Stance and Reason

If a person speaks by first considering his stance, then that fellow is suited to be a politician, because he will be supported by many who share his stance. If a person speaks by first considering reason, then that fellow is suited to be a scholar, huddled in a corner, waiting at any moment to be criticized by politicians.

In China people use the phrase "standing on the right side" to describe a person whose stance is correct. Whom you speak for, and what your stance is, are the preconditions others consider in deciding whether to associate with you. Whether what you say is reasonable is not important. Our society is a society of human relationships; human warmth matters more than truth and justice themselves.

I have not written anything touching on politics for many years, because that stuff is filthy. Whether on the left or the right, few are speaking rationally. So when we follow them and join the uproar, we are likely to become their tools. For everything, I have grown accustomed to observing for a while before making a judgment.

What is even more nauseating is that, whether on the left or the right, after choosing a stance, people know full well that some of what they say is insincere, but to win followers they still talk nonsense and deceive themselves. These are the politicians. They may not occupy the key posts in or out of government, but with followers they are no different from those in power. Behind every political performance of every politician there is an ulterior personal motive. Were it not for the lure of interest, a host of flashy "public intellectuals" would not be buzzing as excitedly as a twenty-year-old flooded with hormones.

I used to write many articles on economic and political affairs, and I read even more. Over time I developed a strong immunity to public intellectuals. There was a fellow called Niu Dao who, because his stance was "correct," chose to stand with the largest grassroots group, and kept shouting himself hoarse that housing prices were too high. When prices were still low, many people blindly believed in him. As time passed, housing prices soared, and many people watched helplessly as they missed the best opportunity to buy property.

Ever since reading Gustave Le Bon's The Crowd, I have not been willing to waste even a second on the writings of attention-seeking authors. A rational writer and reader should be a lonely person. Because rational writing and reading both require rigorous thinking, not emotion. The masses like to read emotional writing; highly analytical writing makes them drowsy. So once you decide to think, you must learn to love loneliness. The lonely writer writes only for himself, not to please any reader, whether refined or vulgar. An author who considers the market for his work is a good businessman, not a qualified thinker.

Words themselves carry no color, but the people who use them give them color. Words do not lie; people do. Listening to others speak in a crowd, we often worry about distinguishing truth from falsehood. Despite every precaution, countless people still fall for it. Salesmen skilled at reading faces and glib of tongue always win over listeners' hearts by cleverly "standing on the right side," and ultimately pull the listeners into their own camp.

The masses are the easiest to manipulate. But this essence is neither recognized nor acknowledged by the masses. Another name for the masses should be "the mob." Le Bon said that when a person plunges into the broad crowd, his IQ drops in a straight line. Conformist behavior and conformist psychology always make people ignorant and fearless; this is an innate human trait. We are small and weak, so sometimes we have to borrow superstition in the group to bolster our courage. Those who stay away from the masses are blessed, because they escape the foolishness that comes from superstition.

Politicians and merchants both like to exploit human weakness, looking for suitable opportunities to grab a profit. Whether you call it the Matthew effect or the herd effect, the essence is the same: human nature has an incurable defect of reason. People are superstitious of authority, superstitious of the group's judgment and power, and most of the time do not think independently—half because they lack the ability to think independently, and half because the powerful habit of conformity is at work.

Thus the manipulable social laws and social groups are born. We clap thunderously for speakers who speak on our side. After we finish clapping, what have we gained? What has the speaker gained? Solving complex problems depends on the brain, not on emotion.