a just cause enjoys abundant support while an unjust cause finds little
At the beginning of this essay, I put forward the view that "the weather is not as good as the geographical position, and the geographical position is not as good as harmony with people", and pointed out that "harmony with people" is the primary condition for defeating the enemy. "Harmony between people" means "helping more" and "obeying the world" mentioned below, that is, the support and support of the people, which embodies Mencius' political thought of "valuing the people but neglecting the monarch". Song Zhuxi's evaluation of this chapter is: "Yin Shi said: He who speaks the world wins the hearts of the people." Jiao Xun's annotation in the Qing Dynasty is: "Man is more important than heaven and earth, so Qiu Min is called the son of heaven." It can be seen that this chapter is not about war, but about people's hearts, and it is about the importance of "king" (that is, "benevolent government") by war. Therefore, the article first compares the harmony between weather and geographical location, geographical location and people step by step, and points out that these three factors play different roles in the war; Finally, the conclusion that "those who gain the Tao will help more, and those who lose the Tao will help less" is deduced from human harmony to complete the argument of this paper.
At the beginning of this chapter, the central argument is put forward and proved by a very general war example. Then, it is proved theoretically, and the conclusion that "those who gain the Tao will help more, while those who lose the Tao will help less" is drawn, and the essence of "human harmony" is clarified. At the end of the article, the "gentleman" who won "human harmony" and "victory in the war" is the conclusion, highlighting "human harmony" is the most important condition to determine the outcome of the war.
The sentences in this article are neat, fluent, coherent and convincing. For example, when demonstrating that geographical location is not as good as harmony between people, the author first uses four juxtaposed negative sentences to fully develop the favorable conditions of "geographical location" owned by the defensive side, and then suddenly turns the tables and tells the result of failure, which makes the conclusion that "geographical location is not as good as harmony between people" very convincing. For another example, when the author expounds his "Tao helps more", he also uses three negative parallelism sentences first, and naturally draws a conclusion; Then, through the comparison between "more help" and "less help", it is natural to deduce that "a gentleman can defeat the enemy without fighting."
Be born at hardship, die at peace and happiness
This chapter is about cultivating talents and governing the country. Mencius believed that talents were cultivated in a difficult environment, so he said, "We must first suffer from their thoughts ... and do whatever they want." Through such training, we can be "patient and benefit from what they can't do." But this is only one aspect of the problem. The other side of the problem is that he attaches importance to people's subjective factors and puts forward the viewpoint of "trapped in the heart, weighing in consideration, and then moving", thus explaining the subjective and objective conditions for cultivating talents. The essay talks about the country from a personal point of view, and puts forward the conclusion that "if you enter, you will not be able to go home, but if you leave, you will be invincible against foreign invasion and the country will die." This is aimed at the monarch, which means that if there are no officials who strictly enforce the law and dare to speak out, the monarch will run amok; Without the intrusion of neighboring countries, the monarch would indulge in happiness. This naturally leads to the central idea of this chapter-"Born in sorrow, died in happiness".
At the beginning of the article, six comparisons are used in succession, and the facts are cited to show that although these people were born in poverty, they finally achieved extraordinary careers after hard training. In line with this fact, the author used several phrases to draw the conclusion that "the sky will drop to a big position, so people will be convinced." On this basis, the author further demonstrates the benefits of being tempered from both positive and negative aspects, and finally puts forward the central argument of this paper.
There are some famous aphorisms in this paper. We should be able to understand their meanings and learn how to use them properly, such as: getting Michinosuke, but not Tao; The weather is not as good as the geographical position, and the geographical position is not as good as people; Born in sorrow, died in happiness. This sentence is often quoted, and students should be required to memorize and use it.
Second, the problem research
What are the similarities and differences between the two compositions?
Both of these short essays adopt the analogy method: the first one takes the examples in the war as an example, emphasizing that "the weather is not as good as the right place, and the right place is not as good as human harmony", and then leads to the truth of governing the country; Secondly, starting from individual cases, after drawing the view that "talents come from difficulties", we turn to rulers to govern the country, point out that the factors that determine the survival of the country are similar to those that determine whether individuals can achieve great things, and finally put forward arguments.
The two essays put forward arguments in different ways: point out the arguments of the first essay in the middle of the article, and then further explain and elaborate the arguments; The second essay reveals the argument at the end of the article without explaining it.
Practice note
1. Read and recite the text. There are many parallelism sentences in the text, so you should pay attention to the rhythm when reading.
The key to learning classical Chinese well is to read more and understand the rhythm and momentum of the article. Especially for such short, rigorous and literary articles, reading is particularly important.
Pay attention to the rhythm of parallelism, such as:
1. Territorial people/don't take/seal the border, consolidate the country/don't take the risk of mountains and streams, dominate the world/don't take advantage of the military revolution.
2. Enlightened people/help more, lost people/help less. Nothing to help/give, relatives/side; Help more/reach it, the world/follow it.
3. Shun/Fayin/Wood,/Guein/Banlou, Jiaoin/Guein/Fish Salt, Guan Yiwu/Guein/Stone, Sun Shuaio/Guein/Sea, Bailixi/Guein/City.
2. What are the arguments of these two articles? What are the similarities and differences between the ways they put forward and expounded their arguments?
The purpose of this question is to make students clear the logical level of the two short passages and grasp their arguments.
The first argument is "Tao helps more, Tao helps less", and the second argument is "Born in sorrow, died in happiness". These arguments are mainly aimed at the supreme ruler.
Both of these short essays use analogy: the first one takes the situation in the war as an example, emphasizing that "the weather is not as good as the geographical position, and the geographical position is not as good as human harmony", and then deduces the truth of governing the country; The second one starts with individual cases and finally comes down to the ruler's ruling the country.
The two essays put forward arguments in different ways: point out the arguments of the first essay in the middle of the article, and then further explain and elaborate the arguments; The second essay reveals the argument at the end of the article without explaining it.
Explain the meaning of underlined words in the following sentences.
1. Zi Mozi's Nine Distance
Relatives will help you when there is no help.
three ................................................................................................................................................................................
4. Be trapped in your heart, weigh it, and then do it.
5. If you enter, there will be no legalist, and if you leave, you will be invincible to foreign patients.
The purpose of this question is to let students master these interchangeable words.
1. distance, transmitting "rejection", resisting, resisting.
2. Pan, through "rebellion", betrayal, rebellion.
3. Zeng, through "increase", increase.
4. Balance, pass "horizontal", infarction, and obstruction.
5. Hey, pass the "Bi" assist.
4. Make a simple speech on the topic of the sentence that you feel most deeply in two short paragraphs.
This topic is intended to cultivate students' awareness and ability to look at ancient cultural heritage from today's perspective, and also to exercise students' oral expression ability.
Students should speak on the basis of a correct understanding of the original text, and don't misinterpret the original intention in order to put forward their own views. In addition, it is best to give some concrete examples when giving a speech, and don't make vague comments.
Teaching suggestion
First, Mencius' article is logical and literary, which can make students read it repeatedly until they are familiar with it, which will be of great benefit to students' understanding of the content and language characteristics of the text.
Second, it is impossible for junior high school students to understand Mencius' thoughts thoroughly. Just say one or two things about the article, and there is no need to extend it too much. Needless to say, this paper's argumentation method can basically clarify the author's argumentation ideas. In a higher level class, students can simply compare the demonstration methods in these two chapters and cultivate their ability to discuss problems.
related data
I. Introduction to the author
Mencius lived in the Warring States period, when the society was in turmoil and people's lives were very painful. At that time, the major powers "competed for land and killed people; Fight for the city and kill the city "; The ruler is "rich in fat and stable with fat horses"; The people "look down on their parents, look down on their wives, have a hard life, and die in a bad year." Faced with such social reality, Mencius first put forward the idea that "the people are more important than the monarch" and called on the rulers of all countries to attach importance to the role of the people; Put forward that the cruel king is a "single husband" and the people can overthrow him; Strongly opposed to unjust wars, and believed that only "non-killers" could unify the world. Mencius yearned for the achievements of Yao and Shun in history. He lobbied around to publicize his "benevolent government" and "kingly way", and pinned this hope on the "benevolence" of the feudal rulers, trying to maintain the mining field system of the Western Zhou Dynasty, so as to make the world submit and achieve the goal of "Wang Ye is neither hungry nor cold". All these reflect that Mencius inherited and developed the people-oriented thought put forward by the previous generation of politicians, which played a certain role in restoring the economy, developing production and making the people recuperate.
Mencius is another Confucian master after Confucius, and he is known as the "Saint of Asia". Mencius is one of the Confucian classics, which records his words and deeds. There are 7 chapters, 26 1 chapter, about 35,000 words, including Mencius' words and deeds, political theory, philosophy, ethics and education. Mencius has a unique style in the prose of pre-Qin philosophers, which has a great influence on the development of later prose.
Second, translation.
1. If you get this word, you will get more help, but if you lose it, you will get less help.
The weather and season conducive to combat are not as good as the geographical situation conducive to combat; The geographical situation conducive to combat is not as good as the will of the people and internal unity in combat.
(For example, in a small town in Lisan, Fiona Fang, there is only an outer city in Qili, Fiona Fang, surrounded by all sides to attack, but it can't win. Surrounding the city on all sides, we must get weather and seasons that are conducive to combat, but we can't win, because the weather and seasons that are conducive to combat are not as good as the geographical situation that is conducive to combat.
The city wall is not high, the moat is not deep, the weapons and equipment are not bad, and the food supply is not insufficient. However, the defending side still abandoned the city and fled, because the geographical situation of fighting (no matter how good) is not as good as the people's hearts and internal unity.
Therefore, the management of the people can't rely solely on the demarcated borders, the consolidation of national defense can't rely on mountains and rivers, and the conquest of the world can't rely on the strength of force. A monarch who can practice "benevolent government" will have more people to help him, and a monarch who can't practice "benevolent government" will have fewer people to help him. Few people help him to the extreme, and his brothers and sisters will betray him; With so many people helping him, the whole world will submit to him. On the condition that all the people in the world submit to him, we will crack down on the helpless monarch who is opposed by even relatives. Therefore, the monarch (who can do "benevolent government") won without fighting.
2. Born in sorrow, died in happiness
Shun rose from the field, from the plasterer who built the wall, the glue was lifted from the fish and salt vendor, Guan Yiwu was released from the prison officer and hired as a photo, Sun Shuai entered the court from the secluded seaside, and Prissy boarded the photo from the street.
Therefore, God will give such a person a great mission-he must first make his heart miserable, his bones and muscles tired, his body hungry and emaciated, and he suffers from poverty. All kinds of actions will hinder and interfere with his career, thus alerting his heart, strengthening his character and constantly increasing his talents.
A person often makes mistakes before he can correct them; If you are upset and your thoughts are blocked, you can make a difference; (A person's thoughts, only) from the face, in chanting and sighing, and then can be understood. And a country, if there is no sage who insists on statutes and assists the king inside, and there is no enemy's foreign invasion outside, will often go to extinction.
In this way, people will understand that anxiety can make people seek survival, while happiness will inevitably lead to extinction.
Third, the perfect combination of pearls brings out the best in each other —— A comparison between the two chapters of Mencius (Ren)
The second chapter of the second chapter of Mencius is all Mencius' reasoning prose, which naturally has many similarities. However, these two chapters are quite different in composition, which shows the characteristics of Mencius' reasoning prose from different angles. Therefore, the use of comparative reading in teaching can achieve perfect harmony and sharp contrast. Specifically, the following "three reading methods" can be used for teaching.
Read the text, grasp the main points and discuss the relationship between the topic and the argument.
The titles of these two chapters are drawn up by the editors according to the conclusions of the two chapters. The two chapter titles have the same number of words (both are eight characters), and each chapter title consists of two phrases with the same structure. The titles are in sharp contrast and the views are clear. But as far as the relationship between the title of this article and the argument is concerned, the two chapters have their own advantages. The chapter "If you get more help from the Tao, you can't get help from the Tao" mainly demonstrates that the conditions for winning or losing a war depend on people's hearts, and highlights the role of "Tao", that is, the role of human harmony in the war. Therefore, it is said that "the weather is not as good as the geographical position, and the geographical position is not as good as human harmony." At the same time, the victory or defeat of the war depends on whether the ruler gets the word or not. "Those who gain the Tao help more, those who lose the Tao help less" is the conclusion reached after this discussion, which is the deepening of the central argument, so the editor refines this conclusion as "those who gain the Tao help more, those who lose the Tao help less" as the title of this chapter. The chapter "Born in sorrow and died in happiness" mainly emphasizes the tempering effect of efforts on people. The title is the "eyebrows" of the article. Here, with the argument as the topic, the article is naturally beautiful and has a clear theme.
To sum up, the titles of the two chapters are not all argumentative essays, which shows that they are the same as those of modern argumentative essays: some titles are argumentative essays, and some titles just reveal topics. Comparing with each other, we will naturally get a kind of uneven beauty.
Read the text, analyze the structure, and discuss the argumentation method in the second chapter.
These two chapters are equal in length (both are composed of four paragraphs), but their structures have their own characteristics. After putting forward the argument at the beginning of the first chapter, taking the advantages and disadvantages of attack and defense in the war as the argument, this paper strongly demonstrates the two sub-arguments put forward earlier: "the weather is not as good as the geographical position" and "the geographical position is not as good as the harmony between people" According to the facts, the argument is rigorous and clear. Finally, on this basis, it is natural to draw the conclusion that "those who gain the Tao will help more, and those who lose the Tao will help less", thus further deepening the theme of the article. Obviously, the first chapter adopts a general and summary structure. The second chapter lists a series of historical figures from humble to noble as factual arguments at the beginning, then analyzes and demonstrates them, compares the positive and negative aspects, and finally draws a conclusion: born in sorrow, died in happiness. Obviously, its construction method is to divide first and then combine, and its demonstration method is inductive reasoning. It can be seen that the two chapters are uneven and changeable, with thorough analysis and discussion, and all roads lead to the same goal.
Third, read the text, look for rhetoric and experience the language characteristics of Mongolian.
These two chapters of Mencius are magnificent, with strong persuasiveness and appeal, which is not unrelated to Mencius' good use of rhetorical devices such as parallelism. The first chapter, "the city is not high, the pond is not deep, the army is not strong, and there is not too much rice", which adopts double negation and is strong in parallelism; "People don't take politics, the country doesn't take the risk of mountains and rivers, and the world doesn't take advantage of war ..." The level is more imposing. The second chapter lists historical figures at the beginning, and naturally uses subject-predicate sentences to coordinate; And "People always have to end ..." Use sentence parallelism. It can be seen that Mencius makes good use of parallelism and flexible sentences, which not only adds momentum to the article, but also gives people a sense of beauty.
Of course, in the second chapter of Mencius, in addition to skillfully using a large number of parallelism sentences, metaphor, duality, thimble and other rhetoric also add a lot of color to the article, which is not redundant.
To sum up, from the "one spot" in the text of Chapter II of Mencius, we can "glimpse" the "whole leopard" of Mencius' reasoning prose: sharp pen, sharp language, magnificent momentum, good at reasoning, diverse techniques, rigorous argumentation and so on. Undoubtedly, these characteristics of Mencius' argumentative essays are also instructive and instructive for us to read and write argumentative essays today.
Fourth, a brief analysis of "with the help of the Tao, without the help of the Tao" (Zhao Huaibing)
The central argument is the first two sentences of the article. Mencius put forward three concepts, namely, weather, geographical location, and human harmony, and compared these three concepts to promote them layer by layer. Emphasize the importance of "harmony between people" with two "not as good". The comparison between the three is essentially the comparison between the former and the latter, emphasizing that various objective and multifaceted factors are not as good as people's subjective conditions and the "harmony between people" in the war, and it is people rather than things that determine the outcome of the war. The comparative argument is extremely impressive. The sentence pattern is the same, the tone is very positive, no doubt.
Two or three paragraphs focus on the central argument and further demonstrate it with two arguments. In the second paragraph, examples of attack and war are selected to illustrate that "the weather is not as good as the geographical position". A small town is surrounded on all sides and can't be broken. Even people with "good weather" can't win, which aims to show that "good location" is more important than good weather; In the third paragraph, examples of attack and war are selected to illustrate that even if the city is favorable-the water is not high, the soldiers are bloodless and the rice is not much, some people abandon the city and flee, because the favorable position is hard to compare with the harmony between people. These two examples are not actual examples of war, but general, that is, except for special circumstances. Therefore, the debate has universal significance and certain persuasiveness.
The above syllogism proves the truth that "the weather is not as good as the geographical position, and the geographical position is not as good as human harmony". The function of the fourth paragraph is to further elaborate on the basis of the previous syllogism and push the scope of argument from war to governing the country, thus fully embodying Mencius' political views and making the article more universal. Secondly, "winning the Tao" can actually be understood as "winning people's hearts", that is, "harmony between people". Those who win the hearts of the people will submit to it, and they will be invincible wherever they go. Those who lose people's hearts will do the opposite and collapse without attack. Therefore, paragraph 4 is by no means redundant.