As a friend pointed out in my other article on the Swiss depression, the Swiss education system is not designed to nurture academia solely, which I might have implied there. That is a valuable suggestion to me, and he was correct, although that wasn’t what I meant, I wrote it insufficiently that there was indeed this implicature. But instead of editing it to make it clearer, I think that topic deserves another article on the specific subtopic of morality and legislation.

What I wanted to say then, instead of the problem of education, is actually the situation where a society sets the bar of morality too high as if it were legislation. This is something that I used to think would be good to the human soul: when the bare-minimum legislation is guaranteed, a higher collective morality is a sign of a progressive (a modifier that I used to think was positive, now neutral, if not frowned upon) and better society, because then the morality is motivated by a sense of voluntary integrety. I still think highly about morality, but only when it is followed voluntarily on the microcosmic scale. If people actually think of morality as if it were set in stone, then the de facto effect is that the moral rules are kept with the same standard of legislation, and it can backfire – people can be depressed when they don’t achieve the high moral standard as what the society expects.

The problem is not morality, but the scale of its rigidity. A trite but sufficient metapher is eating fruit – a good amount of it is good for heath, but way too much or way too prescriptive would cause other problems. The question to be asked is then: how much is good enough?

A higher moral standard can also trigger a high standard on mannerism, and thus hinder social interaction, because socializing causes awkwardness, faux pas, and slips of the tongue. A dynamic socializing process is to socialize, err, and reflect. But if the standard is high enough, then quitting the process once for all is the safest bet.

Again, my opinion on Switzerland doesn’t mean I don’t approve of this society. On the contrary, I repect it very much. But I see there are some problems in the society that are causing it harm, namely the mental well-being issue that isn’t caused by material scarcity, and thus cannot be solved by material abundance.

In Milton’s Paradise Lost, the angels are “Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall,” and this is what I think a society should tolerant. Above the bar of legislation, everybody has the freedom to fall, albeit the choice of not falling is what makes people grow.

On the other extreme, if the morality is not only considered legislation, but also made as legislation, then it produces a corrupted society, which has many examples in the history worldwide.

I am very happy to have talked to a friend yesterday who brought up to me the “chà bù duō (CBD)” concept in Chinese. This is something I often think about as well. Though most of the time the word being mentioned is used to make fun of the Chinese nonchalance with a negative tone, this is one of the central concepts that make up of the Chinese spirit. It is one of the mental instruments that the Chinese use in either good or bad ways. 

If you think about CBD, it shares some meanings with the Taoist philosophy of qí wù (齐物), the equality of things. Zhuangzi advocates the identicalness of all being, either material or spiritual. Much like the monism in western philosophy, but with a big difference that Zhuangzi doesn’t establish a hierarchy among beings despite that they are identical in nature, but promotes the essential equality on all fronts. This by no way means equality in a social distribution manner (social status, wealth – the superficial equality), but epistemologically. This means, for example, a corrupted environment can be identical to a paradisal one from a Taoist perspective, so that a Taoist is able to live in it without being currupted, and takes action in it. (Many interpretations believe Zhuangzi doesn’t promote action-taking, as in “wú wéi”, but I take on the school of thought that argues wú wéi doesn’t avoid action.)

Zhuangzi believes a truely free spirit is xiāo yáo – which doesn’t have a counterpart in English. It is a status of being, living with the disturbance of life but happy and carefree at the same time. As opposed to the buddhist carefree, which is achieved by reclusion and meditaion, xiāo yáo encourage the spirits to face the complexity of the social reality and take action, but remaining a wholesome mind at the same time. A person who achieves xiāo yáo can then live and act in any environment with a noble heart that is incorruptable. 

But Taoism is also an ‘academic’ philosphy, which means its multilayered meaning is only taught at institutions, grabbed by even fewer who are interested in this school of thought and make their efforts. The classical written system is historically removed from the common people, leaving them unable to read with the knowledge of spoken language. The written system is not only ideographic, but also with different syntax and lexicon from the spoken one, which means one cannot understand classical texts at all without a formal education. But after the emergence of Taoist religion based on the philosophy, many of its concepts start to spread out of the elite circle and be adopted into the common spoken language but with lesser meanings. 

Here I don’t mean CBD comes from Taoism, because I am in no way an expert in Chinese linguistics nor philosophy, nor have I done my research with historical evidence. But as a Chinese, the concept of qí wù, which I learned from school as a classical concept, and CBD, which is a prevalent mentality among the daily Chinese conversations, bear a lot of similarity. It is also possible that these two concepts cement each other bottem-up and top-down. 

The common usage of CBD in daily Chinese has nothing ontological but almost always about practicality. The Chinese society, through out its history, has almost always been an authoritarian one with clear social hierarchy and structures. With a huge population, the typical pyramid shape of classes, and the argrarian economy, a large part of the society consists of common people with predictable income and career paths (this doesn not mean stablility in any sense, but they are mostly aware of what at best they can receive and achieve; it is not strict immobility either, but upward mobility through imperial exams is extremely chancy compared to the population). It means they have to be ecnomical with their resources and use them with priorities in mind. CBD is often used in situations where the events in discussion are not important enough in their priority list, such as the color of their wall, which is the example that my friend shared with me. White and pink can be CBD, because the family might have more problems on their plate, and too little time and resources to spend. 

But CBD can also be about situations that seem very important to most people. The difference of life and death can also be said to be CBD, and in this case it is much more similar to qí wù in Taoism. The typical Chinese would take death as factual, and the emotion around it is more considered bēi (悲) than sadness. bēi is sadness in a much less performative manner but considered a human status that is throughout their course of lives. I often discuss death with my aging grandpa, who was not educated in his youth due to the revolutions. He would frequently tell me life and death are CBD. 

Admittedly, CBD is also abused in many professional settings. With the rapid modernisation of the Chinese society, a lot of work require accuracy instead of flexibility. CBD could also be used as excuses for subpar performance, which is one of the reasons for CBD’s bad reputation. 

I often think about why human suffer. I understand it concerning disasters: flood, famine, oppression, earthquake, born-disabilities. But in Switzerland I used to have no clue. I see suffering at a disproportionate level over social wealth and stability. People are taken care of by a well-designed society; they have rights and opportunities; there are high-quality materials for almost every hobby known in civilization. It seems to not make sense. Till this moment, I still don’t fully understand, but I have some thoughts.

John Adam once said that the purpose of their generation studying politics is for the next one flourish in art, science and truth*, though I probably paraphrased it considerably badly. From what I observed, Switzerland is indeed a place that has realized those visions. The education system is meticulously orchastrated to facilitate all kinds of talents and dreams. It’s not an exaggeration here that no matter what a kid wants to become, there is an established path to achieve that. There aren’t too many political complexities to disturb their minds, and when there are, there are also outlets for the grievances.

At this point, I’ve already unfolded one of my hypotheses: as a counter reality to what that famous person said in the beginning of this paragraph, the young in Switzerland is left only with the possibility of pursuing art, science and truth. But the problem is, not everybody is talented in this way. Just to be clear, firstly, I don’t mean metaphysics, science, and art are higher than other human pursuits; and secondly, I don’t think a world overloaded with pursuits is a good society. What I think is, however, in a complex society, there are positions for all forces, and this condition somehow is better for individual mental health. Imagine in a well-fledge film, there are many different ideologies, and some are inexcusably evil, but there are counter forces that hold the balance. Those dark sides are not some abstract mysterious force from the universe, they are just misplaced human pursuits. The bottom line in this kind of society is the law, which guarantees that these pursuits don’t cause disasters. Above that, the chaos is to some extent tolerated. This kind of society is dynamic, because there are frequent side-flipping, and that is also tolerated. But in a highly conditioned society, there are far higher constraints above the law that regulates human behavior, and those that fail to meet the bar gets dismissed easily. In other words, human pursuits are judged with a high standard, and human traits as well. This is not to say there are punishment for these subpar pursuits and traits, but they are commonly regarded as not good enough. In contrast, in a complex society, as long as the bare minimum is met, there isn’t a lot of competition in behaving and living in a perfect manner.

Besides, people here don’t have a lot to fight for compared to the rest of the world. Of course, there are universal ones like environmental causes, but that aside. Bad news for this good news is people here watch the world burn but can not do much about it. Imagine living in an enclave of a warring state, the fear is the horror. When people here industriously recycle every piece of aluminum on a yoghurt package, the rest of the world is mass producing consumer products which are only turned into garbadge weeks after purchase. Or even worse, weapons. Of course, people can still do something here, for example, keep reducing the already tiny amount of unrecyclable garbage, but the hulk is outside of the room. This fear is unsolvable.

Another hypothesis is individual dormancy caused by how well-established the society is. In a complex society, one has to actively seek uncommon resources and alternative methods to get thing done; while here getting things done is a process of following formalities. The latter gradually moulds a passive psychology, since the essence of getting things done is in waiting instead of acting. I myself have noticed a significant change in my action-taking style ever since I moved here. As every minutiae is already thought of and prescribed a solution from an authority, I became a lot more passive both physically and mentally. It caused a lot of disturbance at first, so I channelled almost all my energy into academia, which seems to be the only realm for active problem-solving.

All things said, I still believe this is a good society. But I don’t see it as a perfect society, like what most mantra says. The thing is, one has to realize that even a good society is not good for everyone. It is good if one wants to channel their energy into pensive pursuits, which needs concerntration more than anything else. But if one has other talents that don’t fit into this society, they don’t need to persuade themselves into believing that it must be their fault, which does no good to their already self-doubting mental state. Besides that, one often feel guilty being born into a good society as if they owe something to people who are not lucky enough. It is an angelic mindset, but not necessary. Good people’s guilt don’t do anyone any good. Kindness is out of kindness. Offering doesn’t need to be driven by a delusional guilt, and human suffering, no matter their material condition, is all painful.

*I did some quick research on John Adam’s exact quote, and it goes: I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.

I’ve been playing around with AI in academia for a while, and there are bunch of things that I think it can do and bunch of things it sucks.

• It spits good terminologies. Sometimes we don’t know how to dive into a topic because we don’t know there are vocabularies that describe the phenomenon or pattern, with which we can easily search and learn, and AI is handy in collating all those fancy terms that you wouldn’t easily know. Taking from here, one can find peer-reviewed resources to dig deeper.
• Caveat: not reliable for direct answers. I used it to answer my questions every now and then, and its answers even contradict themselves. Silver lining is that when reading them carefully, the incorrectness is obvious, but it can be time-consuming so not worth it.
• It can collate college course schedules for one to know in what sequence to learn a subject. Self-study sometimes get tricky when one follows a flexible schedule and at some point they cannot go forward because there are something they don’t know which is not a google-click away. Thus using college schedules is an easy method. Most colleges have their course schedules open for public so AI can rarely make huge mistakes. Even it make mistakes it’s not a big deal.
• Caveat: from here it’s better to seek for other resources (e.g. MIT OpenCourseWare etc).
• It gives good sentence parsing. For philosophical, mathematical texts, or generally any texts that are peer-reviewed and is meant to be understood (which excludes anything poetic), I use AI to help me parse them whenever I don’t understand. For a language model I guess that’s what it was meant to do at the first place.
• Caveat: It mansplains. But good thing is one can shut it up anytime they feel like.

I read a piece of news this morning, and it struck me as a bit surprising and confusing at first glance, so I tried to see it in topology to see whether there’s any ways to interprete it better.

The news went like this: some school teachers shared grievances over irrelevant responsibilities attached to their performance evaluation, which concerns new governmental incentives that applies to general citizens. In order to propogate the nudges, school teachers were ordered to encourage the students to ask their parents to adapt to them, and if it failed, the teachers would get public reprimand in school. Both the teachers and the parents complaint about it, and it triggered much criticism from the public as well. 

I draw a simple graph to represent this structure: 

In the graph we can see that there are several players in the interaction: government, school, teachers, students and parents, the edges represents some kind of connection, least of all, they know each other, but most possibly much more complicated.

For civil responsibilities, we can transform the graph into a digraph with arrows representing responsibility-taking direction. Each player in the field takes their own responsibilities, i.e., are reflexive, and at the same time there is a partial order existing among government, school, teacher and students.

These arrows can also be interpreted as “who directly imposes influences on the other’s decision-making.” Here, I am only taking consideration of obligations, not implicit influences like propoganda and rhetoric. And these decision-makings are all under the condition that their behaviors are legal, i.e., not breaching any rules that are forbidden by law.

We can see that in this power hierarchy, there isn’t a path from govenment to parents. The nudges can only influence the parents through softer methods to persuade them to make their own decisions, either by stimuli or rhetoric.

But at the same time, there are other layers of these same modes, as a multiplex network.

This layer represents a subtler relation among the multiple members. This is the human psyche that strive to get into someone else’s good books, for the benefit of future gain, either of political benefits, career growth, educational resouces, emotional bonding, etc. One could also say there are arrows too from teachers to students and teachers to parents, making them reciprocal relations, but the desires this way are not as strong as the other way around, so I omitted them for simplification purpose.

We can see that in this representation, there are two paths from parents to the government. The one who wants favor is in a less powerful position and the ones pointed to more powerful ones. Thus there emerges an established power system with the inversion of the arrows.

Here the hierarchy is established. And now the decision-making is no longer based upon a responsibility system but an inversive struture of favor-seeking. In other words, this favor-seeking human psyche is taken advantage of for executive purpose.

There are also two components that worth ponder about in this graph, namingly the one bounded by bureaucratical obligation (gov, school, teachers) and the one by moral, legal and emotional obligation (teachers, students, parents). The former one is an executive path and the latter one is not much so, and there could also be interesting findings. But I ran out of time, so I guess that’s it for now.

诗歌是一种语言的杂技，但多于杂技的一点是，其中有追寻真理的意图。语言与其他艺术媒介不同的是，语言就是意义的直接载体，每一个字都有既定的约定俗成的、达成共识的含义，文字的组成方式也有约定俗成的、听起来顺耳的组成形式。诗歌试图通过破坏字和词原本的含义范围，以及破坏词与词本土化的连接方式，来探索语意是不是能有更多的可能性。

但我想，很少有人对诗歌本能的吸引是来自于这样逻辑性的思考，我们喜欢诗歌首先是因为它们很美。为什么会感觉诗歌很美？因为它们没有像普罗大众一样使用语言。这是我们追求新颖的天性。我们喜欢看违反规定的东西，违背规律的东西，我们会感到本能的好奇。就好像街上一旦有人发生争执，我们就会想凑过头去看看他们在吵什么，因为这样的事情可不是天天都有。

诗歌给人的本能吸引就在于此：新颖。新颖的东西总有一种活力，因为它并不稳定，还没有被纳入到已有的公序良俗之内，它刚刚露出枝桠，会收到各种各样的评价。它还没有被刻上纪念碑，也没有被钉上耻辱柱，它很有意思，让人忍不住感到很触动。偶尔，这样新颖的书写方式却能表达出我们平时用规范语言所说不出的情感，那这时我们就会忍不住要热泪盈眶了。

如果诗歌只有对语言的玩弄，那它也就是一个手工艺品罢了，但手工艺品也有把玩的乐趣，是一种雅兴。此外，如果手工艺者以手工艺的目的，却让观赏的人体味到了艺术的快感，那手工艺及艺术的边界就变得模糊了，这就是两者之间的灰色地带。

我无法接受的是将病人文学捧上神坛，对疯子诗人的崇拜，以及浪漫话诗人和作家的奇闻，比如顾城，或小说家威廉巴勒斯。这二位都有一个共性，就是杀妻。顾城比巴勒斯稍有点人性，在杀妻之后自杀，巴勒斯则是杀害完妻子之后逍遥法外。顾城的诗歌自然有美感，巴勒斯的裸体午餐也有它的幽默之处，但这样的文学都是病人在生病之后写出的症状，它一定有美感，但不值得被认为是神圣的作品。应当想的是，他们为何会生这样的病？社会出了什么样的问题，会让人他们出这样的作品？

所有的疯子都是诗人，但不是所有的诗人都是疯子。

语言学中，很多讨论常会用声望来解释一种语言的流行度的变化，这点我不太认同。会超过一种语言（包括方言）的人都会意识到，运用非母语语言的目的是在目标语言的语境当中获取某些东西，或是信息，或是美感，或是幽默，或是与运用该语言的人的交际，或是哲学，或是思想，或是娱乐，或是机会。不管是哪一样，绝非是在自己母语环境当中运用第二语言来彰显自己的威望，稍微想想就会发现，这有什么意义呢？花了这么久的时间来学习一门语言，只是为了自己看上去更厉害吗？

即使是对英文的讨论，声望也总在议题之上，这让我感觉很困惑。当一门语言已然被广泛使用，那么国际上运用这门语言的人就会越来越多，这是基本的人的心理。一旦想走出母语的世界，就势必希望首先学习最多人使用的语言，这是一个非常本能的理由。拉丁语难道不比英文更有声望吗，如果按照这样的原因，为什么大家不去学习拉丁语呢？不过我想，以声望的思路，又会有英文取代拉丁文成为最有声望的语言一说。

语言的发展及其复杂，但如果对语言的讨论圈限在将语言看作装点使用者门面的饰品，未免舍本求末。

這幾天看了很多許倬雲先生的談話節目，深有感觸。實際上，自出國以來，逐漸有的想法是意識到了中國文化的重要，其美感，其精神，其魄力，在世界思想史內是極其重要的一環。許先生談到，在上世紀庚子賠款資助留學的學生中，後學成歸來的，多少會認為自己所留學過的地方相比較於中國更好，成為了他國的宣傳使者。這點讓我感到意外，因為與我自己留學的感受全然不同。

瑞士在客觀來講，有很多獨特且值得學習的地方，這是共識，我按下不講。但中國的魅力在於，那裏有一種獨樹一幟的精神，一種「氣」，這在西方是尋覓不到的。西歐在這個世紀的發達體現在物質文明，桌子更漂亮，手錶更精準，但這些東西再怎樣也只是工具，匠人精神當然是好事，但他既然有一個匠字，那就是在製作「器」，匠也是器，這個社會就成了器具的堆積。而對器具的過度重視，人就會被放在後面的位置，最後會變成人人願意製作更好的器，成為更好的器。中國講究的「氣」則是另一碼事，那是一種以人為本的討論，人應當對於自己的精神有一個交代，對自己的族人、這世界上全部的人都有個交代，這是中國道德的底色。當然，西方的道德也自成一派，但它是理性推理出來的，從上帝推理出人應如何行事，是一種精準的道理條文；中國的道德是人心的衝動，是一種激情，人要為氣節負責，是要於周圍世界產生連結的一種狂熱。

出國前不懂為何中國人在國外也喜歡抱團，喜歡小圈子講中文，喜歡用自己的系統辦事，我想，除了人們詬病的走關係辦事之外，這裡面有一種於人產生連結的動力。我在國內學習語言刻苦至極，以至於出國沒經歷語言障礙。我的原本動力就是希望於人交流，產生連結。但出國後意識到，人與人的連結並不是靠語言相通，靠的是人與人內心往對方靠攏的衝動。西方社會的獨立性強，人要獨立，要距離。獨立是中國人要學的東西，距離是西方人要改的東西。

當然，瑞士教了我很多東西，教會我如何更好地照顧到別人感受，如何更好地使用工具，如何製造規則系統並運行這個系統，但總而言之，瑞士的系統都是期待在人和人更少發生牽絆的前提下運行一個社會。但這樣的社會有孤立的問題，人與人不再產生衝突的同時，也不再產生碰撞和交談。火車上面沒有人聊天，陌生人的行李旁人一般不會扶一把，這是瑞士社會提倡的個人尊嚴和獨立，但同時，人與人沒有打開話匣的開口，門窗緊閉，空間沒有聯通，最親密的人也不知彼此心中所想，人AI化，AI人化，我想，這是我對西方社會所並不認可的一個部分。

中國還有一種氣節，是狹義的精神，這是我最看重，也是最思念的地方。在國內社會工作多年，遇到過不少敬重的人，從他們身上學到了很多我敬佩的品質，狹義就是最大的特點。它是匿名化的道德，是只為做事而做事的忘我，它甚至不為神明，不是西方的書罪券，也不是為博取自己的快活，它就是為做而做，為人而博，為心中道而爭取，以薄薄的肉身而衝擊建構的大廈。沒人會用一本書的推理來教導別人為何要這樣做，它憑藉的是一種人本能的道德判斷和尊嚴。

許倬雲先生講，中國的神話是以人為核心的，西方的創世理論是神的產物，這與我一直以來的思考有很大的共同之處。即使在人本主義盛行的歐洲，其時代精神也只是向人賣了一步，向神走遠了一步。而中國精神的核心，向來是圍繞於人的。

對歐洲的觀察和遊歷，讓我對自己文化產生了深刻的理解和感動，這是我意想不到的體會。

From the outset, Sandra, the female protagonist, is in a trance-like talk with a literature student who comes for an interview. It is a bizarre talk. Sandra is drinking. The camera often closes up abruptly. The dynamic between the two is stilted, operatic and probably a bit flirty in hindsight. Music pushes in, inappropriately loud. It’s an uplifted one, saucy, dance-like. The camera keeps unstable. All of these add up to the stagy effect of the weird conversation, which eventually leads to the interviewer bringing up the topic of the blurry boundary between fiction and reality. Up until this point, everything looks fictional. Ironically, it is the only part that is later eligible as court evidence: the interviewer recoded the conversation—without ambiguous sounds such as the one in the fight recording—and thus it is mechanically perceived as reality. 

This first scene sets the motifs which will be dealt with later by dint of a fall and all its complications. The interview is finished haphazardly due to the music, and Daniel takes over as the focalizer. At the same time, the camera switches to a calm manner, as if leading us to the mundanity of real life. But the sudden death of Samuel again makes it all unrealistic. How can he die so suddenly? It must have been planned! The Gone Girl mindset sneaks into the audiences’ suspicion, and the police’s. Fiction and reality from this point begin to intertwine to the next level. 

The first layer is the forming of a story. When two parties present their narratives to the court, only one is considered real, and the other fake or fictional. But speech in and of itself is a form of fiction. The word “fiction” comes from Latin, meaning “form, contrive,” and speech in its nature is an organization of ideas. Therefore both parties may contrive a story for their benefit by using the fragments of what happened. In this film, it is further complicated by the fact that Samuel is dead, so he can only speak through what he leaves behind: recordings, talks with others before his death, behaviors seen by witnesses, etc. However, if it makes any difference, his narrative becomes more convinceable, because he cannot lie anymore. This might be due to the common belief that only lies make a story fictional, without realizing organization is the biggest contribution to a story’s fictionese. To procure the truth, we should not only look at what is included but also what is left out. In Samuel’s case, he leaves out a capacious blank. 

The second layer can be categorized in the first one, but can also be looked at on its own merits, which is the reported speech of another person. There lies a debate in linguistics on the terminology of “reported speech.” Some believe it is a misnomer, because the word report connotates “fact,” which further connotates its trueness. However, retelling another one’s speech is never a documentary representation—the speaker is entitled to alter the material to their own purposes. So some linguists propose to term it “constructed dialogue.” This is vividly represented in the film when Daniel tells what Samuel said to him when they drove together. The voice is from Daniel in the court, while the focalizer is him in the car, watching Samuel talking. There is a weird combination of Samuel’s facial motion with Daniel’s voice. It looks like they match each other perfectly, as if Daniel is play-acting his father. But at the same time, we mustn’t forget that it is because both the visual image and voice are Daniel’s production. 

What adds to the mixture of reality and fiction is that both Sandra and Samuel are novelists. Sandra is considered a biofictionist, and Samuel also tries to integrate his life into his work, which is why he records his domestic arguments. This evokes a thought experiment: imagine when Sandra writes another book on this matter, as she always does after an incident of her life, everything—including what is considered reality, such as the court proceedings—becomes fiction. What makes the thought experiment more interesting is taking into consideration that this film itself is fiction. It forces us to take a step back, stop looking at the film, and take a sip from the glass on our table. But who can confirm that we are not fictional characters created by some eccentric creator for their entertainment? 

What is real? At the end of the film, Sandra goes through everything. She doesn’t feel happy, because she isn’t rewarded anything after all this gratuitous toil. Life goes on. People die, just some earlier than others. We constantly make what is happening into memories and fiction, until at one point, everything becomes fiction and we die. Probably at the end of the day, only fiction stands strong.