Is it retreat and numbness, or the art of escaping domination: what is "light learning"? Editorial office chat
128期主持人 | 尹清露
整理 | 实习记者 黄东婕
"Life is light, watching colleagues are rolling, and there is no wave in my heart......; There is a certain difference between the indifference here and the previous "Buddhism", it is not to teach people to look at life positively and peacefully, but it is more like an attitude of indifference but wanting to die, wanting to die and not needy, and not caring about anything.
This statement was quickly dissected by the media. "Sanlian Life Weekly" published an article that young people have also worked hard, but after weighing the input-output ratio, they found that it is better not to have expectations - if they are isolated from emotions, they will not feel pain. GQ Lab listed the difference between "thick people" and "light people", thick people are more hospitable and will spend money on cute but useless things. In this way, the strong people are more ambitious and desired, which is in line with what modern people should be, and the light people are the products of the post-modern low-desire society.
Screenshot from Xiaohongshu
Another observation I made is that the stalk that appeared at the same time as "light learning" also has a similar meaning. After the popularity of "Husband Sense", the domineering president alpha man is no longer the only one pursued by women, and the beta man who is as gentle as water and sloppy but down-to-earth like Bai Ke in "The Annual Meeting Can't Stop" is also very delicious. There are also many people who call themselves "wretched" on the Internet, and their slogan is "Kick me, you can be regarded as kicking cotton", conveying a wonderful perception that they are not ashamed of their wretchedness, but are proud.
In this issue, we will talk about what kind of learning is light learning, and what kind of situation does it possibly illustrate for young people.
01 There is a need for a grand narrative in the heart, but it is faint on the surface
Yin Qinglu: I was quite surprised that the light school became popular, because in my impression, "light" was originally just a language game of a small circle. As far as the source is concerned, the most "light" may be a European and American rapper Ice Spice who will become popular in 2023, known as "Sister Light" in China, her singing, words and deeds are not at all the ferocity of rapper, but reveal a lazy sense of calm, and even the sexy action of dancing and twisting her hips is also interpreted by her as a kind of "casual jumping" of pure heart and few desires.
Ice Spice's "lightness" is inseparable from her popularity. In the early days of her fame, the impression of her was very bad, thinking that she was a "traffic flower" who was picked up by her predecessor Nicki Minaj, but recently, Ice Spice's reviews have gradually improved, and her attitude of talking and dancing lightly has become a bit funny, but worth learning. This may be the "blunt sensibility" that many people want to have.
Ice Spice的单曲《In Ha Mood》封面。 图片来源：豆瓣
Xu Luqing: Similar to the popularity of the previous "capybara" female stars, many people envy Yan Ni's state - she often forgets words when she appears in public, and she suddenly forgets what she is playing when acting, and many people say that she has a sense of immediacy of capybara, "If you don't die today, you will live". Capibala, a South American capybara that has become popular on the Internet before, has been made into a meme by many people, also because of its feeling of "even if it's like this, it doesn't matter" - you don't have to actively go against your heart to fight for anything. In the same vein as the previous chat room about "questioning, understanding, and becoming", people gradually felt that since this is the case, I might as well accept it.
But on the other hand, the popularity of "faint" and the previous "crazy" correspond far away, these two states seem to be opposite, but there are many similarities. Many people want to practice going crazy, but find it difficult to do it, and want to get out of the so-called track to find the wilderness, only to find that there is a cliff under their feet. Therefore, many people can't afford to go crazy, and in the end they can only become "light people".
Another related term is "mental exhaustion", which is seen as inefficient internal exhaustion, even though anxiety is a normal psychological reaction. The same is true of the "light" state, they are in a stable state of self-consistency and do not waste unworthy energy.
Pan Wenjie: I think of Qinglu's article "The Pandemic of 'Crazy Literature': Despair and Hope in Gibberish", which reads:
"This man looks crazy" is no longer an accusation, but a compliment, meaning that he sees through the nothingness of life itself and decides not to be in the same boat. The meaning of patience and repression is first questioned, and instead of blaming herself for internal friction, it is better to scold Yeon-jin like Yeon-jin in the Korean drama "Dark Glory" and blame others for her faults.
And the "light person" is a kind of peace in despair - the "crazy" person sees through the emptiness of life and decides not to go along with it, so he goes crazy;
I participated in the Internet Literature Forum before and found that the most popular type of Internet literature in the past two years is Cthulhu, an extremely irrational literary category, which shows the mental state of our times. One of the most popular works of Cthulhu literature is "The Strange Fairy", in which the main character, Li Huowang, has schizophrenia, his body is in a mental hospital, and his consciousness exists in another world. He's a hero in another world, killing people with his sword, while his body is synchronizing in the real world - he goes crazy and hurts people. There is a famous sentence in the book: "I really can't tell the difference", he can't tell the difference between the real world and the other world. It's like, although everyone seems to have a faint heart, they have the adventurous urge to achieve something in another world, and they have an inner need for a grand narrative.
The same art of "Dao Weird Fairy" drawn by netizens. Image source: Xiaohongshu @ Swim a sheep
On the one hand, we behave very "lightly" in the real world, and even if we yearn for something, we will feel more ashamed, but on the other hand, we will still relish the things in the two-dimensional animation and desire to be the heroes in it. Li Huowang uses his physical state to show people's mental state - if I really accept this grand narrative, in reality I will find myself in an awkward situation.
Lin Ziren: In the past two years, there has been a saying that young people are full of hope for the future and future of the country, but they have no hope for their own personal future. Is there a subtle contrast in this? a bankrupt belief in the grand narrative, but still an irrepressible anticipation of it.
In the past two days, I have seen the gossip of a Dakota Johnson, who recently starred in a Marvel movie "Madame Spider", which was released in China with poor box office and word of mouth. She said in an interview that she hadn't seen the movie herself, and it was no surprise that the box office was bad, because the audience knew it was a bad movie. Everyone found that the actor didn't care about the box office and word of mouth, many public accounts described her as "crazy", and she may be called "light" in the context of a light person, and many people will like her relaxation in the interview. Even if we know that the "third generation of stars" with a superior family background is confident, "crazy" and "indifferent".
"Lady Spider" poster. Image source: Douban
Yin Qinglu: Some people envy her, and some people ridicule her for being so relaxed because of the "third generation of stars", and ridicule her for having no other masterpieces except for "Fifty Shades of Grey". I am reminded of the Japanese sociologist Masahiro Yamada's point in Why Society Is Cruel to Young People: on the one hand, there is no way for young people in Japan to get regular employment, but on the other hand, they have a high level of life satisfaction – although this conclusion is debatable. Masahiro Yamada pointed out that this is because although society is ruthless to young people, parents are very caring for their children, and even if they can't find a job, they can gnaw at the old age, and live a more worry-free life. In China, we have also discussed "full-time children" in chat rooms, and the name "full-time children" shows that they do not think of them as "gnawing at the elderly", but as a profession. So I wondered if it was a privilege to be able to look at everything "lightly"? Ziren interviewed Ross Hackman, the author of "Emotional Value," and there is no room for "light" for people in the service industry who depend on emotional labor for a living, or for black people who are white.
Xu Luqing: Indeed, perhaps only in the workplace engaged in non-service work can people have a faint space for freedom. I once saw a café waitress wearing a facekini with only her eyes and nostrils exposed, and when I asked her why, she said she didn't want to smirk. If the service industry is always asked to smirk and face every customer with a positive and sunny attitude, then you can't be a light person.
Lin Ziren: In this way, programmers are probably the group most likely to become "light people", and the stereotype is that they are not so good at dealing with interpersonal relationships, and only need to deal with computers.
Yin Qinglu: Another stereotype of programmers and science and engineering men is that although they are indifferent, they like adventure games or animation works such as "Dungeons & Dragons", as Wen Jie said, they have a need for grand narratives in their hearts, but they show a weak state because of shame. This reminds me that many two-dimensional dramas and comics have recently become very popular in the theme of otherworld adventures, and the characters in them are basically elves and dwarves in the "Lord of the Rings" settings, such as "Buried Frilian" and "Labyrinth Rice". There are similarities between Cthulhu literature and madness literature, both of which are dark and damp crawling atmospheres.
The poster for "Dead Frilian". Image source: Douban
Pan Wenjie: Many anime settings are inverted to the real world, such as setting up a world of female dignity to achieve a sense of coolness. This shows that it is missing in real life, so it needs to be soothed through the setting.
02 Is the light man withdrawn and numb, or is it the art of escaping domination?
Yin Qinglu: In the past, we admired people who were enthusiastic and ambitious, and who could do things, but now there are "light people", why is this happening? Is "light learning" a retreat or numbness from life, or a rebellion against providing emotional value and emotional labor?
Dong Ziqi: We talked about Dong Yuhui in the last issue, and the core of his emotional value is that he can transform emotions such as anxiety, disappointment, and depression into positive and affirmative responses, so that the audience feels good. This is very similar to hypnosis that makes people feel good about themselves, hypnosis is both from the outside world and self-inflicted, I am indifferent in the face of any situation, is it hypnosis for myself?
He Guimei, a scholar at Peking University, wrote a book about the transformation and transformation of intellectuals in the 40s and 50s, talking about the example of the poet Feng Zhi. Observing the transformation of his life, it will be revealed that he was originally a standard "light man", living in the mountains and forests, "giving me a narrow heart, a huge universe." Forty or fifty years later, he became a high-ranking cultural official, changing from a "light person" to a "strong person". He Guimei explained this shift in this way: It had to do with both the situation in China at the time and the order in his heart, because he himself was a man who worshiped order and had internalized utopian beliefs. This got me thinking, emotional reinvention seems to precede identity – if you're going to change yourself, you have to completely reverse emotionally first, which is a step ahead of other changes.
As for what Wen Jie said, which side should we lean towards in the ongoing conflict between the will to transform and the ordinary, from the perspective of people's experience, passion is actually not so positive, and the results brought by passion are obvious to all, so doubt and inaction may also be a virtue in the hearts of many people. Qinglu mentioned that "light" is not a kind of numbness. Lu Xun said that the Chinese people were very numb because they were indifferent to the slaughter of their compatriots. There are also people who suspect that you can't see people's expressions clearly, so how can you judge numbness? You assume that others are passive, which lacks insight into people's hearts. But there is also a situation in which apathy and numbness do not belong to certain traits and defects, but to be a survival strategy, an art of survival, an art of the ruled who escape domination.
Yin Qinglu: This is also a coping system. In "Godot Won't Come: The Philosophy of Waiting", the Japanese philosopher Seiichi Washida describes the state of Alzheimer's patients, who are faced with something that makes them feel uncomfortable and painful, and then summarize some logical confrontation strategies for themselves in the struggle. For example, one of the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease is "pooping" (playing with one's own feces), and the patient will feel that there seems to be something on his buttocks at first, and it doesn't matter, and if it is uncomfortable, he will get rid of it, but his hands will stick again, and it will be okay, so it will be better to rub it off with a quilt. These are actually their own coping systems – escaping something by making up plausible stories. Is this escape a negative thing or an art?
Written by Seiichi Washida and translated by Lu Lingzhi
Beijing United Publishing Company Mingmuro Lucida 2023-8
Dong Ziqi: There is a very famous thriller movie called "The Butterfly Effect", and the male protagonist's madness is reflected in his fantasy of change. The protagonist constantly wants to change the past, and in the end the more and more he changes, he gets worse and worse, and instead lives in a mental hospital, and this is a family fate, a metaphor - you want to change the status quo, but you can't do anything about it, you can only change it in your mind, and eventually destroy yourself. Whether it's madness or escapism, numbness or indifference, it's like an outlet.
Lin Ziren: When I first saw "light people" and "thick people", I was reminded of the book "Lower Society: The Emergence of a New Social Class" by Japanese social observer Miura Zhan. He argues that the stratification of society has led to a widening "expectation gap" between different classes, with one group of people still having expectations for future earnings and another group lacking a vision of future income and life. From the perspective of political economy, "strong people" and "light people" can roughly correspond to these two different groups. The background of the times discussed in the book is that Japan experienced a period of rapid economic development from the 50s to the 70s of the last century, and during that period, the "new middle class" was formed as described by Vogel in "Japan's New Middle Class". However, in the early 90s, Japan's bubble economy burst and entered a long period of economic stagnation, and there was a polarization between the upper and lower classes in society, and the gap between personal income and education was getting wider and wider.
Japanese society has changed from a "middle class" to an "lower class", and the expectations that most people once had are now only available to a small number of people, and the existence of expectations is not determined by the individual's aptitude and ability, but to a large extent by the social class of the parents, which means that the social class is solidified. Miura observed that the younger generation of Japanese people are constantly joining the lower class, and their biggest characteristic is not only their low income, but also their overall decline in communication skills, life skills, work enthusiasm, willingness to learn, and desire to spend, which is "low enthusiasm for the whole life". Doesn't this description look like a "light person"?
Written by Miura Zhan, translated by Lu Qiushi and Dai Zheng
Shanghai Translation Publishing House, 2018-10
Pan Wenjie: Ziren talked about a series of phenomena caused by the stagnation of Japan's economic development, and at the same time, the phenomenon of "small luck" has also arisen in Japan. This statement stems from Haruki Murakami's collection of essays, in which he says that "small happiness" is a small but definite happiness and fulfillment. For example, Haruki Murakami said that after shopping for underwear, he rolled up the cleaned underwear and placed it neatly in a drawer, which was a small blessing. "Little Luck" is also a retreat from public life and a return to his own small life.
03 Is the Dan Man reflexive incompetence, or is it the embodiment of human civilization?
Yin Qinglu: There is a word in Japanese for "herbivore". Bai Ke, the representative actor of "Husband Sense", is also a bit like a "herbivorous man", herbivorous corresponds to meat, and Beta male corresponds to Alpha male, which seems to mean a kind of withdrawal, but you can also feel happiness in retreat.
"Little Happiness" reminds me of the concepts mentioned by the British writer Mark Fisher in "Capitalist Realism": "the pleasure of depression" and "reflexive impotence". "Depressed happiness" refers to your inability to do everything but pursue happiness. You may feel that something mysterious is missing, but what Mark Fisher says is that you don't understand that this mystical pleasure can only be obtained outside of the principle of pleasure.
In terms of personal experience, when I am tired from work, I will either look at Xiaohongshu and my favorite dolls and feel happy, or I will only feel tired. This is a manifestation of incompetence, because Xiao Chengxing is quickly consumed by exhaustion, and so on. Mark Fisher described this situation as "reflexive impotence", which he argued was due to the fact that people were stranded between the society of return and the control of society.
The representative institutions of the reincarnation society are schools and hospitals, and the control society does not even have such institutions, but you internalize the control of yourself and do diffuse behaviors all the time, such as consumption, watching short videos, listening to music. Mark Fischer mentions the key group of students – students who are aware that school is a place of retribution, but who do not face substantial punishment even if they are absent for a few weeks in a row. So they keep snacking and talking, and fall into happy burnout. Fischer also mentioned that if the subjects of the society are prisoners and workers, then the subjects who control the society are the debtors and addicts. Many students who go to college in debt end up in jobs that have no future.
Written by Mark Fischer and translated by Wang Liqiu
Nanjing University Press, Watchman 2024-3
Lin Ziren: Mark Fisher defines "reflexive incompetence" this way: I know something is wrong, but I can't do anything about it.
Yin Qinglu: Going back to the singer Ice Spice mentioned at the beginning, this kind of faint change happened to a hip-hop rapper, and it may not be a coincidence. According to Mark Fischer, the old war between the "subversion" and "assimilation" of cultural products, as mentioned in Text Poachers, has been fought, and now we are faced with the "incorporation" of them: capitalist culture pre-designs and shapes people's desires. And hip-hop has replaced rock as mainstream music, precisely because of this innooption.
For most hip-hop, all "naïve" hopes that youth culture can change everything have been replaced by a sober acceptance of a brutally simplified "reality." The affinity between hip-hop and gangster movies like Scarface, The Godfather, and Pulp Fiction stems from their shared claims. They all claim to have stripped away sentimental illusions and seen the "truth" of the world: a Hobbesian war of all against all, a system of eternal exploitation and universal evil.
It is worth mentioning that Ice Spice's rap style Drill originated in the 2010s, and most of the lyrics sang about urban violence and crime, and the style was fierce and cold. The "lightness" presented by Ice Spice also seems to echo what Mark Fisher said: in the face of increasingly depleted possibilities, one can only adopt a cold and detached ironic attitude.
Dong Ziqi: I don't feel so pessimistic, is the war of text poachers over? According to my observation of fans, everyone is still constantly making videos of knocking CPs, creating love and warmth. I don't think human emotions are pre-programmed and set up so completely by a mechanic.
Because I have to work recently, I need to take the subway to catch an early train. In the past, when I saw the whole carriage of people playing with their mobile phones, using the precious time in the morning to watch funny short videos, I would feel that it was really too numb and depraved. But now my feeling is that everyone sits quietly in their seats, busy with their own affairs, and does not interfere with and beat others, which is the embodiment of human order, civilization, and hope - in a sense, "light" is also the embodiment of human civilization.
Lin Ziren: I was also very impressed by the part where Mark Fisher talked about hip-hop music. My understanding is that he said that because hip-hop music puts a lot of emphasis on rappers to be real, but the capitalist music industry has co-opted the gesture of being real and turned it into a money-making music style. Therefore, it doesn't matter if a rapper can really express his true self in music, he just needs to show the surface be real.
I've been watching the variety show "China Rap Showdown" for the past two years. In the show, the rappers put a lot of emphasis on keeping it real. They are all original singers, and the repertoire they perform is all written by themselves, and the lyrics are also based on personal experience. But in the context of a competition, it is easier to win a battle song with intense emotions, so many singers like to sing this kind of song. Over time, you will find that everyone's lyrics are almost identical, "I am the best" and "I can single out all of you". What they evoke in the listener is to express a gesture of resistance, but the things that resist are very limited, maybe other singers competing on the same stage, and this is the whole world he presents in his music. So, how real is this reality, and how rebellious is the gesture of rebellion? It's very debatable.
Dong Ziqi: It's a very underground culture, and it's hard for me to imagine how to co-opt it. I think of a "light" singer Mao Buyi, he has a song called "Ordinary Day", in the song the smell of clean clothes is very light, the sky on the street is very blue and the clouds are very light, and even makes me think, is this a dead person revisiting an ordinary day? But I like this song very much, I am very moved, is this because there is something very real in it?
Mao Buyi's "Ordinary Day" single cover. Image source: Douban
Pan Wenjie: I was thinking about whether protest can be co-opted, and I'm wondering if I like it and can be co-opted? Eva Eloth writes in "Love, Why Does It Hurt?" that she saw the New York Times article "Liking is for cowards. Go for what hurts" means that social media is full of likes, but how many people are love? Like is a very faint expression, and you don't dare to pursue a stronger emotional connection.
Contemporary cynics feel that all their efforts will be in vain, so they do not put in the effort. This will put everyone in a dangerous situation, and if no one cares about public life, then there will be no attempt to change the world, and even people with ulterior motives will take advantage of this opportunity to do something. But in cynicism, if you can at least realize that there is something wrong with the world, can you find positive revolutionary factors in this state?