous times, words like 惡 have been explained through [1] mathematical equations and sums, [2] scientific wave-based physics, and [3] physically drawing pictures of the mathematically measured wave forms, but still the words' meanings are incapable of being comprehended by anyone who is not already possessing and applying what the word implies.
No known science, psychology, academia, nor ideology knows what beauty is. If an individual is unable to intricately describe what beauty is, then the individual also cannot know what ugly is. Over three-thousand years of scholar-philosophers debating what beauty is, proves that they also cannot know what ugly is, nor what evil is.
The first four words of 23-1 are '人之性惡', and were translated by Knoblock and others as "Human nature is evil". A quick word-per-word draft translation variation (sans a descriptive phrase for 惡) is 'People it nature aberrant'. The "human nature" and "people it nature" most emphatically do not infer the same thing, nor are the ideas synonymous. The value in observing how a person translates words, is in how the individuals are able to retain the original words' relationships. When relationships between words are disconnected, then it is evidence that the translator would also not be able to accurately connect words in other sentences, resulting in the entirety of the translation losing its bone structure, scrambling its mental patterns, and leaving the entirety of the translation to be one big mess of contradictions and absurdities (which is the norm for all known scholar-philosopher translations).
Current dictionaries give definitions of 惡 as 'bad, difficult, evil, foul, hate, hostile, loathe, malicious, nauseated, slow, wicked'. One question is to ask why Christian missionaries chose to use the very worst possible English synonym (evil) instead of using a less severe English word? Was the use of evil intentional, or merely a habit from the missionaries' 'loud voice with face' fire and brimstone preaching?
Dictionaries claim that 善 (shan) means good, which is an extremely obvious wrong English word, and the dictionaries claim that 思 (si) means think, which is also an extremely obvious wrong English word. If dictionaries are obviously wrong on easy words, then why would anyone trust a dictionary for difficult words? Scholars admit that they cannot read Chinese, but still the same scholars claim that they know what the Chinese words mean.
Chinese words that contain 心 (e.g. e and si) mean precisely what they imply.
The (dictionary) meaning of 亞 includes 'inferior' and 'secondary'. Simply combine 亞 (deformed, inferior, secondary) with 心 (heart). There is no need to get extreme and begin screaming Biblical evil. People who carelessly use the word evil are mentally weak, deformed of heart, inferior, and secondary to healthy people.
And why did the Christian missionaries not read the actual Chinese text? If the Christian missionaries read... [deleted because of the wording being too descriptive]... then the Christian missionaries would have seen that... [deleted because of the wording being too descriptive]...
But, however, scholar-philosophers are unable to cross-light thoughts, which was proven thousands of times within the scholar-philosophers' translations.
An antonym of 'consistent' is 'hypocrisy', which is what the Christian missionaries did do in their translations as well as within their religion. James Legge, Homer Dubs, et al, gave mouth to Christianity, gave bow to academia, but bosomed neither. The English term for their behavior is hypocrite, and a plausible Chinese synonym for their inner natures is 惡.
42:16-13: "No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon."
James Legge, Homer Dubs, et al were not so much as consistent of which gods they worshipped, aside, of course, of narcissistically worshipping themselves.
Self-Learn What Words Mean
On my land, for years I walked with various animals including a mother road runner and her family (my wife once said that I talked to the animals more than I talked to her; upon reflection, I realized that she was right (but now, humorously, she pinches her lips together as a gesture for me to stop talking so much)). I learned how to communicate with the road runners through use of emotioned whines and clicks. Road runners have two legs, I have two legs, therefore I must be a road runner because I can speak road runner words? No? Some parrots learn to communicate through English. Parrots have two legs, therefore parrots must be humans because parrots can speak human words? No? Just because two-legged creatures may be able to communicate with an audible language, it does not infer that they are all the same identical genre of animals.
One group of two-legged creatures communicates with words that have firsthand meaning. Another group of two-legged creatures communicates with memorized words that have no meaning. The first group is able to intricately describe a word's meaning. The second group cannot. The first group has the ability to make and to use complex tools. The second group cannot. The two different types of two-legged creatures are not of 'same cognition' nor of 'same discernment' (homosapien).
Related articles: What is Normal - Normalcy Research Project Finalized, and Care About Other People - sustineo reciproca and canatim sapientes genres.
If an individual has not walked with road runners, quail, rabbits, deer, cattle, sheep, swine, horses, and other animals for years, then the individual cannot know the animals' habits and behaviors. The word 善 (shan) is composed of a sheep head, grass, and a mouth. If an individual has not spent time with herds of sheep, then the individual cannot know sheep behavior, nor grasp the word's meaning. Each time shan is used, the word roughly implies 'consistent, uniform' (a descriptive English synonym is not given publicly). However, scholar-philosophers claim that shan mean's "good". Xunzi #4 gives a useful example of how badly the scholar-philosophers have perverted ancient Chinese texts by giving the dictionary word "good" instead of the scholar-philosophers simply reading the actual word.
Shan is an easy word to read, but still no known scholar-philosopher has shown evidence of their being capable of reading ancient Chinese scripts. If scholar-philosophers are unable to read shan, then far less possible are scholar-philosophers able to mentally comprehend words like 惡 and 思. It cannot be done. If it could be done, then English dictionaries would include descriptive definitions of the English words that relate to 惡 and 思. The definitions do not exist. No dictionary possesses descriptive definitions of any word. The absence of descriptive definitions permanently proves that the scholar-philosophers cannot comprehend word meanings, nor read ancient Chinese scripts.
In one ancient Chinese book, there is a word that is one of the single most important words within all Confucian-era writings. James Legge omitted the word in his translation. All future scholar-philosophers copied-pasted from Legge's translation by omitting the same word. The omission of the word proves that none of the scholar-philosophers actually read the ancient Chinese text. Deceit, dishonesty, and stealing other people's work is the way of all scholar-philosophers.
Of over a hundred known scholar-philosophers, none were able to usefully translate a Chinese word that required self-thinking. Instead of simply reading the ancient Chinese words, scholar-philosophers rely upon modern phonetics, modern word usage, modern dictionaries, Shuowen, and a historical copy/paste of what other scholar-philosophers have written. The result never varies: the translations are inconsistent muddled-headed fabrications that never make sense.
James Legge, Homer Dubs, et al frequently chose the English word "righteousness" as a Chinese word's translation. 'Righteousness' is another religious term that most relates to Abrahamic religions. Ancient Chinese discussions of Nature-based topics were most definitely not 'religious', but, of course, scholar-philosophers are mentally incapable of separating B.C. from A.D., else they would have chosen a different English term.
An Oxford University biology department employee has videos of him and theologians debating what evil means. No scholar knows what evil means, nor what any other word means (i.e. beauty, love, respect, honor, happiness, emotion, ethic, virtue, etc.). Everything that scholar-philosophers say and write, proves that they do not know what words mean, and, that they are not able to self-think.
Sum
惡 is a core concept within many Confucian-era texts. The scholar-philosophers' inability to usefully translate the word, permanently invalidates everything that the scholar-philosophers have claimed about the ideals spoken of by Confucius, Xunzi, and Mencius.
The only worthy translation of a word, is the one that you do yourself. Until the day that an individual chooses to self-participate in one's own self-learning, the individual will continue to believe the scholar-philosophers' absurdities to be true truth.