Thursday, December 26, 2013

Bit by Bit - Chapter 25, Part 16

Trey Smith

Confucius said to the Grand Historiographers Ta T'ao, Po Ch'ang-ch'ien, and Hsi Wei, "Duke Ling of Wei drank wine and wallowed in pleasure, paying no heed to the government of the state; he went hunting and gaming with nets and stringed arrows, ignoring his obligations to the other feudal lords. How then does he come to be called Duke Ling? "

Ta T'ao said, "It fitted the facts."

~ Burton Watson translation ~
Speaking of rationalizations, we can turn ANYBODY into a duke, king or celebrity. We simply look the other way when it comes to all those nasty attributes that might belie such a distinction.

Look at the world today. We have created "stars" who we worship out of numbskulls who appear on "Reality TV"!

To view the Index page for this series, go here.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Comments are unmoderated, so you can write whatever you want.