 It is worth noticing that Shang Yang’s dislike of traveling persuaders is less related to the content of their doctrines but rather focuses on their negative impact on the people’s mores. The very fact that talkative intellectuals are being promoted distracts the people from substantial occupations and causes them engagement in hollow talk and needless learning. Moreover, intellectuals, with their sophisticated ideas, destroy the people’s simple-mindedness (pu 樸), making the latter less diligent and more difficult to control. Thus, both economically and politically, learning is harmful: it distracts the people from their diligent work and diminishes their submissiveness.