#Xunzi

“The most clear-eyed Confucian who ever lived taught that we can construct our own goodness — and then watched two of his own students build the machine that buried Confucianism.”

“Human nature is bad: left to our inborn cravings we collide and tear each other apart — so goodness has to be deliberately built, through ritual, teachers, and years of effort, the way crooked wood is pressed straight.”