The kingdom of Leviathan

This article is relatively long and is divided into the following chapters:

1. Forgotten Struggle: GFW, we're not happy
2. Why Fight: Is Peace Bad?
3. Knowing that this wall cannot be pushed down, do you still want to push it further?
4. The kingdom of Leviathan
5. live, live well

the forgotten struggle

One day, I was cleaning up the old Google Groups, and I accidentally discovered that I had joined a group called "GFW, we are not happy" - in 2010, when China's Internet Firewall was about to be put into use and Google was about to withdraw from China, someone once organized Millions of people are anti-censorship online.

Here is the earliest group message from June 20, 2010:

Here is the last group message on November 26, 2014:

From the very beginning of organizing protests, to discussing how to use VPNs, to the last three messages in 2014: going out in black on June 4th, the accompaniment score of "Bloodstained Square", and the political satirical cartoons with spicy eyes, which constitute a picture The picture scroll of the Chinese Internet from hope to withering makes me feel very sad.

When this happened, I had been abroad for several years, and I was too busy to take care of my work and life. I was just watching the news about Google’s withdrawal from the center and the erection of high walls. In addition, many of the speeches in this group in the early days only had one or two swear words or protests. I don’t know if there are any Any specific action, I turned off the letter reminder, and I never spoke in this group. If I hadn't stumbled upon it, I'd have forgotten about it.

People need to be forgetful, just like a computer hard drive that has been used for a long time and has to clear its memory to make room for new tasks. Remembering something from the past is usually because it still has meaning for who you are now. It's like before the Hamilton musical came out, not many Americans remembered the details of various characters before and after the Revolutionary War, but the musical's rearrangement of historical events made it meaningful in today's society, and it was brought up again. So when this completely failed struggle resurfaced in front of my eyes, it suddenly took on a new meaning - made me rethink the struggle.

A lot of what happened in China can be wiped out without a trace. To remember what happened once again, there is often no archive to look at. I heard that the Pillar of Commemoration at the University of Hong Kong was also demolished at the end of last year, and the last Chinese community remembering the June 4th anniversary is rapidly corrupting.

Why fight?

I went back to Matters to start writing in Chinese again because after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, I had a long email conversation with a pen pal in Hong Kong. She said that the Ukrainian revolution in 2014 had inspired and inspired Hong Kong people a lot; she added, "This time Russia invaded Ukraine, at least many people in Russia took to the streets to protest this unjust war, but if China attacks Taiwan, I really don't want to. I know how many Chinese people will applaud."

Although I don't want to admit it, but looking at the domestic online remarks, I can't refute it either. I said that I hope to live quietly in a place where there is no competition in the world, and not be disturbed by these great emperors and overlords.

she says,

People can't just live in peace and happiness, but actually change the world.

I say,

Isn't the purpose of changing the world so that people can live an ordinary and happy life?

The two of us started talking about actively engaging in changing the world and letting ordinary people live ordinary lives . During this discussion, I reviewed a lot of information on Hong Kong in the past ten years, and made up for issues that I didn't care much about before. I understood that she was at the center of Hong Kong's historic turmoil, and that my life might be more comfortable for the time being, so I expressed different emotions.

I am not a person who is indifferent to current affairs and politics, but there are so many problems in the world that it is impossible for me to face the news every day with tears; for the time being, there is no fire on me, and there is no specific object of resistance, so I always I feel that being a good neighbor, a good citizen, and not getting married or having children is the greatest contribution I can make.

...

Uh?

Being infertile is your greatest contribution?

is that so?

That's all you can do?

What a negative worldview this is. If the negativity is like this, then why should you be a good neighbor and a good citizen? Wouldn't it be more fun to be a villain who harms others and benefits oneself?

Are you waiting for someone to help you solve all the problems in the world?

In fact, I have long known that as long as there is suffering and misfortune in this world, I will face these misfortunes sooner or later. The fact that the fire didn't burn me doesn't mean I can't feel the heat and smoke. The fire did not burn on me, which means that I am now in a more privileged situation. If I can't see my previlege, I think I have achieved "the greatest contribution" and "the greatest contribution" I can by walking on the road to buy a sandwich for the homeless and sort and recycle the garbage. It would be a waste of everything I have today. You have overestimated your luck.

Thanks to this pen pal, coming to Matters to write has become my protest: protesting against the freedom to speak in Chinese; protesting the oppression of the general public by centralized networks and capitalist logic.

Knowing that this wall cannot be pushed down, do you still want to push it further?

In the past month or so when I exchanged emails and learned new technologies and new knowledge , many things happened, which made people dazzled. The recent outbreak of the epidemic in Shanghai has not only threatened people's livelihood, but also the dystopia of robot dogs playing horns on unmanned streets . I have quite a few friends in Shanghai who sent messages to ask questions. They all reassured me that it was okay, that they could endure it, and they didn’t believe in rumors and didn’t spread them. I heard that the one-stop service of chatting, taking screenshots, reporting, and then cyberbullying is very popular in China, and everyone has developed the habit of not speaking from their hearts. Besides, when people are in dire straits, can I, a person who is at ease overseas, feel the same way? So I didn't ask much, I could only pray silently in my heart.

Many friends stopped opening their eyes to see the world after returning to China for a few years. The cost of breaking through the firewall is too high, and it is no good to go over the wall to see it. Living too awake will only add to the pain. Not everyone has the conditions to immigrate, and those who have the conditions are not necessarily willing to start from scratch in a foreign land where they are unfamiliar. After returning to China to establish a career, I thought, they will inevitably have to establish a domestic relationship network. Once the interests are tied up, it will be more difficult to escape and resist. It can be said to be recruited, or it can be said to survive, I am both I understand, it's just sad that we won't be able to chat together in the future.

However, recently, a friend who is very close to me suddenly spoke frequently in the circle of friends. His wife is from Taiwan and has already settled down in Germany. Naturally, her thinking is different from that of her friends in China. She was living a good life, working, buying a house, sunning her baby, and sunbathing on vacation. But why did he suddenly want to learn from Mr. Lu Xun, beating and beating outside the iron house, trying to wake up the people in the house who could obviously die in numbness?

Based on what he said before and after, I guess it is because he has been looking for an opportunity to go back to China to visit his mother and grandmother for the past six months. However, visas between Germany and China have been cancelled. The nucleic acid test requirements for returning to China are getting higher and higher, air tickets are getting more and more expensive, and flights are canceled or sent back at any time . Discussing in a group of classmates, various standpoints, and he patiently theory sentence by sentence, I watched it with great effort.

What's the use in the end? ( @mimiana  resistance is not for usefulness) Maybe my friend is also self-doubting. But trying to unite those who were brothers with him in the group of classmates may be the only cry he can make at the moment.

He told me, look at what China is like now! This is the "Guidelines for Ideological and Political Teaching of Biology Courses" in high schools:

I almost fainted when I saw it. I am really out of touch with the country.

This must be archived and nailed to the pillar of shame, and put it on Matters for 10,000 years!

This is how the cannon fodder of a generation of state machines is made.

The editor of this teaching series is Du Zhenyu, an academician of the School of Life Sciences of East China Normal University. After reading this set of theories he compiled, do you think that some academician in China is a big joke?

Yes, the wall is already built, and pushing it is useless. But perhaps the wall is not our enemy at all.

countries that believe in leviathan

Fang Binxing , the former president of Beijing Post Office, known as the "Father of China's Firewall", is also an academician (Chinese Academy of Engineering). He was thrown shoes and eggs when he gave a report, and was scolded until he resigned, and he was so scolded that he could not come out as a man .

But I don't agree with this kind of "resistance". It's not a struggle, it's just venting, it's almost like smashing a water glass with a scalding tongue when drinking water. If Fang Binxing and Du Zhenyu don't do this, the CCP can naturally find someone else to do it.

But if we don't make the object of our struggle specific to a certain person, how can we fight the invisible and intangible shackles ?

After listening to this recording reposted in the circle of friends, I thought of various grievances under the epidemic prevention in Shanghai, as well as other suspected unjust cases under the rule of the CCP, and I suddenly understood.

The main idea of this recording is that the owner called the secretary of the district party committee to complain that six or seven of the ten households in his building had tested positive, but the building was not closed. The owner who tested positive was active outside, making the woman who did not test positive fear for the safety of her family and did not dare to open the door. She hoped that the secretary of the district party committee would take care of those who were found to be positive. The secretary of the district party committee finally collapsed after evading for a while, saying that the square cabin was full, it had reached its limit, and there was no manpower in Fenglou. There was no other way than to count the numbers she reported. In the end, they both wiped away tears.

China is a country that believes in Leviathan. The Leviathan (also translated giant spirit) country is a concept proposed by Thomas Hobbes in the mid-17th century, saying that people are selfish, so if there is no powerful government intervening, we will snatch survival resources from each other, and everyone will be selfish. In danger of falling into a state of "war of all against all". At this time, people will pray to a state machine to maintain order, even if they give up their human rights and freedoms.

This is the case in this recording. The lady doesn't trust her neighbors, and she can't negotiate and negotiate with the neighbors' owners. She can only ask the secretary of the district party committee: Don't you care? ! Are you not closing this building?

A residential building with only ten households can no longer negotiate internally. How do you manage those buildings with hundreds of households?

The secretary of the district party committee is only a low-level cadre, and he can only listen to the "policies from above." "Above" couldn't come up with a policy, so they had to stare at each other. Leviathan fails and people panic.

This "everyone could come to harm me" panic was very evident in the voice of the woman who called. When everyone's self-threatening state continues to a certain critical point, the armed police can come forward to suppress it. At this time, the people will welcome the tanks into the streets of the community. What does it mean to shoot a few neighbors who test positive and run around? The important thing is that Leviathan is finally back to take care of us, and we can finally rest assured! (See Chen Guanzhong's "Prosperity" )

I drew a process to show the strange circle of public opinion in Chinese society:

When encountering a problem, usually the grassroots first finds a scapegoat to fire him, and then he will be punished to see if he can keep his tongue down. If you can't hold back, or if you can't touch the person who needs to be punished, you will start deleting articles, bombing accounts, and concealing keywords.

As more and more contradictions are suppressed, and the paper can no longer wrap the fire, Leviathan will temporarily disappear and let everyone discuss and solve it by themselves. However, people who are accustomed to ideological control lack the ability to think and are prone to believe in rumors and be incited, so various groups point at each other, oppress each other, and form panic. At this time the people began to collectively summon the Leviathan. "Who's in charge!"

When you hand over the fair judgment to "above" and "above above", you voluntarily give up your subjective initiative on the "plane". The "superior" will reward you with a "fairness" if you are in a good mood. If you are not satisfied and ask for more, you will become an unstable factor in the eyes of the "superior" and an object that needs to be maintained. Many people are dissatisfied with the "upper", but they don't dare to make too much trouble. They are afraid of committing the crime of picking quarrels and provoking trouble. After weighing the pros and cons, they finally shut up obediently. This further encourages the authority of the "upper", and we finally enter stability maintenance → chaos → suppression to death cycle.

But the Leviathan state is a 17th century concept and should have been eliminated long ago!

Shouldn't the normal interpersonal relationship be, you leave a message to the neighbor saying, friend, we are afraid of infection, can we be considerate of each other, let's take turns using the corridor?

People are usually selfish, yes, but people are also social and need acceptance and approval from others. In a normal community, isn't it very common for everyone to negotiate with each other, be considerate, and make things easier for each other? Need a Leviathan to preside over the crackdown for everything?

Please don't say that I'm too naive, and don't say that the quality of the Chinese people is not good enough to do individual negotiation and must rely on Leviathan. Game designer Nicky Case designed this small web game, The Evolution of Trust . After playing it, you will understand what it is like to achieve a balanced state of community autonomy without needing a Leviathan. of. What "all against all war" is really too outdated!

Why do speech control, thought control, internet control make me so angry?

Because it disintegrates the most basic trust mechanism between people and the ability of people to think, negotiate and judge independently, making people fall into rumors, suspicion, panic, and then attack each other, waiting for an official statement from an authority, and completely forget about all this. The initiator is the official authority that monitors and regulates all of this.

During this period of time, we followed the @Matty Matters online study group to talk about decentralized autonomy every day; however, if a community lacks basic trust and negotiation mechanisms between individuals, whenever there is a disagreement, we will find Leviathan, and we will do it again. It's fucking useless to issue the most potential community tokens, and set up the most sophisticated voting mechanism! !

( @雨cang  Is decentralization in Web 3.0 the future? There is a more technical analysis in it)

live, live well, live resiliently

When I went abroad in 2006, the global atmosphere was relatively enlightened. It has been five years since China joined the WTO, Google has settled in China, the Hong Kong and Macau passports are about to be implemented, and China and Taiwan have begun to exchange students. The borders of countries and the Internet seem to be slowly opening. When I went abroad, I didn’t think I wanted to immigrate, I just thought that the world is big and I wanted to see more. There was a popular book at the time: The World Is Flat , and I was very inspired. As a beneficiary of the process of globalization, I fantasize that these benefits can continue forever, and I can travel to the ends of the earth as a world nomad.

Going back to the debate I had with the Hong Kong pen pal, I said that I hope to live quietly in a place where there is no competition in the world, and not be disturbed by these great emperors and overlords.

she says,

People can't just live in peace and happiness, but actually change the world.

I say,

Isn't the purpose of changing the world so that people can live an ordinary and happy life?

Tell a story:

A manga teacher I respect, he has walked some muddy roads and has awakened, so he is good at inspiring people. She made me rediscover the joy and meaning of painting after not touching the brush for many years. In addition to teaching painting, she will also intersperse the teaching with criticism of the consumer society, teaching everyone to focus on creation, pursue pure spiritual experience, and not be dragged into the endless cycle of empty life by buying and buying. She lives as if she were a master of the world, painting, meditating, studying, and teaching every day.

In a class sharing, she used the paintings of Hong Kong cartoonist Xiao Lei as an example. In the chat group, a little pink jumped out and said, "This Xiao Lei is a Hong Kong independence. Everyone should not have anything to do with her." She Without affirmation or refutation, continue to lecture. I suddenly thought that her husband is a Hong Konger and an artist, who would satirize the world. She should be sympathetic to the Hong Kong movement, at least she won't be led away by Little Pink.

But she is a teacher in the system after all, and will not talk about this publicly. Her official account is full of articles about painting learning and self-cultivation. I don't know what she was thinking. Whether active or passive, she chose silence. I later read her husband's entry on Wikipedia that they divorced last September and the husband has returned to Hong Kong.

Although I'm not sure whether she still continues to live the life of an expert as her public account shows, but I think of this, it's kind of sad. I wonder if she will slowly enter a state of seclusion and uncontested meditation, like most of the literati in Chinese history who are dissatisfied with the world and helpless? Or enter the next stage of awakening?

Friend, you said later:

In fact, the core of the problem has always been ignorance and apathy, just like not white people against black people (it's absurd that whenever someone is accused of racism, they always say "I'm not racist, I have black friends") , they just turn a blind eye to racism, and this kind of blindness aggregates to form institutional and systematic discrimination. In short, apolitical is turning a blind eye to injustice. When you turn a blind eye to bullying, you are on the side of the bully, and your blindness allows the bully to do whatever they want.

Maybe this sentence of yours is suitable for my teacher. you're right. Turning a blind eye allows bullies to do whatever they want, so those literati who escape current affairs and practice Zen in seclusion, thinking that they are out of the mud and not stained, usually just return to the mud in the end.

fight, live. Live and fight. Maybe I haven't gotten to the point where I'm marching on the streets, but I'm still fighting my way. I will use all the knowledge, talent, experience, and enthusiasm that I have lived to this day to embrace the sense of contradiction brought by this era and find the next outlet.