I remember before, not too long ago, probably in junior high school or high school, this kind of chicken soup was still very popular. At that time, my classmates and I liked to do the most, that is, turn over a newly bought book or motto under the table during class, and read it over and over again, and the cover of the book was worn out. At that time, I will write down some of the above examples and paragraphs in my composition, which will give me extra points. I still remember when I was in high school, I posted a note on my desk, "If you are a constant, why do you have to go to bed at night and get up at five?" The most useless thing is to be frozen for ten days a day. I posted it for three years before I knew it was called chicken soup.
After I went to college, I used Weibo and WeChat more frequently. My timeline is full of articles such as "The shortest between two points is not necessarily a straight line" and "The most important thing in life is 100". At first glance, this kind of article is good and thought-provoking, but there is always a sense of nausea after reading it too much. After all, disgusting is disgusting. I just don't watch. After shielding a circle, the circle of friends will be much cleaner. But in recent days, I found that there are more and more chicken soup on the timeline. After a careful look, I found that most of the chicken soup articles turned by my friends were accompanied by a large piece of my own criticism. I am curious to see why we have become so disgusted with chicken soup in just two or three years.
There is an answer in Zhihu that chicken soup for the soul is "no spoon for soup". I think this statement is half right. Chicken soup didn't give you a spoon, but it shouldn't give you a spoon itself. Take a typical example of drawing a horse. The function of chicken soup is to let you know that horses can become so beautiful after adding details. As for how to supplement this detail, chicken soup can't help telling you. It is an unrealistic dream to expect to be proficient in drawing horses through such a small picture. Just like the finger pointing to the moon in Zen Buddhism, it tells you that the moon is there, but you need to know how to get there.
Luo Yonghao said in his speech that in order to be a teacher in New Oriental, he studied English hard in the mountains. In order to overcome his fear of difficulties, he went to the second-hand book market and bought dozens of pounds of chicken soup stories. Whenever he feels that he can't read any more, he reads a few books and instantly feels energetic. Although I don't like Lao Luo very much now, I have to admit that his analysis of chicken soup is reasonable. Chicken soup is an anesthetic, because people nowadays like to show their rationality and objectivity, so they despise things like chicken soup, but when people are always upset, it is not bad to look at chicken soup and beat chicken blood. The problem now is that anesthetics can't be hit blindly. Don't sit in front of the computer all day playing games or watching cartoons and drink chicken soup. Chicken soup is not rice, or even a real bowl of chicken soup. Drinking too much is really limited except imagining that you can become awesome. For people like Mr. Luo Pangzi and Mr. Kaifu, chicken soup itself is just a means, but for those who are addicted to chicken soup but rarely insist on it, chicken soup itself has become an end.
If you ask "how to train six-pack abdominal muscles", the useful tool answer should be to give the time of daily exercise, the way of exercise, and even the food mix before and after exercise; But a chicken soup answer will tell you, "as long as you exercise hard, you can do it!" " ! A more detailed version may be like this: "I have a girlfriend whose original weight is 140 kg, and her boyfriend thinks she is fat and unfaithful to others;" She is also decadent, watching Korean dramas in the dormitory every day and ordering takeout; Later, she felt that she couldn't go on like this, so she began to exercise every day. It was like death at first, but after a month, she gradually got used to it. Now that she weighs 100, she has found a handsome and rich boyfriend, and the whole person has become very sunny; It is hard for me to imagine that exercise can bring such a big change to a person. " This passage is no different from the last sentence, only a little longer. For a person who already knows how to exercise, this may be a great incentive, but for a person who wants to know exactly how to build six-pack abdominal muscles, this is just a bunch of nonsense.
This practice of attributing all problems to "hard work" obviously simplifies the problem, which is probably an important reason why chicken soup is so popular. It provides a false hope through incomplete facts, and now people are so confused and impetuous that such hope is like a lifeline. Through a series of vague words, most people have a sense of * * *. For example, the following sentence, "You know you need to let go, but you can't let go because you are still waiting for the impossible to happen. This feeling is really difficult. " What do you mean "let go"? When can I confirm "impossible"? The fuzziness of the concept leads to the inoperability of the method. Just like a constellation, everyone knows its absurdity, but when reading the description, they always feel close to themselves. Replacing logic with emotion is the biggest defect of chicken soup.
But I think this is precisely the value of chicken soup. Not to provide you with a spoon, but to give you the taste of chicken soup and inspire you to find a spoon. Just like during the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, those long speeches were finally condensed into eight words, "Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea and defend our country". The logical relationship between these two sentences is worthy of scrutiny, but these eight words are simple and direct, which meet people's psychological expectations, so they have played a great role in political mobilization. You wrote a long article of 10,000 words to analyze the gains and losses of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea. It is very accurate, but it is not as wonderful as those short eight words for an ordinary soldier.
On the other hand, why are so many people dissatisfied with chicken soup? The first reason is that chicken soup is often pushed too hard, which makes you feel that "I can be as successful as those people". When you worked hard and found that you didn't become Li Ka-shing, Kai-Fu Lee or even Luo Yonghao, you felt cheated by chicken soup. Of course, there are more people who watch a chicken soup, light their blood for three minutes, and then sit back in front of the computer; After a week, I read another article and was full of confidence. If so, the third person got up and broke the book. "What the hell is chicken soup?"
The second reason may be that in order to play a slogan propaganda effect, the chicken soup article selectively chose facts, used some nondescript analogies, or simply made a series of logical mistakes. The common chicken soup routine is to give an example to say something, which obviously makes the fallacy of logical generalization. For example, the following two examples:
The first story.
A young man went to a company to apply for a job, and the boss said, don't push the door in the company. Everyone said yes. Then the boss didn't explain why, saying that he had something to do and would come back immediately, leaving a group of people hanging there. Then the young man answered the door, and there was a note inside: You are hired.
This story tells us not to stick to the rules, but to dare to try.
The second story.
A young man helps an old man look after something. The old man said he couldn't open it, and he didn't explain why. Then the young man honestly did not open it. The old man came back and gave him a sly smile. You didn't open it, did you? You are a good young man. I'll give you millions or something.
This story tells us to be honest.
There is nothing wrong with looking at these two stories alone. The problem is that the author of Chicken Soup tries to sum up a set of universally applicable laws, so it is inevitable that there will be contradictions when using isolated examples to demonstrate. Everyone has different marginal conditions when making choices, and isolated cases are almost unconvincing. A darker guess is that this young man will be lucky anyway, because his father is a big tiger, and the boss and the old man will want to please him. Similar speculation can be done indefinitely, but the conclusion without giving any applicable conditions is of no guiding significance.
Other common logic errors may be as follows.
1.？ Causal inversion. For example, it is found that most successful people are keen on charity, and then it is concluded that charity is a necessary condition for success. In fact, many successful people have the energy and financial resources to do charity because of their success.
2.？ Wrong analogy. For example, there is a very popular article recently called "The shortest distance between two points is not a straight line", which probably means that the theory of the steepest descent line is similar to the choice of life. As long as the route is chosen correctly, it is never too late. I think Brother Qian's comments are very good. This is a typical blind analogy. Can it be explained that adults always fall as fast? Why not find a "fastest rising line"?
3.？ Appeal to emotion. Some people on the Internet summed up the common words in chicken soup, such as "surprised, grateful, tearful, quiet, afternoon room, a nun, eager eyes, gently turned away, guilty, tearful, happy, holy, eternal, convinced, brave, ordinary, crying, loving, powerful, unforgettable, respectful and immortal. This is called "halo effect" in psychology.
There are many such fallacies, and any introductory book on logic will be explained in detail, so I won't go into them again. These mistakes may explain why Chicken Soup for the Soul is liked by many people but disliked by so many people, because the author thinks it belittles the IQ of readers. However, in retrospect, if we look at the fairy tales we saw as children with strict logic, aren't they all full of loopholes and moralizing? Seriously, isn't that the children's version of chicken soup for the soul? Perhaps it is because we grow up that we can find the fallacy hidden behind the words. But why not treat these chicken soups as fairy tales and read them in an unlabeled way? These chicken soups, even contradictory chicken soups, will make people laugh. Just like the story of two young people mentioned earlier, doesn't it mean that both methods can succeed? We don't want to tell children the falsehood of fairy tales, but we just hope that they have good hopes for the world. Reading chicken soup and removing those absolute conclusions show a beautiful and lovely world. Logic is a powerful tool, but it is not very cute to look at the world with logic all the time. I want to know the darkness of the world, but I also miss home and long for a better world, just as Li Haipeng said.
On the other hand, many people hate chicken soup just because these stories seem illogical. Have you noticed that in Zhihu, everyone is shouting against chicken soup, but whenever an anonymous user tells a story, the votes always go up. People tend to believe that there is goodness and beauty in this world, and justice has been rewarded. This may be a psychological mechanism established by human beings for cooperation for hundreds of thousands of years. As long as this platonic fantasy does not end, chicken soup will certainly continue to exist and flourish in the foreseeable future.
Let's finish with chicken soup. 90% people are still sitting in front of the computer after watching the chicken soup, 65,438+00% people go out to look for a spoon, and finally only 65,438+0% people successfully find a spoon, and only they are qualified to say, "Well, this chicken soup tastes like this."