Tsinghua Professor Liu Yu: Silence is not gold, it is a social tragedy

Tsinghua Professor Liu Yu: Silence is not gold, it is a social tragedy

The ancients said that silence is golden, which teaches us to think well before speaking, talk less, do more, and pay attention to action. But what if we are afraid of disaster coming out of our mouths, afraid of provoking trouble, and choosing silence when we encounter everything? For example, when encountering unfair things, you choose silence, you meet people who need help, you also choose silence, you choose silence when you see someone stealing something on the bus, at this time silence is not gold, silence is the indifference of human nature, if everyone thinks like this, it will become a social tragedy.

1 Silence is not golden, silence is the indifference of human nature

Some time ago, a woman on the Xi'an subway was reprimanded because the phone call was louder, and then she was rudely picked up by the security guard, forcibly dragged down the subway, the dragging process of the clothes were torn, the clothes were not covered, everyone onlookers knew that the security guards could not enforce the law violently, even if the woman was wrong and did not have the right to rip her clothes, but no one came forward to stop it, no one said a fair word, and even no one helped her put on a dress, and everyone invariably chose silence.

The German priest Martin Niemura once confessed: "At first when they hunted down a certain group, I did not speak, because I was not a certain group, and finally they came to me, and then no one could speak for me." ”

There are several reasons why onlookers choose to be silent, and I am also afraid, if I go to care, what if I am chased down by the security guards, I still have to go to work, I don't have time to take care of these things, don't be nosy. Silence, though self-preservation, is disappointing. Born as a human being, we have never been an island of human life, but often need to breathe together, share the same fate of compatriots, if everyone selfishly chooses to ignore and silence, then the next time things happen to themselves, no one will stand up for you to uphold justice, then you will feel the indifference of human nature, numbness, and the sadness of society will not be a little too late.

2 Please don't silence the good guys

The Nanjing Peng Yu case 11 years ago was the beginning of today's death

On November 20, 2006, Xu Shoulan, an old lady in Nanjing, fell at a bus stop, and Peng Yu, who got off the bus, lifted Xu Shoulan, who had fallen to the ground, and took her to the hospital with Xu Shoulan's family who arrived later. Afterwards, the old man insisted that Peng Yu knocked him down and claimed compensation to him, and the two sides had a dispute over the issue of compensation for treatment costs, and Xu Shoulan sued Peng Yu to the Nanjing Gulou District Court.

In the end, the court ruled that both parties were not at fault in the accident, but the parties should give appropriate compensation for the victim's losses, and sentenced Peng Yu to pay 40% of the victim's losses, a total of 45876.6 yuan.

There are many more such events today, at this time you will say, say don't let you be nosy, the next time you see if you dare to manage, I want to say just walk away, this is a bad example, but there are many good people in life, he will indeed encounter difficulties, need help, you can not be brave, you can escape, you can choose silence, please do not stop those kind, courageous people to speak, let alone laugh at their rotten good people and stupidity

Don't let your ridicule make these good people feel out of place, doubt their own choices, doubt that the social silence they are in is the current social phenomenon, and then can only choose to ignore and silence.

Martin Luther King, Jr., said that history will remember the greatest tragedy of social transformation, not the clamor of the bad guys, but the silence of the good guys.

3 Please do not raise an indifferent child

Once watched such a short video, the beginning of the video a child lost a dollar to the roadside begging old man, the mother saw it and covered the child's eyes with a cloth strip to pull the child away, told him not to be nosy, many are liars, once the child encountered classmates on the way to school by several people surrounded by several people to punch and kick him, extortion of money, he wanted to go up to help, the mother also blindfolded him, and then pulled him away, told him not to care, the back of the child when he encountered someone who needed help automatically blindfolded, chose to walk away silently At this time, the child was suddenly taken away by an adult, the mother went crazy to find, grabbed the person and asked, but the road was blindfolded, the mouth was pulled up by the zipper, people shook their heads, despite the mother's hysterical shouts and helplessness, and finally the child was saved by the begging old man he had given away, and at the end of the video, the old man removed the cloth from the child's eyes, returned the coin to the child, and showed a kind smile to him.

Children are the future of the motherland and the hope of the people, and adults can only cultivate a selfish, indifferent, bloodless child who will have responsibilities in the future, let alone bear great responsibilities.

When we see the truth and don't say a word, it's the day we die. As long as we are not afraid of power, dare to happen, and give back to the society with kindness and love, the society will have truth, goodness and beauty.

The traditional culture of "silence is gold" tells us that disasters come out of the mouth, less to say and more to do, and mingzhe to protect ourselves. So people around them unconsciously are used to encountering things to choose silence, when someone misunderstands us, choose silence, think that people who understand us will naturally understand, choose silence when there is a contradiction with the family, create the so-called cold violence, the family is a great harm to themselves, when we need everyone to speak at work, we choose silence, think that more words must be lost, more wrong, silence is gold, in fact, silence is sometimes the cowardice of human nature, people are afraid of power, afraid of their own interests are damaged, So choose silence when injustice happens, even when it doesn't hurt myself, because everyone is silent, and I am more sociable in doing so. Ignorance of this we are more susceptible to the suppression of the powerful, from the silence of the individual to the silence of the collective, which is a terrible social phenomenon.

Tsinghua Professor Liu Yu saw through this phenomenon and used the story of the World War II period to tell people not to wait for the sober time to regret why they chose to be silent about the truth, to ignore and indifferent to the injustices we encountered, and to make our family and friends and our compatriots become silent sacrifices. Telling people that lies after being filtered by the mighty many times is no different from silence. Although the silence has been too long for us to lose our voices, although the process from losing the right to speak to regaining the weight of our words requires a cruel process, we must change. If we don't change, sooner or later the elephant in the room will lift its feet and stomp on the illusion of peace in our world. This society needs people to poke at this elephant that is getting bigger and bigger.