Why is the circle of friends becoming more and more uniform

More and more people are falling into a “noisy silence” among.

My very favorite writer, Mr. Wang Xiaobo, once wrote an interesting story in his essay.

He said that there was a time in the 19th century in France when two rural girls met each other and had to say “God is worthy of praise” first. Mr. Wang Xiaobo said that the French village girls said this not because they were so religious, but to show that they were well-read and thoughtful. Therefore, this statement cannot be used to measure the popularity of Catholicism in France at that time – the two girls who spoke were not talking about faith, but just sending each other “identity confirmation “.

In fact, Mr. Wang Xiaobo wrote about this phenomenon, there is another layer of causes he did not penetrate: since the 18th century Revolution in France, successive revolutions, movements and wars have made the French underclass tired and afraid of fighting, and all other message symbols in the grassroots society have become ineffective, leaving only this sentence ” God is worthy of praise”, at least in the era of Bourbon Restoration, is both safe, and can show the identity, but also correct, so the village girls can only greet in this way.

This story provokes a lot of thought: we usually think of communication as the transmission of information and ideas. But in fact, the main purpose of the complex language system that humans have evolved may not be to convey information at all.

I once read an anthropology book about a small island in the Pacific Ocean where, in a primitive society, islanders who didn’t know each other would meet and talk desperately, exchanging information that didn’t mean anything to each other.

It took anthropologists a long time to figure out the meaning of what they were doing.

It turns out that the island has long existed in the tradition of people eating each other, but at the same time have not eat acquaintances of the rules, so people meet each other, the first time they must desperately communicate, how much information can be conveyed is not important, the important thing is to get acquainted with each other as soon as possible, so as to establish mutual ” security statement”, not to fight each other. And in order not to chat in the extraneous, contradictory, they said some very no point, no nutritional nonsense.

It turns out that we say so much to each other just so we don’t eat each other up.

This case may explain a difficult mystery in the history of human language evolution – why did humans evolve such a complex language system when those messages conveyed by primitive societies originally required only some very simple words? Probably just to build trust with each other, to put it bluntly, to get close so as not to eat each other.

Yes, just as birds and animals use fur to give themselves a layer of “protective color”, the main role of human language is not to exchange information, but to make camouflage in order to survive. Language is the human “fur”, is the human Language is the “skin” of human beings, the “protective color” of human beings.

If we understand the original purpose of language, we will be able to think clearly about many things.

Mr. Wang Xiaobo’s book of essays is called “The Silent Majority”.

But please take a closer look at the current life, you will find that today most people do not seem to be silent. On the contrary, after the emergence of things like Weibo and WeChat friend circle, you will find that these mediums are very lively and everyone is eager to repost some words with highly similar views.

So is Mr. Wang Xiaobo wrong? That most people are not actually silent? Not necessarily.

Applying the above example of “protective color”, we can easily find that the majority of people in the public opinion are actually caught in a The “silence of noise”.

Have you observed that more and more people around you are not really expressing their own opinions when they turn to their friends and post their status, but are following the example of the village girls in France and the islanders in the Pacific, repeatedly broadcasting some kind of “safety statement” in their interpersonal circles? “Go.

I remember that in the earliest years of WeChat, this was not the case, and many people sent out friendships very casually, and many good articles with sharp opinions would spread very widely. So at that time, the quality of WeChat public number was generally very high.

But when WeChat’s social attributes are getting thicker and thicker, people have more and more concerns: I forwarded this article, what will the Secretary Zhang in the circle of friends think? And what is the view of Secretary Liu? Or how will my stubbornly thinking third uncle’s sister-in-law’s second grandfather feel? If these people are uncomfortable reading this article, will it be detrimental to me in reality? ……

This circle think down, many good articles you will not dare to turn. There is only one kind of article left that can flourish, and that is the “protective color class text” – the same The same point of view, similar expressions, easy to understand and slightly pompous emotions, often converge into a chorus.

So things like “shocking, this Chinese technology is a hundred years ahead of the United States”, “relieved, this American anti It’s not surprising that articles like “relief, this American anti-China activist is finally dead” would hit the screen. Nationalism and statism are the safest and most widely agreed-upon expressions in China today, and are the fighters of the “protective colors. It is understandable that most people need to forward such information to make their position clear and seek collective agreement.

Recently, I have seen some of my friends eager to dispel some “war wolf rumors” and even question why such public rumors can go unpunished.

For example, in this kind of microblogging, I saw some friends writing a long article to refute it, arguing that Rumsfeld could not have said that …… is really unnecessary, for people write 30 words to masturbate a little, and accidentally become a traffic explosion, gaining both fame and fortune, and being followed by countless brain-damaged fans. You write three thousand words to refute it in detail, but may be called “public knowledge”, “crooked ass”. The “crooked ass”, and perhaps also be deleted, you are guilty of?

Yes, I really don’t think there is a need to ask such questions. Those who create and spread these rumors. Do they really care whether these rumors are true or not? Not really.

The makers of such rumors only care about making profits, and the spreaders only use it to express their position, only we are too serious.

Wang Xiaobo said that most people are silent, and in the information age, most people are noisy, but they are still silent, and we live in a “noisy silence”. We live in a “noisy silence”.

Most of the messages that most people deliver are either meaningless or hypocritical and false. Those who speak in whispers of sincerity are becoming harder and harder to hear each other.

The reason for writing this piece is that recently I have often had friends write to me privately saying: “Xiao Xi, your piece is really good, and your views are also very sharp, but because of the sharpness, so I dare not transfer friends, I’m really sorry …… “

In fact, such friends, I especially understand you. A trend that has become more and more apparent in the WeChat circle of friends over the past few years is that it is becoming an extension of people’s real offline public domain lives.

The characteristic of public opinion (especially in our culture) is that it emphasizes the role of language as a “safety statement” and weakens the real attribute of communication. Chinese people are used to only communicating their opinions behind closed doors in the private sphere, so as the circle of friends gets closer to the public sphere, it is only a matter of time before it becomes uniform.

I believe that in the near future, many people’s circle of friends will be reduced to a “God is worthy of praise” nonsense field, and the failure of public opinion is an irreversible trend.

No one needs to apologize for the trend, we are just companions warming up together by the campfire, when the winter comes, the north wind is noisy, we lean closer to each other is, let us hear each other.

So, those of you who feel that my words are still available, but not good enough to turn friends, do not send it, introduce this number to your best friend, as a gift to him, but also to me, I would like to thank you.

As long as you are still willing to pay attention, I still write the movement, we will say together some really meaningful truth, which is the purpose of the existence of this number.

May we be able to follow each other all the way, and let’s go and cherish it.