Chapter 7 6. The law of the great era: technological progress distorts the original trend of national mentality

If we find the hidden law that manipulates our mentality, we will also find the root cause of technology aversion. The reason why we have been lacking in progress for thousands of years, and only focused on nature and not on merit, is our traditional thinking of "emphasizing destiny and despising manpower." This is the key to the hidden law. Introduction to the topic: The Root Cause of Technophobia - Jumping from Two Pole poles - Distorted Technological Fetishism - Pseudo-Technological Era We have never been a technology-loving people. At the same time as the writing of this book, "Can You Keep Up with China Ten Years Later" is being sold in the market, which accurately talks about the Chinese nation's aversion to technology, and attributes the source of this psychology to collectivism.

Such a statement hits the nail on the head, but it doesn't get right into it. We should see that under the influence of collectivism, we become unwilling to stand out and enter the game in a way of participation. We only like to hug each other for warmth under the halo of collectivism and stand up for others' victory. , rejoicing. In modern history, we have been bullied by powerful enemies from outside the territory again and again precisely because of the adherence to the collectivism.Just like in the cold winter, people who are afraid of the cold are always eager to hug each other to keep warm, because at least it makes people feel safe, and people can get a moment of thoughtfulness, minus a little bit of loneliness.

However, have we ever wondered where such collectivism comes from? If we find the hidden law that manipulates our mentality, we will also find the root cause of technology aversion. The reason why we have been lacking in progress for thousands of years, and only focused on nature and not on merit, is our traditional thinking of "emphasizing destiny and despising manpower." This is the key to the hidden law. China is a country based on agriculture. As we have analyzed before, agriculture depends on the sky, and Confucianism also timely throws out "the unity of man and nature", "the great origin of Tao comes from the sky, the sky does not change, and the Tao unchanging" statement.

After folk interpretation, these sayings have become the theoretical basis that destiny cannot be violated, and that man can't be determined by nature, so it is similar to the sayings of "shooting the first bird", "the first rafters rot first", "people are afraid of being famous and pigs are afraid of being strong". Set of proverbs. Therefore, in such an environment, the Chinese nation has gradually developed an inertia of emphasizing destiny, despising manpower, less innovation, and fear of change. When we look back at the history of China, we can find such a phenomenon. The well-known and well-known reformers in history, no matter whether they improved for good or for bad, generally ended in a very bad way. The philosophy of "seek nothing wrong" hand in hand and congratulate each other.It works from top to bottom, even ordinary people are unwilling to innovate in any field, completely ignoring personnel and pushing it to God's will.

Some people say: "A nation without an innovative spirit is a nation without hope." Zhizai said, but unfortunately, where should we find our innovative spirit? We have never been a technology-loving nation, but now we seem to be more interested in technology than any other country or nation. You must not think that something has changed in us. In fact, our national character has not changed, what we have done is just jumping directly from one pole to the other. Since there is no gradual process of psychological evolution, the way in which this interest manifests itself seems grotesque.

Almost all enterprises, when promoting their products, must flaunt the technical content of them. Almost all individuals, when applying for jobs, try to use various cards to prove that they are proficient in certain technologies. Almost all newly established schools not only indicate their professional technical orientation when enrolling students, but what's more, they directly name the school with the word technology. As small as repairing keys and matching locks, as large as academic research institutions, they all claim to be the embodiment of technology and represent the advanced level of a certain technology. Even a bottle of mineral water or a bag of instant noodles must declare on the packaging: We The application of advanced filling technology, advanced disinfection technology... It seems that it is not enough to show its superiority without explaining it in this way.

From the extreme aversion to technology to the worship of technology, we seem to have made a big circle, but we are actually hesitating in place. Coincidentally, more than a century ago, our attitude towards Japan also experienced such a turn. From contempt for Japan's "small island country and small country", to indifference after the crushing defeat of the Sino-Japanese War, to crazy worship after the Russo-Japanese War, it took only 10 years for the Chinese nation to achieve a change in attitude . For a time, it became a trend among young people of that era to go to Japan to study and learn Buddhist scriptures. Even if they were as forward-looking as Lu Xun, they embarked on the ship to Japan without hesitation.

There is only one reason behind this seemingly inconceivable transformation: our nation has a strange psychology. That is, we are an irrational nation, and only an irrational nation can easily fall into the cage of extreme thinking. When we start to worship technology, we will naturally bow down to all factors related to technology, and technicians are also one of them. Mention the term "brain body upside down", today's young people may show a look of bewilderment, however, this term was one of the most prominent social phenomena in the 1980s. The so-called "those who make missiles are not as good as those who sell tea eggs, and those who hold scalpels are not as good as those who take pedicure knives." In such complaints, tens of thousands of engineers and technicians are struggling to survive in their respective fields. There is no guarantee, and even frequent personality discrimination.

Even when the economic system began to transition, the situation of these technicians did not improve at all. As a last resort, they had to quietly leave their state-owned units in the name of help, secondment, sponsorship, research, etc. Join the original capital operators in the villages and towns. However, as some of them were the first to be the first to get rich by virtue of technological advantages, our nation began to treat them differently, and like all transformations, the degree is too great to be satisfied. people accept. Compared with ordinary people, the professional level of technicians is astounding. They can use intelligence beyond ordinary people, proven experience, creative talents, flexible minds, and flexible anxiety to solve many problems. For problems that arise in reality, those technical laymen are overshadowed in front of them, and those who lack professionalism are not even qualified to wait and see technical problems.

Thus, distortion quietly appeared. When selecting talents, our standard is quietly shifting from "meritocracy" to "meritocracy". This new selection standard is not evaluated on the basis of morality. Absolutely no selector will care about the reputation of these technicians, nor will he know what these people have done before, and whether his actions are in line with traditional morality. Whether there will be jaw-dropping behavior. The selectors only care about one thing—whether the selected person has enough ability to deal with practical problems and fulfill the mission. Therefore, this standard can only be evaluated by ability and ability.

However, one thing we all know is that ability is only one aspect of the overall quality of a person. Quality itself is not ability, let alone the level of technology mastered. Troubled by the shortcomings of meritocracy. Mastering technology cannot represent all the qualities of a person. That is to say, no matter what level of technology a person has reached, once he has a lack of personal morality, he will inevitably use technology combined with the power in his hand to carry out some violations. Moral behavior, at this time, no matter what technical level he has, it will no longer be a favorable factor for the enterprise. More serious than this, when our admiration for technology reaches a fever pitch, there will always be counterfeit and shoddy people mixed in, the real and the fake are mixed, making it impossible to distinguish. We don't really love technology, we're just interested in technology for quick success. Just because the national character is like this, it will take a long time for the real technological age to appear in China. For a long time to come, we will all have to navigate the gray area between "interested" and "loved". If you want to name this period, then its most accurate positioning should be "the era of technology application", or simply a "pseudo-technology era". When we are immersed in the convenience and profits that technology brings us, few people have thought that the real technology era requires long-term scientific research as a foundation, far from the "bringing doctrine" of introduction and purchase. When we are satisfied with the benefits of technological applications, we should know what is the real face behind this so-called "technical age". The period from now to 2020 is the second half of China's great era. We must not expect that the people may step into the threshold of the technological age, but we can be sure that we are working hard in that direction. The road to the future is slowly spreading under our feet. All that is left for us to do is prepare ourselves. We have already grasped the direction of the national mentality, and have a better understanding of our own positioning, so why don't we go faster, let us be the pioneers, and lead the technological era?