Recently, “lie flatism” has become popular in Chinese network, which originated from an online trendy article “lie flat is justice”, the author is named “kind-hearted traveler”. The article says: “Since this land has never really existed to exalt the tide of human subjectivity, then I can make my own to myself, lying flat is my wise man movement, only lying flat, people are the measure of everything.” A stone stirred up a thousand waves, netizens crazy and should be reproduced messages, reinterpretation of “lying flatism”, some people call it decadence, more people think it is passive resistance, as well as a new generation of non-cooperation operation: do not marry, do not have children, do not buy a house, do not buy a car, do not start a business, minimize working hours, advocate minimalist life, and do not love, only for living for themselves.
This problem has existed for a long time. In the past, it was Sanhe youth or Sanhe gods, that is, thousands or even more than 10,000 young people living in Sanhe Town, Longhua District, Shenzhen, who only work as daily-paid casual workers, renting cheap hotels in Sanhe Town, living a “decadent life” with only enough food to eat, but enjoying themselves. They failed to study and were cheated when they came to Sanhe from their hometowns to look for jobs, and even lost their ID cards, and could not travel long distances to their hometowns to replace them, so they could not enter factories to work, but had to do some short-term casual work without ID cards, and more and more people gathered. This is regarded as the collective problem of the second generation of urban migrant workers. The first generation of migrant workers entered the factories from the countryside to earn the most meager salary, knowing that they were oppressed by the bosses and slaughtered by the system, but they were willing to do so in order to support their families and save money to build houses in their hometowns. On the contrary, the second and third generation of migrant workers grew up in the city and do not want to live the same hard but undignified life as their parents, and they know they have no education and their future is bleak, so they live with a negative but free attitude.
This is the result of systemic oppression and lack of respect for human rights. Young people without power and experience have to sell their youth and cheap labor to maintain a basic life and struggle in the city. Likewise, the “996” working hours (i.e. working from 9 to 9, 6 days a week), which have been widely criticized in recent years but are prevalent among white-collar workers, are completely inhumane, and the effort does not match the income. Since there is no hope even if you work harder, why do you want to work harder? The harder you work, the more you are squeezed. This is institutional violence!
Institutional violence is getting bigger and bigger
Institutional violence is a vicious cycle. When the system is solidified it creates a vested interest group to maintain the system as the highest principle. They, in turn, are insatiable and their oppression of the powerless only gets worse. Since the oppression is carried out in the name of the system, once building socialism, and in recent years patriotism, any resistance is ruthlessly suppressed. As a result, the violence is getting bigger and bigger, and the resources consumed to create institutional violence are getting bigger and bigger every day, and the oppression is getting more and more excessive. Moreover, the wool comes off the sheep’s back, and the ultimate victims are the powerless citizens, which in China is called cutting leeks, and the first to be cut are the young people who have no connections and no capital.
Of course, the oppression of young people is not unique to China, but also to many Western societies. The difference is that in a democratic and pluralistic society, young people still have a voice, and those who design the system and those in power do not completely ignore young people when formulating policies and rules of the game, and when they are treated too unfairly, young people will openly resist and government policies will be adjusted accordingly.
For young people in China, the cost of living, especially in the cities, is too high and the pressure of life is too great: high property prices, high prices, low labor, not to mention marriage and children. Many young people have been pressured to stand up, but also do not want to kneel to survive, lose their personality and dignity, so choose to lie flat, to maintain a minimum state of survival, is always their own choice!
However, this lying flat attitude to life is extremely harmful to the Chinese Communist regime. If young people do not get married, do not have children, do not consume, and do not struggle, consumption will no longer grow and the internal circulation will lose momentum, so there is no way to talk about the development plan of the Chinese Communist Party. In the face of this passive resistance or non-cooperation movement, the CCP has been constantly bombarded by its mouthpieces, with articles written by the Nanfang Daily, Xinhua News Agency and Guangming Daily criticizing the shameful lying flat and denouncing it as a harmful “poisonous chicken soup”. But the root cause of lie flatism lies in the injustice of the system that completely ignores the survival of ordinary citizens, ignoring the needs of young people, lies in the constant violence of the system to squeeze, but put the blame on the young people who lie flat, is it fair?
On the other hand, today’s Hong Kong people are not lying flat? Faced with the overwhelming political and judicial suppression, Hong Kong people who have lost a lot of freedom do not want to live on their knees, nor can they live standing up, so they must be lying flat, refusing vaccines reflects this passive resistance mentality!
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