Sun Liping on Lying Flat

Sun Liping, “Lying Flat is Definitely Not Confined to the Bottom of Society”[1]
 
Introduction and Translation by David Ownby 
 
Introduction 
 
Sun Liping (b. 1955) is a prominent professor of sociology at Tsinghua University, as well as an active public intellectual in China, known for his liberal perspectives on social and political issues (see this brief interview for his worldview).  As part of his engagement as a public intellectual, Sun posts frequently to his WeChat feed, generally addressing the issues of the day from a longer-term, sociological perspective in a pithy, understandable style.  The text translated here is drawn from his WeChat feed, and addresses a popular theme much discussed in China recently:  “lying flat 躺平.”
 
Like “involution,” or “sang culture,” lying flat is a response to the exhausting frenzy of China’s work life—particularly in the big cities.  Lying flat means keeping low, protecting yourself, lowering your expectations, staying out of the way.  We would probably talk about “getting out of the rat race” or, in a more extreme form, “going off the grid.”  The idea behind lying flat is that you can’t win; even with all your overtime and your scrimping and saving, you are still exhausted and running in place.  The first part of the solution is rejecting the message of mainstream culture that you can have it all if you want it enough.  Once you reject the message, other possibilities come into focus.
 
Sun Liping makes no claim to offer a penetrating sociological analysis of lying flat.  As in most of his WeChat posts, he offers his thoughts and perspectives in a fairly informal manner.  His main message here is that lying flat is not something that merely affects trendy young slackers, but is instead a preoccupation of much of China’s over-worked middle class, the same ones who are not having enough children, as Sun observes in another WeChat post translated on this site.  His message seems to be that China’s economic miracle is not sustainable, although it is unclear if he is addressing Party leaders or China’s capitalist bosses.  Sun’s original post attracted enough reader interest that he published two updates with reader comments, which are also translated here. 
 
Translation
 
Recently, “lying flat” has become almost as popular an expression as “involution,” and someone came up with a little saying:  “first-class people rely on their parents, second-class people rely on relationships, third-class people rely on their brains, fourth-class people rely on their physical strength, fifth-class people gamble with their lives, and people with no class rely on lying flat.”  This seems to suggest that lying flat is something that only occurs at the lower level of society. 
 
Is this true?  Is lying flat really something that only happens at the lower levels of society?  Is it something that only affects a few young people?  Recently, my old friend Master Guo, who, like me, doesn’t have a proper job but whose talents are nonetheless overflowing, said something interesting:  the officials who are avoiding responsibility and passing the buck are lying flat, the scholars who are selling tea and wine are lying flat (not me, though), the  bosses who dare not invest are lying flat, but even if we are in an era of lying flat, people at the lower levels of society don’t have the wherewithal to lie flat, as you can see by all the delivery motorcycles flying by. 

What Master Guo said, then, was that people at the bottom of society simply cannot afford to lie flat.  To be able to lie flat you have to be alive, and if you’ve got nothing to live on, lying flat is not an option.  Do we call “lying flat” lying flat when you’re dead?  So let’s be clear, lying flat is really about hopelessness, the feeling that your work and your struggle have no meaning. 
 
To take the argument a little further, not only do you need a little capital to lie flat, you need something else, too:  you have to have had hope at one point, as well as the destruction of that hope and the inability to get it back.  The list of phenomena related to lying flat that Master Guo came up with hit the nail on the head about an important aspect of lying flat:  these are the young middle class or white collar workers.  The youth that we usually refer to as working 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, or being on the job 24-7. 

For people at the bottom of society, the word “hope” is often a luxury.  Sure, they may lie down from time to time, but this is not a lifestyle they are looking for, this is just resting, or taking a break.  And before they’ve caught their breath and rested up, they have to get back up and go to work.  But for the young white collar workers, the young middle class whose situation is better than those at the bottom of society, their hopes have been dashed and the results of all their effort have not measured up.
 
Many people have a misconception of lying flat, seeing it as something comfortable.  And it’s true that there is a saying in North China:  “nothing tastes better than dumplings, and nothing is more comfortable than sitting down.”  Guo You lying around 葛优躺 is the very image of this.[2]  But don’t forget, we hear complaints like this even more often:  “Jeez, I caught a cold and spent the day lying down, and now my back is killing me.” 

What I mean is that lying down is not always comfortable, and can give you back pains.  In today’s reality, if you’re lying down a lot it’s because you have no choice.  I once read something about a couple in Shanghai who started lying flat seven years ago!  They don’t work!  They don’t have kids!  They don’t socialize!  They only spend 20,000 RMB (3,125 US$) in a whole year.  The article described this lifestyle in happy terms, as if the couple was quite satisfied.  
 
I believe the story is true, but I don’t believe the couple is happy, unless they’re a bit off.  This is how the couple explained how they only spend a bit more than 1000 RMB (155 US$) a month:  “We don’t go to work, so there’s not that pressure.  We don’t drink alcohol or smoke much.  We don’t eat too much either.”  What kind of normal person would be satisfied with this? 

“The clothes we bought when we used to go to work are still sufficient, and since we don’t go to work, we don’t have to change every day (except for underwear).  We wear them until they wear out, and then we buy something else.”  Would normal people be satisfied with this?  “Except for our parents, we don’t see anyone else, which saves money.”  Would normal people be satisfied with this? 

This brings me back to what I already said:  if you’re lying down a lot it’s because you have no choice.  Lying flat is not about charm or elegance 诗情画意.  Especially for people whose material needs are satisfied.  
 
I have a colleague, Guo Yuhua 郭于华, whose surname is the same as that of Master Guo, and she wrote a piece about lying flat yesterday.  In her essay she talked about the situation in the 1980s:  back then, peasants wanted to make their families rich, workers wanted to increase their income, entrepreneurs and business people wanted to start businesses and make money, scientists wanted to invent things, artists wanted to create things, scholars and students wanted to make up for the time lost during the Cultural Revolution, athletes wanted to win championships, even people who had been released from labor camps wanted to get rich…Clearly this was not an era for lying flat. 
 
So the first question we face today is not whether lying flat is right or wrong.  The idea is not for those of us standing tall without back pain to criticize those who are lying flat, but instead to understand why they are lying flat.  Simple criticism is useless.  They are already lying flat, and it is going to take more than noise to get them up.  The key question is how to create a social environment that will encourage effort.  Then again, in light of China’s rise to great power status, why worry about a few people lying flat?
 
Comments, Section One

What does lying flat mean?[3]
 
Big Brother Xiao :  Lying flat is a kind of self-protection when you have no choice, lying flat is a kind of social abandonment where you feel like weeping but have no tears, lying flat is a kind of mutually harmful self-confession. 
 
Feng Qing :  Lying flat is progress, a way of waking up to what’s wrong, it’s ants gnawing away at what’s wrong. 
 
Lily Cao :  Lying flat is the choice of those who have no choice because of involution. 
 
Chen Zhiyu :  The essence of lying flat-ism is an attitude about social fairness and justice, the idea that in the face of so much unfairness in today’s work world, you can’t change it, and even if you try harder you wind up just treading water, so it’s better just to give up completely, which saves money and effort. 
 
Hua Hai :  Many people see lying flat as something bad, but the rhythm of life in the past few thousand years wasn’t this fast.  Things have just sped up over the past century or so, and we haven’t been able to adapt to it, and no matter how much the elite encourages us, in fact, high tech and the speed of everything leaves ordinary people worn out.  People would like to get back to a more peaceful lifestyle and slow things down (if the world moves even faster we won’t be able to stand it).  This is all normal, and there’s nothing wrong with it. 
 
Zhou Ge :  The accomplished no longer try to heal the world, but rather scold the poor and tell them to solve their problems themselves. 
 
Gu Yu :  What “lying flat?!  We are “pressed flat” under the huge weight of social pressure that won’t let us stand up.  Different classes lie flat in different ways. 
 
Holysky:  Reasons for lying flat can vary enormously depending on economic levels, employment, and class.  There are some whose material needs are satisfied but who lack spiritual pursuits, and who lie flat out of boredom or laziness.  There are also those who are simply exhausted, and lie flat in hopes of getting some rest. 
 
There are also some who would rather avoid competition, and lie flat in the hopes of achieving a peaceful life.  Naturally, there really are some who are gluttonous and lazy, and lie flat because they don’t want to work hard. 

The fact that many people choose to lie flat and are still able to maintain their own material level means that social productivity and the economy are relatively developed, which may not necessarily be a bad thing.  This might help reduce the impetuousness of those who are striving too hard, or even reduce the overall group psychology based on this restless striving. 
 
Of course, if too much lying flat leads society to lose its vitality or its creativity, or if winds up putting people’s material interests at risk, then that will lead to all sorts of social problems. 
 
Ping Donghai:  In the East Asian model, once the easy period of economic growth is over, there is bound to be a trough.  Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan have all been through that period (or are currently in it).  In Japan, the economic warriors of the post-war era became today’s home-bound slackers 从昭和男儿到平成宅男, in South Korea, the period of rapid economic growth 汉江精神 gave way to today’s “wave slave spirit 社畜精神,” Taiwan has fallen into a period of very low population growth, and the Shilin night market is empty. 

But in the case of China this happened too soon and too early, when compared with Japan, South Korea, or Taiwan, who had already passed over the middle-income trap.  China is now in an awkward position and can neither go forward nor go back, so it will alternate.  Who knows when the next period of high economic growth will be?  Maybe lying flat will be the normal state of affairs in a future society. 
 
Shi Yang:  Every class had its own ceiling, which is true even for Jack Ma.  Elon Musk and Taiwanese billionaire Terry Gou are different, and the only constraints on them are their own abilities.  No matter how high you’ve climbed, there’s always an upper limit, a constraint, after which struggling is meaningless, and lying flat is the only intelligent choice.
 
Different ways to lie flat 
 
Feng Jing:  A few years ago, or perhaps even earlier, in Shenzhen there emerged the “Sanhe gods 三和大神,” [temporary workers often hired by the company Sanhe, willing to take any kind of work].  I don’t deny that there are people in society that willingly embrace laziness, but more often it is the case that people cherish a dream only to be unfeelingly attacked by reality!  They get stuck, with one day on and three days off, earning 100 RMB (16 US$) a day to keep themselves alive, killing time in internet cafés.  This might be the earliest example of lying flat. 
 
Wu Jing:  So, to my mind we need to put class and age together to get to another level of analysis on lying flat.  For example, can lying flat occur among college graduates between the ages of 20 and 40 (or even among some students), when they can support themselves on their income, but they have no hope of buying a car buying a house, or taking the next step on their life’s journey or achieving financial freedom?
 
Dou Bao:  In places like government offices or universities…people have been lying flat for a long time.  Sometimes there’s no hope for advancement, and other times the leaders are difficult to deal with. 
 
Du Haomiao:  You’re so right.  I work in a basic level law court on the Northwest border.  I earn 3000 RMB (470 US$) a month and am snowed under all the time.  I can’t take care of a family, and if I don’t lie flat I might as well die. 
 
Baixin Shen:  Professor Sun is also lying flat.  He let the cat out of the bag when he said he was selling tea.  But lying flat is more often something done by regular people. 
 
Xiao Lin:  Professor Sun is sipping tea while lying flat, then stands up for a while to talk, and then lies flat again.  He goes back and forth. 
 
S:  How can I lie flat?  If I ever lie down flat, I’ll go right to sleep. 
 
Lying flat means a change of values[4] 
 
Zhang Siyu:  I feel like lying flat means that young people’s way of thinking is changing, reducing their blind obedience to the idea of consumerism.  It also means breaking with the consumerism supported by capital, breaking with traditional ways of thinking, breaking with what the older generation thought about social climbing, smoking, real estate.  In a nutshell, it is a thought liberation for all of society, it is a turning point. 

Now that basic material needs have been taken care of, it may be a turning point for China's large-scale development of science, technology and cultural industries and a greater rate of decline in the Engel's coefficient [which has to do with the percentage of income spent on basic necessities]. 

(When the collective thought of a society becomes open and inclusive, there will be more than one set of values, which should mean that real estate prices will drop, and finally the price of real estate will be in a better balance with salaries.  So this is a turning point in our way of thinking, and we need to usher in lying flat with appropriate guidance.  As for unfairness, advanced social thought doesn’t care about this, and if arbitragers buy a few more houses, who cares, you can’t eat more than three meals a day!). 
 
Lihua Zhang:  Young people lying flat has more to do with resistance.  They no longer want to kill themselves working overtime, making money, buying houses, buying cars, having children (3), all these things that other people want.  Everyone should be able to choose their own kind of freedom.  So I agree with what I heard some young person say in a video:  doing your own thing, living your own life, is not “lying flat” but rather “standing up.” 
 
Gzthzb:  There’s another sense to lying flat:  don’t identify, don’t cooperate, don’t fight back.  Then even if everyone knows you messed up, they won’t yell at you.  Do whatever you say you are going to do, and even if you are clearly wrong and pathetic, they still won’t yell at you or give you suggestions. 

​Work is only about money, and it doesn’t matter what you do.  They all despise you, and don’t get your attitude.  When can you stop lying flat and stand up?  When they treat you as equals!  This is common social psychology.  In fact, it is not that I want to lie flat, but instead that they want me do things and live according to what they want.  They have gone too far, and I despise them.  So all I can do is lie flat.  
 
🌱:  In the 1980s, the reason that everybody was hustling and all of society was trying to get ahead was that even the very best was not out of reach, ordinary people had opportunities, and everyone felt that they had a bright future.  Now, however, even buying a house is out of reach, and the advantages of economic growth don’t come to you, so why should you wear yourself out, exploiting yourself to contribute to the GDP? 

Moreover, before smart phones came out, struggle, effort, work, and creating value might have had some connection to an individual’s existence, while now, work or labor may add no value to your sense of meaning, and for young people, even if we are lying flat, we are not bored.  You turn on your phone and there is lots of stimulation (videos, celebrity gossip, games…).  People prefer direct and indirect happiness to suffering (whether this is genuine pleasure or happiness is another question).  I have a friend who’s into Nietzsche, and he says that it is too painful to lift your spirits in a time of decline, at least ten times more painful than at the beginning of a new era when everyone is moving forward… 
 
Liu Lijian:  I have not let up for the past few years of constant struggle, and even if the results have not been ideal, things are still okay.  But there have been endless, meaningless hassles, and the involution of the line of work I am in is obvious, so I have certainly thought of lying flat.  But after giving it some thought, the idea of lying flat would be a repudiation of so much work, and would be a pity.  But I do think I’ll slow down the pace, and try to take better care of myself… 
 
Zhang Yang:  There’s an interesting bit of criticism:  lying flat is nothing more than avoiding life’s blows.  If the meaning of hard work in society is only that the pressure on you grows and grows, and your only hope in life is that you can pay your debts, then maybe lying flat is a kind of righteous resistance. 
 
Unknown:  People are lying flat because everybody knows that “even with twice the effort you can’t always achieve half of what you were aiming for 事倍可能都不能功半.”[5]  In real terms, with changes in class mobility, houses remain unaffordable no matter how hard you work. 
 
Ping Donghai:  When you lack personal space and resources all you can do is lie flat.  Lying flat truly does not merely include young people.  There are lots of middle-aged people tip-toeing their way through life with extreme caution.  I remember when I first started working, my cousin told me, “to work there, you have to keep your tail tucked between your legs.”  Isn’t this another way of “lying flat?”  These days who says or does what they want to?  Everyone is lying flat for reasons of “safety.”  My older brothers and sisters earned a lot of space by working hard, and my cousin and uncle worked themselves from a small place to a first-tier city. 

But for people my age, housing prices destroyed the idea of “working hard,” and we just curl up next to our parents.  I’ve heard older people talk about the era Professor Sun mentioned, when everyone worked hard, but at that time, housing prices were cheap and there were many opportunities, so things worked out as long as you put in the effort.  The year 2010 was a watershed.  Now the meat and the bones have all been eaten, and the soup that is left is not enough to feed us all, so all we can do is lie flat! 
 
Empathy:  Things exist for a reason.  If you don’t have the opportunities or skills to compete, complaining about it does no good, and lying flat is always a possibility, a choice you can freely make.  Whenever I see workers falling asleep under a tree next to a cross-walk at noon, on a piece of burlap, or a piece of wrapping paper, or a piece of plastic, it strikes me as a kind of enjoyment.  For the sake of face, there is a taboo against lying flat. 

But from another angle, maybe it is a kind of refusal to cooperate.  But it is not patriotic to lie flat and not go to that “happy state 适彼乐国.”[6]  Terms like “inner circulation,” “involution,” and “lying flat” all seem to have deep meanings, and have come out one after another.  Maybe the trend is just beginning, and who knows what else might emerge.  In any event it is less passive, and more dynamic, than Zhuangzi’s “dumb as a wooden chicken 呆若木鸡.”[7] 
 
Spirit of the dragon horse:  Social rules need to be clearly defined, just like in chess 象棋.  When everyone understands the rules, has confidence in the rules, follows the rules, and applies the rules, then winners can be proud of winning and losers will accept their loss.  This is how we can avoid social involution and everyone can start working hard again! 
 
From one small clue we can see what is coming 见微知著:  Those who lie flat are right!  If all your hard work is just making someone else rich, why not give yourself a break? 
 
LMQ:  They monopolize all the power and seize all the resources.  What are we to do if not lie flat? 
 
Three autumn tree:  You can’t afford to offend anyone, but you can hide.  It’s like a normal person becoming a beggar, which requires an enormous amount of courage.  There is nothing sadder than the death of the spirit. 
 
Not the ordinary Way:  There used to be a saying to the effect that “women are used by men, but what are men used for?”  Today’s lying flat is the result of that situation, but it is not something that can last a long time. 
 
Sun WJ:  Lying flat is more a response to suffering. 
 
Attorney Li Yonglü:  Things like lying flat and involution are perhaps signs of a social defeat that we are currently experiencing.  
 
Paladin:  In fact, Mr. Sun wrote about this many years ago, saying that when Africans saw Chinese people acting this way, they wondered if the Chinese did not consume or enjoy themselves.  Our situation today is payback for that, and instead of blaming those who are lying flat, we should pay more attention to the hypocrisy, with so many great scholars and media wringing their hands over the basic reasons for lying flat.  Do they really not know these reasons?  Or do they not dare say?  Or is it a mixture of the two? 
 
Cheng Yan:  The era of high speed growth is coming to an end, the “success” of getting rich overnight is also becoming impossible, and lying flat will certainly become a way of reflecting on all of that.  Where is another surge in the stock market 上升通道 going to take us?  Shouldn’t we rather take a hard look at things?  Life has come to resemble the college entrance exam, where everyone struggles to cross the same narrow bridge.  We should try another kind of education which stresses the richness and diversity of life and spirit.  We should not go with the flow and take pleasure in material things.  Our ancestors already warned us about this, telling us that the ideal to be pursued is that of a society in which the life of the individual is spiritually rich and healthy. 
 
YOU:  Those “idle rich”[8] are wrong to not let other people lie flat.  If we claim to be a civilized society, then we should let people lie flat, and even guarantee them the right the lie flat.  This is from the perspective of natural law, because everyone has the right to exist in a natural state, a heaven-given right that preceded the evolution of civilization.  People can choose to cooperate, to struggle together, to progress together, but they can also choose the right not to cooperate or to be a slacker 混吃等死.  Before the emergence of civilization, people were like animals, and ran around naked doing what they wanted, with no need to be constrained by anyone else.
 
Of course, you can say that people are not like animals, that people have organizations and ideals.  But let me ask:  who has the power to tell other people what their life mission is?  And who gave them that power?  Human society from the beginning has had two organizational styles.  One involves joining together for warmth, working together for greater safety and benefits. 

The other is to threaten and coerce one another.  If we say that only the first style is proper, then we should guarantee that if some people lie flat, their basic needs will still be taken care of, and we should respect their wishes.  Because before there was civilization, when life first appeared, people like these had their right to this world’s space, atmosphere, and resources, and we cannot take away these rights because we need to build a so-called civilized society.  And if we think that the second form of organization is necessary, then we should stop calling ourselves civilized.   
 
Notes

[1] 孙立平, “躺平绝非仅仅发生在底层,” published online on June 1, 2021.

[2] Translator’s note:  Ge You was a character in a popular 1993 Chinese television show, noted for his extreme lack of drive and motivation.  The meme characteristically contains a play on words: “Ge You lying around 葛优躺” is pronounced in almost the same way as “Ge You’s paralysis 葛优瘫.”

[3] 躺平意味着什么？These are comments to Sun Liping’s original post, which he added to his WeChat feed on June 3, 2021. 

[4] 躺平意味的是一种价值观的转向, further reader comments, published in Sun's WeChat feed on June 7, 2021. 

[5] Translator’s note:  This is a play on words on the idiom  事倍功半—“get half the result with twice the effort.”

[6] Translator’s note:  This is a reference to a poem from the Book of Poetry.  The entire stanza reads:  “Large rats! Large rats!/Do not eat our wheat./Three years have we had to do with you,/And you have not been willing to show any kindness to us./We will leave you,/And go to that happy State./Happy State! Happy State!/There shall we find ourselves right.” (James Legge translation, available online here).  The meaning in this context is obscure to me.

[7] Translator’s note:  Zhuangzi’s reference to a wooden chicken, which in fact seems more positive than what the expression 呆若木鸡 has come to mean in modern Chinese, is available in online translation here.

[8] Translator’s note:  “Idle rich” is tangying de ren 躺赢的人, literally, “people who win while lying down.”  Tangying rhymes with lying flat (tangping).