【Links to Other Versions】
1. English/Chinese version word-by-word scripts:
Both in this Wechat public account: MISTERZHANG, and the comments area in youtube.
2. English version video:
(youtube) https://youtu.be/waSCS4r3bIc
(bilibili) https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1BD4y1U7oe/
(tencent video) https://v.qq.com/x/page/b3133n2xbah.html
3. Chinese version video:
(youtube) https://youtu.be/yO1gq5YFMXw
(bilibili) https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1QZ4y1T71S/
(tencent video) https://v.qq.com/x/page/e3130va885u.html
E-mail address is in the ending subtitle in the video.To prevent inbox flooding, please leave simple general comments directly below here. For necessary emails, suggested subject line could be:(how important) who you are: what aboutPlease be concise. I will try to reply to everyone as receipt.For public event invitations, key information can be directly listed for consideration, including time, place, duration, procedure, question list, financial and logistic arrangement, etc.Experienced teacher here, mainly on contemporary art and language, freelance, with education background from top universities/art schools in Beijing, Hong Kong and the USA, providing one-on-one or group consulting/teaching/talks/conversations, online or in-person, subjects including:1) Photography, film, general art and design, portfolio preparation2) English/Chinese learning4) Job and school interviews (Any fields, any level)5) Any other areas that I might be helpful, such as life, emotions, philosophy, culture, education, art, fashion, etc.Please send an email for inquiry. You could directly put: your background, aim, how I should help, start time, expected duration, location, other questions, etc.Rates are usually by the hour. Kind of expensive. Based in Beijing, with flexible schedule.Crash course-Philosophy, and Prof. Xu Zhuoyun’s interview in 十三邀as the final blasting fuse.Crash course- Sociology, Psychology on youtube. Prof. Wang Defeng, 湯質看本質, Prof. Zhu Qingsheng’s videos on bilibili.comThe late department head Ms. Barbara Degenevieve for making my American graduate education possible.All people and things in life that help me get enlightened.【Word-by-word script. About 20,000 words】I am just another Human. Have you ever wondered, like me, why this world is so messed up? Why the seemingly powerful social system and people's psychology are actually so fragile in the face of this pandemic? Why, since childhood, we』ve been forced in schools to study subjects we hate with the same deadlines, and after that coerced to repeat the same job we don’t really enjoy day after day, just aiming to make big money to buy unnecessary things to show off to people we don’t care, and define all this as success and the meaning of life? Why we claim everyone is equal, while obviously the society is severely stratified, people trapped in different classes and despising each other? Why, in art museums, that the classical art is too old and boring, while the contemporary art is too weird to understand, but nobody dares to complain? What is Art exactly? Why is it so high in status? How to judge the level of taste? What to do between personal preference and public standard? Why the fashion industry keeps doing crazy designs on the runway and overproduction in real life? Why consumerism makes us so lost when shopping, regret so often after buying, get fooled around by companies, and yet our inner happiness hardly increases? ...The question list can go on indefinitely. Urbanization and informatization have brought about social atomism. Old beliefs and social connections were cracked down, while the new value system has not been well established. In this transitional period when our sense of meaning is largely absent, many problems actually point to the same reason: this world has been Western-centric for so long time that, due to the lack of balancing from other forms of wisdom, the Western philosophy has lost its ability of self-criticism and correction, and its various extensions have been going into extremes, kidnapping the whole world into the abyss of absolute emptiness and despair. I name it Western Philosophy Extremism, or 『Wes-phi-ism』 for short. So, how can we solve the problem? The answer is simple: De-centralization. Learn from the ancient wisdom of China.Western philosophy originated from the Greek islands』 civilization and the Indo-European nomadic culture by the Caucasus Mountains and the Black Sea. The ancestors had scarce resources and no settled homes, so they were used to fighting around, plundering and transforming nature and other people, believing in personal struggle and the jungle law. The relationship between oneself and others is treated as subject vs. object. The subject should decompose and analyze the object, instead of seeing everyone as the same unified body. Interpersonal relationships are therefore independent, antagonistic and unstable. People cooperate only out of profitable necessity, and fair distribution of interests is greatly emphasized, making people believe that everyone has original sins, such as selfishness, greed, and laziness, so everyone must be bound by contracts. But manmade contracts are too easy to break, so religion emerged as a result. In this way, humans also have deals with the God and have to be under his supervision, judgment, and the threat of hell. Moreover, it’s believed that there is a perfect world created by God. This physical world we live in is just a flawed reflection of that world of ideas, and rationality is the most reliable tool to help us travel from "this shore" to "the opposite shore", during which process sensibility and emotions are not as important, and even harmful as they hinder clear judgment. Only after God said "let there be light" came the real light, so language and expression are very important, because language is logic; Essence is believed to precede existence and should regulate existence; each subject is perceived as a singular entity with its core essence and the corresponding perfect version for its continuous improvement. Everyone is obliged to make their own efforts to get as close as possible to the essence of things and the ideal world that they constitute, in order to redeem oneself, get favored by God, and eventually rise to heaven.The greatest achievement by such western philosophy so far has been technological advancement, which allows people to get lifted from extreme material scarcity, and live longer; Also, individualism and rationality have empowered people with the awareness and ability to question, analyze, and transform everything. But this is all about tool making. Nowadays, Wes-phi-ism is so overly obsessed with instrumental rationality that the final purpose is neglected, which has become total disasters in all other fields, such as society, humanity, education, art, culture, etc.:First of all, Wes-phi-ism is anti-individuality, anti-equality, anti-diversity, anti-peace, anti-human and anti-nature:Western philosophy at its base level seems to be all about individualism that promotes diversity and freedom, but in fact, the ultimate belief at the top level and the practice methodology to achieve it are both highly controlled and unified. The former means the absolute worship of God and his world of ideas, and the latter refers to rational thinking. Both are clear and easy to understand and learn, making it also convenient to externally score, compare, and judge all people based on the same unified standards. Anyone who’s not actively believing or following is regarded as a freak that needs to be converted or eliminated. Meanwhile, because of the oppositional and analytical relationship between subjects and objects, the observance of the jungle law, and the inherent violent gene that celebrates outbound exploring and conquering, Western culture is very used to internally stratifying its own people, where winners can take all and elites can do whatever they want; while externally treating other people and nature as exploitable resources that can be freely plundered, transformed, and utilized, and also regarding other cultures as barbarians with missing or poor beliefs that need to be rescued and unified into the same western value system. Therefore, it’s no wonder that the ancient Greece was already a slavery society itself, and later the West further expanded itself crazily into the world, brutally colonizing and enslaving other people, forcibly making up standards to divide certain communities into different regions or ethnic groups resulting in countless historical problems, while creating other standards to cleanse and massacre those people who were graded low enough. Even now, in the relatively peaceful age, the West is still really fond of internally stratifying all commodities and people so that those at the bottom can be despised, while externally, using globalization to exploit the natural resources and human labor of other countries, and in return exercise economic and cultural hegemony, without even feeling guilty or grateful for those who are forced to make the sacrifice, but instead, believing that everything is destiny, that the weak are naturally not blessed by God anyway, born with poor qualities and also not making enough active effort. They are less than human and deserve to be exploited and suppressed. Meanwhile, the West has always been forcefully exporting its own ideology and values with contempt but as a favor to other countries, actively interfering with different regions』 ideas and internal affairs, messing things up all around the globe.This also explains why Capitalism, generated in the West, has a pathological fascination with money, believing that wealth must be endlessly accumulated as much as possible in private hands. It’s because first, money can buy stuff, which means higher survival possibility like animals in the jungle law; second, in Protestant ethics, whether you have the destiny of being favored by God can only be discovered and proved through how much and well you work, which usually brings money, so finally the logic gets simplified into that financial success equals a progress-oriented lifestyle, equals personal virtue, equals a blessed destiny, equals more power to ascend to heaven. Poverty, on the other hand, is equivalent to moral corruption, because the poor have succumbed to the evil of human nature and have not worked hard enough for self-redemption, so they deserve to be punished and then go to hell. Such a way of thinking inevitably causes oligarchy in all aspects, such as the growing wealth gap between the rich and the poor, the implicit authoritarian regime in culture, and the unavoidable Iron law of oligarchy in politics in disguise of surface democracy, etc.In the same way, the modern world has been forged by Wes-phi-ism into an extremely large, complex, and sophisticated machine based on the obsession over wealth, rationality and the distrust of sinners, which leads to the complete McDonaldization of Society: everything is hyper efficient, ruthless, predictable, uniformed, and controlled, leaving no room for independent judgment and alternative choices. Once born, everyone by default must start to be alienated into a small cog. The most important life task is to find out your single precise position on the machine, to be the good cog all your life and let its title define your identity. Just as the agricultural revolution enabled wheat to tame humans, since the industrial revolution, we have all become slaves to machines, feeling obliged to sacrifice humanity to help the machine grow by all means. A typical example is that many people nowadays are worrying that artificial intelligence will grab human jobs in the future, creating a huge group of "useless people." Many so-called elites are also designing solutions to see how to deal with the "useless mass". Oh my gosh! How absurd and horrific this whole idea is! Shouldn’t we feel glad that so many fellow humans will be finally liberated from boring jobs and get the chance to fully explore what they really like? Shouldn’t we think more about how to improve the entire social structure and system to better serve EVERY human being? This whole issue is a bloody exposure of Wes-phi-ism’s inherent distrust of people, firm support for inequality, and sick obsession with instrumental rationality. Clearly, how can decision makers and creators NOT be designing anti-human technologies if they are thinking all in THIS way?Means have become ends. Such distorted upside-down beliefs and practices can be found everywhere in Wes-phi-ism, such as the over-addiction to procedural justice in Western legal system, crazy gambling with financial derivatives in the financial market, or pedantic word game over trivial concepts in academic researches.People can die, but the machine must never stop. The pathetic nature of this seemingly prosperous modern society is just about how we ceaselessly transform precious and finite natural resources into illusory artificial financial symbols, by abusing human and making overly-saturated highly-disposable products as excuses. It’s a whole set of imagination pacifier of what vitality and the meaning of life is about inside the mind of those who are brainwashed by Western philosophy. Tragically, as powerful and reliable as this machine seems to be, it is, in fact, extremely fragile because of being too rigid and sophisticated. Any turbulence can paralyze it, such as this pandemic. In the end, humanity is sacrificed in exchange for nothing but illusions.Scientism is another evil result of rationality supremacy. The unconditional worship of technology makes people think that everything can and should be under control and all problems will be solved as long as the knowledge is obtained and the tools are developed, making everyone less humble and reverent, but more arrogant and dominant towards nature and other people, losing the psychological mechanism to adapt to changes and accidents flexibly. For example, people subconsciously believe that medicine is omnipotent, get obsessed with the unconditional extension of life span, or blame the doctors for incurable diseases. As another example, when companies and organizations should be eliminated, their lives are still sustained by all means to make sure that the bureaucratic inertia is maintained. The third example is many people’s mental breakdown during this pandemic. They』ve lost the ability to believe or accept uncontrollable conditions and any disturbance of daily routines.The education system is also the victim and perpetrator of all this. A school has always been a McDonaldized mental concentration camp, with the main purpose to train and prepare obedient easy-to-control slaves for the same kind of inhuman machine life after graduation. Different students』 complex personalities and conditions are brutally ignored and suppressed, forcing everyone of the same age to complete the same courses within the same time, with the same standardized exams at every end to constantly remind most people how retarded they are. The primary task of a school is to force-feed knowledge, the content and format of which haven’t even changed in the past 200 years and the quality is even worse than some free online courses today. Knowledge is power, as always boasted. But apparently, knowledge does not equal wisdom or virtues, and if the power is used to destroy humanity, maintain inequality and slavery control, it is not a good thing at all. What’s worse, the knowledge in today’s schools is often false or outdated, and the students simply don’t like it and will never need it for the rest of a lifetime. Such education production lines are intended to improve the training efficiency, but in fact, they severely hinder the individual's willingness to learn and the rate of progress because of its anti-human nature. The Precious youth is entirely wasted on useless knowledge that gets forgotten immediately after exams, and on endless fight against meaningless setbacks and frustrations, which keeps taring all individuals apart until they are completely numb and submissive. Huge amounts of social resources are wasted in this way, only to deter the progress and innovation of the whole society. In addition, as identical as different schools are in every aspect, in the Internet age, high-quality resources are still not being shared sufficiently to reduce repetitive labor and eliminate inferior teaching. Rankings are deliberately maintained based on the same content, so that famous schools can keep their reputation as mysterious scarce luxury. On the surface, it seems natural that schools have to be stratified by teaching quality, while in fact, now it’s more about maintaining closed social circles, dividing people into different social classes as early as possible based on family background and resources, providing legitimacy, human resource and ideology preparations for the solidified social stratification and inequality later in life.Higher education’s discipline setting is just as fragmented as the division of occupations in society, both in line with the thinking of subjects dissecting objects. Barriers between schools, majors, and jobs are so strict that the cost of trial and error gets terribly high, making it impossible to try freely different development routes of academia or career and switch flexibly between them, let alone create one’s own path. The result is horrible: Researchers in institutions, especially those of social sciences and arts, are increasingly getting their fields so subdivided and narrowed that they』ve lost the holistic and realistic perspective, madly obsessed with creating snobbish theories to forcibly explain useless matters, indulged in their self-entertaining tiny groups for some self-righteous intellectual masturbations. It is getting more and more unmotivated and difficult for these segregated groups to integrate each other to solve complex real-world problems. So-called intellectuals and authorities have all become pedantic pseudo elites, cutting themselves further away from the general public while accusing the people for being anti-intellectual, only moaning and whining in the glory from the past narcissistically. And for those other people who choose to work in various industries, the situation is hardly any better: because school and work are divided into two clear-cut stages in life, because the content of learning is getting increasingly disconnected from the industries, and also because people have often been forced to study a major that they didn’t really fit, once graduating, they all have to miserably re-adjust and re-adapt to the society, painfully choosing between established positions on the social machine, confused and depressed during a very long transitional period, only to hurriedly squeeze into a job they hate under the pressure of conformity and making a living. Even if they like the job, it will still become boring due to the monotonous repetition. Nonetheless, nobody dares to switch career paths freely, as the social machine just keeps everything running like hell with no spare time or resource to make care-free trials. When the dog days are finally over upon retirement, these people immediately get spurned as social burdens for not contributing to the machine any more. And after getting defined by the same job for so long time, they also don’t know what other values their lives can have, so suddenly all meanings of life get lost, leaving such inner void and misery haunting them until they die. This is the tragic pathetic life of most contemporary people.Secondly, Wes-phi-ism is anti-reality, anti-integrity, anti-self, and anti-unity:The fascination with singular substance and essence in Western philosophy has led to either the creation of many crude and narrow boundaries within one system that should have been treated as a unified integration, or the forcible binding and simple unified judgment of many different aspects that should have been considered separately. Meanwhile, the artificially assigned "essence" is often in conflict with the complex and fluid "existence", resulting in many struggles.What’s more, Western philosophy has always denied reality. After all, the real world is just a trashy imitation of the ideal world. All entities cannot be recognized and accepted for their status quo, because there will always be a corresponding perfect version. But the truth is: reality cannot be changed or eliminated easily even if it’s not accepted frankly, while the idea of perfection or essence is actually an emptiness that can only be approached infinitely but forever unreachable. Therefore, many contemporary society’s problems are the results of the conflict and struggle between "this shore" and "the opposite shore".The superstar manufacturing phenomenon is a typical example from the combination of the two kinds of conflict and struggle mentioned above. Someone who is just good at singing, acting, sports and so on, cannot choose to only do that one thing well, but must be fully packaged in all aspects into a god or goddess, including the face, body, makeup, hair, fashion, lifestyle, character, behavior and so on, striving to create a human perfection, which can constantly reminds the public of their incompetence, mediocrity and original sin, promoting extensive self-denial and self-hatred, after which self-redemption can be achieved by consuming the peripheral products to enshrine, worship and imitate these artificial gods. By covering up all parties』 nature and sincerity, the god-creation process consolidates the unequal social stratification, and the value mission of wealth accumulation.But everyone is just a mortal after all. The Internet age has been making such god-creation more and more difficult. Perfection too high above will look too false, so some fake privacy, fake behind-the-scene stories and fake ordinary life of the stars must be carefully fabricated to pretend they are close to the average people. But too much or too real privacy will make the stars look too ordinary to be desirable, so all in all, their highly delicate balance of personal image has to be cautiously tended, leading to quick and complete exhaustion of the body and mind of everyone involved.In fact, superstars are the modern living versions of ancient Greek and Roman statues. Ancient Greek statues affirmed human scale through rational calculations, but denied human value by shaping perfections, while all ancient Roman artistic expressions are filled with the admiration for violence, power, conquest and plunder, the greed for money and wealth, and the ostentation of strength and achievements, all of which were crystallized into ancient Roman majestic cities, walls, roads, palaces, and statues, and are also manifested as modern cities』 magnificent scale, soaring skyscrapers, splendid streets, bright intimidating consumption places, and the sparkling perfect superstars. From ancient times to present days, all of these are front-end weapons by Western civilization to show off, shock and control, using imperialistic moral valuesof abstinence, self-discipline and obedience to brutally suppress people's personalities, desires, and passions, in exchange for maximum rationality and efficiency in collective actions. The art intended to eradicate emotions and desires is expressed as collective engineering, precise calculation, and wealth accumulation, resulting in the display of ancient Roman invincible war machines and heroic cities, and modern world’s urban aesthetics – massive, towering, cold, hard, clean and neat. However, desires and passions in human nature cannot be eliminated after all, so finally they can only get unleashed in the confession and madness in ancient Roman Pantheon, bathhouses and Colosseum, and in modern city’s nightclubs, secret rooms, and internet, under the cover of night and darkness, using alcohol, drugs, sex, voyeurism, slavery, and killing to construct, defend, release, and confirm the last few drops of personal free will.Everyone’s self has to be denied against the template of perfection, and given up for the sake of collective efficiency. But self-awareness and free will can never be eradicated. Such environment, coupled with the oppositional and distrustful relationship between people, and the obsession with assigning essence, has made people keener on addressing their own existence and defining "Who I Am", which has spawned an indispensable concept and movement in contemporary society- identity politics.Identity politics inherently dehumanize and divide people. An Individual who is supposed to be a complex system gets reduced to a single entity and tagged with various identity labels, such as gender, sexual orientation, skin color, occupation, hometown, etc. These seemingly natural labels are in fact all artificial social constructs. Existence that is supposed to be complex and fluid gets crudely simplified into stereotypes, with various transitions and gray areas in between forcibly removed or converted. Different groups are set up based on the labels. As long as there is a group, there will be the in-group vs. out-group mindset, instinctively protecting in-group interest, and treating out-group neighbors as natural enemies. And as long as there’s self-interest, there’s conflict. When the common collective interest gives way to groups』 self-interest, resources, no matter sufficient or not, will always be unfairly distributed due to deliberate competitions and hoarding, resulting in the mutual reinforcement between group tightening up and contradiction escalation, creating a vicious cycle.What's more absurd is that human’s existence is so complex that the different tags on the same person often fight against each other, or the same two neighbors have to be united under one label while hostile under another, as the social relations between the according groups can be extremely complicated and contradictory, making everyone confused and aggressive all the time, also hindering real solutions to some serious social issues from more solid perspectives.In short, identity politics emphasize more individuality than commonality, more self-protection than mutual reconciliation, more benefit grabbing than resource sharing, putting people in perpetual hatred and fight, making unity and peace never possible.Finally, Wes-phi-ism is anti-art and anti-creativity.Western philosophy, with its anti-diversity and anti-reality nature, likes to create unified standards for everything. Culture is no exception. Good or bad, high or low are believed to exist and must be judged within the same culture and across different cultures, plus divisions of academic disciplines and social labor, fine art is thus singled out and raised to the highest cultural position. The entire Western art history also proves how Art has been used as both the manifestation and the weapon of ideological liberations, continuously aiding the public to break away from the rule of religions and imperial powers to return to and elevate the average life. Today ’s fine art, placed in public galleries and museums, is theoretically open to everyone, as if cultural equality and democracy was ultimately achieved. But in fact, it’s all illusion. Real equality can never be achieved, nor can we truly liberate human nature, as long as we can’t jump out of the thinking of Western philosophy. Surface oppression will only turn into hidden control, and art will always be the accomplice.Out of the conviction and pursuit of the world of ideas, Fine art, at its supreme position, undertakes the mission of infinitely approach the purest possible essence and ideals. And out of the obsession with singular substance, ideas and spirit must be expressed onto concrete, perceptible matters, so Art must be presented as artworks. But any man-made matters naturally bear some secular marks, so once made, they are never perfect enough. Besides, different creators』 natural differences and limitations also determine that opinions are forever in dispute about how various ideals should be like. As a result, Western Art, with its inherent Oedipus complex, have enjoyed violent subversive attacks and revolutions between its generational -isms and schools. The world of ideas on "the opposite shore", though thought to be objectively existing, is actually a forever unreachable emptiness, and these art regeneration movements, looking so thrilling and necessary, are actually just noisy crying in despair, self-praised as glorious innovations.Western Art is full of negative energy -- moaning, whining, complaining, cursing, wailing, howling --best at internecine fighting and humiliation. After all, the social mainstream is all about pushing ideals everywhere for obedience and money. Therefore, all the dirty jobs of venting, releasing and scolding are dumped onto Art, which has become a drama queen or total psycho kicked out to the edge of society, forever denying what is not what, not capable of imagining and affirming what should be how. The desperate questioning and de-construction for their own sakes continue all the way till the dead end of Minimalism, after which no new subversive tricks could be played any more, so the postmodern Art, in confusion, could only reluctantly and unconsciously creep towards Eastern philosophy, which is to blur the line between Art and life. Artists could no longer be the society’s leaders, but only samplers, trying to throw oneself as a test strip into the increasingly chaotic society to reflect its conditions, hoping to trigger some thinking. Tragically, whatever they do, no one ever dares to jump out of the realm of Art itself. The core of contemporary art is getting emptier and weaker. Only bluff is left once the protective aura of Art context is gone.Western contemporary art is utterly schizy: on one hand pretending to return to life, on the other hand carrying the arrogant mission of denying life. The ideal world is pursued but in vain, while the real world gets neglected and dilapidated. Art gets sandwiched between the two awkwardly and can only jump up and down anxiously, smashing itself all broken and bleeding in the glass house of Western philosophy, glaring at various issues, clamoring empty talks, not trying or able to offer effective solutions, staying snobbish and not speaking human language, becoming complete word games and mental masturbations, where a group of self-important people drawing circles for themselves and then trying to jump out of them. So-called artists increasingly consist of stupid people who pretend to be smart and profound by playing mystification, who cannot even sort out the truth themselves, but still dare to demand the audience to introspect; who are deeply perplexed themselves, but are not ashamed to drag everyone into the desperate emptiness together; who are always standing high above there with a gesture of compassion, feeling so great and noble, as if they』ve seen through everything, only able to throw a bunch of pretentious perceptible expressions in the safe zone fenced by themselves, which is only to sustain the bureaucratic inertia of the art machine that should die, and dump personal mental rubbish conveniently in the name of nobility, being the bitch while demanding praises.Art that nourishes the soul should be within understanding, but outside of logic, while today's anti-human contemporary art is precisely the opposite: within logic, but outside of understanding. On one hand it’s yelling: Be free! Go have any analysis and pursuit as you want! On the other hand, it’s shouting: Wake up! Anything you analyze and pursue is meaningless in the end! The contemporary art world is increasingly becoming an arms race for artificial theories and a trade fair for unequal educational privilege: Legit artworks and exhibitions must be screened out rationally by gatekeepers of pedants with art history or theory background, and a legit artist must have a master degree from a famous Western art school in the resume. Everything runs on rationality and knowledge, eventually turning Art into social sciences』 copycat and visual knockoff, but it’s neither as rigorous and precise as the real social science, nor able to solve any practical problems, while intuition, sensibility and spirituality have long been ruthlessly suppressed and abandoned. Even art schools in the West rely heavily on language, the representation of rationality: the most important teaching method is to simply chat with each other, while being over-the-top inventive, critical and outrageous all for their own sakes. Classroom discussions often divert into insignificant details, and art making often gets reduced to a word game about how a student use language to better explain the meaning. It doesn’t matter if the work is visually boring or empty in meaning. In fact, that’s awesome! As long as the surface techniques are exquisite enough to look mysterious and sellable, plus some wordy enigmatic theories and concepts -- There you have it! A quintessential excellent piece of contemporary art!The independence of Art is becoming more and more problematic, committing at least six crimes:No.1: People's aesthetic experience that should have been widely dispersed is now severely restricted. In fact, everything in the universe can be appreciated, but when Art gets defined and boundaries get drawn because essence forcibly proceeds existence, no matter how hard Art itself tries to jump out of these frameworks, man-made matters are still overly emphasized, making everyone self-righteously stop making efforts to consciously observing, feeling or thinking about the majority of situations during the majority of time in their lives, leaving the senses, heart, and brain more closed, numb and dumb, which fundamentally hinders the correct recognition of the relationship between oneself and all the rest of the universe, also making real life more and more boring.No.2: Creativity of the whole society gets severely suppressed, because everyone gets brainwashed to "voluntarily" give up the courage, ability and responsibility of crazy creation that should have belonged to all. Humans as a whole by default give away such tasks to "a handful of particularly talented and capable" members. Creative activities that should have scattered everywhere in life get centralized into a narrow special realm called Art, pretending it can represent and meet the needs of everyone. And by raising its status, cultural authoritarian regime gets set up, intimidating the public into further denying and suppressing their own sprouting creative ideas that always seem rough and inferior, shaping everyone into passive consumers, who must pretend to be finding resonance, or at least completing baptism in this top small realm, which is increasingly separated from reality. By artificially grading creativity and deliberately maintaining the scarcity of the head, everyone gets tricked to focus more on such rarity, so that they can forget or ignore their own ordinary but equally important ideas. Cultural "elites" proudly think that they are leading progress from top down, while in fact, it stifles too many diverse creativities that should have emerged and grown naturally and wildly in life from bottom up.No.3: Art has become a powerful accomplice to pacify people to comfortably accept mental imprisonment and manipulation in everyday life. Wild ideas that should have been scattered and taking roots organically everywhere, continuously liberating humanity and constructing the ultimate diversity, are now uniformly tamed, bought, censored and disinfected by art institutions, getting stored in a safe white box, making people accustomed to exercising short experience and release at specific time and places. Even if an artist wishes that the audience could bring some triggered reactions back to life to induce changes, it’s eventually impossible because those purified artsy ideas get too lifted away from real life and have lost their relevance, not to mention that the contemporary art is getting so narrow and artificial that it actually cannot produce any wild ideas or genuine reactions any more.No.4: Artists』 living conditions are extremely distorted and tragic. Under the division of social labor, an artist is also considered an independent academic choice and career option, which makes the whole situation exceptionally embarrassing and ugly: almost all other occupations, even designers included, can be used as part of the social machine to work closely with other cogs to solve problems in workflows, while Art, as the anti-reality spokesperson of extreme purity, is required to stand far and clear from the machine to offer some cold hard independent personal observations, which has created the general impression that Art cannot create 「value」 for society directly. And yet, its elusive but expressive nature makes it particularly easy to attract attentions and criticisms. As a result, art students are often regarded as troubled youngsters with poor abilities but rich families, and artists as self-righteous narcissists. People who have studied art are also verifying and reinforcing such stereotypes for they indeed cannot do anything else. What’s worse, they can't make money by making art alone as it’s not helping anyone solve any problems directly. Meanwhile, money is the main measurement of value and success in this society, so most artists get constantly despised. But if you aim to make money through making art, the distain will even double as you are considered to be contaminated by the vulgar world. The only 「correct」 or 「decent」 job for an artist is to become an art teacher, continuing this Art Ponzi scheme to deceive the naïve following generations. Any other types of work will be ridiculed as insufficient dedication, bad work ethic or poor professional ability, disgracing the expensive education and the noble title. In sum, the very same social system elevates the status of artists in abstract senses, while marginalizing their survivals in specific ways. How much harm and suffering can a soft human heart withstand, and how much creativity has been deprived of their easy and healthy growth in such perverted conflict?! There are certainly those very few well-known professional artists who finally 「made it」, but they would inevitably become bureaucratic in the end. Under the pressure of the art world bureaucracy, kidnapped by a bunch of titles and the commercial interests of multiple parties, they have to produce works of reliable quality at a relatively stable speed like a production line, with overall consistent themes and styles. If too innovative, the work will not be recognized or wanted by curators and collectors. If too fixed, they will be despised as a decline in progress and creativity. The art world always tries to deny that Art is mainly a commodity, but only able to function in commercial modes. Lots of energy of artists get wasted on the careful navigation between the delicate bureaucratic balance, just to maintain the so-called core essence of one’s creations.The distorted art system, coupled with the society’s wide-spread long-term suppression of the public ’s creativity,determines that anyone who can still insist on art making in such terrible environment will not be very normal mentally, causing the image of an artist to have long been rendered as a chaotic messy creative lunatic, but magically, it has also accomplished another god-creating process, advertising insanity, which is unacceptable in social mainstream, into some solid proof of the rarity of creative talent, reinforcing the public ’s denial of creative ability from their 「normal」 selves. Artists are also forged into superstars and have to provide as many and sensational life story gossips as other entertainment celebrities to centrally satisfy people's emotional catharsis needs, so that everyone can continue to be peacefully enslaved at other times. All this chaos has got many art students to mistake their personality defects, mental disorder and social incompetence as creative talent itself, and has also further solidified the social game rule that the privileged top class can do whatever they want. After all, ancient Greek mythology was already filled with gods』 juicy stories like incest, killing, promiscuity, rape, cheating, human-beast intercourse, and so on. The mortals only deserve to look up and admire. Under such structure, art cannot stay pure, as artists are full of desires to pursue the freedom and power after rising to the top.No.5: The strength of Art gets weakened continuously. Concepts and activities constrained in the Art context are getting increasingly disconnected from reality, which get killed immediately in real life once out of the sterile environment within the four white walls. Realizing such problems, Art now is starting to intersect with other disciplines, but its anti-reality and anti-utility nature always turns this wishful thinking into some gimmicky embellishment in the inspiration section at the beginning of the creative process; Art now is also trying to intervene and integrate with real life, but the outcome is merely about dragging some sunshine, clouds, light, air, plants, animals, relics, etc., from outside into the gallery, faking some meditation and spirituality, always forcing life to accommodate Art, instead of Art truly going back into life. In some other cases, the white box itself gets destroyed, such as punching holes in the wall, lifting off the roof, digging open the ground, or flooding the space with liquid, pretending to dare to break through limits and boundaries, while in fact, it is still about self-centered drama in the secured greenhouse. Western art has been going all the way downhill ever since Duchamp's urinal. The real world outside of Art gets continuously polluted, destroyed, fought over, and lived. Nothing really got much better or worse because of Art. Art becomes more and more meaningless for continually losing its relevance.No.6: Art has completely hollowed out from concept to content due to the non-stop deconstruction and has ceased to exist except in name. First, conceptually, the forcibly elevated high status of Art makes the word "art" easily abused by other fields, in order to raise their own values in a society where everything has to be graded and stay unequal. But Art has always been attacking itself and constantly deconstructing "what is art", which makes its own definition forever changing and elusive, so many people actually don’t know what they are really talking about when they are abusing the concept, and can finally only point to some superficial technical methods and stereotypical expressions left behind by previous Art practices, which are outdated in current development. These surface forms are used as tools to boast oneself as "better and higher", so that deception, control and profit grabbing can become easier. When the idea of Art gets reduced to formal decorations, it is actually preventing other fields from throwing away these walking sticks and really looking at themselves, correctly setting up their own standards, and nurturing the awareness and ability to sincerely explore their own progress. The self-deconstruction of Art and the abuse from others have made the concept of "art" completely obscure to everyone, so it matters even less and can be more arbitrarily distorted and exploited. Second, when it comes to content, many functions carried by Art, such as recording and representation of reality, storytelling, symbol building and as carrier of the meaning behind, pursuit of beauty, rendering of artists』 subjective personality, creation of appreciable objects ... were considered one by one throughout history as 「burdens」 that should not belong to Art, and were all gradually replaced and given back to the common life of common people in forms of technological inventions, media, consumer goods, social movements, etc. But as the end of Western philosophy's pursuit of truth is nothing but emptiness, the purest extreme represented by art can only be an endless void after all outer layers get stripped away. Art has become a garbage recycling station: functions that cannot fit into other fields get all crammed over, and when others need these functions, they get all taken away one by one with nothing left. Today's contemporary art is just an empty mummy, barely surviving on its own bureaucratic inertia and its collusion with power and money, the three of which provide mutual legitimacy for each other’s authoritarian control.To summarize the above six crimes, the independence of Art eventually wiped out the necessity of its own independent existence, making it completely a tool of power and control at the moment.The extremely personal artistic exploration is now forced into a bureaucratic system, pursuing maximum influence, making a small group of people representing and lecturing to everyone. Personal traits of the masses are denied and obliterated. Communication between the ordinary gets scorned and cut off. Everyone has to look upwards for elements that can sort of represent themselves within the tiny realm shaped by the authorities. Everyone has lost the awareness and ability to truly speak for themselves, by default submitted to the unified mainstream culture, fostering the current centralized cultural authoritarian regime, which seems democratic only on the surface. And when the top authorities are confused themselves, everyone gets dragged into mental destruction together. But such a deformed cultural ecology will always have its market in the West. After all, the core of Western philosophy is to deny reality to promote self-hatred and self-abuse. Art galleries and museums are just churches, and artists are high priests. The artwork must be incomprehensible, in order to warn you of your mediocrity and stupidity, that you have original sin and are only worthy of deterrence, discipline, and admonishment. Therefore, the Western audience, having suffered from Stockholm syndrome for such a long time, particularly enjoy the torture from the unsightly and meaningless contemporary art, so that they can despise and spurn themselves in these impressively decorated big halls, trash the outside real world into a mess with their own hands, and then run inside these safe venues to pretend some distain, despair and confession in front of the representations of their horrible achievements, finally acquiring some pious pleasure, orgasm, and satisfaction through a double dose of continuous aversion towards both self and reality, so that the whole sadistic relationship can be consolidated. As the Chinese saying goes: 『it’s even easier to move rivers and mountains than to change people’s nature』, western believers dated all the way back to the Middle Ages in Europe already preferred not to take any bath during the entire life. By destroying oneself, disgusting others, and stinking the reality, they thought they were showing the evilness of the everyday world, and the purity and piety of their inner selves. Such a way of thinking and behaving obviously has continued to this day, and contemporary art is just its stealthy adaptation.Between the world of ideas prescribed by high art and the real world lived by everyone, there is always the deliberately maintained gap and the irreconcilable conflicts, turning the current product market, which is the junction between the two, into the most distorted and hypocritical representative of Wes-phi-ism:New products are developed often for innovation and variety’s own sakes, and different levels must always be maintained, with each level having excessive quantity and terrible homogenization; all advertising and publicity cannot be just about honest facts, but must render the perfect world behind the product. Business owners try all their best to establish a "high-end" image to make consumers feel inferior on one hand, while racking their brains to please and flatter consumers to make them feel complacent on the other. Once bought, the product gets frowned upon immediately for becoming imperfect without those fantasies, and also gets outdated very soon with the artificially incited rapid changing trends, plus the planned obsolescence, consumptions becoming more and faster, forcing everyone to work harder to produce more and consume more, destroying oneself to strengthen the slavery of the social machine. The relationship between people and people gives way to that between people and things, making the public more timid, stupid, and easy to manipulate, while also making them more arrogant, thinking that they are very unique, they understand everything and they are always correct. As a result, it’s becoming more difficult for people to get along with each other, and the overflow and artificial grading of products is only making that worse by having the distribution of resources look more unequal, consolidating the stratification, so that people rely even more on materials for comfort, creating a vicious cycle.In today’s society, life seems great with such abundant materials while, in fact, most products are simply unnecessary and even harmful. On the surface, everyone is fully exerting their free will by having so many choices, while in fact, it’s all illusion with everything well-chosen beforehand by cultural authorities with contempt. Just watch the infamous cerulean-sweater scene in the movie the Devil Wears Prada and you』ll get a taste of that.The fashion industry is the perfect example of the distorted product market. Designers beat their brains out to design and lead trends just for the sake of designing and leading, resulting in those bizarre and outrageous runway clothes just for the stage effect. The carefully selected models, young and beautiful, starve themselves into malnourished figures, so that they can join editors and photographers to produce fashion campaigns with outlandish visual impact. All bloody effort is just to create an unreachable world of perfections and fantasies. After that, these crazy designs and ideas basically finished their historical mission, with lucky ones at best thrown into museums to continue their help with the cultural authoritarian control. Anyway, creative talent only flies up in the air, abused as gimmicks for marketing or tools of mental control, without any constructive help to real life. When these big brands arrive in real stores, the insane designs all get simplified into fast-selling cotton/synthetic-blend basics, and the crazy concepts all get reduced to small patches of brand logos or simple signature prints, talking one way in the front while acting another in the back, full of duplicity and hypocrisy. And when the stupid consumers purchase these so-called luxury items, what they get is basically the same level of design and quality as Uniqlo, but with all those fantasy marketing and ass-licking services, they think they are sharing the unique value and high-end aesthetics of the brands, and showing their unique identities and elegant taste. Everyone dreams blindly in fantasies and lives pathetically in the reality. On the streets or in shopping malls, everyone still looks so similar, banal and boring, even those peacocks in fashion week photo shoots who claim to represent the "street style" will hide themselves away in everyday life. The bigger-name fashion houses really need other brands to follow their trends to legitimize their cultural authoritarian position, while also scold these brands for following and copying so that they can boast their 『originality』 and 『high class』; On one hand they want as many 『must-have』 or 『it』 items as possible so they can empty everyone’s wallet, but on the other hand they are also afraid that too many popular pieces on the street will negatively affect the brand’s prestige and prices, so in the end, they』d rather burn those 「luxury」 clothes and bags in tons to forcibly maintain the artificial scarcity. What's more horrific is that the fashion machine, just like the rest of the social machine, is continuously escalating in scale and speed. Everyone gets caught up in the madness until they are completely exhausted in ideas and dying from mental/physical breakdowns. Meanwhile, nature is also ruthlessly destroyed by this second largest polluting industry in the world. The precious creativity and intelligence of humans get all wasted on mutual scheme, deception and harm, making everyone live in perpetual fatigue, struggle and fear.Many symbols of modern good life that look legit and desirable, are only illusions that cannot withstand scrutiny. Take one simple example: the current obsession over western luxury goods, say, a woman’s love for expensive designer handbags, because of reasons like: the bag can manifest her identity, it looks pretty and trendy, and she appreciates the brand’s value, etc. But let’s give it a second thought:Identity of what? Gender as a woman? Obviously, the western-centric rigid binary gender division and norms have been a double suppression on both men and women, and even more on sex/gender minorities. In addition, why should a certain design telegraph your gender? The gendering of inanimate objects is how this society creates unnecessary markers to reinforce problematic gender roles. So, the identity of being rich? But why do you need to flaunt your wealth? because we still don’t have enough to eat and wear so the jungle law must be reinforced? Because the society is so materialistic and your self-esteem so low that you need the external armor to boost confidence? Is it to further help strengthen the social stratification and the jealousy and hatred it produces? Or do you believe in Protestant ethics and need to use wealth to prove that you are favored by God? Whatever, even if the bag successfully renders a wealthy female identity, so what? Does it automatically prove that you are a good person with virtues? Does it do any good to improve your relationship with others? Who are these "other" people exactly? Do you really care about each other? And what's so different and unique about your identity apart from being born with a different look? Which part of you is a completely individualized original creation rather than the consumption of the labeled ready-made products dictated by authorities? And what can the mass-produced consumer goods say about you exactly? And What can the group of people defined by the purchase of the same products say or bring to everyone?Moreover, why do you think the bag is pretty? Where and how? What is your standard for beauty? Where do these standards come from? Even if the bag is pretty itself, does your whole styling from head to toe look well put together? And what message is the whole look trying to convey in general? Is it unique and interesting enough? What does it have to do with you? Are all the fashion choices on the body properly delivering that message? Besides, are you trying to make yourself look more pretty with the pretty bag? Why do you need to look pretty? To fight with other women to satisfy the patriarchy male gaze? And why follow trends? To prove that you have the time and ability to capture and get brainwashed by useless information fast? Is it a Western-style fear of going to hell by not obeying cultural authorities? Or is it a Chinese-style fear of being left behind from conformity and collective behaviors?And what brand value are you talking about? The artistic value? Clearly, fashion has always been despised by its twin sister "fine art" as an idea copycat with no originality or profoundness. So, maybe the value of the craftsmanship? Well, these designer bags are basically all mass-produced by factory machines, and it’s well known that the quality of the authentic products are often worse than the counterfeits. As for those truly hand-crafted big-name bags, the question is why waste the precious artisans』 talent on such mass-produced identical products day-after-day? If it is really good and necessary, why not mass produce on machines so that everyone in need can get one? Why deliberately maintain the scarcity? What kind of artistic or cultural necessity is there in the outdated handwork and the simple repetition in the disguise of 『classic』? And how should we understand its reinforcement on inequality and suppression of more diverse creativity? Anyway, does the brand value come from its "long" history? First, whether it is long or not depends on how broad your vision is. These post-industrial revolution products are only a blink of the eye in the history of clothing and consumer goods, let alone compared with the entire human history. And they will soon be eliminated in the next era for only being the temporary symbols of inequality and gimmicks of capitalist consumerism now. Second, even if these several decades of history can be considered long, what is the legacy exactly? Even the founder ’s names got constantly modified. Turbulent fashion trends and different creative directors』 styles come and go, leaving nothing consistent, but only Wes-phi-ism’s signature bureaucratic inertia, the same as that we are obsessed with life extension and Mars immigration without questioning hard what actually makes life worth living. What’s more, the forced lifespan and fierce capital operation of these big corporations not only prevent their own designers from making the most faithful creations from heart because they always have to accommodate the market performance and the often outdated 「brand heritage」, but also destroy the living space of more independent designers of smaller scales, cruelly suppressing, wasting and eliminating the precious and diverse human creativities.In short, a luxury designer handbag is a quintessential crystallization of all the worst that Wes-phi-ism can offer, one out of the millions of sugar-coated Ponzi schemes of fake societal prosperity. When we use Western philosophy's own logic to analyze the phenomena it produces and takes pride in, all we get is complete self-contradiction and hypocrisy. Only those bloody problems left behind are real, such as workaholism, consumerism, escapism, inequality and endless health, interpersonal, environmental disasters.In fact, everything in Western culture is about building churches, and shopping malls are also such places for consumers』 self-hatred and self-salvation. In addition, with its nature of violence, aggression, anti-equality and anti-diversity, Western cultures are particularly keen to preach everywhere and bring cultural disasters to the world. Today, the global travel experience is getting worse and worse: Because of Western economic colonization and hegemony, the development within and between regions is extremely uneven. The gap between the rich and poor is widening, seriously damaging the social security of developed regions and the infrastructure construction of under-developed regions, hindering people from appreciating the local cultural treasures safely and/or conveniently. Moreover, Western cultural colonization and hegemony are continuously wiping out the cultural uniqueness of different places. Nowadays, after you take an arduous flight for dozens of hours, except a glimpse of the historical sites left behind by ancestors and a simple taste of the local food, all that’s left is basically to live in the same hotel, buy the same goods in the same stores, stand on identical streets, watching people wear the same clothes, want the same shoes and bags, love the same movies, listen to the same music ... Meanwhile, after brainwashed by the Western false individualism, consumerism and identity politics, all people everywhere are getting more and more greedy, snobbish, and self-righteous, making it harder to interact with each other. The convenient transportation from the technological progress cannot eliminate the deterioration of conditions and the barriers inside people's hearts, only to make the control and exploitation from the West easier and more invisible, and make the world more unequal, inconvenient and boring. The superficial homogenization under the cultural authoritarian kidnapping is mistaken for unity, while the hidden conflicts and alienations are getting more serious. Such globalization is really awful.Seriously, the current Western-centric world really sucks from inside out. This world is becoming hell, exactly because the West is always trying to turn it into heaven.So, what’s traditional Chinese philosophy like?Since ancient times, China has been vast in lands and rich in resources. People live in relatively fixed places, with a strong sense of stability, tolerance and peace of mind. Chinese philosophy was born from the combination of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism. But none of them is a religion. In fact, China never has its own religion, with no concept like God or heaven, and no difference between "this shore" and "the opposite shore". There is believed to be only one "shore", which is the real world we live in. Chinese do not care much about afterlife, ghosts or the supernatural, but more about living this mortal life well. People prefer to believe in and rely on the power of the positive side of humanity, believing that everyone has a "Buddha nature" within, and the meaning of life is to dig out your own "Buddha nature" through personal spiritual practice in the present world, and also to constantly observe and calibrate your most appropriate position in the dynamically changing universe, to enhance one’s own state of being, and to comply with the existing laws and harmony of the universe. Besides, everything is equal. The so-called imperfections and ugliness are also part of life, mutually complementing and defining beauty and positivity. As time goes by, the opposing parties will inevitably transform into each other, as said in many Chinese proverbs like 「Division long enough will surely gather. Gathering long enough will divide」, 「prosperity at its peak will surely decline」 「Things in extreme are surely going into reverse」, 「every cloud has a silver lining」 「nothing in this world is permanent」, and so on. Chinese philosophy does not trust language, believing that the most wonderful parts are always in the indescribable moments. High-context communication is pursued, where people do not need to say everything clearly if they can both understand and resonate in mind. Substance is not emphasized, so not all thoughts and feelings have to be expressed, with even less necessity for them to be represented by specific materials. Therefore, Chinese art appreciates a lot of negative space and mood/atmosphere rendering. Spiritual resemblance is more important than formal similarity. The heart should be touched rather than the brain worked. 「Existence precedes essence」 is accepted, so we don’t have to trace the origins of everything, but just need to go with the flow and continue. There isn’t much need to manually assign essence, make definitions, and divide boundaries. Peace and harmony are hugely valued in interactions. Nothing should be forced. One especially should not use personal will to force nature and others to change. Any intention that’s overly deliberate is false. Life needs subtraction to eliminate unnecessary obsessions. Nothing has to be in a certain way and cannot be let go. Everything is from "dependent arising" (Buddhism term), which is the unity of contingency and inevitability. Proper effort is required, but the result should be left to its luck and destiny. More attention is paid to the whole system, especially the space, movement and relationship within, than to the specific individuals inside. Everything in the world is interrelated, being one another’s causes and outcomes. There is me in you and you in me. We are a unity, with no necessity for the subject to oppose or dissect the object.Traditional Chinese philosophy respect reality and promote harmony, inclusivity and practicality, emphasizing more on entirety than classification, more emotions than rationality, more phenomena than origins, more moderation than extreme, and more acceptance than transformation. Such a way of thinking makes it harder to initiate Western-style technological breakthrough and progress in the beginning, so it is almost inevitable that old China got abused and exploited by the exploring, aggressive West with destructive weapons in history. In order to stop getting beaten, China, in its total panic, began to learn very hard from the West, trying to catch up and surpass. But unfortunately, due to the lack of rational criticality and also not enough time to think, everything from the West got copied, not only its technology, but also the Western philosophical values. However, tools are easy to learn, while minds are hard to change, which got such brainwashing only half done, finally turning the contemporary China into the biggest philosophical catastrophe.At its base level, traditional Chinese philosophy seems to be all about collectivism, but in fact, the final pursuit at the top and the cultivation method during the process are both highly flexible and personalized, the former referring to finding out your most appropriate position in the universe, and the latter meaning to use your own method and life experience to gradually feel the way through. It’s all diverse and free, so it’s very vague and complex, not as simple as knowledge, which you can understand immediately once you study with rationality. Everyone’s conditions are different, so even if you』ve figured out your own life, it’s still very hard to accurately communicate and share your results with others, especially against the backdrop that language and expression are not trusted. But in this case, people actually communicate more closely and highly value relationships, because everyone is a part of the system. If you want to find your own right position, you need to constantly refer to and care about one another. On the contrary, The Western philosophy is directly the opposite: at the base level is the distrustful individualism, while the final pursuit and cultivation method are both highly unified, simple and clear, which can be readily understood and learned fast. The admiration for language and expression also makes it easier to spread rules and evaluate results, so people don’t need too much horizontal communication, and can simply all look up and follow the instructions from above. The biggest problem of contemporary China is that at the base level, it’s still deeply kidnapped by the collectivism tradition, with not enough independent personality and individual freedom acquired, while the top-level pursuit and cultivation method have both been forcibly unified by Western brainwashing, so the individual ’s free will gets locked up completely from top to bottom, having no place to exert. At the same time, traditional interpersonal strong ties are cut off by modern development, making individuals feel extra lonely and vulnerable, but the emotions are suppressed by the pursuit of westernized efficiency and rationality, so the personal sense of existence also gets lost. In despair, one can only try to reach the westernized goals as soon as possible for self-salvation and prove the meaning of life. During the process, the only part where Chinese people find that they can exercise free will is the 「personal flexible cultivation method」 that they』ve been always good at. As the sayings go, 「Rules are stiff, but people are flexible」, 「Black or white, it’s a good cat as long as it catches mice」. People stop caring if they are bypassing rules or being opportunists, as long as they are achieving the final goal fast. After all, no one is afraid of God or the final judgment or the hell stuff, and in modern times, one can live very well without having to care about others. In fact, it is great if you look successful and others look like losers, as it’s perfectly in line with the western values of personal striving, the jungle law and victory showoff. Therefore, today's Chinese seriously lack morality after abandoning the manners of the ancestors, eager to achieve Westernized goals but with no Western contractual spirit, rush for quick gains by whatever means, and then get despised by both fellow Chinese and westerners. Sadly, even if the goal is reached in the end, no one truly resonates with its meaning, but they also don’t know what else they can believe in apart from the western-style success. What’s worse, the West is entering a dead end in philosophy itself, giving the Chinese an extra layer of confusion. In China, traditional virtues have been lost, but the terrible old customs are not eradicated; Western tools are learned, but the essence of western thinking is not comprehended. Contemporary Chinese people are almost the fusion of all the worst parts of philosophies and cultures from both East and West. Chinese people have poor rational and logical thinking and bad expressive ability. No one dares to speak up when necessary. And when they dare to express, it’s often not clear enough, with chaotic logic and unclear central idea, full of big empty words and literary clichés in speaking and writing. People often cannot distinguish facts from opinions, and do not know how to give specific examples or detailed descriptions. All these shortcomings get fully exposed in the English learning process. After all, the beauty of the Chinese language lies in its mood and atmosphere, but English in its logic. Both are extensions of their respective philosophical and cultural traditions.Chinese people lack the awareness and ability to question and critique, not able to think independently, very easy to be brainwashed and incited. From "elites" to civilians, no one can tell exactly which part of the morality and culture, either traditional or modern, Eastern or Western, should be preserved and which part should be abandoned or improved, on what basis, for what purpose, for whom, to what extent...no one knows how to ask complete and right questions, and no one can give solid answers even when the questions are right.Chinese people lack the awareness and ability of rigorous, precise, and in-depth dissection and categorization, easily satisfied with general feelings, rough ideas, hasty reading, superficial understanding, often believing that ignorance is bliss. Even when trying to be serious and precise, they find it hard to distinguish which is more important, primary, or urgent due to the lack of critical thinking, which only leads to more problems.Chinese people are often obsessed with outdated traditions, fettered by old conventions, lacking the courage and ability to break through, explore, and create disruptive innovations, not daring to reform even when necessary. Revolutions often come on impulse, with the wrong timing, goal and method. For example, seniority must always be given top priority in every field and within all families. The authority of the elders is indisputable, making it super difficult for young people to have a chance and get ahead. As a result, the elders often love to flaunt their old age, naturally self-important and bossy, refusing to make progress, severely lacking self-reflection and self-criticism. Meanwhile, young people don’t have the courage or room for innovation, often strive to be obedient cute little sheep in front of the elders and become experts of boots licking and ass kissing. Another example is that no Chinese can escape from the confinement of traditional family relations, which are so supreme that always have to be maintained unconditionally. Tightly bound family members closely control each other, fussy, garrulous, gossipy, caught up in perpetual entanglement. Even when the relation goes so horrible or harmful, it must not be cut off, just in the name of love. And when someone gets some success, nepotism is a must. The person must find all kinds of ways to grab and share benefits with all family members to the maximum.Chinese people’s personality is often weak, passive, fragile and timid. 1) Can't face or express true thoughts bravely, always trying to maintain the superficial harmony, complying in appearance but opposing in heart, faking affection and friendship, resulting in very complex interpersonal relationships. 2) Afraid to speak out when they want something, and ashamed to admit things they don’t want. Too much guessing game keeps wasting everyone’s feelings and resources. And when the truth gets leaked later anyway, all parties involved just feel extra embarrassed and hurt. 3) Dare not fight in the face of problems. Submissively grin and bear everything, or look around and think back and forth, overly cautious and indecisive, with nothing sorted out in the brain anyway and the best opportunity already missed. When it is time to take a shot, no one dares or has the ability to nail it. Too good at servility and self-consolation. Often swallow all insults and humiliation from outside silently, and then come back home to explode at family members. The closer the relation is, the more this person gets used and calculated. Those who look fierce and terrible get all the reverence. 4) Not able to design reasonable problem-solving procedures. Everything gets swayed by emotions, rather than tackled in a systematic, timely, calm and peaceful manner. Habitually repress oneself, hold back all the anger and grievance just to watch the situation get worse by itself, until finally it becomes too much to bear, despair will give courage to a coward and the person would suddenly explode and become insane and hysterical, the problem never solved, and everyone badly hurt.Chinese people lack independent personality, do not respect personal rights and individuality, and do not know how to live for one’s own. 1) Conformity is priority. Always follow the crowd. Rely on the herd to give courage to the cowardly self, while removing the fear of having to take the responsibility alone. 2) It has become a moral kidnapping and habit to always put the collective interest first, for which individuals』 benefit must be sacrificed, whether it is absolutely necessary or not. 3) Personal principles are often missing. Only know how to act within the rules set by the strong. Too good at taking orders and adapting to various control, manipulation and torture. 4) Servile personality is everywhere. Always ready to sacrifice oneself to please others. Funny enough, such obedience has made many Chinese straight girls and gay bottoms highly popular in the Euro-American dating market, and also made many Chinese workers into submissive, cheap, easy-to-use labor in domestic and international job markets. 5) There is little sense of boundaries and propriety during interpersonal interactions. Always use one’s own feeling to cover up other people’s true wishes. If they feel something is good, they will shove it directly to others without asking, and regard that as an expression of love and favor. Don’t really know how to put oneself in others』 shoes. Only good at imposing stuff onto each other. 6) Only live for the expectations and control of others. Adults work hard for the sake of their children and elderly parents in the family. Children study hard for the sake of their parents and teachers. No one knows what they really want for themselves, only good at repeating what others are doing. 7) Can't tolerate those people with unique personalities, strange thoughts, and alternative lifestyles, and will actively discriminate, suppress people who are different for no good reasons.Chinese people do not respect rules and contracts, too practical and result oriented. Laws often give way to private relations. Only eager to maintain the immediate relations and interest, without seeing or caring about the longer-term impact, especially on outsiders. Even when rules can be followed, they are still deliberately bypassed just to show how close and strong the relationship is, or to highlight personal hospitality or capability. It is almost impossible for acquaintances to set up clear rules and conditions in advance, so everything is a mess and mystery from the beginning, with only more disputes coming up later. Superficial friendliness keeps covering up hidden problems until finally everything fails completely and the relationship falls apart in the ugliest way.Chinese people can be very cold and indifferent to others. They don’t care if things are going bad as long as they are not affected personally. There might be several reasons for this, such as: the western urbanized and atomized lifestyle has cut off traditional close interpersonal connections; the overall weak personality; moral free riding from collectivism, thinking that someone else will do it; belief in 「going with the flow」, not forcing things to change, and harmony is top priority regardless of principles; Western philosophy’s malicious speculation and mistrust of others; the high risk of getting involved in other people’s affairs in the corrupted social atmosphere due to the spiritual confusions, and so forth.Chinese people love to compare and compete with surrounding people for everything obsessively, maintain surface personal image and vanity, and are often reluctant to admit they are wrong. This is because: 1) The long history of inequality around the world has made people accustomed to mutual discrimination and fighting for self-protection, 2) The animalistic instinct of believing in the survival of the fittest, together with the unified top-level goal in Western philosophy, has provided the motivation for self-verification and comparison from the perspectives of both maintaining survival and pursuing meaning. 3) People need to decorate their strengths outside to threat and deter others due to the insufficient protection of individual rights and interest, unclear principles, habit of bullying the weak and fearing the strong, and Westernized adherence to social Darwinism. 4) Chinese people lack independence and security in heart, and especially need external affirmation to support self-confidence, meanwhile unconditionally complying with social rules and collective actions, keeping pace with whatever others are believing, having or doing, for fear of being too different or unique. 5) Chinese people like to watch and pry into each other in order to locate everyone culturally. Privacy is not valued, and interpersonal boundaries are not clear. Plus the Westernized culture of emphasizing external expression and material representation. All has made comparison more perceptible and quantifiable, which only intensifies anxiety and strengthens the entire cycle.Chinese education is also completely westernized from content to structure, the only exceptions being some ancient literature learned by rote, essay writing filled with big empty words and fake emotions, and ideological and political lessons with Chinese characteristics. In the end, it has become a total failure, only learning the surface and dross from the West. For example, Chinese people are already bad at rational and critical thinking. But without additional training of such, McDonaldized education model gets simply copied, only to further destroy humanity, and cultivate more brainless, obedient machine parts that can only do jobs as told, and yet can’t even compete with the western machine parts in the whole Westernized framework. In addition, Chinese people are obsessed with mutual comparison and the competition is too fierce partially because of the huge population, making the whole nation only care about exam scores. Chinese families, no matter rich or poor, powerful or ordinary, are all extremely anxious and scared, all spending big money to cram up their kids with as much knowledge and as early as possible, long before the appropriate ages. Even elementary school students don’t have weekends anymore. Every minute must be filled with various afterschool classes. Even art has become uniformed must-have skills and abilities rather than enjoyment and personal free expression. Parents get obsessed with top schools and championship in exams, terrified at the idea that the schools are not ranked, and must get the kids into the most famous schools by all means, thinking that success and happiness in life will naturally follow after that, only caring about what college the kids get admitted to at the age of 18, not caring at all what kind of person the children grow into for the rest of the decades in life after graduation and whether they feel happy or not. All the good intentions turn into terrible results: In the basic education stage, students』 individuality gets obliterated, humanity destroyed, until finally tortured into walking dead with no ambition, very bad learning habits, immature and distorted personality. The physical health gets deteriorated in every way year after year too, getting them fully ready for sudden death from over work in the future. Once getting into college, most kids run wild immediately as a revenge, casting study aside, indulged in fun and games like there’s no tomorrow, thinking that everything’s fine as long as they can pass exams to get the diploma and find a OK job. And those other students who pretend to take study seriously can only force-feed themselves with knowledge by rote. Everyone is just a zombie with no ambitions or big dreams. China’s universities only have the difference as being bad or worse. Unbearable bureaucracy is everywhere on campus, with endless red tapes for endless procedures. The admin teachers always have dirty looks on their long faces, making all things difficult for students to show they are important. The academic teachers give really bad lectures and classes, only busy with private profits. Students' freedom of choosing courses is close to zero, with tons of useless compulsory classes, and no chance for students to exert any pressure or screening back onto the teachers. Accommodation and other hardware facilities are often shockingly bad with more terrible chaotic management, seriously hindering practice and development. While all in all, the most horrible thing is that Chinese education has never encouraged or cultivated anyone’s curiosity, criticality, skepticism, courage, innovation, truth-seeking, rationality, precision, independence, and cooperative spirit. Such traditions and atmosphere have never been truly established at any level anywhere in the education system, while these are actually the most precious wealth from Western philosophy, culture and education.Chinese Art is another typical representative of contemporary Chinese people's confusion in mind and absence in beliefs. Western contemporary art, even entering the philosophical despair, is at least united as one for further explorations, while Chinese art world has split into at least three camps, despising and attacking each other: the anachronistic classical art camp specializes in producing conventional Chinese paintings and calligraphies to sell to the old and conservative officials and bosses; the realism art camp, pioneered by Xu Beihong, introduced outdated Western techniques onto Chinese revolution subject matters, with concepts staying around European Renaissance, ideas frozen before China’s Reform and Opening up, obsessed with themes like Tibet, Inner Mongolia, workers, peasants and soldiers on a daily basis; And then there is the purely Westernized contemporary art camp, self-proclaimed as avant-garde and international, completely obsequious to the West, imitating westerners to point fingers at some social/human issues with exquisite techniques but indifferent emotions, and an empty spiritual core. Inside these three camps, there are also explorers who are striving for the modernization of classical art and the nationalization of Western art. However, due to excessive internal power struggle, poor aesthetic criticality, and too much attention on grabbing the power of speech, these explorations can only go skin deep and stay superficial. Therefore, Chinese art now is either so antique that nobody cares, or so bureaucratic that many people despise, or so western that no one feels anything. In the end, Chinese art world has nothing very sensible or transcending to offer, nor anything very rational or critical, failing to provide any spiritual or aesthetic guidance for any social groups, and also despised by the united and systematic Western art world. It is becoming even more of a self-entertaining dog-eat-dog small group, with different camps within fighting to be the concubines for different political and economic powers, surrendering themselves to different masters to disguise the fragile spiritual core and sustain the pathetic life.Chinese art schools are still stuck in the model and pursuit of the 17th century, when the West first started art academies in Italy. The schools cannot teach students』 independent thinking and research, but instead, prioritize the so-called basic skills, simplifying art into teachable formulaic techniques, forming a huge-scale art training industry chain, relying on the Ponzi scheme to feed a huge number of bureaucratic teachers on and off campus, turning students into skillful art-making machines to produce more garbage that no one cares about, to cultivate so-called "people's artists" to make stuff totally disconnected with real people’s contemporary aesthetic needs and only self-entertaining in governmental official competitions, exhibitions and museums, or to produce international cultural flunkeys who can only survive by following western rules, playing with some 「exotic」 Eastern elements to draw attention and recognition from westerners. All Chinese art graduates or artists, not really loved or welcomed anywhere, cannot live up to the westernized high reputation, but cannot accept being ordinary either. Art schools』 department and curriculum settings are also messy and confused together with the whole art world, constantly changing from one way to another, sometimes trying to preserve outdated traditions, while other times simulating avant-garde experiments; one day swearing to pursue fine artistic ideals, while another day feeling that commercial ability cannot be thrown away so that the graduates can at least make a living. Western art’s deliberate pursuit of a cold arrogant ideal world for deterrence and preaching, mixed with Chinese art’s long tradition of valuing emotions, has allowed Chinese art students to absorb the dross of both sides: losing the consciousness of equal and normal communication with real people, but also failing to provide in-depth rational criticality; eliminating the spiritual transcendence in Chinese cultural tradition but still not cutting off from the sentimental entanglement. As a result, apart from some tacky imitations of Western art, contemporary Chinese-style narcissistic realism is ultra-prevalent, focusing on little mood setting, trivial privacies, minute tremor in psychology, fragmentary encounters in everyday life, odds and ends in family affairs, pretending to think and ask questions, while in fact, only caring about how much and fast the work can overpower the audience, to gain recognition from authority and to make themselves famous and important, being a bunch of artsy snobbish hipsters while all dreaming of becoming big serious artists well-known across the globe.To summarize, China has studied the West for 100 years but is still confused and disoriented. Only the technical surface gets learned after brainwashing all around. How pathetic is that?!So, the whole world is a mess now, what should we do?I propose that China should continue to learn the essence of Western culture. Meanwhile the entire world should learn from Chinese traditional wisdom. It’s about making additions, not subversions; an evolution, not a revolution. Built upon the existing achievements of Western-centric modernization, it will be about supplementing the wisdom from the other side and seek a dynamic balance between the two.Chinese people should work extra hard at the ability of questioning and analyzing rationally and critically. On top of that, all traditional culture, morality and deep-rooted bad habits should be put under severe scrutiny and widely open for discussion. All decisions should be made from a sincere heart, put against a contemporary and international context, rejecting power chase or bureaucratic inertia, and when necessary, daring to abandon everything old to start over. Personal rights and individuality should be further protected, especially not kidnapped by traditionally default loving relations. Harm to individuals shall not be covered up by any excuses. Personal independence and the courage to speak and act out should be further nurtured. In short, the advantages that Westerners have should also be learned and possessed by Chinese. More people should go to study in the West and keep learning from each other's strengths. Bottom line should be well guarded by taking the initiative to set even stricter and more detailed laws and rules for fellow Chinese, preventing all loophole abuse. Hard power should be further strengthened, as well as the kindness on such basis, to ensure that in various interactions, there is not only more confidence and ability than the other party to flip the table with rage, but also more generosity and wisdom to peacefully resolve all conflicts in silence.At the same time, let me imagine the future of the whole world under the enlightenment of Chinese traditional philosophy:The future society will fully explore and celebrate the goodness in human nature, operating mainly on the mutual understanding and love between people. Hard rules such as laws are extremely complete, but only for guaranteeing the lowest limits, while the harmonious interpersonal relationship and fair distribution of resources make it unnecessary to touch the bottom line at all. Behaviors are regulated not by discipline from outside, but on the noble self-demand. Everyone's goal in life is to become the best self, fully tapping one’s own "Buddha nature", to find the most appropriate position for oneself in the universe and constantly pursue self-transcendence, achieving an unmasked and unobstructed clear and pure heart. Wide-spread excellent education will teach everyone the right way to think and practice all this from an early age. In the context of continuous technological advancement and mutual help, everyone will be guaranteed a basic and decent life unconditionally. And in the extremely tolerant social atmosphere, everyone follows their hearts with complete honesty. One can totally choose to do nothing, but because of human’s natural curiosity and the love of progress and helping others, everyone will actively want to do things, because all things are what they love and of their own choices, during which process people can fully experience the happiness of self-progress, helping others and being needed, respected and loved.The future society will focus on living this realistic life well, instead of blindly shaping and chasing the illusory perfections. People will not need to look up to the authorities, succumbing to and imitating them, but will draw more attention back to the ground to communicate with real people equally and enthusiastically. Cultural equality will truly come, with no unified authority or standard that all people are supposed to follow. Different groups, big or small, will be formed based on hobbies, with vastly diverse and rich content. People put the negotiated bottom lines to the lowest, with basically all preferences accepted and appreciated. There will be no unsolicited external criticism, interference or control across different groups. People just leave each other alone to have their own kinds of fun. Meanwhile, however, in a social atmosphere where everyone loves to keep learning and advancing, every group will actively set their own higher standards and goals, and also invite reliable critique and communication from outside to achieve self-transcendence. All actions are entirely out of sincerity, in pursuit of beauty, not power.Everyone will enjoy complete freedom to define their own lives and goals without being interfered or criticized by the outside world. The society as a whole will no longer have vertical stratification, but only horizontal difference. All people will be truly and completely equal to each other, which does not mean rigid surface uniformity on everything, but that everyone ’s free will and unique conditions will be fully respected. There will be no unified quantitative standard to classify people, nor templates of perfections to make people compare and hate each other. Extreme diversity is promoted and respected, making everyone dare to be different from anyone else in any way. All excellent human qualities are well cultivated. Everyone knows how to properly persevere, stay focused, resist setbacks, accept criticism, etc. All curiosity of all people will be carefully preserved. Mutual help and sharing will make the initial threshold for starting anything very low and easy. Anyone can try anything at any time until they find their true love. Everyone has a naturally strong interest in all truth about oneself and the world, and will continue to observe and think independently, study extensively and deeply, to strive for comprehensive and thorough understanding of everything, knowing how to respect and preserve one’s true self, while taking good care of others. The relationship between people and things will give way back to that between people and people. No one will want anything that they don’t truly need, nor will anyone deliberately create falseness to deceive others for unnecessary benefits any more.Everyone will be treated as a complex system, a collection of countless different and complex aspects. Identity politics will disappear. No more man-made god or goddess creation. No more labeling or generalization. Everyone will be a proud and loving extraordinarily ordinary person. People will actively seek common grounds while reserving differences, really enjoy each other’s company for the aspects we can share, and will not become enemies just because of the aspects that we are different.Everyone will let existence proceed essence, facing up to and accept the existing being, no longer obsessed with artificially defining, delimiting, transforming and disciplining everything. Combining the courage of the West with the equality notion of the East, people will be extremely brave to accept and respect all so-called ugliness, imperfections and impermanence. Everything in the world will be completely open and transparent to be seen, talked about, and accepted above the very low bottom lines. No one ever needs to purposefully cover up any aspect of themselves. Anything can be negotiated, no matter how obscene, dark, or terrifying. Anything can get everyone ’s understanding or necessary help. Anyone can show a clear and honest heart without any worry at any time. Living becomes very simple and happy.People will be extra cautious before creating any new existence. Before giving birth, all parents will actively learn how to better take care of and educate the children, well drilled and prepared for all possible situations in the future. Companies will develop a new product as if it would be a work of art dedicated to the loved ones, starting from complete sincerity and doing everything to the best of that moment. We will slow down the general pace of life to a comfortable state, do things with more efficiency and sense of meaning and accomplishment, use less but better stuff, and have more time to learn, think, create, communicate, accompany, and experience to nourish the spirit.We will attach great importance to in-person experience, hands-on training and omni-perceptual comprehension, not just mental rational understanding. Everyone is well aware of how easily we can become numb and insensitive, so we will set up a lot of completely real drills and festivals to experience all kinds of historical and possible disasters, harm to others after breaking rules, and possible accidents or miseries that may occur later in life, in order to sharpen a stronger heart, and to constantly remind people of humans』 vulnerability, the importance of self-reflection, and that a happy life never comes easily.We will build a social structure that is more flexible, organic, and adaptable, which can calmly and gracefully deal with all kinds of emergencies and disasters, leaving room for buffering for any accidents, and allowing technology and social machines to fully serve humanity and human’s heart.Everyone will feel calm, stable and fulfilled inside, while always remaining humble and vigilant about all temporary success and ease, always skeptical and critical of everything, never taking any gain for granted, never believing in any perfection or eternity, always thinking about the other side of things and well prepared for future changes.Everyone will be an artist and a philosopher, and we all must be, because every perception of the world should be an aesthetic experience, and all behaviors and creations should be aesthetic communications and expressions, all of which have to originate from solid philosophical beliefs. Art will completely return to real life, and thoroughly integrated into all mortals' understandings of life, as well as the equal, loving and interesting interactions between them. We no longer need to put any urinal in the white box and call it art, but Instead, we will return the urinal back to the bathroom and make all ordinary life take place artistically. We will all be very proud of our unique creations and offerings, and no longer keen to advertise oneself with consumptions. The thinking and making methodology of art and design will permeate all aspects of life: we will be better at grasping inspirations, asking questions, doing research, mixing rationality with sensibility for an explosive creative leap, daring to break all conventions and boundaries, to reach the final concise and elegant output to share with others, to experience the release, communication and resonance of humanity brought about by sincere individualistic creativity, and to appreciate the sophistication, sublimity and profoundness that only belong to human beings. This is what life should taste like.Every person, every object and every incident will return to their most truthful and appropriate positions. All excessive decoration, pretension, cover-up or alteration will be eradicated. KNOWING AND DOING WILL BE UNIFIED. We can see through the truest, most original nature of all beings and directly enjoy what they really are. We will make all interactions into aesthetic behaviors, that is, the experience itself is the final goal, an end in itself rather than a means to other experiences. We will no longer need the 「one true heroism」 to 「see the world as it is and to love it」, because all things and people have regained their utmost openness, clarity and stability. Exactly because we can see the true state of such peaceful and blissful life so clearly, that we will naturally, spontaneously and whole-heartedly love it, with no extra courage needed.McDonaldized schools and workplaces will no longer exist in the future. Study, work, research, life and play will not be separated any more, but instead, will be perfectly blended throughout a person's entire life. Different occupations are all completely equal in status, and people won’t have to choose one main job and get personal identity defined by that. Everyone can take on as many or as few jobs as they want. No outside pressure for having to do anything. Meanwhile, intrigued by the complexity of life and guided by natural curiosity, people will ask questions instinctively, approach related knowledge and learn by themselves actively, and choose their own content, method and schedule of study and work mainly based on personal interest and conditions. One-size-fits-all knowledge preaching and cramming will be eradicated. All knowledge will be organized into various clear, authoritative, and interesting learning routes, with different routes organically cross-linked into a complex, comprehensive, and easy-to-navigate knowledge web, which is freely shared with everyone over the Internet. Everyone can easily start learning a certain subject or direction according to interest at any time, and when reaching a certain level and after getting certified, they can immediately become mentors for lower level learners, supplement and revise the knowledge web, or engage in the research or work of that direction to the according extent. Levels will be set up carefully in plenty of layers, enabling people to constantly feel positive incentives from achievements and progress just like playing games, and transform learning into realistic output in a timely manner. People can upgrade levels slowly and continually in life. The higher they get, the more authority they have in that field. Everything is only based on ability, regardless of age or background. All learning, research, and work can be entered, exited, and returned at any time, and can be done simultaneously or one by one. Progress in different directions can be drastically different, all based on personal decisions. The society is extremely tolerant. No matter how much or little you do, nobody will point a finger. The most important thing is to be faithful to one’s own heart. Everyone can try anything and make any changes at any time easily until they find their favorites for that period. Throughout the whole life, people will only do things for their passion, and because of this, they will learn and help each other regardless of paybacks. Everyone can be the combination of a student, a teacher, a researcher and a practitioner all their lives, who can always initiate new single or cross-directional research or work tasks at any time, easily recruit people who really match and like each other to form teams of any size, and take advantage of the solid hardware and software support systems and platforms provided by the society to easily start tasks and complete them. Schools, research centers and companies will no longer need to be separated, specialized and standing alone, as learning, research and production will not be framed by fixed and rigid institutional settings any more, but will fully integrate into each other in constant flux for every individual and every group at anytime and anywhere, following people’s will to flow and change freely, occurring and disappearing organically, mutually promoting each other's dynamic updates and progress. Humans』 innate powerful curiosity and imagination will create countless new subdivided directions of research and work, and countless intersections between them, the development of which all driven by the most passionate people in the best and fastest way. The ever-extending lifespan of humans can be perfectly used to enjoy the fun of constantly exploring, learning, creating, making new friends, helping more people, discovering new directions, feeling that this mortal life, no matter how long or short, is truly worth living.Such a future sounds really beautiful, so what can we do now immediately?1 Master the thinking of unity of opposites, not binary of opposites. Nothing is black or white, right or wrong. Balance and moderation are more important than extreme. Ultimate truth does not exist, but the pursuit of truth is necessary.2 Secure a basic personal livelihood, and build strong self-esteem and self-confidence to support a solid heart and cultivate great courage. If necessary, dare to challenge and give up everything, including your own life, so as to put the bottom line to the lowest and above that, dare to face and accept everything, tolerate and forgive everyone. Focus less on individuals, but more on the understanding of the entire system. On the basis of fully understanding the evil of human nature that exists in every person, we must believe more in the goodness of people and realize that no one will deliberately be bad if all conditions are pleasant. All things and people that are pitiful and pathetic are usually helplessly shaped by hateful families and the environment. No one is a superman. We are all ordinary. So we should not over-blame individuals, but instead should recognize various structural problems after seeing the holistic truth, and cooperatively create a whole set of solutions from micro to macro levels, and work together to reshape the entire environment starting from every individual’s effort.3 Accept all imperfections. Let existence precede essence. No need to artificially define good or bad, pretty or ugly. Of course, we still need to learn, fully understand, and properly respect how various unified standards are generated, but we must also recognize their limitations and immense constraints imposed on individuals. All outside references must be critically personalized into one’s own unique standard system. Stop unsolicited criticism at anyone using established standards, and bravely reject and ignore similar criticisms from others, while we should open for invited criticism with trusted people that is sincere and sharp, to actively demand self-improvement. People should have the right not to make progress, but active progress can make people truly happy.Dare to accept everything about yourself, including accent, job, hometown, fetishes, income, etc. No need to cover up any truth. Refuse to believe that certain label naturally means being weak and powerless. Don’t hang on to mainstream templates. Dare to be different from anyone in any way. Above the extremely low bottom line, dare to break all rules to be faithful to yourself and also accept other people’s strangeness or backwardness. Meanwhile, be smart to protect yourself well.Cultivate brutal honesty. Dare to be open about everything, talk about everything, and experience everything. All industries, especially those on a darker side being ignored or avoided, such as factory farms, slaughterhouses, garbage stations, crematoriums, etc., should actively open everything for public visits at any time. At least, there should be independent media like youtubers now to take the first steps to explore extensively, and then there can be organized tours and groups to enable interested people to actively participate, experience, supervise and share all facts. There should also be organized events between people from different social classes for friendship and interaction, even as simple as preparing and having a meal together and chatting. Privileged people should particularly take the initiative to experience the lives of the underclass in person, and people of different occupations can also exchange roles to experience each other’s lives. In short, we should greatly expand the concept of tourism and the scope of personal life experience, so that more people will have more chance to truly recognize and accept the various existence of this world, and to better keep their curiosity and empathy. A more transparent life will trigger a series of profound ideological and social changes. We should stop being content with some superficial knowing from media, sigh a bit, and continue to live comfortably and numbly in our own bubbles, while complaining about the injustice and boredom of life.Stop creating any manmade god, goddess or fantasy. Stop worshipping authorities or superstars. Stop believing in any superficial perfection. See through all artificial packaging and masking, especially the intertwined political and commercial interests and profits behind. Resist these deceptions and fight back, to force everything to get back to their most original and sincere positions.4 Treat every person as a complex system. Abandon identity politics. Do not label anyone, and do not define yourself with existing labels. Do not display or show off any identities to others. A person should be perceived in different aspects, from different perspectives, realistically and holistically, not judged by overgeneralization from a few sides. Talk more about incidents and deeds than about the person. Seek common ground and put aside differences with everyone. Care more about what can be shared, and try to ignore the disagreement, unless there is absolute necessity and capability for targeted rational discussions, negotiations and solutions. No need to chase superstars. Just enjoy what they are good at. Don't try to be an icon. Face yourself honestly. Dare to be not all-around, have shortcomings, and not keep up with the role models. Don't prejudge anyone based on any identity, appearance or background. Focus more on what the person has done to you, and less on who the person is or what the person has. Start to pay more attention to behaviors and relations than to external definitions and positions of people.5 Pursue beauty, not power. If you feel nothing about certain Art or exhibitions, just don’t go, buy or support. There is nothing in this world that everyone must like or get close to. Art and culture are not meant to be respected, but to be loved, and even such love should be further questioned if it’s a result of brainwashing. No matter how famous, expensive or authoritative something is, don’t follow the crowd and don’t be afraid of the intimidation and criticism from the authority. Just be honest with your heart. Don’t fake your taste in order to decorate your identity, and don’t constantly compare and judge which level everyone is on using established unified standards. When it’s necessary to show your thoughts, directly speak out your real thoughts of that moment honestly and boldly. There is nothing to be ashamed of, or proud of. Everything is just what it is. No more, no less. Truth and facts must be fully respected. You can actively approach, learn and improve things that you are truly interested in, but no need to tell or boast to others.Experience things as what they truly are. Improve cognitive and aesthetic ability to avoid being easily brainwashed or incited. Let all actions become aesthetic experiences and expressions, that is, to become the end itself, not the means to other experiences. Be cautious before buying anything, ask whether it meets the standard of "I like it, I need it and it suits me", and then ask why you like it, where the reasons come from, and whether you are buying not the stuff itself but for other purposes such as vanity. Ignore those hunger marketing, limited time offerings and must-have trendy items. Any purchase for personal aesthetic expressions, such as luxury goods or interior decoration, should not be based on the criteria of "looking expensive". Instead, cover the brand logos and simple signature prints and take a second look, if the color, shape, texture, etc. still can hold up to its beauty, then that is the real start of the aesthetic experience. In particular, you should find people you like and trust to carry out dialogues and critiques. Only through in-depth discussions, real feedback, and faithful reflections can people’s taste be truly improved, otherwise it will forever be the illusion of 「I’m so awesome」 after brainwashed by the merchants.6 Talk less about consumptions and more about creations. Stop using what you』ve bought, watched, participated, or visited to boast who you are. Stop comparing who has what. See what you can create and share with others, even just a point of view, a simple favor, etc. Talk less about doctrines and definitions, but more about life. Use less theory to regulate how life should be, but let everyone follow the true heart to make life happen faithfully and naturally.Create whatever you want bravely and sincerely. No need to make any excuse, explanation or apology. Even if it’s about helping people scratch their backs and comb their hair, you can become experts and artists in these fields through hard work and creativity. Don't care about what is refined and what is vulgar. You need to learn about the current standards determined by the cultural authoritarian structure and fully understand them, but after that you don’t need to follow them, just go around and do the things you love with the people you like. As long as it does not cause irreversible harm to outsiders, it is none of anyone’s business. Active communication and critique between different groups should be encouraged for self-progress purposes, but please do not give unsolicited interference and criticism. Do not deliberately imitate the authority or try to become one yourself. When your preferences and creations are exactly the same as others, it is very likely to be a copied version after getting brainwashed, so you need to continue to ask where your true heart is. Do not pursue maximum influence in the crowd, or the control and power relationships between each other. No need to envy someone who’s very popular. Ask more about what kind of audience enables such popularity, which aspects of them get touched, for what reasons, bringing what results, and whether all these are worth respect, whose and what respect, and so on. Being popular should not be an end, but a means to deliver important and meaningful message to a specific group of people. With such premise, everyone should create at will, so that happy sharing can be the end in itself. Everyone should have the right to stay "low-level" and not seek progress, but should also have the consciousness of actively seeking progress for oneself. The highest taste is not about how perfectly you can be in line with the high-class template already in the society, but about the most sincere and appropriate representation of yourself in your most sincere and appropriate state.7 Before creating any new existence, be very cautious, try not to add any more garbage or noise to this overly saturated world. Strive to be the best for that moment. For example, before giving opinions to others, do a full research to polish your own ideological system and the appropriateness of the communication language; before giving birth, take the initiative to participate in parent training, get well prepared for possible situations afterwards and learn how to educate and love the children correctly; companies with higher nobler pursuit should no longer aim to maximize profits after ensuring basic survival, but should produce the minimum amount of the very best products, and can share all the behind-the-scene sincerity and intentions with everyone through media without reservation, making sharing the final happy goal rather than the gimmicks for marketing or profits. Before sharing any creations, ask yourself questions like a contemporary artist and have your own ideologically consistent explanation system, such as: Who is the target audience? What’s it about? What’s the purpose? Why such purpose? Why is it important, interesting or meaningful? Why is it urgent in time? What are the possible side effects? What are the alternatives? Why is this one the best choice? and many more.8 Multi-channel development is encouraged. After securing the self-defined basic survival, ambitious young people can try to be multi-talented, refuse to be kidnapped and defined by a single job, no longer need to distinguish between the main occupation and hobbies, and also stop using job titles to define others. Dig up and maintain all your curiosity and thirst for wisdom to the greatest extent, find ways to try all your interests and continuously learn and improve. Try to enjoy these activities as aesthetic experiences, by keeping sowing without caring about reaping. At least start by creating your own utilitarian-free pure space with one or more activities on a regular basis, and later expand such pure space in scale and numbers by all means, until they finally fill your entire life. One goal of life can be set up as: to be able to see yourself and the world clearly as soon as possible, and find the best way permitted by conditions to only live for your sincerity and interest to the maximum extent.Train your character, to be capable of perseverance, resilience, time management and efficiency when necessary. Follow your own heart and keep trying. You can give up at any time, too. But make sure to distinguish whether you are giving up because you really don’t like it, it’s truly unsuitable, or because you have problems with basic character and ability, habitually leaving things halfway, hindering your pursuit of the direction that you would otherwise be truly passionate about.9 Find or build your own group or community based on each other's creation and interest. Dismantle the entire cultural hegemony and authoritarian regime from the grass-root level. Crazily help and support each other inside the group, mentally and financially. No matter how small or stupid the group might seem, even just a 2-member interest group of sky watching on a rainy night, being sincere and happy for yourselves is all that matters. Bravely refuse external interference, but actively seek reliable critique in order to make progress. Do not wait and seek the recognition of anyone outside the group, especially the related so-called authority, nor should you point fingers at other similar groups, or try to maximize your own influence. The activity itself should be the sole purpose. If you want to share some results with outsiders, then carefully sort out the content and produce the very best output of that moment, make appropriate communication with the appropriate target audience, and then accept such invited feedback of all kinds bravely and humbly. A group can also organize internal knowledge into interesting, practical, systematic, and easy-to-understand information to actively share with the outside world, so as to help more people who may be interested to join in more easily.10 Give more constructive suggestions and opinions, than just pure criticism; Care more about problem-solving, than just question-raising; Do more daring confirmation, than just picky deconstruction. All industries and disciplines should learn from contemporary art’s practice methodology, which is, on the basis of full research, to develop bold and crazy imagination and creation, and produce outside-the-box plans and ideas. Don’t just be satisfied with theoretical construction and the corresponding analysis and criticism. Scholars and experts of all kinds should initiate interdisciplinary cooperation around real-life practical problems, and also actively walk out of the ivory tower to interact with ordinary people and life extensively, uniting all capable ones to conduct research, discussions and solutions, and also help all interested people to learn, improve, and join the common research faster and better.11 Always be humble. Forever question everything. Constantly find the best dynamic balance. Always see the opposite side of things, and be ready for any changes in the future. Never believe in perfection or eternity, but strive to live enthusiastically for the present, fully experience and appreciate the various beings at every moment.12 Worldwide education reform must be started immediately. The current McDonaldized assembly lines and concentration camps should be killed right now. Highly customized curriculum structure based on every student’s individual choices should be experimented. Schools should not be the places mainly for imparting knowledge any more. Repetitive teaching work of the same information from the same or different teachers should be eliminated. By organizing the best experts, educators and media production teams, knowledge and information can be made into interesting, authoritative, meticulous, efficient tutorials, to share with everyone over the Internet or some off-line learning machines, allowing students to play back and forth, fast or slow to study on their own and decide their own speed and progress. The tutorials can be updated and revised from time to time in the future, keeping up with the latest development. From elementary school to university, all the current cookie-cutter divisions based on schools, grades and students』 ages should be cleared. Directional single subject learning can be the basic guiding principle: Each subject can be divided into many continuous levels of difficulty, completely covering all its current content from elementary school all the way till graduate school. With the help of academic counselors, students can design and decide their own curriculum combination and progress, which allows huge differences in the progress across different subject learnings above the lowest bottom line. Separate and independent grade certificates of single-discipline or targeted cross-disciplinary integrated ability can be used to replace the current school-based diplomas. Segregations between study, research and production should be broken down. Regardless of one’s age or background, the person can choose to immediately enter the academic research group or a company department to start some basic work as long as the study of related directions have passed the specified lower level assessment, and in the following days, work and learn simultaneously, and keep upgrading both. Anyone at any time can initiate new research or work tasks based on interest and questions and recruit team members. Regardless of its size or difficulty, anything new is encouraged. Start-up support is also available after review. People can try any learning or work at any age at will, and then advance or retreat freely. All in all, we should by all means make it extremely easy to enter any discipline or industry, and extremely pressure free to make trials and errors, correct them and start over, so that people can truly explore their multiple interests, talents and passions. Barriers and status hierarchies between disciplines should be smashed, especially between academic and vocational education. Why can't someone study astronomy with gardening at the same time, as well as history with hairdressing, rocket launching with foot massage? Separated roles between students and teachers should also be abandoned. Anyone who can pass certain assessment, regardless of age or background, can be the teacher of a certain level and counsel the students behind. All learning should mainly rely on self-study, at one’s own chosen places, time and speed, as long as they can pass the final assessment, the standard of which should be more in line with actual needs from production and research. Schools should be transformed into educational activity centers, mainly responsible for providing self-study conditions for those in need, organizing online or offline meetings for Q&As and seminars, providing emotional support and character development, also providing comprehensive equipment and hardware support for various experiments and practices, assessment for subject level and teacher qualification, assistance in forming research teams or entrepreneurial groups, helping to consult and plan development routes of one’s learning, research and work and to connect them with related social resources, etc. All activities can be broadcast or shared online, especially those from so-called top-notch or famous education centers, allowing all high-quality resources to be constantly shared as quickly and widely as possible, benefiting everyone and also accepting everyone's supervision. A strong learning atmosphere should be promoted in the whole society, encouraging everyone to self-study various subjects at any age and go as deep as possible, provide mutual help and volunteer services in the learning process, and constantly transform the learning results into output in research or work, so that the three aspects of production, learning and research can constantly push each other forward on every individual, a process that will go through one’s entire life.Life and personality education is also urgently needed. Experts from different fields should work together to design guiding courses and activities for schools and families based on extensive communication and research with real life and real communities, so that people have ample opportunities to discuss and practice different situations in mind and in life, can learn to live in peace with different emotions, and how to cooperate and communicate with different people, how to respect diversity, how to improve efficiency and concentration, how to do time planning and self-motivation, how to properly perceive and deal with the relationship between yourself and other people as well as other materials and objects, so that people can ask the right questions, find problems themselves and solve them, learn from each other, and offer mutual support, suggestions and solutions, which will help everyone nurture virtues such as kindness, patience, truth-seeking, courage, tolerance, cooperation, etc., and also apply critical and creative wisdom to life flexibly. Meanwhile, natural interest can be aroused for further study and exploration into related disciplines.13 Stop asking what Art is. Care more about what Art does. What more still can be done? For whom? For what purpose? To what extent? on what scale? within what scope? why such audience, purpose, degree? and more specific questions like these, so as to pursue something that truly touches the heart or triggers deep and constructive thinking. Stop abusing the name of Art for mental deterrence or commercial marketing. Art should be completely free and does not have to be responsible for any history or definition. Stop pretending by default that all art can talk to all people effectively. More attention should be paid to the subdivision of target audience and the accuracy of the expressive aim and scope.No one should try to "make Art" any more. Let art die and let life happen artistically. All people should receive correct art training, to permanently open up all senses, mind and heart, to appreciate all things that you want to appreciate, and to construct all interesting interactions and interventions. Let's go listen to the wind, appreciate the moon, touch the dust in the warehouse, and indulge in a random compliment from a passer-by; let's go to the square to dance crazily, go to the park to play the harmonica to wild cats, go to the bathroom and engrave "I Love you" on dad’s soap, go to the street to paint with water on the ground and dedicate it to the sky ... Let us eliminate all boundaries, and observe, think, feel, ask, answer and create anytime, anywhere.In the new era, we need communication, not presentation; We need description, not prescription; We need discussions, not lectures; We need appreciation, not sarcasm; We need freedom, not control; We need life, not Art.The most gorgeous thing everyone should do is to regard your own entire life as the biggest artwork, to live is to be in the constant art making process, and you are the major artist and the most important audience. Sculpt this life continuously with a craftsman's spirit. Let every action be an aesthetic one, and continue to create various outputs at different stages sincerely to share with others. Keep experiencing, thinking and feeling. Keep finding and calibrating your most appropriate position and state in the universe. Let your most clear and faithful existence happen in the most original way. Always strive to elevate your being and taste the vitality brought by that. Forever live hard and well.Dear fellow humans, my own life in the past has been lived in a deep despair towards this world, but I never gave up thinking, until recently, I finally sorted out all of the above. All of a sudden, miraculously, all mental burdens were relieved, all psychological trauma resolved, and all resentment was gone, which all transformed into understanding and compassion, and my mind has become incredibly stable and peaceful, so I decided to share my thoughts, for it might help more people get rid of despair and find back meanings and motivation. I used to think that humans in general are extremely stupid, and no one really deserves my communication or expression, but now I am starting to believe in humanity again. Because I see a clear path of development, along which humans continuously grow up, make progress, and liberate ourselves: from the ancient society that is completely benighted and chaotic, to the traditional society that is organized and disciplined but segregated, unquestioning, totally unequal upon the centralized control, and then we have the modern technology society, where rationality brings about somewhat sufficient food and clothing, limited equality and globalization, coming next will be the future aesthetic society, where informatization will speed up mutual learning and integration globally, every individual will be fully respected, authoritative control will be eliminated, mutual understanding and tolerance will be prized over uniformity, ultimate unity and equality will be maintained actively, and the world will be full of extremely diverse and interesting creations. The current chaotic days are just a brief moment of darkness before the next new era, because any transitional period is prone to panic and confusion. People are most united when they have a common enemy or a common goal. The former has long been abused by various authoritarian regimes, focusing on the evil of human nature. Now is the time to start believing more in the goodness of humanity, upon which to build a common vision, and march together towards it with proud solidarity, mutual assistance, and splendid courage.Dear fellow humans, in fact, life can be very simple. In the face of time, which is still irreversible, life and death are the only things that truly matter. Anything else is nothing. But even life and death may not matter, if for a higher meaning. Humans only need a little food, water, sunlight, clothing and a simple shelter to be able to survive for a very very long time. Anything above this is our endeavor to live better, or, so to speak, our mere imagination of what this vitality should be about. Especially all the trouble we give ourselves, such as wars, consumerism, pollution… are mostly self-brainwashed manifestations of that imagination, self-righteous mental games we play with ourselves, the naive clumsy ways to validate our existence, and an ultimate ode to our creator, whether that refers to the God or the 『道Dao』, which are essentially the same thing.Human’s mind is the most powerful tool in this world. We sometimes follow nature, instincts and rules, while other times we deliberately go against them if for better reasons. There’s nothing that we absolutely have to do, and nothing that we absolutely have to possess. We are always capable of brainwashing ourselves in any direction as long as everyone involved agrees. In many ways, we can do whatever we want. How we think will determine how we act and what we make, which will ultimately shape the look and feel of this world to everyone.The anthropologist Margaret Mead once told a student that the first sign of human civilization is not something we made, such as a grinding stone or religious artifacts, but a healed femur from 15,000 years ago, the evidence of a relationship, in which another person had protected and taken care of this fellow human for weeks, in that dark age when everyone could barely keep themselves alive.Dear humans, at this very special moment in time, I』d like to end my sharing with this story.