If you want to find a word to describe the world situation in 2019, then anger must be appropriate.This is a year without joy and only anger, and it is an increasingly dangerous year, pointing to the huge uncertainty of the future.Many observers have pointed out that the only thing that can be determined in the future is uncertainty.This is not an exaggeration.
Society is angry.Social protests are surging, covering almost all types of countries and society, no matter what ways are classified.Different politics (democracy and non -democratic owners), different degrees of development (developed and developing countries), society of different religions, and different races have occurred or social protest movements occur.Like all previous social movements, there are unique reasons for each place protest movement, but in combination, these social movements show many of their commonality.
There are many commonality of social movement
First, all social movements are anti -construction, which is obviously manifested as a serious direct opposition between society and the government.Second, any factor, whether it is macro or micro, can trigger large -scale social struggles. It is as large as welfare policy reform, immigration policy reform, excessive use of police use or abuse of power, as small as onions and subway tickets to increase prices.
Third, social resistance is manifested as sustainability.It is not only a proletarian or a low -level society in the traditional sense, but also the middle class, college students, and even social elites.Fourth, most of the social protests are manifested as violence. Social protesting scenes are in the same battlefield, breaking the peace myth of the past middle -class social struggle.Fifth, at the international level, social protests show a high degree of correlation, and everyone learn from each other and outputting protests with each other.
Political elites are angry.Political elites to compete with each other's political power are pure, because politics itself means power struggle.However, the anger of the political elites has greatly surpassed those laws and rules that traditional suitable for political competition, evolved into protests, obtaining political power through nearly violent means, and imposed political power through the means of beyond law and rules.In multi -party countries, the anger showed a worsening party, and there was no compromise between political forces.
When traditional laws and rules are no longer able to regulate the behavior of politicians, people only have not directly resorted to violence.Amblyr is successful, and outsiders have risen, and more and more regimes are controlled by populist leaders.Traditionally, populism is more manifested as members of the bottom society and the poor, but today's populist is no longer distinguished from the social class. The populist and the left of the left are equally terrible, and they are also anti -building.It is also necessary to point out that populism rises in a democratic way.Although various populist brings infinite uncertainty to various countries, no one dares to question or challenge the way of democracy.
The country is angry.Some people think that the Cold War between China and the United States began in 2019, and some people believe that the relationship between the two countries has inevitably embarked on the non -returning path of the Cold War.Some people also predict the possibility of hot war between the two countries, because today, around Sino -US relations, the world has appeared similar to the World War I and before World War II.Of course, the anger between countries is not only manifested in Sino -US relations, but also between other countries, such as India and Pakistan, the United States and Latin America, Iran, Russia and Europe.Although the United States is still the number one power in the world, it showed abnormal anger in 2019, so that no matter what its own ability, it made a four -sided attack.
On the one hand, the United States retreated everywhere, destroying the world order that it had built strongly since World War II. At the same time, it played a trade war with many countries.The United States regards Hong Kong, Taiwan, Xinjiang, and Tibet. It is like its internal affairs. In order to deal with Huawei, the United States has lobbying and even publicly pressure the 5G technology of Huawei to resist Huawei.However, the United States also sanctioned Russia to transport natural gas to related companies in Germany.The behavior of the United States is dazzling, I don't know what it is going to do.
Although it is difficult for Americans today to believe that the United States can still be as omnipotent as God, the behavior of the United States is still pretending to be their all -round.But what else can be explained in addition to expressing its anger?Although extreme means in the United States do give some countries (especially small countries) a inexplicable sense of deterrent, they are afraid of the United States and dare not publicly express their dissatisfaction, but not many people really believe that the United States can wish as expected.French President Macron publicly criticized NATO's brain death and suggested establishing the European army.
So, how does the world become so angry?Not many years ago, people were still talking about global villages, integration, mutual dependence, world peace, etc., but today's theme words have become anti -globalization, decoupling, conflict, and war.In just a few years, it was not the same as before.
Marx used the concept of alienation to analyze the many society and international phenomena of his time.To put it simply, the so -called alienation refers to the loss of control of the individual's environment, powerless, but being threatened by the environment.This is a feeling of strong survival crisis, leading to people's radicals and even extreme behaviors, including social resistance, conflict, and even war between the country.Today, this concept is still effective, but it is just a great expansion of the individual's category. From the past social marginal people and the underlying poor people to today's elite class.
The elite class was the most capable of in the past and was often regarded as the root cause of alienation, but the elite class is often powerless. While continuing to play traditional aliens, it is also alienated by the environment.The alienation sensation has even expanded to the country, that is, it is difficult for the country to control its own environment, not only small and medium -sized countries, but also large countries like the United States and China.
When the development of things exceeds people's control, an era of comprehensive alienation becomes inevitable.
The first one is alienation caused by globalization.Globalization means large -scale and rapid flow of capital.Globalization has demonstrated its ability to go deep into all corners of the world, and associate everything around the world, so that everything is in the process of flowing worldwide.No one and the country can escape globalization, but no one and the country can control globalization.This is what people call excessive globalization.In the face of this globalization, individuals have no autonomy and sovereignty.
Technological progress is leading to alienation.Artificial intelligence is the result of artificialness, but replaced artificially, making more and more people's employment a big problem.AlphaGo defeated humans, but people only know the results so far, and do not know how Alpha Dogs guide this result.Artificial intelligence was originally the product of human knowledge, but knowledge seems to play the tomb diggue.On the one hand, it is the progress of artificial intelligence, and on the other hand, most people are increasingly ignorant because they are addicted to social media and smart phones. This is the fear of human beings replaced and controlled by technology.
Whether it is global or technological progress, it has created a huge amount of wealth for the society, but this not only has not led to social progress, but also destroys society or even disintegrate society.The huge amount of wealth has fallen into the hands of a few people. Most of the society not only has no harvest, but also becomes a victim.Globalization and technological progress have led to a great reduction in the middle class of developed countries. Many society is no longer a small and large olive type in the past.Some developing countriesThe situation is worse. The society presents the inverted font structure. The chassis is too large, and it is difficult to withstand any small economic pressure even.
State power is alienation.Although the world has experienced decades of new liberal orientation globalization, national power continues to expand.New liberalism opposes state intervention, but the human survival environment caused by new liberalism strengthens the needs of state intervention.No one has the ability to resist globalization, so he has to turn to the country's power.The democratic mechanism of one person and one vote effectively promotes the expansion of state power.
Today, whether it is democracy or non -democratic, public undertakings (state -owned enterprises, social welfare) in all countries are effectively expanding. At the same time, social autonomy spaces in traditional sense have been greatly reduced, and social autonomy is lost.When all social members are naked individuals in front of capital and politics, they have no ability. This sense of weakness is the huge kinetic energy of social protests.As for the country, the expansion of state power means the expansion of public space, and the reform in any public space can lead to social protests.
Democratic politics often become the source of social division
Politics is alienation.The significance of politics is to provide order and provide at least one basic social order that society depends on.However, it is difficult to say that the role played by politics today is providing order. In many aspects, politics plays the role of the destroyer of order.The governance capabilities of more and more countries are declining sharply, and they cannot cope with the changing socio -economic forms.The absurdity is that theoretically, the expansion of one -person and one -vote democracy has made political power a wider social foundation, but in fact, it is not or even the opposite.
Today's democratic politics cannot become the power and mechanism of integration of society, but often become the root cause of social division.Democratic politics is both aggressive and conservative: it is radical, because democratic politics guarantees anyone can speak; it is conservative because no one can do it under democratic politics.In fact, in the absence of a strong middle class or a strong governor (whether the ruling party or the ruling class), democracy is difficult to produce a effective government.
Democracy itself is often the main source of paralyzed candidates.When the market fails, the government will begin to play a role.The lack of effective government means the government's failure.The situation of many countries today is not just the failure of the market, but also not only the failure of the government, but the double failure of the market and the government.
Ideological is alienated.In its original sense, ideology is a summary of a social practice and plays a role in standardizing and guiding this society.However, no matter what kind of government, all ideas today can no longer reflect the reality of society, and the values as the core of ideology have become so cheap and become a slogan that anyone can use.Democracy, freedom, justice, justice, equality, independence, autonomy, etc., can be obtained at hand, everywhere.
But the ridiculous is that the more people pursue these values, the farther these values are from people.This is not to say that these values are meaningless. The question is why these people think of the value that should be obtained, but because people are lost because of their positive pursuit?In the West, although the traditional ideology has declined, there is no ideological appearance of an alternative.As a result, both society and political parties have turned to extremism.The left parties tend to move towards extreme socialism, while the right party has shifted to authoritarianism or authoritarian populism. The extremes of more political parties have been difficult to distinguish them from non -governmental organizations.
In non -Western society, especially in developing countries, it still shows the trend of western wind. Western values have expanded to all corners of the earth as globalization.Although the Western free and democratic system has undergone tremendous changes and experienced unprecedented challenges, and the prospects are unclear, in these non -Western countries, people's values of the West are still rushing.
What's more, in these countries, many western values have evolved into a belief. Believes that must be pursued and must be realized.It is natural, because of the constraints of various environments, when these values cannot be realized, social protests have become effective means of pursuits.The target certificate is correct.As long as it is pursuing these values, it can be proved to be reasonable, including violence.
An obvious phenomenon is that in some society, new tribalism (especially the network tribe) is rising, and more society has experienced inevitable revival of traditional nationalism, racism, and nationalism.The theory used by the pursuit is a grand pursuit of postmodern political identity.However, it is called identity, but it is actually a psychological safety.From this perspective, today's situation is not new, and it has appeared in history again and again.But whenever these appear, this is already an extremely dangerous world.
In any case, when alienation far exceeds people (the poor and the rich, the rulers and the ruler, those who are faith, and those who have no faith can tolerate it, the world begins to brew a major change. One includes internal systemsAnd the great change of external international order.
Historically, after changing, no country can be spared.Winter winter is coming to become people's idioms today, but don't forget that such changes are natural.However, this time the winter is likely to be the beginning of the new era of a Darwin -style fittest.
(The author is a professor at the East Asia Research Institute of the National University of Singapore)
The article only represents personal point of view
