Suppressing Evil, Promoting Good
Updated 2026-08-10
INTRODUCTION
English translation pending.
CORE DEFINITION
The phrase appears in the commentary on the Hexagram Dayou, Great Possession, in the Book of Changes. Its setting is a house that has grown rich and powerful, where the text assigns the noble person the task of checking what is harmful and making visible what is good. The core claim is that abundance breeds arrogance and corruption, so the cultural work of restraint and recognition becomes the binding constraint on continued success. The qualification is that it prescribes both sides: suppression alone produces fear, and praise alone produces complacency.
SCAFFOLDING EFFECT
Reduce cognitive load
- Culture reset: after a growth phase, audit which behaviors wealth has quietly rewarded. - Two-sided policy: design rewards and penalties together so virtue has a visible payoff. - Decay watch: treat rising arrogance as the predictable cost of abundance rather than a surprise.
Anchor fast decisions
Abundance relaxes the penalties that once kept behavior in check, so self-serving conduct spreads because it is no longer costly. Left alone, that drift erodes the trust that made cooperation profitable in the first place. Explicitly rewarding good conduct and punishing harmful conduct restores the cost gradient, so informal norms realign with the behavior that sustains the organization's position.
MINIMUM ACTION
In progress 0/1Practice this model in one real situation:
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Source support: Explicit
- zh.wikisource.orghttps://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E5%91%A8%E6%98%93/%E5%A4%A7%E6%9C%89verified
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