Bonaparte Napoleon (3)

In fact, in Fantasy Land, Martial Arts Land, the real world, East and West, and throughout all ages, criticism and satire aimed at the power structure have always been literature’s foundation.

Was it only literature?

The bottom trio of the real world’s academic caste.

If history and philosophy, which stand shoulder to shoulder with literature, want to do that, criticism and satire are of course basic requirements.

And if you end up bullying the weak and fawning on the strong, you can never truly elevate the bold spirit of literature, history, and philosophy.

Standing up to Joseon’s flail master, the iron-mace sovereign Yi Bang-won’s swagger, he would even boldly write into the Veritable Records, “Make sure the historian never finds out about this.”

If he shouted, “For God’s sake, stop that bullshit already!”?

You had to have the guts to answer back with, “If God does not write straight, then above God is Heaven,” almost like a taijiquan counter, to qualify as the original history department’s swagger.

Philosophy goes without saying.

Diogenes, the ancient Greek staff master, was so skilled with staff techniques that, because he was hungry, he staged a midday outdoor public show of rubbing a cudgel...