Garbage Time

In an essay later translated into English and entitled How to Get Through the Garbage Time of History, Hu said the concept occurred to him when considering the Brezhnev era in the Soviet Union.  By then, the revolutionary fervor had long passed, nobody believed the slogans any more, and the government seemed to be sleepwalking towards its collapse.

Hu said that China has such a long history, it has gone through a number of “garbage times.”  He summarizes the state of a number of imperial dynasties, the end of which was nearly always a period of stagnation–a garbage time–eventually leading to a new dynasty that started with new energy but later declined into a garbage time of its own.

Far be it from Hu to apply the concept to present day China!  He said nothing about China today, as I’m sure he is telling his interrogators right now.  But the implication is clear, especially when he brought up the practice young Chinese adults are calling “lying flat”; that is, doing as little as possible in their jobs just to get by.

His essay has gone viral in China and has provoked an indignant rebuttal from the Communist Party, which has censored the piece.  But Dominic Pino of National Review, in discussing Hu’s essay, says that China’s economy is indeed in a state of stagnation.

But the original essay goes beyond economics, and I think its application goes beyond China.  It raises the question, is American and Western culture going through a “garbage time”?

Here are some excerpts from Hu Wenhui’s How to Get Through the Garbage Time of History.  Here is his thesis:

History, like competitions, inevitably has periods of garbage time. When the overall situation is set, and defeat is inevitable, no matter how hard one tries, it’s just a futile struggle, and all that remains is to end with as much dignity as possible.

He gives examples of right before the fall of the Soviet Union and from China’s long history, being careful to say nothing, though, about China’s condition now, while implying it in a way no one can miss.  Drawing from the ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius, he says that the best way of getting through garbage times is “lying flat”, exiting, doing as little as possible:

Given the long span of Chinese history, Chinese people have a wealth of experience in coping with garbage time. Confucius once said, “When the Way prevails in the world, show yourself; when the Way does not prevail, hide.” This is indeed a saying full of wisdom about how to navigate life. The “hide” in “hide when the Way does not prevail” may sound classical, but in modern terms, it’s akin to what we now call “lying flat”. To borrow a concept from American economist Albert Hirschman, it can also be seen as “exit”—when “voice” no longer works, individuals can only choose to “exit.” Whether it’s “hide,” “lying flat,” or “exit,” these can all be viewed as a form of rejection of garbage time.

We all know that Japanese TV drama Long Vacation—sometimes in life, when things aren’t going well, there’s no need to force yourself to work hard. Just treat it as a long vacation granted by the gods. So, if you encounter garbage time in history, just exit. Treat the garbage time of history as a long cultural vacation.

So getting through garbage time requires resignation, dropping out, taking a vacation from it all.  Hu does say there are some good things about living through garbage time.  He says that these times in China have produced good literature.

The development of history and the development of culture are not always synchronized, nor do they end simultaneously. Often, cultural outbursts lag behind historical events. This is why, even when history enters garbage time, it can still produce a long vacation for culture.

So if China is going through a garbage time, what about us?  What is the state of American culture and of Western civilization?

China’s economy, once so vital, seems to be going through the doldrums.  But the American economy, despite some problems, is doing quite well.  And yet it doesn’t feel that our economy is doing well.  The vogue among young American workers is “quiet quitting,” doing just enough at your job to avoid getting fired.  This is exactly the same as what young Chinese workers are doing in “lying flat”!  (See my posts on quiet quitting and Lying Flat and Letting It Rot.)

If hardly anyone really believed in Communism anymore in Brezhnev’s Soviet Union or believes it now in Xi Jinping’s China, what is happening with America’s constitutional ideology?  The hard Left believes it is all a sham, nothing more than white males imposing their power by  justifying slavery, sexism, colonialism, and capitalism.  The hard Right believes all that liberty and individual rights talk has resulted in the moral anarchy we are dealing with today and yearns for a “post-liberal” regime that dispenses with democracy and freedom in order to impose order for the common good.  Progressives believe that the true founding of the United States was not with the Declaration of Independence but with the first slave ship.  Conservatives want to “make America great again,” implying that it isn’t great now.  For all of their polarization, both sides are cynical, frustrated, and pessimistic when it comes to America.  Neither side seems to put much store in “Americanism”–the ideology of democracy, freedom, individual rights, and free market economics–that schools (!) used to push during the Cold War as the antithesis of Communism.

As for the arts, which are often the index to the vitality of a culture, they seem to be going nowhere.  The garbage time between dynasties in ancient China might have been good for literature, but that can hardly be said today.  The fine art establishment has given up on the very concept of “beauty” (seen as the imposition of ruling class ideals) and can do little more than try to hector their audience with political preaching and shock them with blasphemy and bodily fluids.  Even the popular arts seem trapped in an endless loop of remakes, nostalgia, and stylistic plagiarism.  Contrast that to the cultural energy of the 1960s, a time that was bad for our culture in many ways, but it still felt exhilarating.

But our technology is advancing in leaps and bounds!  Yes, but contrast what it was like when computers and the internet first came into their own, the excitement and stimulation and sense of new possibilities.  Now think of our reaction to Artificial Intelligence, virtual reality, and self-driving vehicles.  We now fear our technology.

Garbage time is ultimately a spiritual malaise, when a culture’s lack of meaning and purpose catches up with it.

Are we in garbage time?  Is there any remedy besides “lying flat”?

These times seem to mark the end of one era, heralding the beginning of a new era, one that rekindles people’s cultural energy.  What do you think that new era might look like?

Photo:  Numb after Loss by Robert Benson – High resolution download of DD-SP-99-04111[ dead link ], Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3830724