In the seventh season of the newly aired debate variety show "Qi Pa Shuo", Liu Qing, a professor of political philosophy from East China Normal University, was praised as "the professor among professors" and "the leader in philosophy" as soon as he appeared. As the barrage flew by, many netizens expressed that they were not familiar with him at first and wondered what value philosophy could bring to this program whose audience is mostly young people. After the broadcast, Liu Qing's "way of speaking" allowed young viewers to see that philosophy, a humanities subject that is far away from them, can be so close to reality.

I remember one of the debate questions was: "Should I reply to work messages after get off work?" Professor Liu performed brilliantly on this question.

This question actually reveals the situation of beaten workers.

Looking at the entire audience, both the instructor’s speech and the player’s speech were very exciting. In particular, Professor Liu Qing's speech was inspiring and exciting.

Before, Professor Xue proposed the concepts of "should be" and "is what is", and also secretly dissed philosophers, saying that they like to say unrealistic and beautiful things, but most people care more is what the world is like.

Times have changed. In the past, there was a clear distinction between commuting and get off work, and it was not necessary to reply to messages because manual labor had strict requirements on the physical environment. And communications are not well developed.

Nowadays, everyone’s work scene is all mental work, and there is no such clear distinction between commuting and get off work.

Professor Xue’s speech can be summed up in one sentence: The world is already like this. If you cover your ears and don’t listen, you are just covering your ears and stealing the bell. Whether you accept it or not cannot change the reality.

Professor Liu Qing’s counterattack was both timely and beautiful. He said: First, if we always accept what is, the world will never change. The world becomes a better place precisely because we know how it "should" be.

Secondly, if you are willing to reply to messages after get off work, that is your freedom. But there are still some people who are unwilling to reply to messages. We must stand on their side and protect their legitimate rights.

Third, the world should make those bad options disappear, rather than how bad the world is, we should obey it.

People should not be used by economists as bargaining chips and tools for calculating costs. People are ends in themselves, not just tools.

This is already the reality, but at least we must question it and express our non-acceptance. The abolition of child labor and the introduction of the eight-hour working day and weekends just verified this point.

In addition to reality, human beings must also have ideals.

Honestly speaking, once this question was taught by two professors, all the previous debaters’ speeches became boring. Fortunately, they speak later, so this does not affect the audience's experience. It feels a bit like eating cold dishes and then eating hot dishes.