Lǔ Xùn (鲁迅) 's writing

[Tiana]

I hope someone who is familiar with Lǔ Xùn's writing can help jogging my faded memory

I remember a long time ago, I read one of Lǔ Xùn's short stories in which he mentioned briefly that to successfully impose something unpleasant on the people, you first have to pretend to give them an even worse option. They would then complain, protest, negotiate, etc... Then and only then you give them the option you originally intended to impose on them, they would then be very happy to accept it and even feel grateful to you for letting them have the lesser between the two evils. Obviously, he was talking about the those in power in the old days duping the common people.

Now I'd like to know in which story or writing Lǔ Xùn wrote this (and also whether the fable is originally his own )

[gato]

to successfully impose something unpleasant on the people, you first have to pretend to give them an even worse option. They would then complain, protest, negotiate, etc... Then and only then you give them the option you originally intended to impose on them, they would then be very happy to accept it and even feel grateful to you for letting them have the lesser between the two evils.

That sounds more like an essay than a story. Do you remember anything more about the plot of the story?

[Tiana]

Hi Gato & thanks for your attention!

The way I described the bit sounds like it may be an essay but is just something Lu Xun mentioned in passing in one of his short stories, but it could be in an essay (It's a long time ago when I read it for a literature class). The only thing I remember is that it's not an essay focussing on this manoeuvring as a topic, but was just a mention in passing on how easiliy duped common Chinese people were.

I'm only trying to re-collect this because a friend of mine is currently being threatened with redundancy, but the real intention seems to be to force him into a lower, less desirable job through "redeployment". This is a British scene, by the way

[gato]

You don't remember what else was in the story?

[Peter2010]

I guess you were looking for 灯下漫笔

here is a paragraph cited from it:

假如有一种暴力，“将人不当人”，不但不当人，还不及牛马，不算什么东西；待到人们羡慕牛马，发生“乱离人，不及太平犬”的叹息的时候，然后给与他略等于 牛马的价格，有如元朝定律，打死别人的奴隶，赔一头牛,则人们便要心悦诚服，恭颂太平的盛世。为什么呢？因为他虽不算人，究竟已等于牛马了。

[Tiana]

Thank you Peter, yes, it may be that (or something repeated in a similar way)

You don't remember what else was in the story?

Not really, I'm very bad at remembering the details (Often, only the ideas remain)

[kyle_G]

i think it's a speech,无声的中国.

a paragraph of this speech :

中国人的性情是总喜欢调和，折中的。譬如你说，这屋子太暗，须在这里开一个窗，大家一定不允许的。但如果你主张拆掉屋顶，他们就会来调和，愿意开窗了。没有更激烈的主张，他们总连平和的改革也不肯行。那时白话文之得以通行，就因为有废掉中国字而用罗马字母的议论的缘故。