Chapter 65 distorted world

In the first few years of being a reporter, my IQ was not lower than it is now, but there was always a small puzzle that I couldn't solve.In my interviews, I have met many people who are obviously doing stupid or bad things but have plausible words and warned me not to "make trouble".My confusion is, do they really hold wrong ideas, or are they shameless?It's not just self-interest that can explain it.The premise of my thinking is that there can't be that many guys who are consciously bad guys.Over time, I found the answer: they lived in a more distorted world. The farther a country is from modern civilization, and the more seasoned its people are, the more likely they are to take all sorts of pre-modern orthodoxy for granted.Imagine, if I went to interview Li Hongzhang, what would he say about the imperial system?He may be the smartest person in China at that time, but he would say that the Chinese cannot live without the emperor—he has already been institutionalized.This is not my conjecture, he said so in an interview with the New York Times more than a hundred years ago.For the same reason, an uneducated so-and-so law enforcement officer may sincerely believe that overturning the peddler's car is an inevitable way to clean up the city.

In fact, one of my cousins ​​is doing this job in a certain provincial capital city.I tried to tell him that rough enforcement is wrong.In the end, I found it was not easy, because he had encountered countless difficulties in the process of law enforcement, and kicking him was the simplest solution.What should I think at this time?Expect the progress of society as a whole to gradually lead to him not needing to do this, and to understand him? of course not.This is a question of right and wrong.No matter where in the world it is, violence by power against innocents is inexcusable.It's a small moral cornerstone, but as the famous metaphor stands, the aircraft carrier of modern civilization stands on this coin.

With a wave of cultural anger, my cousin told me: "Chinese people are cheap, you can't do well if you don't show some ruthlessness!" However, I have read it in various articles discussing the inferiority of the nation, and I have also read it in the historical records of Li Hongzhang's era.When the Sino-Japanese War failed, Luo Fenglu, Li Hongzhang's aide, reported: "The Japanese people often say that China is like a dead pig lying on the ground, ready to be slaughtered. This is the current situation." In addition to the bright side, Chinese culture also has a dark side, and the national character needs to be reviewed. The class statement is not all nonsense.However, even in 2980, I will still be aware of this fact in my grave as I know today that flowers bloom in spring and leaves fall in autumn: the so-called bad roots are by no means inevitable in human nature. No one is willing to be cheap, only people have to be cheap.

Everyone has dignity for as long as they can.There are dark elements and beautiful elements in human nature, and a good society will help a person get rid of darkness and inspire beauty.I didn't need to listen to Obama's speech several times to feel the passion of affirmation, or "Yes, we can!" to realize that human beings have faith.Faith is always there, whether you see it or not. This is why I have always believed that innocence is a valuable quality.In the absence of wisdom, innocence can help us to withdraw from the distortion of the world.If a person thinks that the Chinese need an emperor, or gives himself a depraved reason, "If I don't bribe to do this, there will be another person who will do more bad things than me" etc. .So in my opinion, he has lost his innocence before finding wisdom, is greedy and mature, and lives in a world of distortion.

"Distortion" is all around us, and it can be hard to see.Robert Lifton, a psychologist who studies Nazis and cult organizations, said that Nazi doctors have deliberately avoided instinctive emotions for many years, creating an "Auschwitz self", and the world in their eyes is distorted up.They avoid the normal emotions built up in childhood, and prevent the natural conscience of human beings from interfering with their work. This is the worst and most evil kind of institutionalization.Sometimes, I think of a sentence that adults often used to condemn children when I was young. This sentence is "the more you live, the more you sink."It means that a person is getting worse and worse.In fact such regression is very possible.In a distorted world, everyone would be worse off, even a wise and noble person.Know that terrorism and Nazism are not childish acts, they are the product of deep belief. "Distortion" warps our minds like a black hole warps light.That's why we can need nothing but a real world.