Lying flatism” has recently emerged among young people in mainland China. It originated from an online posting. The author of the post said that he has not worked for more than two years, maintaining a very low desire to live, and also a series of philosophical thinking.
The author said in the post: “More than two years without work, are playing, did not feel where wrong, the pressure mainly from the positioning of people around each other to find after comparison and the traditional concept of elders, they will be around you all the time. Every time you see the news hits are also stars in love, pregnant and so on ‘fertility around’, like some ‘invisible creatures’ in the creation of a thinking strong pressure to you, people can not have to be so. I can be like Diogenes, who slept in his barrel in the sun, or Heraclitus, who lived in a cave and thought about the ‘Logos’, since this land has never had a real thought that exalts human subjectivity, I can make it for myself. wise movement, only lying flat, man is the measure of all things.”
This author’s thinking is very philosophical, reflecting thoughts and reflections on life. But this declaration of “lie flatism” has caused a huge reaction, and the network soon gave specific “lie flat” practices. These practices include, do not work, do not buy a house, do not shop, do not consume, do not get married, do not have children, lower desire, low-level consumption to maintain survival.
It is said that the lay flat people are not really not working, but working a year for a month or two, get paid to lay a full year.
This is a new attitude and way of life, not to be a desperate money machine, not to be a slave to money, and actively reduce the desire for life. Different people have different summaries of this attitude.
One netizen listed the cost of survival in China, the cost of survival, not the cost of living. She said, working in the city, a month to rent an apartment 800, transportation costs 150, dinner 30 per day, a total of 900 a month, clothing 500, face wash shampoo 100, sickness and cold 500, cell phone 100, counted down to 3050 yuan a month. Lying at home, the cost is 810 yuan (dinner 20 x 30 = 600, sick and cold 100, phone bill 60, home broadband 50), as long as a quarter, so she said, as long as it can solve the 810 yuan of survival costs, will lie down.
Of course, some netizens will raise the height of “lie flatism”. Netizen “aborigine” said, “‘lying flat’ is the embodiment of a person’s extreme disappointment in the future and the future, and extreme despair for social justice!”
He said, when your monthly income is less than 1,000 yuan; when you empty “six wallets”, but you can not afford a suite for life; when you try to reach “Rome”, but found that there are several generations of people living in “Rome What do you think when you try your best to reach “Rome” but find that people have been living in “Rome” for generations and are living a life of luxury?
He said, “Today’s social classes are becoming more and more solidified, and the gap between classes is getting bigger and bigger.” He said, “The ‘big cake’ of social wealth has been swallowed up by only 2% of the people who take 80% of the ‘cake’ by trickery, and the division between the rich and the poor is getting more and more disparate, with 600 million people earning less than 1,000 yuan a month so far. The rich and poor are getting more and more disparate, and 600 million people are earning less than 1,000 yuan a month, resulting in more and more people having to restrain their desires and ‘lie flat’ on the ground!
Netizen “deep in the forest 200608” said: “No matter how hard you work to get rich, just a tool for others to use, the tool is broken directly thrown away, so think about it is really no need to be so tired.”
Netizen “old meat” said: “The biggest devaluation of this society is not the currency, but your efforts. This is the most desperate.”
Communist Party officials have been very sensitive to this trend and have made serious criticism.
More than a month ago, the magazine “Half Moon” talked about this “laying flat”, called “squatting people”. The article said, from cram school as a child to “996” as an adult (9:00 a.m. to work, 9:00 p.m. to leave work, six days a week), the emergence of “squatting” can not simply be attributed to the laziness and degradation of young people themselves, but the social environment, family, school The result of the combined effect of various subjects. A number of experts suggest that all parties should give understanding and encouragement, care to guide the “squatting” group, to change their perceptions and relieve their pressure.
Surfing news a public article said, this self-exile “lie flat learning” in young people popular, and become a common phenomenon, it also constitutes a kind of resistance, the social structure of the original continue to function in a stable manner to form a serious challenge. However, young people deserve respect no matter what lifestyle they choose. The relationship between the individual and society is always mutual, and the kind of society is the kind of youth, and the kind of expectations society gives to young people, the kind of future they can reach, and the kind of state of mind they have.
Obviously, at the beginning, people still discussed rationally and called for understanding of this mentality of young people.
But as the repercussions of “lie flatism” grew louder, the official attitude became more and more severe. According to an article in Guangming Daily, “‘lying flat’ obviously has a lot of disadvantages for economic and social development. Currently, China’s economic development is facing many challenges such as an aging population, and the goal of high-quality development cannot be achieved without the creative contribution of youth. Compared to the objective trend contributed by the special historical background of ‘old before rich’, the subjective tendency brought by the real problem of ‘lying before rich’ also needs to cause us to be alert.”
Xinhua News Agency forwarded Guangdong “South Daily” article, direct criticism of “lying flat”, the article said: in front of the pressure to choose “lying flat” is not only unjust, or shameful, such a “toxic chicken soup “There is no value.
Subsequently, some official media began to show their fangs. Hubei TV commentary directly said, you “resign to life can, lying flat can not. Translated into simpler words, right, this society is indeed unfair, you resign yourselves to your fate, but not allowed to lie flat and not work.
Obviously, the Central Propaganda Department has noticed this problem, they will issue the central propaganda “spirit”, and then through the official media consistent resonance, the tone will be higher and higher.
But the netizens’ comments are interesting.
A netizen said: not allowed to post, not allowed to speak, not allowed to party, not allowed to religion, lying flat also can not?
Another said: leeks a lying down, hey, sickle can not reach it!
Another said: “Is this forcing leeks to revolutionize?
The “Chongqing News Brother”, who is certified as a media person and senior journalist by Sina Weibo, said in a Weibo post that “lie flatism” is “a non-violent non-cooperation movement of the leeks, which is also the most silent and helpless move”.
The “leeks” here refer to China’s lower class people.
Wu Te, an independent media commentator on the mainland, told the Epoch Times, “The ‘lying flatism’ clearly reflects the desperation of the younger generation for their own future and social conditions, which obviously disturbs and embarrasses the Chinese Communist authorities so much that they have to publish articles in the official media to criticize it.”
He added: “This kind of resistance can hardly serve to change the social situation, and if any organization is really created to mobilize a large group of people to lie flat en masse, it will again be nipped in the bud by the Chinese Communist authorities as a destabilizing factor.”
Mr. Xu, a mainland legal professional, also told the Epoch Times that Chinese people still have a spirit of struggle, “but when you put in efforts without corresponding returns there is bound to be a confrontational mood, whether it is positive or negative.”
“Young people lie flat on the one hand, there is a confrontational mood, on the other hand, he bears only himself.” Mr. Xu said that this “lying flat” only represents his own personal, not to consume, not to struggle, he has the space to choose.
My view is that lying flat is not a political choice, passive resistance, in fact, is also a passive avoidance of pressure another way of saying. To avoid pressure is for the individual to say; passive resistance, non-violent non-cooperation, is from the social level to say. Originally, this “lying flat” is not very “political”, but if the official once criticized or even suppressed, it is very, very political.
In fact, “lying flat” is not unique to mainland China, Japan has long been “herbivorous men”, “otaku”, is also not working, nibbling at home, do not get married and do not have children. Earlier, the United States also has this situation, the early hippie, later punk, are similar situations.
Speaking of which, the latest Oscar film “Nomadland” (Nomadland), the heroine is a “lying flat people”. After the death of her husband, she abandoned her home, did not work, did not marry, did not settle, maintained a simple level of survival, wandering around, but free. It’s not that she couldn’t find a job, she worked in the Amazon for two months and was able to pay back the $5,000 car repair bill, but she continued to wander after she paid back the money. She did not want to be a slave to money and work only, and chose a simple way to survive.
That said, this lay flat, in fact, human society has always been there. The earliest lay flat people, and also write a book, should be Lao Tzu. He told everyone in the Tao Te Ching not to buy expensive items, under the place, endure humiliation and do nothing. Lao Tzu’s ideal society, a small country with few people, the sound of chickens and dogs, the old dead, is simply a lying flat society.
Christ Jesus, Siddhartha Gautama is also lying flat people, with the “lying flat justice” this hot post words, “Since this land never really existed to exalt the tide of human subjectivity, then I can create their own to themselves, lying flat is my wisdom movement, only lying flat, talent is the measure of all things. “
Christianity and Buddhism, in the early days, both lowered the desire to live, to rediscover the self in meditation and reflection, to find the relationship between the self and the universe or God.
In various analyses in mainland China, many scholars will propose another term, involution. This is a sociological term of English origin, Involution, which is usually used to describe a state in which an ecological or social system ceases to escalate and begins to collapse inward. The term is indeed apt for mainland China, where internal competition is fierce, so fierce that all fields are white-hot to the stage of a zero-sum game, and eventually most resources and energy are spent on winning and losing, rather than on progress, and the overall effectiveness becomes lower and lower.
The internal volume is talking about the overall society, while laying flat is the effect on some individuals, the former is the cause and the latter is the effect. What the CCP is best at is reversing the cause for the effect, not reflecting on the cause, but concentrating on the effect. For example, instead of addressing the virus and the epidemic, it addresses the people who got the disease, and it addresses the people who found the problem and the people who gave the warning in the first place.
We say that this phenomenon of lying flat occurs in all societies, it only depends on the degree. In a society, if the masses “lie flat”, the result will of course be the decline of the society. This is the reason why the Chinese Communist authorities are so nervous and anxious. The Southern Daily said that it is shameful to lie flat, which is understandable, because Guangdong can not hire workers, factories shut down or even close down, the economy is greatly affected, everyone went home to lie flat, no one is working hard.
But how to solve the problem of lying flat? I’m afraid the Communist Party, a totalitarian system, can’t come up with a good solution. The communist dictatorship is good at solving shortage economy and sudden crisis, but not good at coping with surplus economy and social trends. When the economy is in shortage, it can use food stamps to restrict, and when people can’t find jobs and can’t survive, it uses recruitment targets to restrict. But when the situation is reversed, the centralized system does not have many solutions. If too many goods are produced and cannot be sold, you cannot force people to consume them. Likewise, if many people do not want to work hard and do not think there is much future, the authorities cannot break into their houses and arrest people to go to work.
So the authorities can only use public opinion to guide and criticize, denouncing it as “shameful”. But this method is not very effective for the lying flat people, because “lying flat” is precisely the action chosen to reduce the pressure from the outside world. He plugged his ears, your voice is no longer loud, right?
Therefore, the lay flat people refuse to be leeks of this mode of resistance, than the “Taiwan independence”, “Hong Kong independence” and other political movements against the absolute dominance of the executive totalitarian system, may be more deadly.
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