"And the master artisans, the makers of vessels, the weavers -- the sage uses them to build towers, fancy houses, and beautiful chambers, or for military purposes. And the artisans curry favor with those of all classes by means of artful language; seduced by the lust for more commissions, they hope for the occurrence of disasters." In the present age we see parallels in the manufacture of such needless, and often harmful, things like trinkets and gewgaws, cars, cameras, televisions, jets, and computers, which only waste resources and spew forth pollution, and in the fact that the manufacturers of weapons and explosives hope that there will be a war, that pharmaceutical companies hope there will be lots of sick people, that manufacturers of agricultural chemicals hope there will be more rice weevils, and that construction companies hope there will be more natural disasters. "Songs, dancing, chanting, teas ceremonies, go, backgammon, gambling, drinking and carousing, the koto, the biwa, the samisen, all arts, drama, plays... are the evil accomplices of confusion and disorder; they are all worthless amusements of the idle and gluttonous, and the businesses of pleasure; they are the frivolity which destroys oneself and one's family." Shoeki is saying that games and the arts are merely means for achieving idleness and gluttony. Festivals! Amusement! Leisure! say our modern tertiary industries (the city), investing great amounts of resources, time, and money in their wild abandon to idiotic entertainment and events. Shoeki's statement was a severe criticism of just such things. The Idle and Gluttonous Dominators "Should Simply be Put to Death" It is with this that Shoeki then concentrates his stinging attack upon those in command of the secondary and tertiary industries (the city, i.e., an assembly of the idle), their thieves' bosses, the sages and clergymen (dominators), who are the very incarnation of plunder. "Those who eat gluttonously without tilling the soil are the great criminals who steal the True Way of Heaven and Earth... Though they be sages and men of the cloth, scholars, or great wise men, they are still robbers. "Sage is another name for criminal. "The Confucian Gentlemen are the leaders of the highway robbers. "Sage Emperor is another name for robber. "Know ye that those of later ages will call them horse manure, but they will not call them the scholars and the clergy. This is because horse manure has more value." ("Scholars and the clergy" here refers to the dominators and their ilk -- all harm and no good.) It would not do to get rid of these worthless and harmful robbers and criminals (the leaders of the idle and gluttonous) with such half-baked methods as trying to educate them. It is impossible to change these inveterate robbers by talking with them, by persuading them, or by educating them. Shoeki here makes a timeless statement: