Fortune tellers always say, "Every man for himself, the devil takes the hindmost"! I was just about to call you ... finally understand!

Many people interpret the idiom "If people don't do it for themselves, the devil takes the hindmost" as: If people don't do it for themselves, the devil takes the hindmost. This doesn't make sense! God is the embodiment of fairness in the traditional culture of China and China. How could he be so confused? In fact, this is a misunderstanding of future generations. The true meaning of "every man for himself, the devil takes the hindmost" is actually like this: yes, it is to cultivate, correct, manage and deal with; The extinction of heaven and earth is a parallel structure, which means the extinction of heaven and earth. To put it bluntly, it is hard to be forgiven if people don't cultivate themselves! Why do you say that? There is the Analects of Confucius as evidence.

1. Confucius said: the ancient scholars are themselves, and today's scholars are human beings "("The Analects of Confucius XIV "). So we can guess that "every man for himself, the devil takes the hindmost" may have evolved from Confucius' words, but the tone is more severe and straightforward, because it is the language of ordinary people. Xunzi said, "Be in the ear, be in the heart, be for yourself, be in the ear, be in the mouth, be human", and this is the relationship between being human and being yourself. The teaching of sages needs respect and careful consideration in order to gain something. Therefore, Qian Mu, a master of Chinese studies, told us that we must respect the ancients and not misinterpret their good intentions.

Secondly, we know that the word Wei has two pronunciations: rising voice and falling voice. For example, being a man, studying, etc. It is not only a rising tone, but also a manifestation of practice. Because disyllables are prepositions followed by objects, for example, serving others, buying books for you and so on.

In this case, this sentence is easy to understand. If a person doesn't cultivate himself (Heaven is what Zhu said here), Heaven will make him suffer. In the present words, this man will be abandoned by history and the people. What good advice this is. At the beginning, the purpose of the ancients speaking this language was to express their feelings that the world was dying, so the tone was more severe. Let's not talk about the ancients, let's take the examples around us. How many corrupt officials have been wiped out by the devil take the hindmost for not cultivating themselves? In fact, they were not punished by law, but by justice, and law enforcers only acted according to justice.

The ancients said that "nourishing qi and calming the world" has always been in the same strain, so the meaning of this sentence is also in the same strain as the ancients. If it is interpreted as: people don't make profits for themselves, God will punish them. This sentence doesn't make sense, and it doesn't accord with the essence of China traditional culture, so it can't be popular. Some modern people regard this sentence as the motto of individualism and money worship. What a pity!