How did depression become a kind of hypocrisy, and how did “rough and happy” become a kind of spiritual correctness? This article is from the WeChat official account: NOWNESS now (ID: NOWNESS_OFFICIAL) , author: uneven bars title figure from: vision China
In just a few years, the mainstream attitude of the Chinese Internet towards depression has experienced the “ice and fire” from astonishment to tenderness, from tenderness to empathy, and from empathy to impatience and joking.
With NetEase Cloud Music’s recent mockery of “Net Yiyun” as a sign, “Rough and Happy” has become the “correct” template for the spiritual world,Standing grandiosely The opposite of melancholy.
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Although the attitude toward depression in this way of thinking may not be scientific, it does represent the general discipline of human emotions in contemporary society: In a “qualified” modern society, stable and specific intensity Sustained, continuous happiness, positivity, and optimism are just as essential as a stable order, while sensitivity, vulnerability, and sadness are challenges and offenses to this order.
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Is happiness over-pursued?
Happiness and sadness coexist, which should be the normal state of our spiritual world. However, when we survey the cultural landscape of the contemporary world, we will find that the happy side is disproportionately magnified.
In film and television works, there is almost no longer a tragedy of “destroying valuable things for others to see”. Sweet, warm, pet, and burning have become the keynotes of most works. Even works that claim to focus on reality must be forced to “positive energy” at the end, as if it would not be elegant.
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When we turn off the screen and go offline, we will find we are required to be happy on most occasions. In modern cities, a large number of jobs depend on communication with others.
Whether you are facing customers, colleagues or bosses, you must wear a “happy mask” and follow the workplace code of “Don’t bring emotions to work”-of course, this sentence refers only to depression, So-called “negative emotions” such as anger. In such teaching, we are obligated to bring happiness and vitality to everyone around us. Depression and anger are considered to be detrimental toThe creation of the atmosphere even risks being accused of “cold violence.”
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Why are emotions being calculated?
Such a landscape is not always the case, but merely a product of the latest stage of modern society.
In the early stages of modernization, what the market is most eager for is land and wealth. Therefore, wild fields and uninhabited mines have been included in the order of “civilized society”.
With the advent of the industrial revolution, human labor has become the “golden finger” that allows wealth to change from death to life, from static to dynamic. The modern society has thus established a set of fine mechanisms composed of systems, cultures and ideologies, like countless “pumps” and “pipes”, excavating labor from the limited life time of each person and importing it into production. Furnace heart.
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Now, the land and labor in this world have basically been divided up, and emotion-this thing that grows from the most private corner of our hearts, is like showing it to the navigator XindaGeneral Lu has become the subject of the latest round of horse racing.
Our emotions are integrated into the chains and gears of social production, are directly disciplined by the latter, and are continuously transformed into wealth. To some extent, we no longer have so-called “personal emotions”, but only “socialized emotions.”
In the production chain of socialized emotions, we are only providers of certain “raw materials”. When an emotion is generated, it must first be screened by a set of specific criteria to exclude excessive “negative emotions” such as anger, depression, and sadness; then, they will be directed to different production activities.
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Some emotions will be directed towards consumption: when we feel relaxed, we will choose to buy something to “reward ourselves”; while some emotions will be directed towards more intensive labor or attention paid: when we feel anxious , Will consciously open various video apps to watch dramas; and some emotions will be directed to specific actions. For example, when we are outraged by public events, certain prevailing ideologies will tell us “You should raise your consciousness /Work hard to make money/Climb to a higher level to change all of this” and so on. In turn, these activities will generate a lot of emotions, thus forming a cyclical cycle.
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This seems to be able to explain what was mentioned at the beginning of this article, why our contemporary people prefer the rough and happy mental state, and oppose the sensitive and melancholic mental state as “hypocritical” and despise it This is especially true for some emotions that are considered “negative”.
Because the emotions generated by the latter are either too “negative”, or they are too deeply rooted in the process of generation and are difficult to shake. Such emotions are “inefficient” and cannot be integrated into the production of socialized emotions. They cannot be transformed into any productive activities, and naturally they have no value. In other words, its value does not lie in itself, but in how to use consumption, entertainment, and education to transform it into so-called “positive emotions”, so there are various “emotion management” “And “emotional consumption”-contemporary people are trying to manage our own emotions just like managing the body.
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Why “unhappy” can also become a symptom of the times
In the world of socialized emotions, it seems that there is not much room for depression. But the paradox is that it is precisely in this era that depression has become a symptom that spreads to the entire society.
Han Bingzhe’s book “Lookout Society”, starting from the overall characteristics of contemporary society, seeks for the lesions of contemporary people’s devastated spiritual world. In his view, we live in a “contribution society” filled with a lot of positive factors. Everyone seems to be stimulating, responding with “excessive activity, hysterical labor and production, to the naked and extremely short life.”
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The formation of a meritorious society is inseparable from social emotions. It is precisely because our emotions are taken away with the demands of socialized production that we will fall into madness in the face of merit.
At the same time, the opposite of the “competence society” is the “burnout society”: Fundamentally speaking, our pursuit of merit is a race against our own desires. We are like Achilles running panting behind the tortoise. Although we are always advancing tirelessly, we can’t shorten the distance between us. Once our pursuit of merit is frustrated or interrupted, the burnout that was previously concealed will overflow, making us become depressed people with a smile on the face of “Birthlessness.jpg”.
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If you want to break the cycle of “the more you want to be happy but the more you can’t be happy”, perhaps you have to start with your attitude towards emotions. Although we are used to seeing emotions as irrational and naive. But we can still try to respect the diversity of our emotions and ignore the so-called “mainstream” discipline.
Of course, this does not mean that we have to become slaves to a certain emotion, but to balance and choose between different emotions and deepen our understanding of ourselves in the process. In this way, we seem to be able to escape the whirlpool of social emotions and find a harbor for our inner world..
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This article is from WeChat official account:NOWNESS now (ID: NOWNESS_OFFICIAL), author: uneven bars