“It’s not” versus “So what?”
come from“You can never wake a man who’s pretending to be asleep., not judging, just sharing.
I have a friend who likes philosophy and is a good thinker, and his most common mantra is twofold: “No means no” and “So what”.
These two statements seem ordinary, in fact, the killing power is super strong, the former dissolve all the theoretical differences, the latter cancel all the significance of the action, double “gun” in hand, a chain of strikes, no adverse. Not long ago he wrote to say: “Recently read “Yang Xianyi biography”, began to slowly understand the history of those who have never known ……, but on second thought: politics is not a power struggle, who has more moral superiority than who? Furthermore, although everyone has the right to know the truth, perhaps it is better not to know the truth than to know it – and what if you do know it? Either we continue to cover it up, or we confess it to the world, but it is not known which is better for people.”
Careful readers should be able to find traces of “no means” and “so what” in this: isn’t politics “just” a power struggle? So don’t take yourself too seriously. At best, it’s a 50-pace joke, and we’re all in the same boat. Knowing the truth may be important, but knowing “so what”? Since action is meaningless and we are not destined to change the world, we might as well live in peace under a piece of red cloth, and if we have enough wisdom, we might even be able to live a happy life in the self-congratulation of “red dust and white waves”.
The logic of “no means” and “so what” may seem profound, but when you think about it, it’s full of errors. Who says there is no difference between 50 steps and 100 steps? “Tomatoes are fruits” and “tomatoes are benches” are both wrong, but they are more than 50 steps away from each other. Similarly, liberalism is an ideology and fascism is an ideology, and while they are both ideologies, they are of course very different!
In addition to “it isn’t” and “so what,” this friend is fond of another interesting phrase: “Reality is bad, but reality has always been bad.” This phrase often reminds me of Dickens’ famous line from A Tale of Two Cities, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” As is the fate of all quotes, one remembers only the first half of the quote but forgets the second: “…… In short, that era was so similar to this one today that some noisy authorities also insist that, whether it was good or bad, it can only be described as the ‘most ……’ to evaluate it.”
In a sense, this point of view of Dickens can be just for my friend as a footnote: each era of people will be full of anxiety about their own times, and therefore often have “reality is very bad” or even “this is the worst era” of sentiment, but this kind of to However, this kind of sentiment expressed in terms of “the most ……” may just be an illusion, after all, every era is not too much “reality has always been very bad”. The only reason why we are particularly reproachful about this era is because “this” era is closely related to us, and we are worried, not because it is the worst era, but because we are caught up in it, and all our hopes and despair are pinned on it.
In a society where there is no reasoning, such a set of reasoning for oneself is not only “profoundly fascinating”, but also helps to appease our sense of anger towards history and reality. By contrast, in Meng Jinghui’s The Accidental Death of an Anarchist, the lunatic’s reason for the suicidal anarchist’s suicide is too blunt and shallow: “Life is too complicated, the reality is too cruel, the ideals are all shattered, and I don’t want to live any more.” –This logic of having to crash out and die is not Chinese at all.
When discussing benevolent government with his disciple Gongsun Chou, Mencius said, “All people have the heart of not tolerating others. When the late king had a heart of intolerance, he had a policy of intolerance. With the heart of the intolerant, the policy of the intolerant, the rule of the world can be transported to the palm of your hand.” Mencius of this set of reasoning has not convinced the successive emperors I do not know, what I know is that the kindness and simplicity of the Chinese people have been holding the deepest “intolerant heart” to sympathize with the rulers, and always take the initiative to find excuses for them.
“Reality is bad, but reality has always been bad”, right and wrong, often blurring the lines in this very turn of mind, which in turn earns many roundabout justifications and excuses for one’s cynicism.
There is a famous “Stockholm syndrome” in the history of psychology: a hostage taken for a long period of time will not only develop a sense of psychological dependence on the hostage-taker, but will also share the hostage-taker’s fate, treating the hostage-taker’s future as his own, and treating the hostage-taker’s safety and security as his own safety and security. If this theory holds true, then the transformation from cynic to statist is simply logical and natural.
I once advised my friend that issues of life and worldview cannot be dispelled in a few words, but we can at least start with the most elementary language habits, such as banning ourselves from using the words “no means” and “so what” for a month, and resorting to our most direct sense of right and wrong before thinking about more complex issues in “a single thought”. For example, we can forbid ourselves to use “no means” and “so what” for a month, and appeal to our most immediate sense of right and wrong before we “turn our minds” to more complex issues. Maybe in a month, he’ll change.
Valuing your own professional growth
That’s what I wanted to share.
We are more superstitious about the assets advocated by the science of success in order to get rich, superstitious about passive income, and belittle the growth of their own careers, and even a lot of enterprises and even listed companies can not focus on the main business, weekdays rely on the story of capital realization, the moment of crisis rely on the sale of real estate to make ends meet.
This society discusses more about “windfalls” rather than focusing on long-term investment, operation and enhancement. This universal mentality has ultimately resulted in a low proportion of labor income in social distribution, with no one focusing on innovation, but rather on the so-called capital. As a result, industry has also failed to produce a large number of people with the ability to earn high incomes.
Then we will see that the high-paid people are either in the financial sector, which is the closest to the capital, or in the Internet sector, which is the most capable of storytelling, or concentrated in the field of webcasting, which monopolizes the supply chain by the flow of traffic and “rolls up” the manufacturers. However, this group of people in the 770 million labor force in China, the proportion is too low, many people can not rely on the ability to cash, will only lie in the assets on the profit, rely on luck to cash.
Thus, once asset prices start to fall, the ability of society to spend the amount of money is in its original form. That is to say, most people are not yet able to live a decent life on salary income alone. Some students may know that the age of European and American supercar owners is generally much older than that of Chinese supercar owners, why? Because European and American owners can rely on their own professional precipitation afford a supercar, of course, the precipitation of the occupation is also need time, but their occupations are varied, not only the above mentioned code farmers, lawyers, bosses, net red. In China, I feel it is very difficult, China’s supercars are mainly business owners, what second generation, or the demolition of households, want to rely on wage income to drive on the supercars, it is difficult.
This is actually because our industrial upgrading has not yet been able to milk the global excess profits by monopoly, not letting our Chinese code farmers, doctors, lawyers, financial workers, etc. pay a premium, the overall income of the population is not high, and the social spending power is not enough.
Of course, this is only one aspect of the so-called “wealth effect”. The “wealth effect” is essentially a belief, a belief that has nothing to do with magnitude.
All of the above are just some macroeconomic views. Previously, I thought about everything, but just want to be able to catch the so-called “wind mouth”, and even I originally did not want to go to graduate school (of course, now I do not think so). Focusing on my own professional growth is what I should really do.