Confucianism advocates ritual and music education, and attaches great importance to the role of music in cultivating personal sentiment and changing social customs. Confucius advocates that music should be "a singer is straightforward and virtuous", and that music is helpful to political education, and further believes that music can enhance people's moral cultivation and reach a higher level of personality. At this point, Mozi's thought is contrary to Confucius's, and he wrote a special article "Fei Yue", which clearly opposed music.

Mozi's opposition to music has two starting points. First, ideologically, Mozi advocated: "Those who are benevolent must strive to promote the benefits of the world, and in addition to the harm of the world, they will think that the law is all about the world, and the benefits are all about the people, and the disadvantages are almost over." He measured the value of music from the two principles of "benevolent people will benefit the world" and "things that are beneficial to the people will be done, and things that are not beneficial to the people will be abolished", thus drawing the conclusion that music is not conducive to increasing the well-being of the people;

Secondly, in reality, he thought the sound of bells, drums, harps, and gongs was universal at that time. "People have three problems, the hungry can't eat, the cold can't wear clothes, and the laborers can't rest. Of the three, the people are suffering greatly. However, when you hit the giant bell, beat the drums, play the piano and harp, and blow the cymbals, how can you get the wealth of food and clothing for the people? That is, I thought it was not necessary. " This kind of social phenomenon attacks the social reality that the aristocratic class is addicted to music enjoyment and ignores the sufferings of the people, so that music objectively increases the burden on the people and should be banned.

Mozi, as a spokesman for the interests of the middle and lower working people in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, put forward the idea of "being unhappy" from the standpoint of the working people. Although it was progressive in the sense of criticizing the current disadvantages, he narrowly understood "making the world prosperous" as food and clothing, ignoring the value of music in meeting the spiritual needs of people, including the working people at the lower level, which has certain limitations. In addition, it is also biased for the nobles to waste people's money because of good music, and the blame lies with people rather than music itself. Comparatively speaking, Confucius' idea of music is more reasonable. Throughout the cultures of all nationalities in the world, they all have their own unique music. It can be seen that loving music is human nature, and modern science has proved that listening to pleasant music is beneficial to physical and mental health. After a meal, it is a great pleasure in life to take time off to listen to music.

From another perspective, Mozi's "non-happiness" mainly emphasizes the connection between beauty and goodness. Taking food, clothing and shelter in daily life as examples, he explained that art and aesthetic activities must have a certain material basis: < P > You must always be full of food and then seek beauty; Clothes must always be warm, and then seek beauty; Live in peace, and then have fun. For the long, the long, the first quality and then the text. This saint's business. The so-called "quality before writing" in Mozi's lost essay means that the use value of things precedes the aesthetic value. People's spiritual needs (including aesthetic needs) are the highest-level needs of people. The basis of spiritual activities is the basic satisfaction of material life needs. Mozi put forward the utilitarian principle and material basis from the standpoint of small handicraft industry, which refers to "the benefit of all people" Therefore, taking "the benefit of all people" as the value standard of beauty is not optimistic in essence, which is a derivative proposition of the synonym theory of beauty and goodness.

There are some reasonable factors for non-optimism, but it is one-sided and goes against the historical trend. After the pre-Qin period, Mohism declined, and its "non-music" thought did not have a significant impact on the aesthetics and literary creation of later generations.

"Mozi has something to say about the funeral ceremony that was paid special attention to in ancient times ...

The next issue of Yangming Wuxing Xuegong will continue to share with you the ideal humanistic feelings from Mozi VI" Mozi's funeral view ".See you next time!