Why do people always defend the wall?

In the past three or four years, there have been more and more remarks defending the wall on various social media in China. Their rhetoric is always this: "The existence of the wall is reasonable and necessary, because it can effectively block the false information spread by the West, and prevent the masses without judgment from being instigated by it; at the same time, the wall also allows certain People of judgment come out and get more information, and these people will not be provoked." Then, make a summary, "So, I think the existence of the wall is good."

This set of rhetoric is so prevalent that , before I went to college, I really believed that the wall exists to "screen out those who have the ability to discern right from wrong to go out to receive information outside the wall, while keeping those who do not have the ability to discern right from wrong inside the wall. "I even thought it was a very sensible government policy.

But this is complete nonsense.

First, there is something wrong with this rhetoric. What is meant by "a man of discernment"? How exactly is this defined?

Climbing a wall is a behavior that requires a little extra information and computer skills (but not very high) to achieve. According to the logic of this rhetoric, those who can achieve these two points are considered to be "people who have the ability to distinguish between right and wrong", while those who cannot achieve it are "people who cannot distinguish between right and wrong". When did computer technology become associated with "discrimination between right and wrong"?

Those who wrote these rhetoric imagined in their hearts "the ignorant masses who are easily deceived", which are generally those warm-blooded young people who are not highly educated and are easily infected by others. But in fact, it is not difficult for these people to jump over the wall. This is because there is no technical difficulty in overcoming the wall itself, the difficulty is whether you have this desire.

(For those who have been outside the wall all the time, it may be difficult to understand, but in fact, for those inside the wall, it requires a relatively strong psychological motivation to climb over the wall. If it is not for star chasing, document checking, work needs and other rigid needs , Most people are too lazy to go over the wall. Because people don't know the value of things they haven't seen before, so they think it's optional. At the same time, the information in the wall is relatively full, and they often think that this is enough. )

The existence of the wall actually makes more people give up exploring the wider world because of their own psychological laziness, and it cannot play a screening role at all. Among the people in the wall, many people do not jump over the wall because they "don't have that need, I'm too lazy to bother", and many of these people are "have the ability to distinguish right from wrong" (such as my cousin who is preparing for the postgraduate entrance examination). At the same time, those who have climbed the wall may not necessarily have the ability to distinguish right from wrong. For example, as long as their idols are criticized, they are generally considered to be people who "do not have the ability to distinguish right from wrong". But these people are all veterans.

In addition to the error of the "screening theory" itself, the "false information spread by the West" in that set of rhetoric is also an inexplicable existence. Of course there is false information outside the walls, but there is basically no factual problem (that is, the event itself actually happened) provided by the mainstream media. People often say that "foreign media smears China" and "distorts the facts", in fact, it means that Western media have adopted different perspectives, pre-set positions, and used uncomfortable words in their reports. This is actually because the two sides stand on different positions, have different common senses, and different reader groups. It's normal to feel uncomfortable reading what someone writes, probably like a conservative who reads a liberal newspaper and wants to yell at you. But according to these differences, it is impossible to directly stamp that the other party is spreading false information, and the masses will be incited by it (actually, I think on the contrary, if the domestic masses really see the information, they should clarify it in the comment area, or provide another A kind of idea. After the collision between the two sides, there will be communication, providing each other with more perspectives, and then the common sense can gradually merge, and finally the hostility will decrease.)

In conclusion, I think the prevailing rhetoric in defense of the wall is untenable. But that's not the point of this article. There are so many things written on it, in fact, it wants to lead to this question: why do people accept this set of "reasonable and reasonable" rhetoric?

It's kind of odd when you think about it at its roots. The threshold for obtaining information by oneself has been increased. It should be reasonable to be dissatisfied, but people always like to speak for the wall, saying that it is reasonable and that it is so or so good. When it comes to the end, I have a sincere feeling, as if the wall should stand by nature, but it is a terrible thing to let the wall disappear.

I think this happens because people don't like the feeling of being deprived of basic power, and in order to avoid this feeling, people simply give up power from the beginning, so they don't feel the humiliation of being deprived of power. Through this psychological construction, the integrity of self-dignity is guaranteed.

When people say "I think the existence of the wall is very good", this is the same psychological path behind many people's high praise comments "This is the Western democracy you want!" under a lot of foreign news. Anyway, no matter what you say or think, you can't change the existence of the wall and the lack of democracy. If you just use the spiritual victory method, you will belittle what you don't have, and praise what you have. It feels much better.

I first realized this when I was writing a dissertation in college on "The Impact of China's Family Planning." Not long after I arrived abroad, I felt a lot of prejudice and preconceived positions. To challenge prejudice, I decided at the outset to write "The Benefits of Planned Parenthood" and show the professor a different perspective. As a result, as I searched more and more data, I found it difficult to reach the conclusion of "the benefits of policy", because there are so many cruel and bad things. In the end, due to lack of time, I did not rewrite the paper, but turned the paper into four dissimilarities and handed it in.

In hindsight, why did I have to write "The Benefits of Planned Parenthood." Over the years, I do believe that it has many benefits, and it is a policy that has to be implemented. When the niece of the foreign landlord asked me, I also answered that many young Chinese actually support family planning because they can exclusively use their parents' resources. This argument is true, but if the whole world implements family planning and China implements free birth, will I answer that many young Chinese support free birth because they can have many brothers and sisters to play with from childhood?

The opinions of most people are actually not opinions at all, but rhetoric that changes with changes in external conditions, a set of things that make them feel better. No one likes to be deprived of reproductive rights and information rights, but the facts have already happened, and the only thing that can change is the narrative. With the constant repetition of these "I think this is also good" and "we don't care about these things", it all seems to become more and more real, as if this is what people really think.

This can also explain why there are always netizens who say, "Actually, we have freedom of speech" and "Things are not as bad as you think" on the Internet, and then take out a few examples in the corner to prove it. This is actually to preserve one's own dignity. After all, it's really embarrassing and uncomfortable that we don't have something that others have, so either insist that you have it, or say "we don't care about it" if you really don't have it.