Myriad Paths

why?

Lingxiao had never thought about this issue.

But she had no idea and could not continue thinking, so she continued to ask: "So... what is the conclusion of the senior?"

She didn't care what the answer was, she just wanted to know Li Qi's thoughts and figure out Li Qi's charm through the combination of thoughts and actions.

Li Qize replied: "Do you think that everyone's mutual distrust and oppression stem from a fundamental incomprehension between people?"

"Huh?" Lingxiao was surprised.

Wait, think about it carefully, it seems that this is indeed the case.

People naturally don't trust each other. You don't know whether the other person is well-intentioned or malicious, or what their intentions are towards you, so you will naturally be on guard.

The reason for this kind of distrust is that no one can perceive the other person's thoughts and understand other people's thoughts.

"This is indeed... a very simple but easily ignored idea, but it's useless, right? After all, you can't read minds. Even if you can read minds, you can't be sure whether what you read is true or false. This inference seems to be nothing. ." Lingxiao said after thinking.

Li Qize said: "No, how could it be meaningless? In fact, this is the basis of all inferences."

“On the one hand there is inhuman indifference and hard-hearted egoism, on the other hand there is unspeakable poverty, and it is this distrust that creates all of this.”

"A few days ago, we went to inspect the residence next to the city's mining area. Did you see it?" Li Qi asked.

"I've been looking at you, senior. It's difficult to draw you... so I only have you in my eyes." Lingxiao said.

The implication is that she didn't pay attention to what was going on over there.

"There are shabby residences over there. I counted a total of 14,000 houses, and there are at least 28,000 families living in them, a total of about 1.2 million people." Li Qi reported clearly. Out of data.

This surprised Lingxiao very much.

She thought about painting, which she was good at.

If Lingxiao is paying attention to Li Qi and wants to draw the charm of Li Qi, then Li Qi is paying attention to everyone in this world and wants to draw the charm of this world.

Just this point made Lingxiao happy.

As she gets to know this senior better, she will be closer to mastering his charm.

Li Qize continued: "So many people have been settled, but the total space in that area is less than 80 feet square. This level of crowding means that many families are often crowded together in the rooms inside. , several couples, all their children, sometimes adding up to five, six or even ten, sometimes including grandfathers, live in only one house, and next to them are large tracts of open space. "

"Is there no place? Or is there no material to build a house? No, neither. There is plenty of space, and the building materials are also readily available. Even the immortals who are called hard workers can easily make these Mortals live a good life only because they are afraid.”

"The immortal peons are afraid that mortals will snatch away their unstable status, and you are afraid that the peons will climb up, and the Tongtian Realm is afraid that you will climb up."

"But is it really a reason to worry about competition from others? Is this world... really lacking in resources?" Li Qi asked.

This made Lingxiao think for a while. After careful consideration, she chose to shake her head.

Yes, she herself knows that it doesn’t actually require many resources to make these people live well, and there is never a shortage of resources.

She didn't know how many resources there were in this world, but it was definitely a lot.

Li Qi even knew that this was a first-grade world, and a bunch of ninth-grade people were not even in the first grade. What they consumed was not as much as the natural breathing of heaven and earth.

"You see, the reason for all this is that you are afraid of each other, and this fear is not caused by the problem of living space and resources." Li Qi said: "Then, this fear itself has its source. Where does it come from the inability to understand each other? Have you ever thought about the nature of this mutual suspicion?”

This confused Lingxiao.

Mutual suspicion... and the essence?

Other people may harm you, so you must be on guard against others. Isn’t this natural?

"That may be a bit obscure, so let me rephrase it." Li Qi smiled and said, "Do you think 'you' is defined by yourself or by others?"

"Of course it's me!" Lingxiao replied immediately.

Just kidding, of course she defines herself, how could she let others define herself?

"Really?" Li Qi immediately asked, "Don't be so sure."

Then, he continued: "Is it because other people are watching you and interacting with you that you become who you are now, or... no matter how the world changes, you will always be you?"

This question brings the depth of the conversation to another level.

Indeed, is it possible for a person to grow without being influenced by others?

It's obviously impossible.

If you put it this way, wouldn’t people be the subject?

From the beginning, we have been coexisting with others. To put it simply, I am a part of the world, and the world is a part of me, and there are other people in this world. I have been with others from the beginning. 'Everyone' is born with such a social nature.

No one is a single individual. The essence of everyone is a group of people, an undifferentiated, abstract, anonymous, and vague group of people.

This possibility made Lingxiao suddenly break into a cold sweat.

If that's the case, doesn't it mean that...she doesn't have her true self? Because she was influenced by other people all the time, and ultimately countless influences made her who she is at this moment.

She has never had true free will. She is influenced all the time. The self is a social product, and the self is jointly constructed by others.

Li Qi seemed to be teaching, but also said as if he was talking to himself: "So, do you think this kind of resistance is actually a kind of competition? You are afraid of them, not because you are afraid that they will compete for your living space. Because you all know it’s a fight for subjectivity.”

"As a part of this vague group of people, you each want to expand your influence as much as possible, want to let 'self' overwhelm 'others', and finally occupy the self of 'others' and become the leader of this group of people. Absolute dominance, only in this way can you show your true self, otherwise you will show others’ self.”

"Look, is this struggle for subjectivity among individuals in a group the root cause of all this?" Li Qi asked.

He seemed to be asking Lingxiao, but also seemed to be asking himself.

In the situation assumed by Li Qi, others must exist and must be suppressed.

Others are hell, not because they are malicious, but because the existence of others is suppressing their own subjectivity. Therefore, in order to maintain their own subjectivity, they need to reaffirm their own subjectivity and suppress the subjectivity of others.

Others are everywhere, even if they do not actually encounter you on the spot, even when you are alone, you and others are still engaged in a subjective struggle.

Therefore, oppressing and suppressing others has become a normal state. This is not to compete for living space and resources, but to ensure that one is always independent in this abstract and chaotic society.

Lingxiao was frightened by Li Qi's rhetoric.

She even forgot that she came to observe Li Qi's charm, and was shocked by Li Qi's attempt to analyze the nature of society.

But Li Qi didn't wait for her reaction. After he asked these questions, he lowered his head again and fell into deep thought.

Obviously, Li Qi himself had no answers to these questions.

He still needs more clues. He needs to observe more of the actual situation in Immortal Heaven and get more specific information before he can continue to make inferences.

After a while, Lingxiao raised her head.

The Li Qi in front of her still looked like that.

Silent, indifferent, ignoring everything around him, looking at everything around him seriously, with a pretentious attitude.

Before, Lingxiao also thought that this person was pretending to be sophisticated.

But now, after listening to the other party's remarks, she found that this person was really thinking about some kind of social root that she could not understand at all.

As a result, Li Qi's charm seemed to become even more profound.

She quickly took out a pen and paper and drew a sketch.

It was a very crude sketch, and even his face didn't look like Li Qi.

But that contemplative temperament has a third of true meaning.

Lingxiao glanced at the sketch she had drawn and simply tore up the paper.

Not enough, far from enough.

These three points of true meaning are simply not enough to describe the man in front of her. She needs to observe more deeply and understand his actions and thoughts in more detail.

Thinking of this, she even looked forward to the next step with Li Qi.

Li Qi just said it casually and did not expect the other party to really give an answer. Anyway, for him, keeping Ling Xiao was just to avoid some trouble.

Yes, if Lingxiao is driven away, the local sixth-grade people will probably be very uneasy. When they are uneasy, people will do some irrational things. At that time, there is no need to worry about Li Qi's safety. I'm afraid that he The very fabric of society that one wishes to observe would be destroyed.

Is this kind of surveillance actually motivated by competition for subjectivity? After all, if Li Qi takes the lead, they may lose their authority in the city.

Yes, in the situation constructed by Li Qi, authority and prestige are the main forms of existence of subjectivity. When your words and will are implemented by others, this subjectivity will be fully demonstrated. Others People's subjectivity is erased, their individuality is suppressed, and everyone is forced to implement the authority's subjectivity and implement his will.

When you need others to define yourself, you no longer have subjectivity.

You need other people's opinions to define you, otherwise you don't know who you are.

It's simple and common. For example, a typical self-perception: I am a man and I work as an engineer.

So, for this ‘I’, men and engineers are his own definitions, descriptions, and labels of himself.

However, aren’t these labels formed by ourselves in our interactions with others and from the feedback of others?

If a person is allowed to live alone without contact with anything outside, can he still develop this kind of self-awareness?

So, doesn’t this prove that all self-evaluations are actually obtained from other people’s gaze, judgment and description of ‘me’?

Therefore, there is no real 'self', only 'self-subjectivity' in which all people are constantly influencing each other and constantly fighting with other people.

Others will fight for subjectivity with ‘me’, and others will objectify ‘me’ and label ‘me’.

For 'me', this is unacceptable. I am the subject, why should I be objectified by others?

However, when faced with authority, ‘I’ may surrender in this struggle for subjectivity.

‘I’ think that his label on me is... quite right?

I seem to be really a man, I seem to be really an alchemist. They all say that I am an alchemist, so there is nothing wrong with me being an alchemist? Then I just lay in the label that others had woven for ‘me’, and I felt very comfortable. I did what a man should do, what an alchemist should do, and I could be a man and an alchemist with peace of mind.

This is the outcome after the struggle of subjectivity fails, that is: ‘the self is defined by others’, ‘finding one’s own position by following the evaluation and definition of others’.

The outcome after victory in the struggle is naturally to be able to define others and occupy a dominant position in the group. You can say: "These people are actually just lazy" and "What are the characteristics of certain groups".

The characteristic of victory is that the qualities he mentioned will be accepted by others, and even become the self-perception of a certain group, and the losers will naturally accept these perceptions.

Some people may not win, but they can still make this kind of evaluation, because in this way they can pretend that they have won the subjectivity war, and have the pleasure of pointing out the country, but no one will listen to them.

This authority to define others is the victory of the individual within the group.

In order to maintain such authority, power, fame, wealth, and so on are needed.

The purpose of these things is to define others conveniently and easily.

In this way, the vague "group of people" in the group differentiates at this moment, and the individuals in the group are completely defined at this moment.

Therefore, maintaining the existence of the bottom is to maintain the existence of one's own subjectivity, that is, to maintain one's absolute status.

Li Qi observed the work of the miners and thought about this.

A few more days passed and he stood up.

Then, he said to Lingxiao: "Okay, now that we've seen the lower level, it's time to check out your place. I want to hold a banquet. Could you please send me an invitation?"