💾 Archived View for josias.dev › gemlog › replies › tang-ping.gmi captured on 2023-01-29 at 03:06:48. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
I'd like to share some of my thoughts on quiet quitting, since the original post understandably didn't explore the concept more broadly than sharing a couple of thoughts. This doesn't directly address freeshell's post, but does provide further context to the points raised in it.
I've only heard of "quiet quitting" in passing, but I'd like to share my personal understanding of it in case someone else finds it informative. Please correct me if any of this is inaccurate.
Tang ping ("laying flat") is an idea developed in China during the last couple years. It is a form of resistance against overwork. They've even developed this idea further into bai lan ("let it rot"). If you are being forced to work long days and are alienated from the produce of your labor, why work any more than you need to? Focus on your own health, your mental health, your connection to the world around you. Free yourself to explore your surroundings in a way you've previously been to busy to consider. Stop letting yourself be worked to death.
Lying flat is a state of mind – that is, I feel that many things are not worthy of my attention and energy. Life is just lying down, lying down and lying down. Lying flat is justice.
"Quiet quitting" is a tamed version of this concept, rejuvinated recently as a Western equivalent to tang ping. Instead of being a rebellion against overwork, it is a silent resignation to working less than you might otherwise. It can be considered to be a transitionary phase before actually leaving a job.
Reframing the concept of tang ping in this way allows the West to water down the concept into something that already fits within their worldview, one that can't even begin to imagine a world outside of capitalism.
This is far from the first time ideas developed by resistance movements have been redirected into something more palatable. Unionized labor and even holidays have been subverted into reinforcing capitalism rather than challenging it.
Let's look at unions. During the early socialist movement, workers organized into unions to sieze more power for themselves in the class conflict. There's strength in numbers, but those numbers must be organized to make a difference.
In some countries the organization of labor lead to entire revolutions that nominally put the working class in power ("dictatorship of the proletariat"). In other countries the organization of labor was tamed and reintegrated into capitalism, eventually being rendered obsolete. Those who do not submit to this integration are attacked, imprisoned, and pressured to dissolve at every opportunity.
A more subtle example is May Day, particularly as International Workers' Day. It has been celebrated since the 1880s as a day of awareness and solidarity for the working class movement. It is an official holiday in many countries.
During the workers' movement in the United States, the State wanted to appease the movement with their own holiday, but it wanted to avoid associating it with the international socialist and anarchist movements who use International Workers' Day as an opportunity to unite. Thus Labor Day was established, not as a day to encourage morale in the global fight for the liberation of workers, but as a concession to a part of the movement deemed acceptable.
"Quiet quitting" is not unlike those. Instead of letting changing the way we look at life in general, questioning the way society functions, the idea gets diluted until it becomes useless and the world moves on. Will we let this continue to happen with tang ping?
Lay flat
~ Josias, 2022-09-01 (CC-BY-SA 4.0)
Links:
Capitalist Realism: A Review (is there no alternative?)
Feel free to share your own thoughts via
Or leave me a note by running `ssh note@josias.dev` in your terminal.