The Fat Years

I still wanted to prove that I was the best of all the second-rate writers. I refused all further requests to write journalism and started to concentrate solely on my novel. Since then, I have not written a single word.

In a moderately well-off society, the people fear chaos more than they fear dictatorship.

As time goes by, they will even forget that it is a fake paradise. They start arguing in defense of this fake paradise, asserting that it is actually the only paradise. But there’s always a small number of people, even if they are only an extremely small minority, who will choose the good hell no matter how painful it is, because in the good hell at least everyone is fully aware that they are living in hell.” I

The vast majority of the people in the world have not received any rigorous philosophical training and they do not possess the intelligence to understand things clearly. We philosophers cannot tell them the truth, otherwise they would attack us just like they executed Socrates. In a public forum, a philosopher can say only what the masses love to hear and cater to them. Nevertheless, a philosopher may utter a few code words, heeding the difference between insiders and outsiders and permitting the insiders, members of his own party, to grasp his true meaning, as in the traditional phrase ‘subtle words carry profound meanings.’

I discovered that the nationalistic “angry youth” on the Internet are actually not all youths. Some of them are in their fifties and sixties. They grew up during the Cultural Revolution and heeded Old Mao’s call for young people to engage with important national affairs. None of them went to college. They work at the most menial jobs in society and haven’t had the benefits of the Reform and Opening policies. Now they are laid-off or retired and they have learned how to go on the Internet, where they can find like-minded people and a place to vent their anger and dissatisfaction

People are so strange. When people treat us badly, we do what they want us to do; when people treat us well, we pay no attention to them at all.

I don’t think ordinary people should have to concentrate on remembering—it’s not good for them, and it’s not their job. It’s intellectuals who shouldn’t forget.

This year is the year of my zodiac sign, and a lot of strange things are bound to happen.