"That feeling of being protected, that comforting certainty that 'if the sky fell, there would be someone tall enough to hold it up', just seems like something from a previous life."
It sounds like Zhao is lamenting a switch from a Mencian reading of human nature towards one more perceptive of Xunzi's teachings. I'm not saying people do it advertently, but in different times different philosophical approaches might resurface according to the general feeling.
Is this ennui due to a sense of loneliness due in turn to a decline in the extent of face to face interaction n ones daily life. The impact of automobiles, the increase in commute times associated with extra travel and a reduction in the time spent engaging with friends, family and the local community, in part due to technology and the increased availability of entertainment in the home? Its certainly the case if one lives in Australian suburban sprawl where people never leave their homes except in a car and they frequently don't know their neighbours name. Is it due to the move from a village where kids could walk to school to a school-factory where there are too many students for teachers to be able to know the names of each of them, and supermarkets where one does the cashiers job oneself?
What's striking isn't really the nostalgia itself — every generation romanticizes its youth — it's that the essay was censored within a day for expressing it. That's a different, sharper claim about sovereignty than territory or law: control over which griefs are allowed to be spoken aloud, and which have to be smuggled through euphemism ["反FB", "S费"] just to survive publication at all. The author says as much himself in the closing line, almost as a footnote — he doesn't expect this to be publishable either. A state that can determine which emotions are permitted in public isn't just governing behavior, it's governing memory itself.
It sounds like Zhao is lamenting a switch from a Mencian reading of human nature towards one more perceptive of Xunzi's teachings. I'm not saying people do it advertently, but in different times different philosophical approaches might resurface according to the general feeling.
Is this ennui due to a sense of loneliness due in turn to a decline in the extent of face to face interaction n ones daily life. The impact of automobiles, the increase in commute times associated with extra travel and a reduction in the time spent engaging with friends, family and the local community, in part due to technology and the increased availability of entertainment in the home? Its certainly the case if one lives in Australian suburban sprawl where people never leave their homes except in a car and they frequently don't know their neighbours name. Is it due to the move from a village where kids could walk to school to a school-factory where there are too many students for teachers to be able to know the names of each of them, and supermarkets where one does the cashiers job oneself?
What's striking isn't really the nostalgia itself — every generation romanticizes its youth — it's that the essay was censored within a day for expressing it. That's a different, sharper claim about sovereignty than territory or law: control over which griefs are allowed to be spoken aloud, and which have to be smuggled through euphemism ["反FB", "S费"] just to survive publication at all. The author says as much himself in the closing line, almost as a footnote — he doesn't expect this to be publishable either. A state that can determine which emotions are permitted in public isn't just governing behavior, it's governing memory itself.