 Although Xunzi puts considerable emphasis on the role of standards, he also famously argues that “There are people who create order; there are no standards creating order of themselves” (XZ ch. 12, p.117, slightly modified). A major theme in Xunzi’s writings is that explicit standards are necessarily vague, so that the proper implementation of them is underdetermined. He also holds that proper implementation of standards requires a great deal of skill and technique. Furthermore, he notes that standards sometimes appear to conflict with one another, and it requires wisdom and experience to know how to balance such competing considerations. Finally, there is no fixed way of systematizing the rules. Changes in circumstance require that the priority of rules will sometimes need to be revised, and this too requires good judgment. For all these reasons, Xunzi credits good people with order, not the standards themselves.