The article comes from the WeChat public account: Look at the ideal (ID: ikanlixiang) , author: Hou Chen, thematic map source: “water-shaped Story”
Looking at the Internet comment area is a tearing experience. In response to the question, everyone’s views will always turn 180 degrees.
Support freedom for a while, and criticize freedom for a while. For a while, I thought that morality was only self-discipline, and for a while, I criticized others for morality. For a while, people thought that people should seek advantages and avoid harm based on the reality, and for a while, they were moved to praise the moral heroes in the media. For a while, it was difficult to draw conclusions about the complexity of society, and for a while, he pondered on the most complicated national issues.
The discussion ended in nowhere. The public opinion environment is like a tai chi master. You just touched a little direction to exert force, and it gestured again, releasing your strength.
The end result is “turn around”, and it is easy to get a response and resonance when talking about any public topic, but there are no two steps away, and there are other topics that attract people to return in the opposite direction.
Observe carefully, the above contradiction is not just because there are different people speaking on the Internet. Many times, these seemingly “contradictory” statements will appear on the same person.
I asked myself, even though I just finished talking about the “sincerity” of online content, the next article pointed out that many people are very sensitive to “sincerity”. This is basically the most contradictory part of my online radio station for several years.
Hypocrisy is definitely not the answer
There is a criticism that thinks this is insincere, lack of “truth-seeking spirit”, and reason gives way to impulse. The speaker has no position, and under what circumstances is favorable, ta will move out of the point of view.
This critical method is simple enoughSingle, also quite relieved. But when it falls on the vast majority of people, such as readers, I think when you express completely different opinions in different places. Most of the time, it’s not a deliberately fabricated statement. These diametrically opposed points of view, at least at the time of speech, really made sense.
For example, Jin Yucheng said that the word “scum man” is too naive and people are complicated. Everyone has reposted it as “I think it’s natural to think that people are complicated”, how can they easily come to a conclusion.
But when criticizing the emotional taint of PUA and public figures, it is also obviously a “scumbag man”. The facts are so clear that no other conclusions are possible.
I do n’t want to mention more examples. What I want to explore with you today is that, among these inconsistent and divergent views, apart from insincere or stupidity, is there a unified core that allows these contradictions to merge Consistent and easy to understand? So, then we can start from here to solve these problems.
Good people ’s anxiety
There has always been a saying that it is easier for us to “injure people who are close to us”, and the common saying is “inside.” Generally speaking, this refers more to the intimate relationship between men and women of the same age, but if it is put into the relationship between parents and children, especially the harm of children to parents, it is naturally more significant.
It is also easy to understand that the relationship between parents and children is innate. There are still so few people who are so cruel to dissolve such a relationship. No matter how jerky the children are, the parents seem to have the emotion and obligation to take care of them, so naturally there is no fear.
Leaving the family to the society and encountering strangers, everyone switches to the basic assumption of “why am I used to you”. Although the words are not so cruel, they do not have the “unconditional” support of the family. Even if “distrust”, parents can’t watch their children starve to death, a certain degree of giving is unconditional. But outside the family, it is necessary to earn trust first, and people and talents may establish a cooperative relationship.
This is the so-called social disintegration and atomization, and the original stable structure of large factories and mines has also disintegrated. In the past, the mobility of people was low. After working in a unit for decades, after initially gaining trust, it would be decades of friendship.
People today are constantly looking for new jobs and meeting new people. Even if you stay steadily in one place, your surroundings and world are changing at a high speed. What remains is the geographical background of the most erratic “where are you from”, but there are many people in each place, and of course the fellow is not a sufficient condition for trust between people.
When “individuals” and “liquidity” become the common background of life, this brings a lot of trouble. After all, people need to get recognition and interdependence, how to get recognition and achieve dependence? Of course, good people are worth relying on. You have to prove to others that “you are a good person”, deceit, pretend, sincere.
We are already living in a fresh, diffuse environment. As long as the interpersonal relationship changes often, we will continue to be in the tension of “self-certified good people”. Not to mention that in an online world composed almost entirely of strangers.
Being unconditionally accustomed to people is indeed a comforting thing, and “self-identifying good people” is laborious and tiring and unsettling.
The contradiction stems from the lack of a method or a strategy that allows us to fully solve our “good man anxiety.” Therefore, we lose sight of each other and thus deny ourselves.
A society that does not need good people
Proving that you are a good person is really exhausting, so the first thought is, can you not prove that you are a good person?
Of course there is such a saying. In a capitalist society, the basic need for trust is to complete the “division of labor”, so an argument immediately emerged that we do not have to be “good people”, relying on “interests” and “laws” is enough to fulfill the necessity between people. Dependent.
You do n’t have to always prove that you are a good person, but this removes a heavy burden, especially in the workplace. Today ’s people are willing to accept such a situation, that is, do n’t talk to me about the virtues of love and devotion. To abide by labor laws, I will hand over my work in accordance with my duties. Who wants to talk to me about “good guys in the workplace” is probably to use or crush me.
Provide value, abide by legal limits, and do n’t have to be a good person. This is of course the value of “utilitarianism”, morality is not necessary here.
However, the back of any kind of moral proposition will form a corresponding proposition, these views are “paired”.
On the back of “do not be good people” is “moral private”. In addition to “interests” and “law-abiding”, it is best to reach a consensus among people not to ask each other further. As long as my behavior does not violate the law or violate your interests, you better leave it alone. This is the value root of the popular Internet “eat your rice?”
In other words, “moral relativism”, morality should only be self-disciplined, not other disciplines.
Under the capitalist business order, it seems that those who provide “interests” do not necessarily need to be good people. Ruixing Coffee did all the bad things, but because the discount was strong enough, people could even queue up to “run” Ruixing even after the scandal, and its turnover did not drop but rose.
If this kind of person-to-person relationship is formed, it is clear. But we are by no means a simple society that ignores morality. In some areas, this set of “interest” + “law-abiding” rules cannot be played around.
If we have enough money and travel in high-speed rail business class or first-class aircraft, we will naturally not have to wait in line, and public morals are rarely involved. It is a pity that most of you do not have this net worth, nor do I. Therefore, in railway stations and airports, we cannot rely on “interests” for order, and the cost of law enforcement to regulate queuing is too high. At this time, we can only resort to “ethics” and hope to queue Everyone in the abide by public morality.
Another example is to go to the top private hospital. Of course, medical staff can treat you well under heavy profits. But I think most people still have to go to public hospitals with a large number of people with medical insurance. In the medical field that they know nothing about, generally they can only pray that the doctor has “medical ethics.”
The cruel thing is that if we have money, it seems that we can indeed use the money to buy a good order all the way, But unfortunately society is mainly composed of people who are not financially free. In terms of medical treatment and education, it is difficult for us to accept the logic of “one penny for one penny”. For example, I don’t give much money, so it doesn’t matter whether the disease can be cured.
In general, waiting for treatment in the hospital often stimulates the most polite and patient side. The patient has to prove that he is a “good person” in order to get the doctor’s support and rest assured treatment. So here, “morality” has become the cornerstone of our sense of security in life.
If all of us have great skills, we can naturally take advantage of ourselves, without being constrained by all workplace ethics, and will be treated favorably by others. Unfortunately, as we have insufficient money, our abilities are probably not top-notch, not enough To do unlimited exchanges. Therefore, it is always necessary to appeal to capitalists for “exploitation to a certain degree” and for supervisors in enterprises to “have basic respect”.
We always hope that trust cannot be achieved by relying on “interests” and “law” without “self-certifying good people”. Unfortunately, in real society, there are areas that cannot be “interested”, and our money and talents are always insufficient. This set of “moral private”The rhetoric is always exposed in many places. We still have to rely on the consensus of “good people” to achieve trust.
This is the beginning of the contradiction.
Ethical useless?
Although in the above discussion, the requirement for morality sounds like a “helpless move”, it seems that we have insufficient money and talent, and we have to use morality to make up.
Everyone may have heard the argument that truly outstanding people transcend morality, and morality is used to restrain others. This is actually a terrible rhetoric. Hitchcock ’s classic movie “Soul Soul” tells such a story. Most of the time, before the interests and the law, we better rely on morality to “prove ourselves Good person “.
How to reach such a consensus? Naturally, there are some moral standards, such as queuing at high-speed rail stations. Such ethics still have a mutually beneficial color. Everyone queues well to facilitate their own convenience. Of course, in reality, it is not easy to reach such a mutually beneficial consensus.
But the moral consensus we really need is stronger than this. For example, lovers trust each other, and they still maintain mutual trust without checking their mobile phones. They must have a higher standard. The Wittgenstein question: “If I lie, I will definitely not be found, and it is good for myself, why should I tell the truth?”
In this sense, we hope that people have a “moral pursuit”, and this “moral pursuit” may be more fundamental and stronger than “pleasure pursuit” and “interest pursuit”.
We have to sigh and expect that people should still have some pursuit of beauty and goodness, and can therefore reach a general consensus on morality. This is the idea of ”moral individualism”.
If there is a consensus between doctors and patients, it is that the profession of doctors has an everlasting pursuit of “saving lives”, HippocratesOath, if you do n’t think it ’s just a ritualized process. If this belief is lacking, how should we spend our worrisome time in the hospital?
In the process of reading the above paragraph, many people will find this too difficult. Now who can do this?
The back of moral individualism is “moral nihilism”. This is also different from moral “private”. “Ethical private ownership” does not violate the river water, everyone has their own different “moral concept”, they can each observe their own moral concept.
But moral nihilism believes that there is a similar morality between people, but perhaps because of human nature, perhaps because of the times, they are impossible to obey. Morality eventually reduced to “useless high-profile.”
Please note that the “moral private theory” will in the past think that society does not need morality to regulate, and interests and laws are sufficient. And “moral nihilism” will think that society needs morality and must not, which will cause great vacancies and make good order and good life impossible.
This is a pessimistic argument.
morality within the collective
Of course, there is always a way, and there is an ancient method, that is, we do n’t have to prove to everyone that we are good people, just reach such a consensus within a fixed community, this is “moral collectivism.”
This can explain why those who supported Dr. Li would scold Fang Fang in the end. Because when we first talked about “free speech”, this was a very “individualistic” claim. When people use this term, we thought they wanted to establish a universal morality based on individual freedom. But in fact, “freedom of speech” is just a vocabulary here, and its essence lies in the fact that “freedom of speech” seems to have become a collective proposition. So in the final analysis, this is still a kind of moral collectivism, so when the crusade becomes a common claim of another group, they also support it.
We are no stranger to moral collectivism, whether it is “nationalism” or “rice circle culture” or part of “minority rights protection” is a kind of moral collectivism, which of course will also form a “moral narrative” that belongs to their consensus “.
But it is worth noting that, please think about, is there any “moral collective” that “equality” or “fraternity” as their “internal moral consensus”? Of course not. As “moral collectivism”, the first priority is to “distinguish” from other collectives, so in general, they will believeSome deviant things.
As the religious fanaticism that arose in the civilian class in the United States in the 19th century, that is, the “Second Awakening” movement, most weird religious groups and incredible doctrines rose at that time. The fundamental driving force is “moral collectivism”, and the requirement of “differentiation” pushes them to oppose “common sense” at any cost and break through the “bottom limit” in order to achieve a “moral consensus” with a high degree of differentiation.
Since different “moral collectives” are incommensurable, “moral collectivism” often brings about “civilized conflicts”. Whether it is between nations, between rice circles, or between rights defenders and oppressors, they basically intend to offensive strategies against each other.
The consensus on what constitutes a “good person” is precisely in an offensive structure.
Mixed moral concepts
Through the above analysis, we have sorted out that the modern society with high mobility has a kind of “good man anxiety”. In order to fight this kind of anxiety, we have developed different “moral claims”. And each proposition will form a set of concepts because of its reverse or extension, which is like Hegel’s proposition and antithesis. These views all appear in “pairs”, thus making contradictions easier to form.
The three sets of “good people” concepts we now have:
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You do n’t need good people, only rely on interests and laws to maintain (Utilitarianism) —— moral private (moral relativism)
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Universal consensus on morality (moral individualism) —— No good people ( Moral nihilism)
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I am a good person (collective moralism) —— moral conflictass = “text-remarks” label = “Remarks”> (Clash of civilizations)
But for us, it is often not a simple choice among these beliefs. Many times, these same contradictory and conflicting beliefs exist in the same person. The reason is that none of them can fully relieve ta’s “good man anxiety”, so three people adopt it at the same time.
But just like taking medicine, if you do n’t have confidence in one treatment and go hand in hand with multiple treatments, the final result is always unsatisfactory, maybe it ’s good luck to turn around in situ. More likely, the three views conflict with each other, making us a worse person.
Because such moral beliefs appear in pairs, the worst kind of “moral comprehensive denial” will be presented to a person, using collective moral conflict to deny the general consensus of morality, and using moral privateness to deny the moral collective Doctrine, denying morality with moral nihilism can be absent.
For example, as soon as Fang Fang defends a certain universal moral limit, ideological conflicts are used to resolve; referring to the positive requirements of moral collectivism for ta, and moral relativism is used to resolve that he does not need to bear collective responsibility; Mentioned that maintaining the social order in a utilitarian way, such as carrying out some kind of relief according to law, or procedural justice brought some controversy, and said that this is moral loss and will definitely lead to social disorder.
This led to the tearing feeling brought about by the initial public discussion. We competed for ten years, but we used these three logic cycles to subvert, negate each other, and turn around in place.
Moral choice
I said that people will do this because maybe they just want to win. But I think today is more than that. Besides trying to win, I think on a larger scale, they are fear.
In a society where the “good people are anxious” are tight, they are afraid of being treated as bad people, they cannot be trusted by others, and they are afraid of the loss of order, so they are confused by fear, so that they are self-contradictory and self-negative. According to Confucius, this is called “confusing”. From this perspective, in today’s society, people are very confused.
Let me say that there is only one group that is worth pursuing, namely “moral universalism” and “moral nihilism”.
“Ethical nihility”, it is of course a bad situation to think that there are no good people in the world, but this group of propositions and antithesis eventually turned into “powerful” in Nietzsche’s handsThe topic of “will” becomes an extreme “moral individualism”- that is, “There is no universal moral claim, but I am sure that my own moral claim is correct, and everyone should follow it. Moral proposition “.
Of course, this dialectics is quite complicated, so I wo n’t discuss it in the length of this article.
If you can let you see the contradictions and reversals caused by “fear” in your body today, so take a moment to stop and examine these moral beliefs, this article is not in vain.
The article comes from the WeChat public account: Look at the ideal (ID: ikanlixiang) , author: Hou Chen