Guo Kang basically agreed with what they said. In his opinion, there is actually some truth in what everyone says, and it is not wrong to quote the scriptures.

This society is inherently a game between all parties, and if a person has some characteristics that surpass those around him, then he will definitely want more. Especially in these years, people who have read books basically feel that they have never met Huai Cai. Even if it is a woman, after learning so much knowledge, it is normal to have this kind of thought.

Guo Kang still remembers that when the theologians and philosophers in the church studied and criticized Cheng Zhu's science, they grasped one of the key points, that is, the theologians were too partial to women, placed too high expectations on them, and always felt that they could be educated to make them obey the rules of society. But in reality, the higher the level of education and the more books they read, the stronger the desires and ambitions of these people will be.

However, physicists are good teachers. My philosophical level is not very good, but I think about educating this and that every day. But human nature cannot be changed in this way, so in the end, they will definitely destroy themselves.

From this point of view, this is not wrong......

However, the philosophers like to be didactic, not so much because of their characteristics or innovations, but because of the inertia since Confucius. It may be because they are running schools, so these people have become accustomed to preaching and preaching everything, and they have formed path dependence.

However, without education, there seems to be little other way at present. The Greek philosophers, in fact, could not come up with a good solution.

What Theodora said before was the opinion of Socrates and Plato. In this regard, she really did not deliberately change concepts or adulterate private goods. It's just that, based on this point of view, Plato's conclusion, she did not say.

According to the narrative of the "Ideal Country", the final conclusion of this concept is that the institution of monogamous marriage should be abolished, family relations should be dissolved, and men and women should be completely free to combine. All children are also in public ownership and raised by the city-state, regardless of who the children's parents are. According to Plato, this should be the final and most perfect form of social development, and the ideal state, or utopia, should be organized in this way.

This conclusion was already familiar to Guo Kang when he did not study Greek philosophy with his teacher. In his time, calls for family disintegration and socialization were also common voices. Although in the eyes of people at that time, this should be some kind of very avant-garde and progressive concept, in fact, they are not "new" at all, and they are a little later than Kong Laoer......

For naysayers, the reasons are also easy to find. After all, the Greeks, and even the Europeans as a whole, actually didn't come up with much new things. After more than 2,000 years of tossing, this set of ideals is still changing skins back and forth, allowing everyone to discuss it in different ways, and this innovation is not as innovative as that of physicists, who can at least make it up.

It can be said that, by nature, Europe is not philosophical. It keeps repeating the words of Socrates and them, and in the process the whole idea does not make any progress.

Therefore, Theodora only mentioned one of the cases, and did not mention the final analysis. After saying it, not to mention that others will definitely not accept it, she probably doesn't agree with it herself.

- Not to mention anything else, if Guo Kang also announced that he would no longer maintain the family and fall in love freely with those girls every day, she would be the first to be anxious. At that time, it is estimated that she will have to complain about how the dissolution of the dissolved family will be dissolved on her own head.

So, this kind of thing is really impossible to say. She did it so selectively, Guo Kang can understand it. After all, he himself thought that conclusion was too outrageous, and he didn't know how Plato came up with it.

In his view, social morality and the rules and customs that come with it are not something mysterious and illusory, and there is no need to be tied to the Heavenly Father or the laws of nature. On the contrary, it is a reflection of the most basic needs of different groups of people.

In this regard, Tuohuan is also right.

As a regime, the morality advocated by the Purple Horde must satisfy the interests of as many people as possible in order to gain everyone's support. However, the interests of various strata and groups clash from time to time. In this case, those who contribute the most and give the most credit will definitely be given priority. Whether it is the law or the various default rules in society, it must be arranged in this way.

In today's Rome, the greatest credit is given to adult male citizens who come from homesteaders.

For example, would these people support the kind of society in utopia? Guo Kang felt that there was no need to think about it. Anyone with a little common sense and social experience will scoff at it. Because the free combination of men and women advocated by Plato is not beneficial to them.

The result of so-called free competition is often monopoly.

What kind of man is the most popular, Guo Kang actually doesn't know much. But he knows that one of the most widely circulated sayings at present is summarized in the book of Jianghu dialects compiled by the storyteller Lao Luo's teacher and Mr. Shi. To put it simply, it is the five words "Pan, donkey, Deng, small, and leisure".

And most of these endowments have nothing to do with ordinary citizens who are the foundation of the country.

War and farming are the foundations of the country, but these are very hard work. Training, marching, digging, water conservancy, reclamation, field labor...... They will be exposed to wind and sun, rain and frost. When Dayu controlled the water, he finally made his hands and feet callous, lame and hemiplegic. The legendary chieftains are like this, let alone ordinary people? Even if it's a handsome guy, after tossing for a few years, it will change. What's more, people who do serious things are often very busy, how can they be in the mood to coax women every day.

The vast majority of ordinary people live like this. I don't have a lot of outstanding appearance, and I don't have the energy to take care of it, and I don't have much mood on weekdays. If monogamy is not restricted, then women will definitely concentrate around a few of the most popular men, and it will not matter much with these people.

But such a result is equivalent to whoever works and who is unlucky, and it will naturally not be sustainable. And their bargaining chips are simple – they don't have to pay attention to the philosophical teachings, and they don't care whether women have the right to choose a partner at any time, because they have knives in their hands.

Therefore, an interesting phenomenon is that with the increase in the intensity of war and the improvement of mobilization ability, from the Spring and Autumn Period to the Warring States Qin and Han Dynasties, the laws and social rules have become more and more conservative. At the height of the war, illegal concubinage and adultery were severe enough to be punishable by death, making it legally impossible for the vast majority of women to have relationships with upper-class men.

Similarly, it is also said that the reason why Confucianism is becoming more and more conservative is not that the scriptures and meanings have changed, but that people have changed. With the popularization of education and the decline in the cost of knowledge dissemination, more and more lower-class intellectuals have emerged. It was these lower-class Confucian scholars who brought the position of their class and took the initiative to choose the conservative scriptures; Instead of Jingyi evolving and developing on its own, it became conservative.

And counter-examples exist. The most famous example of this is the disintegration of the Roman civic army, which led to a more and more open social climate, and finally to the point of debauchery. The extravagance of the city of Rome was deeply engraved in the memory of Europeans, and was repeatedly mentioned by the Church as a call for moderation. It has even repeatedly appeared in various forms in literary works.

Therefore, it is not meaningful to simply discuss whether society should be conservative or open, and which state is more "advanced" or "better". Because it's not a philosophical question, it's a game between different classes – of course, whoever wins, is better to say.

On the other hand, if the social system and the forces of various strata have changed, then it is useless to forcibly change the policy.

The decrees of Augustus that Tuhuan said also existed. At that time, the social climate in Rome had changed, and among the upper strata of society, there was a problem of not marrying and declining fertility.

In general, the decrease in fertility was due to the inability of the lower classes to provide sufficient resources to raise children, but the problems of Rome also arose in the upper strata of society.

Because of the decline in the power of the nobility, the need for marriage decreased. And, because of their affluence, they did not need to be cared for by their children and were able to live their lives under the care of slaves and servants. Roman women also had a higher status than in Greek society, and the upper class women owned property, did not need men to support them, and were able to attend social events on their own, so their willingness to marry also decreased.

Augustus was deeply concerned about this and hoped to reverse the situation by decree. In addition to rewarding childbirth and elevating the status of mothers with many children, various methods have been thought of.

Augustus believed that family stability was a prerequisite for procreation, but the upper echelons of Rome at that time were keen on divorce, and some noblewomen even had to change husbands every year. To this end, he enacted the Formal Marriage Law of Julius, which stipulated that seven witnesses must be found, and that a divorce could only be granted after a tedious identification and a decision by a commission headed by the senators. Trying to maintain family stability by deliberately making divorce more difficult.

In addition to this, he asked the public officials in Rome to take the lead in having more children. Whether it is the election of public officials by citizens or the appointment of officials by the head of state, under the same conditions, priority is given to those who have many children.

There was a "leave of absence" in Roman office, which required that after leaving a position, one had to wait a certain period of time before taking office to avoid monopolies. And Augustus stipulated that with several children, the period of leave can be reduced by several years. Those public officials with many children can even be re-elected seamlessly.

At the same time, Augustus imposed additional taxes on single women, and deprived older single women of inheritance rights and confiscated large amounts of property. And the "indecent" marriage of the old husband and young wife, which is not conducive to the birth of offspring, is also in the scope of sanctions, such a family, once the husband dies, the wife will also lose the right to inherit his property.

These measures are all carefully designed by him, and some methods can be found in the same examples in other civilizations, and it cannot be said that they are careless. However, the actual effect is still not good.

Tacitus later recorded that the laws of Augustus failed to arouse interest in marriage and starting a family. The upper class often evades sanctions through fake marriages and child adoption, and it is still fashionable not to have children. In the end, this series of efforts failed.

In Guo Kang's view, Augustus's efforts were not aimed at the cause itself, but only at the phenomenon caused by the cause. In this way, there must be a problem. However, at that time, Rome's expansion was close to its peak, and the structure of society began to change, and there was really nothing he could do.

And now, both Eudosia and Theodora want to achieve a higher status. In this respect, the Purple Horde offered more opportunities than ancient Rome, as well as the Greek dynasties that preceded it. Therefore, it is reasonable to say that they are worthy of them.

In this case, it is unrealistic to want to change anything. Just as Augustus could not change the Roman society that was close to its peak, Tuhuan and Guo Kang, and even the Great Khan and the Pillar Kingdoms, could not change the society of the Purple Horde during the rising period. And the two of them, naturally, don't have this ability.

"I don't think we need to be too nervous." He thought for a while and said, "Our country's system will not produce another Wu Zetian. ”

"When the Empress Dowager Helena was at her strongest, she used a group of pillar states to expel several other pillar states, and the premise was that their territory was too expanded, which affected the administrative reform of the court and the stability of the court. When she was unable to convince herself enough to assert power and interfere with the succession to the throne, the legions overthrew her in one day. ”

"Wu Zetian can kill a general who has just won a battle, but on our side, no officer or soldier will listen to her. Whoever dares to give such an order, those soldiers who have just won will go to talk to her collectively, and no one else will stop them. He spread his hands and said, for example: "The soldiers of the Tang Dynasty may still be too honest......

"I can also understand her emotions." He pointed to Odosia and said to Tuhuan and the others, "In this year, there will be no more Queen Theodora. ”

"The premise of that situation is that there is someone as powerful as Justinian. Empress Theodora was actually sharing and using his power, not her own. And now, we don't have such a ruler who can ignore the praise and disapproval of society and raise a person from humble background directly to the top of power based on his own likes and dislikes. ”

"Whether this is a good thing or not depends on whom." He said truthfully: "However, it is not a bad thing to recognize the reality. On the contrary, if you don't have a deep understanding of society, there will be problems. ”

"I think you both have this problem." He shook his head and said to Odosia, "You have actually seen through a part of society, but your reaction is too simple and direct. ”

"Societies were built on strong maintenance, and this was especially true of Roman society. But this does not mean that the goal can only be achieved through direct control of the source of violence, which is a simple and crude way. Isn't there a lot of way? ”

(End of chapter)