Chapter 17 Chapter 6 Installing 13 Society, Game Rules

What the hell is going on in the world, most people don't care.For them, the truth of the world is impenetrable darkness.Their mindset is: what the world looks like, that is what it is. A little tiger once thought so too. On a certain day in a certain year, a donkey was taken by a good-for-nothing to Guizhou, a place with high mountains, dense forests and miasma.A little local tiger from Guizhou who had never seen the world was about to come out to look for food. When he saw the gigantic appearance of the donkey, he almost fainted: Where did the monster come from? It is too powerful!

If I have to use an analogy, then I would say that the little tiger’s psychological feelings at that time were comparable to those when the Chinese first saw the British “strong ships and sharp guns” during the Opium War. You must have noticed that this is a story told by Comrade Liu Zongyuan, a famous writer in our country: "The Donkey of Guizhou".Comrade Zong Yuan used great literary inspiration to make up this story, of course he had a specific purpose.The great leader Chairman Mao once quoted this story on the eve of the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art, and warned many "intellectuals" not to look down on "bumpkins". Compared with "bumpkins", they are like donkeys, but they just look scary.

For us, this story of Comrade Zong Yuan is actually a classic literature on game theory, a classic tutorial to see through the disguise.It tells us: You are mentally weak in front of a person, because you don't know whether he is pretending to be strong, or just looks strong! Conversely, when you realize that this society relies on pretense to create its existence, and you can analyze it, you will become psychologically stronger in front of it!The reason is as we said before, the essence of pretending is weakness, and it lacks the power to connect with reality. The donkey was really pretentious, tall and big, and its roar was as deafening as Zhang Fei's, as if it was very powerful.Innocent as it may be, it's really not its fault for being cool.

Because of the long bray of the donkey, the little tiger was frightened half to death, and quickly ran for his life with his tail between his legs.According to our theory, the donkey pretended to be cool, and when it was seen by the little tiger, it sent a message. It quickly bypassed the little tiger's intellectual structure, aroused its fear, and then drove it to escape. As far as the thinking of "what it looks like, it is what it looks like", we can imagine how the little tiger reasoned in his heart: the donkey looks so pretentious, looks very powerful, and has such a powerful voice, so it must be very powerful; Since it is very strong, it will bite people, if it can't bite it, if you don't run quickly, do you want to court death?

This reasoning, of course, has nothing to do with donkeys.It only happened in the little tiger's heart, and it was the delusional reasoning of the little tiger in a weak state of mind. As mentioned above, it is really innocent for a donkey to be so powerful.But people are very strong, but they can take advantage of this.I remember that there was a time when I watched movies and TV, I liked to observe and judge who was the good guy and who was the bad guy. It seemed that watching movies and TV was to find out who was the good guy and who was the bad guy.Recall that this kind of poor thinking is caused by watching movies when I was a child.In the revolutionary movies I watched at that time, it was clear from the eyes and appearances who were the Kuomintang reactionaries who mixed into the revolutionary ranks and who were the underground workers fighting in the heart of the enemy: "good people" must be handsome, full of handsome men and beautiful women ; while the "bad guys" are wretched and ugly, deer-headed and rat-eyed.As an actor, he looks so performative, playing "good guys" and "bad guys", half of the work is done.

Fortunately, the little tiger quickly understood that the appearance of the donkey might just be a pretense, and his fear stemmed from the asymmetry of information.Therefore, it is necessary to maintain psychological concentration, use the intellectual structure to play games with the donkey, and find out whether the donkey is good or not through testing and reaction.In this way, the donkey's tragic ending is doomed. The tragedy of the donkey is that it never realizes that whenever there are scenes with more than two animals, there are actors and audiences.Under the watchful eyes of the little tiger, its existence is a kind of display, a kind of performance, and all information will be transmitted to the little tiger to be captured and interpreted by it.Therefore, one must be good at disguising and controlling information, which is the way of the game.Performing without realizing that you are performing, the end result is often not a bullshit, but an idiot.

"The world is a big stage" "Life is a show"... This is nonsense that everyone knows.But unfortunately, most people often forget the classic saying of Zhou Xingxing: "Actually, I am an actor". In this world, if some people become smart because they are good at thinking.Well, someone else becomes stupid because he can't remember or understand nonsense. We see many things in this world, from politician speeches, leadership inspections, religious ceremonies, merchandise exhibitions, TV commercials, room decorations, to opening ceremonies, teaching and training, requesting reports, treats and gifts, uniforms and temptations, cockfights and dogs, Countless phenomena are essentially performances.

In certain situations, performances often hide games. There are only a few characters like the donkey in "The Donkey of Guizhou".Performative behavior in society is, most of the time, a conscious product.Next, I will draw a logical composition to reveal the mystery inside. (1) "Society" is a "cooperation-competition" system.A person cannot survive alone, so everyone forms a society and cooperates to produce resources. Due to human selfishness and the feeling that everyone wants to be better than others, everyone wants to grab a little more for the allocation of resources.

(2) The allocation of resources is determined by various game rules, the most powerful being violence.But in a peaceful and orderly society, it is only a strategic weapon and cannot be used openly. The rules of the game that can be effectively operated must provide a reason for everyone to abide by, and defend themselves as reasonable. (3) That is to say: A.The rules of the game must be shown to people in terms of concepts and texts, and their rationality must be demonstrated; B.In use, a person or a group must remind everyone of the existence of the rules of the game that are beneficial to them through language, actions, decorations, etc., and must be obeyed.

(4) Therefore, performance is the soul that can continue to play social games. From ancient times to the present, only a few people have been able to perform as the protagonists on the stage of "society", and most people only have the opportunity to watch the show.And these few people are almost all people who are good at acting, who can formulate, explain, and influence the rules of the game. This is by no means a coincidence! It is no exaggeration to say that performance is the core and most secretive technique that dominates the allocation of social resources from ancient times to the present. It creates influence, constructs power, and manipulates people's psychology. It is the "first strategy" of politics, business, and religion. .

It hurts to say that success is in a sense dependent on who is better at acting, and that failure is a failure of acting, that nouveau riche are not seen as "nobility" by others, and that job seekers cannot get positions, which are essentially Show failure!