An op-ed in the English edition of the Global Times today asks: Are Chinese people truly miserable? It opens:
"Misery" is a regular word today. From emotions reflected in the media and online, the Chinese sense of misery is increasing while happiness seems to be dwindling. Here are two questions: Firstly, is the sense of misery in Chinese society beyond normal? Secondly, what can the government and society at large do to stop this?
The conclusion is often that most Chinese people feel more miserable than before. As various conflicts break out, the public faces more social evils than before and have more ways to express their distress. Consequently the impression of their lifestyle is badly affected and negative assessments on society are flocking in.
But it is not proper to say the Chinese sense of misery has become unbearable. According to several surveys, Chinese are rather optimistic in their worldview. China is not an angry country or on the cusp of revolution.
I imagine they need to put in that last line about no revolutions to distinguish their argument from the upheavals in North Africa and the Middle East, which are continuing apace. Beyond that, this piece seems to be a fairly standard reflection on the social and cultural disruptions caused by rapid modernization. Misery sets in when individuals cannot find a job in the new economy, a place in the new society, or meaning in the new culture. That misery might be offset by the discovery of new possibilities and an openness to change. But these sentiments are by no means particular to China.
In raising the "what is to be done?" question, however, the author moves in a decidedly Mencian direction:
However, the government should bear the burden to reduce public misery, bringing dreams and hopes to society and encourage people to move in the right direction. Chinese people should believe that a better life awaits them and that the next generation will embrace a brighter future. People should also be confident in a more democratic and fairer society with less corruption.
Mencius, writing in a time of bewildering change and turmoil, had his own vision of what the government should provide to ensure secure and happy lives for the common people:
.....Let mulberry trees be planted about the homesteads with their five mu, and persons of fifty years may be clothed with silk. In keeping fowls, pigs, dogs, and swine, let not their times of breeding be neglected, and persons of seventy years may eat flesh. Let there not be taken away the time that is proper for the cultivation of the farm with its hundred mu, and the family of several mouths that is supported by it shall not suffer from hunger. Let careful attention be paid to education in schools, inculcating in it especially the filial and fraternal duties, and grey-haired men will not be seen upon the roads, carrying burdens on their backs or on their heads. It never has been that the ruler of a State, where such results were seen - persons of seventy wearing silk and eating flesh, and the black-haired people suffering neither from hunger nor cold - did not attain to the royal dignity.'
Not quite sure how that would translate into contemporary material conditions. But notice how the op-ed calls for "...a more democratic and fairer society with less corruption." More democracy! This is not as surprising as it may seem at first. The CCP has always contended that the political system it manages is a kind of democracy: a "socialist democracy." So, there's no real contradiction here between the author and the official ideology, at least not on the surface.
Of course, if the author wants to press for a multi-party, liberal, electoral democracy, well, then, Party censors are standing by to keep those ideas from gaining too much traction in society.
But if the pursuit of happiness that is the goal here, it would seem that a critical apsect of happiness is missing: the individual. Different persons will calculate happiness in different ways, depending on their circumstances and personalities. The government, or society, as a whole, cannot provide it for them. Certain material conditions and social opportunities can be made available, and these might increase the likelihood of happiness for a greater number of people. But individuals need to have the freedom as well as the wherewithal to create their own happiness.
That is not a feature of "socialist democracy," but it does have some grounding in ancient Chinese thought, especially Zhuangzi. As I have mentioned on other occasions, Burton Watson, translator of many ancity texts, including Zhuangzi, understands freedom to be the central theme of Zhuangzi.
And the link between freedom and happiness might best be captured by this passage (Hinton, p. 41):
A marsh pheasant has to walk ten paces for a bite to each and a hundred for a sip of water. But still wouldn't want to be tamed and put in a cage. Even treated like a king, it could never be happy and content.
澤雉十步一啄，百步一飲，不蘄畜乎樊中。神雖王，不善也
But that might be too politically incorrect, in the context of CCP power, for op-ed writers at the Global Times...
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