Essay | Labels and Breaks

In the life of epidemic prevention, the labels on everyone are constantly being superimposed in large quantities. "Minions" refer not to skin color, but to the color code of red, yellow and green; apart from gender, positive and negative refer to the results of nucleic acid testing; the communities and types of work they live in also have new classification labels: prevention area, closed area Control areas, key testing areas, key working groups... When "labeling behavior" is justified and normalized under the mask of measures and regulations, the stereotypes and discrimination that already exist in society will be amplified one by one. Transformed into a more unbalanced break.

People who originally disliked dogs but would not openly oppose or make aggressive behaviors, now see the owner taking the dog to the veterinary clinic, and follow him to make a video for reporting purposes; people who used to be neither resistant nor welcome to local employees , when the job market is in a downturn due to various combined reasons, they will believe that non-local employees are the reason to be blamed, and angrily join the ranks of supporting non-local employees to quit.

Just think about it, in daily life, when it is not a threat to me, I can accommodate a dog to share the elevator with me, or I can express the goodwill of communion and equality to foreign employees or immigrants. But what if the dog barks at me and I don't know the intent of the bark, or if my expat colleague at the same level in my department gets a promotion earlier than me?

Sometimes, our tolerance and goodwill are not only a favor of unequal power, but also conditional. When I realize that my inherent position of power may be threatened, those outsiders who are already psychologically divided become invaders at this time. If I already have feelings of disgust and disgust for these outsiders, when the social rift is deeper, my feelings of exclusion can even be justified, and I can feel more at ease, because people with "conditional goodwill" also enter my stratosphere. .

In our daily life, we may not realize that our kindness and tolerance are conditional, nor have we paid attention to our invisible label to others. But when our habitual life is shaken, we sensitively build defenses, preconceived assumptions that we will be harmed, classify others that we do not want to understand as alien viruses, and continue to refuse to understand. There is no way to hide the fracture under the whitewashing of peace.

Seeing and feeling the world is a very difficult process. When we see the rupture of society, it is always accompanied by our own rupture. But I still want to believe in the world.

(Published on 2022.07.22 Macau Daily New Area. 2022.07.23 Added. Bourbon.)