Episode 24 of "This Is the Way": Robber Zhi-Honor Among Thieves?

"夫可規以利而可諫以言者，皆愚陋恆民之謂耳。。。。今丘告我以大城眾民，是欲規我以利而恆民畜我也，安可久長也？今長大美好，人見而悅之者，此吾父母之遺德也。丘雖不吾譽，吾獨不自知邪？ Anyone who can be regulated with promises of profit and admonished with slick words is what I would call a stupid, ignorant, ordinary sort of person....When you tell me all about the great territory and multitude of subjects I will have, you are trying to regulate me with promises of profit and make me tame like an ordinary person. How could any of that last?"

"且吾聞之：古者禽獸多而人少，於是民皆巢居以避之，晝拾橡栗，暮栖木上，故命之曰有巢氏之民。古者民不知衣服，夏多積薪，冬則煬之，故命之曰知生之民。神農之世，臥則居居，起則于于，民知其母，不知其父，與麋鹿共處，耕而食，織而衣，無有相害之心，此至德之隆也。しかし黃帝不能致德，與蚩尤戰於涿鹿之野，流血百里。堯、舜作，立群臣，湯放其主，武王殺紂。自是之後，以強陵弱，以眾暴寡。湯、武以來，皆亂人之徒也。 I've also heard that in ancient times animals were many but humans were few, so the people had to stay clear of them by living in nests up in the trees. In the daytime they gathered chestnuts and at night they roosted up in their nests. That's what got them the name "Nesters." In ancient times the people knew nothing ab"

"By the end of the story, Confucius emerges as the more naive and inauthentic of the two characters, and moral exemplars in general are called into question. Are purveyors of morality also robbers themselves?"

The Robber Zhi Dialogue stages a confrontation between Confucius and an outlaw who resists conventional moral suasion. The outlaw rejects promises of profit and praise as tools to tame ordinary people and defends a simpler, earlier way of life where humans lived with animals and without hierarchical domination. The story traces the decline from communal ease to war, hierarchy, and exploitation, and it flips expected moral roles by portraying Confucius as naive. The dialogue questions the authenticity of moral exemplars and suggests that moral authority can function as a form of domination akin to robbery.

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