Recently, I saw university students complaining online that the current formalism in universities has reached a state of madness.
I found two posts as examples.
Student One’s Confession:
“I’ve been extremely resentful since starting university. Can you believe that university students have to attend morning self-study at 7 a.m.??? The dormitories don’t quiet down until 11:30 p.m., and the daily sleep time is only about seven hours. What’s even more outrageous is that there’s a self-disciplined sister who gets up at 6 a.m. for morning runs. I’m sleepy every day, the professional course teachers don’t emphasize the key points, and the water course learning committee members and class leaders also help the teachers catch those who skip class.”
Student Two’s Confession:
“The current atmosphere in universities is so oppressive, please save us. None of my friends who go to university and I are in good mental condition.
There’s endless homework, endless classes, endless accumulation of credits, and besides the first class, there are also second class credits. We have to fulfill the requirements for moral, intellectual, physical, and aesthetic education, and we’re either in class or on the way to class. After school, there’s still homework, every course has major assignments or group projects, every class has roll call and attendance, and if you miss a certain number of classes, you can only retake the course. 80% of the courses in the school are water courses, and these water courses still have a lot of homework. There are so many miscellaneous things that make my head ache. If I want to learn something useful myself, it’s all squeezed out by the water courses, homework, and a bunch of useless formalism.
Going to university feels like being drained. I’m on the verge of going crazy every day.”
After reading these students’ self-reports, I’m really glad that I had such a relaxed and free time when I was in university—although we already had some initial signs of formalism back then, it was still much better than now.
In the past two years, the increasingly rampant formalism in campuses has formed a widespread complaint and criticism online.
At first, many people complained that the lives of high school students were too painful and oppressive.
Then, this complaint spread to junior high and elementary schools.
Then to universities.
Then, it spread to faculty, all those involved in school work…
Anyone related to education is in pain and oppressed, and even feels a tendency towards perversion. Last year, I also wrote an article about the frequent incidents of students and teachers committing suicide—at that time, about four or five incidents occurred in a row, and this is what we can see in the media.
When we are already numb to these phenomena, what I want to ask is: where exactly is the root of formalism? Why can’t all this be stopped?
My answer is excessive “social management control desire.” In other words, the idea of “managing” has become the mainstream of society. Everyone feels that only by relying on management can they achieve the goal of development and gain a sense of security.
It seems that as long as there is no management, this society will be completely chaotic, and development will be impossible.
Behind this, it is actually the endless desire and pursuit of control by upper-level managers.
When we talk about systems and management, we often think that it is a mechanical thing, but in fact, behind the systems and management are still people, and it is human nature that determines the management methods.
Therefore, the root of the problem also lies in human nature.
In an era when everything was relatively relaxed, human nature was also generally different. As part of human nature, managers’ thinking is more inclined to “let go and do it freely” rather than “do it according to the way I specify.”
For example, when dealing with students, studying hard was more of the students’ own business, which was relatively private. Whether they worked hard or not depended entirely on themselves, and teachers would not be too demanding about other details besides studying.
Therefore, values were also more diverse at that time. After class, teachers often played basketball with students, and everyone lived with more “human touch.”
This is even more true in the economic field. In an era of “letting go and doing,” except for the restrictions of the law, you basically can’t see any other rules. Business people show their various skills, integrate their various ideas into business, and various innovations and inventions emerge endlessly.
Not to mention the cultural field, there is no fixed value to be promoted, and all kinds of flowers bloom, as long as the creation itself is excellent.
But later, it gradually became “do it according to the specified way.”
“Managing” gradually replaced the thinking of “doing it yourself” and became the mainstream of society. Behind it is a deep sense of insecurity, trying to grasp everything and control everything to feel at ease.
From an economic point of view, it has developed from a free economy to an industrial economy, and the industrial economy follows the “unified command.” The command wants to develop new energy vehicles, so projects are launched across the country, and everyone swarms in, and finally, they get subsidies and internal competition.
The investment promotion in various places is no longer based on local conditions and innovative ideas, but follows the industrial command. For example, in many places in recent years, if you don’t have the label of “high-tech manufacturing,” you don’t even want to be attracted for investment.
In the field of education, this is even more true. “Managing” has long surpassed the matter of grades and has expanded to all areas of students, all aspects of their lives, and all their time.
If you don’t keep an eye on the students every minute and every second, it seems that these students will “mess around.”
So, all kinds of methods have been invented to strictly monitor students, tie up their time and energy, and make them have nowhere to hide. They have no opportunities and space for socializing, playing, daydreaming, and going crazy.
Students don’t need human touch; they are just machines in the eyes of managers.
The faculty is the same. They are the executors who complete this “all-round monitoring,” and at the same time, they themselves become the monitored, accepting all-round and all-weather control.
Thus, endless reports, reports, assessments, and inspections come. The inspectors themselves are also exhausted, but they cannot relax, thus forming a situation where “every level is exhausted and complaining.”
“Managing” has become a deep sense of fear and obsession, like an imprint in everyone’s heart.
So, going deeper, where is the root?
In fact, it is still in the “layer-by-layer inspection” system of responsibility to the superiors. Tracing back to the source, you can always find a “leader” and “superior” responsible for inspecting the next level, so from top to bottom, the pressure begins to increase layer by layer, and each level dares not be negligent.
From the perspective of social human nature, it is also because development has reached a bottleneck period that managers try to grasp tighter and control more. But this is actually a paradox—the tighter you grasp, the more development is actually hindered.
When a society is based on the premise that “there is no sense of security without control,” development and progress will definitely stagnate, and history has proven this countless times.
If you want to rely on “more management” to achieve long-term social stability, then the result is destined to be the exact opposite.
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