Why Do We Get Into Such Heated Arguments Online?
I don't know whether you have noticed, but the arena of online public opinion is becoming more and more extreme, and more and more exhausting.
Whenever some place reveals a bizarre policy, or local officials take a one-size-fits-all approach, two sharply divided voices immediately appear in the comments. One group instantly loses it and starts raging that “this generation of the nation is no good” and “this country is beyond saving.” The other rushes to defend every shortcoming blindly, believing that “as long as it is a decision from above, everyone must cheer for it 100 percent and in full.” Anyone who dares offer even a technical suggestion for improvement is immediately branded “unpatriotic.”
This kind of pointless confrontation, label-slinging, and even keyboard pounding until one's blood pressure rises plays out every day. The underlying reason is actually that many people, in their understanding, throw the four concepts of “nation, country, political party, and government” into one pot, thereby reversing the most fundamental logic beneath them.
To stay clear-headed, we must make this distinction: the nation is our bloodline, and the country is the great ship carrying all of us. Political parties and governments are the ship's “navigator” and “specific management team” during a particular historical period.
Once we separate these four, there is only one core question we truly need to face and answer: In modern society, who exactly cannot do without whom?
I. Many People's Common Sense Is Quietly Reversed Here
In many people's subconscious minds and habitual narratives, there is always a simple and even slightly humble intuition: “How could ordinary people live if no party or government were managing them?” “Without planning from above, where would our high-speed rail and prosperity have come from?”
This thinking turns the causal relationship of history and reality completely upside down.
Modern political science, economics, and even the historical materialism we learned from our childhood textbooks all state one thing with perfect clarity: it has never been the people who cannot do without political parties and governments; it is political parties and governments that cannot do without the people.
This is by no means an empty slogan. It is determined by brutally cold reality and hard logic.
II. The First Dependency: Without the People's Blood, Sweat, and Funding, the System Could Not Run for Even One Day
Let us begin with the most ordinary but also the most concrete issue: money.
A political party needs to expand and maintain a vast organization. A government needs to operate a huge state apparatus. Every day, administrative departments at every level open their doors, pay salaries, undertake construction, and maintain social order. Does this astronomical administrative cost fall from the sky?
No. It all comes from 1.4 billion ordinary people.
It is the personal income tax you contribute while working overtime and squeezing onto the subway every day;
it is the business tax every private company grits its teeth and pays under pressure;
it is even every cent of consumption tax silently included in the price when you buy a bottle of water at a convenience store or eat a bowl of noodles.
It is the people's hard work and real tax payments that continuously pump blood into this enormous administrative system. Without the wealth created by the people, any political party would instantly lose the funds needed to operate, and any government would grind to a halt within 24 hours.
At the most basic level of economics and survival, the people are the providers. If a “service provider” loses its “financiers and taxpayers,” it does not even qualify to survive. The accounts make perfectly clear who cannot do without whom.
III. The Second Dependency: Without the People's Authorization and Cooperation, Every Grand Blueprint Is Wastepaper
Now let us look at the nature of power.
The management team can sit in bright offices, issue orders, and draft official red-letter documents because all the people, in order to obtain shared “social order” and “public services,” voluntarily ceded a portion of their individual rights and collectively granted those rights to them.
The legitimacy of power comes uniquely and exclusively from the people's recognition.
No matter how beautiful the grand blueprint proposed by a political party may be, without 1.4 billion ordinary people rising early and working late in factories, fields, and office buildings to struggle and carry it out, it is only words on paper;
no matter how rigorous the administrative policies formulated by a government may be, without the self-discipline, cooperation, and trust of the people at large, they are merely a pile of wastepaper that can never be put into practice.
The brilliant achievements this major country has made in recent years, including its high-speed rail network, technological progress, and rapid economic growth, certainly depended on stability in top-level design. But the causal relationship must be understood more clearly: these were not miracles conjured out of thin air by managers. They were blown into being, breath by breath, by 1.4 billion ordinary people through their own diligence, intelligence, and even immense individual sacrifice. Wealth and prosperity are always produced by the people's own sweat.
Excellent managers merely followed the historical current of the people's desire for better lives. It is political parties and governments that need to prove the value of their existence and the legitimacy of remaining in their positions by “serving the people well.” They cannot do without the people for even a moment.
Conclusion: Only by Knowing Who Cannot Do Without Whom Can We Stand Tall
Once you have fully understood the core logic of “who cannot do without whom,” you can possess a truly mature and rational sense of ownership in this noisy internet age.
When the business environment in a certain place deteriorates, or a particular regulation makes life difficult for working people, we stand up to criticize it and demand that it be changed. This is not “unpatriotic,” much less a “betrayal of the nation.”
Quite the opposite. As the true shareholders and providers of this “century-old shop,” when we see an employee on duty, a specific government department, miscalculate the accounts or display a poor attitude, we tap the table and tell them to correct it. This is our natural right as shareholders, and it is also a constructive measure urging the service provider to improve its professional standards.
Blindly flattering a service provider that exercises specific administrative power and elevating it into an unquestionable deity is not patriotism. It is the inability to stand after kneeling for too long in one's own mind.
Distinguish direction from pace, and the great ship from its helmsman. Most important of all, always remember who is the true foundation and source of energy on this land. Only by restoring the people to their rightful position as the principal actors can we avoid losing our direction as owners amid the tearing extremes of public opinion.