Associate Professor of Renmin University: Less swiping your mobile phone and living a good life!
Obviously, I wanted to have a good rest after work, but when I opened my phone, I accidentally swiped it to twelve o'clock, and I woke up and went to work again.
Today, when material life is highly prosperous, we are often burdened by external things, and our hearts are becoming more and more empty.
Technology is constantly evolving and improving, but it seems that it is difficult for us to be happy.
Although the material life is abundant, there are more and more people around me who suffer from depression.
……
This is the inner portrayal of countless people living in big cities. In response to the above problems, we recently interviewed Wang Xiaowei, associate professor of the School of Philosophy of Chinese University and author of "The Depths of Everyday Life".
"Technology is not neutral, we are all controlled by the system, and the antidote is to return to the everyday, because the everyday is not in the system," he said.
The following is a condensed version of the interview, which I hope will inspire you.
Dictation: Wang Xiaowei is an associate professor at the School of Philosophy of the Chinese People's University and the author of "The Depths of Everyday Life".
Editor: Mi Liping
Source: Zhenghe Island (ID: zhenghedao)
Technology is not neutral
Q: You study the philosophy of science and technology, how do we understand the application of the philosophy of science and technology in daily life?
Wang Xiaowei: The philosophy of science and technology is a small direction under philosophy, and the issue of concern is the impact of science and technology on people and the world.
The application of science and technology, we used to think that it was all good, and we had the idea of a technological utopia. Now the situation has been more complicated in the past few years, such as nuclear technology, bioengineering technology, artificial intelligence technology, etc., which have had a great impact on us.
You may think that in the near future, robots will replace us, people's genes will also be modified, and technological risks will begin to be related to everyone's specific life.
In the past, a small number of philosophers and ethicists focused on these issues, but now there is a general focus on technical challenges. The philosophy of technology can provide us with some perspective to examine the challenges we face.
Q: There is a view that technology is neutral, and the key lies in people's choice, for example, Tencent has put forward the mission and vision of "technology for good", what do you think?
Wang Xiaowei: I think in the sense of common sense, many people think that technology is neutral, just like knives can be used to kill people, they can be used to cook, guns can be used to defend their country, and they can also be used to slaughter civilians.
However, in the field of the philosophy of science and technology, more and more philosophers believe that technology is not neutral in recent years, and more and more people believe that technology has embedded value.
The French philosopher Latour gave many examples, such as cars, where you keep asking people to "slow down in front of the school", but the effect is very poor, and there are still people speeding. Later, the engineer made a speed bump, and the effect was obvious.
Latour said that if every technique was like a person who could talk, that speed bump would be saying "don't speed, speeding will give you a very bad driving experience".
Latour thinks that the engineer is writing the script, and then embedding the script in the material technology, and when the technology is laid out on the road, the script is performed, and the driver has to cooperate with the performance, and he has to slow down. So the technology is embedded in the script, and it can't be said that it's neutral.
Another example, it is said that the crown prince of Russia gave Li Hongzhang a gold pistol as a gift, Li Hongzhang wanted to pick it up and fire two shots when he saw it, but when he picked up the gun, he noticed that there was silence and smoke around him, and he broke the silence as soon as he shot. So he silently put down the gun again.
There is a saying that "with a sharp blade, the murderous heart rises", which refers to the function and material arrangement of technology, which has a persuasive effect on you. If you are a hammer, you look at others like nails, you have a gun in your hand, and you look at people as targets. Is technology that neutral? It's quite complicated.
Question: Philosophically it is often said that people have subjectivity, and objects are accessories of people. Generally we think of people as subjects, and guns, technology, or objects as objects. But as you just said, the speed bump also has its own mind, and it seems to be a subject as well.
Wang Xiaowei: I don't think Latour necessarily says that the speed bump is the subject, he rejects this dichotomy between subject and object, because he thinks that this is a kind of construction of modernity since Descartes.
In this context, how do we see the world, how do we deal with the world? That is, I am the subject, a free and rational being, and technology is the object, without a soul, to be used and fiddled with at will.
Latour is not right when he says this, it is itself a modernity bias, and you should look at how our actions are generated from a higher level. I go to do something, how did it happen?
For example, in some examples of hurting passion, some people will say that if they didn't have a knife in their hands at the time, they would never do it. But from the subject-object point of view, you are the subject, you can chop vegetables with a knife, why should you kill someone? However, in certain situations, people with knives are more likely to commit impulsive crimes.
Latour suggests that we examine the generation of actions in a symmetrical light, not just on people, but on how people and things work together to form a particular action.
Return to the daily routine and live a simple and solid life
Q: From a symmetrical point of view, it's actually a bit of a sense of detachment and a third perspective.
Wang Xiaowei: From a third perspective, it is easy to see people as the only actors. People just tend to see themselves as the protagonists.
Are people really as free and rational as we think? I don't think so, especially in modern life, people's freedom of action is highly restricted, and they are always deeply regulated by other material and technological situations.
In the modern technological situation, you can't do what you don't want to do, for example, many algorithms are doing a very complete digital portrayal of you, and then induce you.
You already have 27 pairs of shoes, but you still buy the 28th pair of shoes, why? because it pushes you something new and interesting to you every time, and you buy it without controlling it, and you can't blame yourself too much for that, you have to forgive yourself, because that technical system is very convincing to you.
It's hard to put anyone in today's technological situation without "chopping hands", so I can't simply say that I'm a degenerate person and I'm not self-disciplined.
Q: How do we break through this systemic control?
Wang Xiaowei: I think there is very little room for ordinary people to oppose technological inducement/hijacking, and one of the methods I try to do is to return to the everyday, because the daily is not in the system.
You can't think that I don't look at my phone, when you think like that, you're actually fighting against your phone, fighting it and amplifying it at the same time. The more you want to forget your phone, the more you may not be able to forget it, and the more likely it is to feel frustrated.
A better approach might be to find something you're passionate about, invest in it, and your phone will naturally become irrelevant.
The mobile phone is not my focus now, I pay more attention to my tank of fish, the ecology of the fish tank is different every day, feeding the fish, scraping the algae, are quite happy.
Q: In fact, the development of science and technology has made our lives more and more convenient, and all aspects are encroaching on our daily life, how can we really go to life?
Wang Xiaowei: Different people may have different methods. For example, if I am a tank fisher, many people will say, you have a lot of time, we work from 9 to 5, how can we still have time to raise fish.
There is one thing that I am particularly puzzled about, for example, if an office worker living in a very large city, he/she really doesn't have time, or is he/she busy performing? Some people really don't have time, but some people may still have half an hour to go about their daily life, but they have to make themselves look busy, motivated, and hardworking.
Modern life is performative, and many people try to play the role of a busy person, and part of the reason may be because people want to be a better version of themselves and achieve a more fulfilling life.
And then you can ask, what does a better version of myself look like? Who told me about a better life? Was this something I planned for myself, or did social media infiltrate me unconsciously?
I think that many times this kind of busy pain is not caused by an X in the outside world, but by people's self-compulsion. In "The Burnout Society", Han Byung-chul said that the violence in our society is no longer persecution and surveillance, but encouragement.
The society is full of affirmation, everyone always encourages everyone to be optimistic, to be brave, to struggle, to praise people everywhere, so that everyone feels that they are "special" and "talented", and will eventually achieve great things, which leads to everyone is now self-pressing, I don't want to relax, I want to play that very busy life.
In this way, the whole daily life is discarded, and maybe slowly, after the age of 40, you will find that you are so tired of acting, you can't become Einstein, and you won't be Jack Ma, and then you will gradually return to daily life.
There are many people around me who are in their fifties and sixties and are very successful in the academic world, their lives have become very monotonous, they don't want to play anyone anymore, they slowly accept themselves, and after accepting themselves, their lives will immediately turn around, and they will start fishing, climbing, and even doing farm work.
Young people can see the city as a rainforest, young people have better physical strength, and they are more exploratory, and they are curious about many things. Lefebvre pointed out that the modern city is a huge window of consumption. The most central areas of the city are places of consumption. Everyone is buying, buying, and spending.
How can we transcend consumerism? Lefebvre said that the city can be regarded as a work of art, and that art is not a commodity, but has more of a transcendent dimension, that is, it is useless, and cannot be exchanged for money, but can only be used for viewing.
Art is good, of course, but if you look at the city as a living state, as a rainforest, maybe more thoroughly?
In fact, there are many crevices in the city, for example, if you go downstairs, you will find that there are many crevices with plants growing in them, and even some animals are alive. It turns out that they are not in the focus of the vision, and they are completely ignored. But when you look at the surface area of the whole earth, the city is a crevice, and it is not the main face of the whole earth.
In the same way, when you look at the landscape of your own life, you should see the so-called successful life in the eyes of others as a gap, which is by no means the whole appearance of life. There are many particularly interesting things in our lives, such as cooking a meal and taking a walk, which are the natural state of life, and it is a simple and solid life.
The grass in the mountains doesn't want to grow into big trees, and it doesn't want to pretend to be flowers, it doesn't care much about other plants, it just grows out of the cracks in the stones, it is neither humble nor arrogant, and it doesn't think that it is just a very low-level grass in the ecological niche.
Q: There is a description in your book that says, "Live a simple and solid lifestyle", can you tell us what kind of lifestyle it is?
Wang Xiaowei: Why should life be simple? Because life is very simple, it has its own rhythm, and it is too complicated to be like life.
In modern society, the material life of ordinary people can still be guaranteed. We can now eat enough every day, and even eat meat regularly, drink milk tea, order takeout, drink different brands of mineral water, and wear a lot of clothes.
But we seem to make our lives very complicated, and I often wonder if I should read another book, if there should be a big change in the next five years, and how to deal with my relationship with my colleagues in a subtle way. So I picked up "The Art of War", "The Weakness of Human Nature" and "Inferiority and Transcendence", can life be so complicated?
Life is not a problem. You see the deer running on the hill, the rabbit burrowing, the children making a fuss in the garden, they don't have problems to do, but we are solving them every day.
It may be forgetting that life is the way it is. It's also hard to force everyone to relax, everyone is rolling, otherwise the heart is not steady. But you can keep another dimension, life could have been very simple, and it would be a pity to keep living in problems.
Give up "breaking away" and have feelings for things
Q: Now that we are in an era of material excess, and there are also ideas such as renunciation and minimalism, how do you see the relationship between everyday objects and our lives, and how should we deal with the relationship with things?
Wang Xiaowei: I'm not against renunciation, but I think it's more important not to reject things, but to revere things from the bottom of our hearts.
The focus of renunciation is to let something go and let it out of my life world. "The Depths of the Everyday" is about what we need to carefully examine and what objects can be deeply connected to and let them enter into my life experience. These two angles are not the same, but the results may be similar.
In Japan, there is a practice of needle offerings, and when the needle has been broken for many years, it is inserted into the tofu and left to sit on the softest thing.
Of course, China also has a sense of things. One day my mother came back and told me that she would bring in the meat and let the sun rest for a few days. Sunrise and sunset, the sun has its own rhythm, so you don't need to rest. Whether you need it is one thing, and whether you have an attitude or not is another, this is the deep feeling for all things.
If you have a feeling for things and a serious attitude towards them, you will naturally let fewer things into your life, and objectively achieve the effect of breaking off.
Why do I think it's not good to give up? One is that it has become a way of life peddling. If you look at the pictures of the breakaway, it's often a very large house with designer pieces of furniture, which is a very expensive life.
Also, I think when you try to reject something, the rejection itself magnifies that thing. Of course, everyone's situation is different, and some people use the effect of abandonment is particularly good.
A reader read "The Depths of Everyday Life" and left me a message, which I was particularly touched. She said that after his father left, after the cremation, they would sort out the relics, some of them would be thrown away, some would be burned, and some would be left behind.
When she was about to throw things away, her mother would take them back, and each thing would tell a story about who her father had quarreled with, who he had played chess with, who he had drunk tea with, and she had no idea about it.
In fact, in her mother's eyes, every piece of clothing corresponds to a past. I can feel a lot of warmth in it.
Question: Although there is a surplus of goods in modern society, people nowadays generally feel the lack and inadequacy, and many people fill the emptiness in their hearts by buying, buying, buying. How does this lack and inadequacy come about, and how do we get rid of this feeling of inadequacy?
Wang Xiaowei: This may be a modern disease, not only in China, but also in Europe and the United States. Mark Fisher's "Capitalist Realism" points out that this may be a neoliberal dilemma, and Han Byung-chul also talks about this in "The Burnout Society".
In modern society, our traditional values have been deconstructed. God is dead, tradition is dead, and there are a bunch of loose options left: do you want to get married, do you want to buy a house, do you want to get a PhD, do you want to start a business, do you want to "break off"? We are gradually losing a holistic meaning and narrative, and we want to make personal happiness the only criterion for living a correct life.
Does happiness equal happiness? If we can draw an equal sign, there will certainly be a little more happiness in modern society than before, but why do many people feel unhappy? Why is the proportion of people with depression so high? Perhaps a lifestyle in which one's own happiness is the only measure is unhealthy.
Technology is an accomplice here, providing you with tons of conveniences and goods to make you as happy as possible. I'm not anti-tech, but maybe it's worth rethinking technology.
In Western countries, such as the United States, there are actually many conservatives who attach great importance to family and Christian values, and they believe that a moderate return to tradition, a moderate return to rituals, can help us ease the emptiness and pain in our hearts.
I'm going through this pain myself, and I often feel a loss of meaning, and I don't have a standard answer yet, but I'm trying to fight it on a daily basis, and so far it's working.
Question: What do you think are the misunderstandings that modern people tend to fall into when pursuing happiness, and how can they find their true happiness in the era of material abundance?
Wang Xiaowei: I don't know exactly how to find it, but I do know that happiness does not equal happiness. Happiness may contain some happiness, but happiness certainly does not equal happiness, and if you treat all the content of life as the pursuit of happiness, it is likely to lead to unhappiness.
Schopenhauer once said that life swings at two poles, and if you don't get it, you will be miserable, and if you get it, you will be empty. What gives me lasting satisfaction is not happiness, but seeing a relationship that is being created and strengthened.
For example, I bought myself a very expensive thing, and the happiness is short-lived. But if the whole family can share together, you can get a sense of fulfillment for a long time.
What really makes people happy is love, not truth, and certainly not happiness. Camus saw it this way.
typesetting
| Shen Wangwang
edit
| Mi Xiaobai
chief editor
| Sun Yunguang