Differences between the Chinese and American middle classes

Cade 2022-04-22 07:01:33

The title is big enough to write a book, but I don't have much to say. Inspired by Ang Lee's film "Ice Storm" 20 years ago. This film mainly talks about the crisis of the middle class in the United States in the 1970s. The so-called crisis is actually the spiritual crisis of a generation of middle class after the war when the material is extremely rich and the productive forces develop to a certain degree of saturation. A word to replace is boring. The abundance of material things and the emptiness of spiritual beliefs lead to boredom in life. In the 1970s, the United States was a highly developed society, and the social division of labor was extremely refined. It can be said that the relationship between supply and demand in any field, any type of work, and any social behavior tends to be mature and saturated, so that the social stability is extremely high. The space that can be explored is very limited, because almost all spaces are sound and complete, people's self-consciousness is quite mature, and existentialism has become the mainstream. In this case there is no mystery, there is no pursuit, there is nothing to fear, and boredom comes naturally. Looking at any society as it matures in its type, it will cause a moral breakdown, which is determined by human nature. The collapse of rituals and music in the Spring and Autumn Period, the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, and the social outlook of the Ming and Qing Dynasties reflected in "Golden Vase" and "A Dream of Red Mansions" are all good examples. The same was true in the 1970s in the United States. As shown in this movie, the middle class is starting to play wives. It may be sensational, but it makes perfect sense from the state of the movie, because it's boring, because there's nothing exciting about life, so it's only natural to challenge taboos.

So what is the state of China's middle class today? It can also be described in one word - anxiety. The root cause of Chinese anxiety is the fear of being abandoned brought about by the rapid development of society. The most direct point is the speed of currency devaluation. Only by earnestly earning money and preserving the value of the earned money can people bring the most powerful guarantee in the rapid development of society. It can be seen that there is still a lot of room for development in our society. Every day, new fields and new types of work are opened up, and then many people fill in. People are busy traveling, making money, saying goodbye to poverty, and there is no possibility of being bored. So we are a hot society. This is diametrically opposed to the United States in the 1970s, and also diametrically opposed to its developed neighbor Japan. Japan has reached a low-desire society, which is also a manifestation of a highly mature and perfect society, and there are still many places to develop. Therefore, in this rapid social wave, people have no time to care about art and their own spiritual world, which also explains why our culture today is popular for entertainment, and no one sees or even takes pictures of pure art. Movies, because there is no such social basis and no social needs at all. Those behaviors that take self-examination as the mainstream will not appear until our next generation and the next two generations have developed to a fairly complete level of society. I believe that then will be an era of attaching importance to the spiritual world of self. So from this point of view, there is still a big gap between us and developed societies such as the United States and Japan.

Say a few more words, why American society did not decline like the Roman Empire after the 1970s, because technology has changed the world. With the development and popularization of computers, the Internet, and artificial intelligence, scientific and technological achievements have changed the original development law of society, so the whole world has been involved in this wave of technology, and people have another direction to pursue. Therefore, technology can change human beings and change society. The laws of social development in the past will also change due to the emergence of new technologies. More and more traditional behaviors are rendered meaningless by the advent of technology until they disappear. From today's intelligent voice customer service, I can infer that the future society must be a society of artificial intelligence. As described in the movie, society is a world where real people and robots coexist. Sometimes we have to distinguish whether the other party is a real person or not. It can replace most, or even all, of people's behaviors. Our original intention is to use technology to liberate human beings, but in the end it is technology to replace human beings. This is probably the reason for the final demise of mankind.

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The Ice Storm quotes

  • Wendy Hood: [On the phone] No, come on. He's like a big infected white head. I would never...

    [hears door being shut]

    Wendy Hood: Shit, it's my parents.

    [turns off light and hides under the bed still on the phone]

    Wendy Hood: He's so gross.

  • Wendy Hood: Dad, stop it!

    Ben Hood: Get to sleep, young lady. I mean it.

    Wendy Hood: [opens bedroom door] Fascist.

    Ben Hood: If I were a fascist, I would have sent you to one of those southern military academies a long time ago. Now, get to bed.