Reporter | Editor Lin Ziren | Huang Yue In the middle of the 17th century, the earth experienced the coldest period in more than 1,000 years of recorded history, and nearly 1/3 of humanity died as a result.

Reporter | Lin Ziren

Editor | Huang Yue

In the middle of the 117th century, the earth experienced the coldest period in more than 1,000 years of recorded history, and nearly one-third of the human population died as a result. This was an era called "The General Crisis" by historian Geoffery Parker. A series of revolutionary frenzy and national collapse almost swept the world. Only a handful of regions survived the mid-17th century unscathed. In the book "Global Crisis", Parker introduced three common points that emerged in response to crises around the world: First, people who were in danger of food and clothing rebelled one after another, but compared with large-scale violent rebellions, "work, fraud, escape, false compliance, theft, feigned ignorance, slander, arson, and raids" often have Second, different groups in society have taken advantage of the intensifying social conflicts, but the most outstanding "troublemakers" are those who have endured hardships to complete higher education but failed to find a suitable job; third, extreme ideological trends are extremely easy to be incited and spread.

Extreme weather events occur frequently, the conflict between Russia and Ukraine disrupts global energy and food markets, people go on strike and protest due to the cost of living crisis, women's rights are tightened in both backward and developed areas, fake news and hate speech are only increasing on social networks, and the new crown pandemic is getting worse Exposed the existing social contradictions... In this inventory, we sort out the above-mentioned important social events that happened around the world this year. They echo the history of the 17th century and remind us to think about whether mankind has reached the juncture of a "general crisis" again.

01 "Women, life, freedom": the advancement and retreat of women's rights and the continued anxiety of modernity

Keywords: Iran's "Amini demonstrations", Afghanistan's suspension of women's college education, the US abortion rights debate, the Depp case

"Women! Life! Freedom!" Since September, tens of millions of Iranians have united under this slogan, trying to leverage historical injustice. On September 13, local time, Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, was arrested by the moral police in Tehran for wearing a headscarf improperly. She died three days later. Witnesses said she was beaten by the police during her lifetime. Her death triggered large-scale protests and online solidarity across Iran, and the "Mahsa Amini protests" continue to this day, attracting global attention. In fact, before the Amini incident, Iran was already full of contradictions - economic recession, severe inflation, high unemployment, and intensified ethnic conflicts. The Amini incident ignited the anger of the Iranian people, and the protests became a prairie fire.

The current regime in Iran began with the Iranian Revolution in 1979. The revolution overthrew the autocratic rule of the Pahlavi dynasty and established the Islamic Republic of Iran under the leadership of religious leader Ruhollah Mousavi Khomeini. According to the law, Iranian women must wear headscarves and dress loosely. The moral police have the power to educate, fine or imprison women who "do not conform to the rules"; the legal marriage age for women is lowered to 9 years old (later raised to 13 years old); the importance of female testimony in judicial cases is far less than that of men...

Also in the Islamic world, the situation of women in different countries is also mixed. On the evening of December 20, local time, the Minister of Higher Education of Afghanistan’s interim government issued an order to all public and private universities, requiring the suspension of women’s university education, effective immediately until further notice. The move has been severely condemned by several Islamic countries. Turkey Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on the 22nd that the ban is "neither Islamic nor humane." "What are the dangers of female education? Is there an explanation of Islamic teachings here? On the contrary, our religious belief, Islam, is not against education; on the contrary, it encourages education and science." Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement released on the 21st that the decision by the Taliban "shocked all Islamic countries." Since the Taliban took power in August 2021, Afghan women's rights to receive education and participate in public life have been continuously tightened. Afghan girls are allowed to receive primary education, but most are effectively barred from formal secondary education.Women are no longer allowed to be employed in most employment fields, and women are not allowed in parks and gyms.

Restrictions on women's free will and self-realization in the name of Islamic teachings - In the third decade of the 21st century, the "revival" of religious values ​​seems to be a surprising "spiritual atavism" phenomenon occurring in some backward areas. However, associate professor of the Department of History at Peking University Zan Tao reminds us that religious revival is a global phenomenon that does not only exist in Muslim societies, but also in other regions and religions. Religious revival or some kind of traditional revival also exists. This may be because, in an era of rapid change and increasing complexity, refusing to accept the complexity of modern society and thinking about problems with some black and white traditional religious logic can provide a sense of certainty and security to uneasy people.

In the face of the overall sense of loss, shame and resentment brought about by globalization, blaming the problem on moral decay and conducting social purification in the form of depriving individual freedoms has ironically become the way many Americans respond to failure. In this sense, in 2022, the United States has become more and more like a mirror image of Afghanistan in terms of strengthening its control over women: On June 24, local time, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled to overturn Roe v. Wade, leaving the legality of abortion to be decided by each federal state. This ruling may eventually lead to strict restrictions on abortion in 26 states, affecting 36 million women of childbearing age. The abortion rights controversy has long become one of the important issues being exploited and manipulated in the increasingly polarized partisan politics of the United States. It originated from the Republican Party’s election strategy to win over religious voters in the late 1970s. Its success lies in using the abortion issue to arouse the strong emotions and moral anxiety of Christian evangelical voters.

Zan Tao believes that the global "religious revival" is not just a "counterattack" by traditional religious forces, but also a "crisis of modernity." From this perspective, the phenomenon of "religious revival" needs to be understood within the context of global anti-modernization trends. Ai Kai, a professor of history at the University of Chicago, reminds us in the book "Continuous Anxiety" that modernity anxiety is the inherent weakness of modernity itself. It originates from our intuitive reaction to the problems, pain and uneasiness caused by modernization:

"Modern life, with its impersonality, lack of constant interpersonal ties, lack of moral principles or moral certainty, lack of identity subjects, etc., is precisely the ultimate state of personal freedom and liberation."

However, while equality, democracy, individualism, worldly thinking, science and modern industry are liberating individuals, they are also constantly impacting and dismantling the sense of connection and stability brought by the interpersonal network woven by traditional life, family ethics, churches and communities. Ai Kai believes that the tension between these two sets of desires leads to the ongoing anxiety of modernity.

The dual model of modernization and anti-modernization criticism may always exist with human society, but Ai Kai believes that civilizational regression cannot be sustained for a long time because people will become "addicted" to material comfort and personal freedom. Take the right to abortion as an example. While some countries are tightening women's reproductive autonomy, more and more people are convinced that the right to abortion is a basic component of individual rights and are pushing for legal progress.

According to "The Paper Market of Thoughts", the European Parliament announced in 2021 that safe abortion is a basic human right. However, regional differences within Europe are relatively obvious. Eastern, Central and Southern European countries still have relatively strict restrictions on abortion. These countries are competing fiercely over the issue of abortion rights. In the past two years, the three most populous Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America (Argentina, Mexico and Colombia) have decriminalized abortion, and other countries are on the verge of dramatic change.An article published in The Paper Market of Ideas stated that Latin America has made great progress on the issue of abortion rights, thanks to the fact that women's rights activists did not treat this cause as an independent and special issue. Instead, they cooperated extensively with other popular and human rights movements, black and indigenous organizations, and labor unions to link calls for abortion rights with other social justice causes, emphasizing the intersection of class, race, and gender.

Social networks can both enable and promote progressive social movements that resist oppression, and can also support and shelter reactionary forces that undermine progressive social movements. Several hotly debated events this year have reminded us of this. In early June, the legal dispute between Hollywoodwell-known actorJohnny Deppand his ex-wife Amber Heard finally came to an end after four years of fierce fighting. The court ruled that Amber violated Depp's reputation and compensated the latter US$10.35 million. At the same time, Depp's former lawyer Adam Waldman also defamed Amber and was ordered to compensate her US$2 million. Whether it was the outcome of the court or the "war of abuse" on social media, Depp received overwhelming support, and the "slut-shaming" of Amber reached its peak during the six-week live broadcast of the court. There was an obvious double standard in public opinion's treatment of the testimony of Amber and Depp. Amber fell into the "Catch-22" trap that complainants in anti-sexual assault cases often encounter, and any act of self-proving innocence is interpreted as guilt.

Hou Qijiang, a contributor to "The Paper Market of Ideas", believes that the misogynistic carnival in the Depp case symbolizes the counterattack of American conservatism against the feminist movement - the structural resentment and dissatisfaction accumulated by patriarchal vested interests in the anti-sexual harassment movement in the past few years. It became a collective online behavior that humiliated and ridiculed Amber in the Depp case. The social media mobilization strategy of the anti-sexual harassment movement was adopted intact by conservative forces, constructing a set of simplistic binary opposition images of the "framed upright man" (Depp) and the "scheming woman" (Amber), which gave Depp an overwhelming victory in public opinion. Some developments related to Iran's large-scale protests quickly grabbed the headlines, received thousands of retweets, and were highly discussed, but then encountered a "reversal" in public opinion. Hotly discussed events that were accused of being fake news included "Iran decided to abolish the moral police" and Iranian football players refused to sing the national anthem before the start of the World Cup group match in solidarity with their country's women.

02 "The first world where the middle class is shrinking": The cost of living crisis and the strike wave in Europe and the United States

Keywords: "quiet quitting", "salted fish model", EU agreement on minimum wage rules, strike wave in Europe and the United States, "winter of dissatisfaction"

html In September, the concept of "quiet quitting" (quiet quitting) spread on TikTok. According to the Los Angeles Times, the term was coined and used by millennials in March this year, who also call it “the art of not taking work too seriously.” On social media, where millennials gather, young people share strategies for “quietly quitting”, such as refusing to answer emails in the evenings or on weekends or doing work beyond their scope of responsibility. On December 5, "goblin mode" overwhelmingly defeated "metaverse" and "I support" (#IStandWith) in the voting and was elected as Oxford Dictionary's 2022 word of the year. This is the first time that Oxford Dictionaries has used public voting to select the word of the year. The dictionary explains "salty mode" as "an unabashedly self-indulgent, lazy, sloppy or greedy behavior, usually in the form of a rejection of social norms or expectations." Whether it is "quiet exit" or "salted fish mode", they all capture an important social trend and atmosphere of this year - people realize that they are trapped in some kind of systemic suffering and injustice, and use justified self-indulgence to escape this cold reality.

In the book "The Texture of Poverty", the British writer Wang Bang wrote, "Today when we talk about poverty, we are no longer talking about Ethiopia or Venezuela , or even Greece , but a first world where the middle class is shrinking." Various studies show that since the 1980s, the trend of the decline of the middle class in European and American societies has been very obvious. This year, we have suffered the double blow of the new crown epidemic and the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The International Monetary Fund published an article in September stating that the conflict between Russia and Ukraine has caused "terrible" economic consequences for European countries, and rising energy prices are pushing up the prices of other commodities and raising the cost of living. At a time when the economy is in recession, job insecurity has greatly increased, and wage growth has stagnated, the purchasing power of workers is declining rapidly.

To this end, the European Parliament and the European Council have reached an agreement on the rules for establishing minimum wages in each member state. While respecting the differences in the labor market between member states, they have tried to establish a procedural framework to promote an "adequate and fair" minimum wage throughout the EU. Previously, the German Parliament had approved an increase in Germany’s minimum wage from 9.82 euros/hour to 12 euros/hour starting from October 1. The German government hopes the move will help low-income workers cope with rising food and heating costs.

But when people realized that "quietly launching" or pretending to be "rotten" could only bring a moment of peace of mind, but could not cope with the risk of survival, they chose to take to the streets. Affected by factors such as high inflation, soaring prices, and reduced real income, the "strike wave" swept across many European and American countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Sweden and other countries, involving e-commerce, catering, postal services, medical care, education, public transportation, logistics and other industries.

In this year, the strike wave in the United States was accompanied by the "union renaissance", which brought new vitality to the long-dormant labor movement in the United States. On April 1, thousands of warehouse workers at Amazon's JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island, New York, voted to form a union, marking the first time Amazon employees have successfully organized a union in the United States. On the same day, the Starbucks Reserve Roastery in Chelsea Market in Manhattan also voted to form a union, becoming the tenth Starbucks store in the United States with a union and the largest number of union members. On November 17, more than 2,000 employees from 112 stores launched a strike on Starbucks' "Red Cup Day", demanding that the company improve employee benefits and protesting the company's crackdown on unions. Over the past year, more than 260 Starbucks stores voted to form a union. Observers believe that we have reason to believe that some kind of "new union movement" is taking place in the United States, which is a continuation of "Millennial Socialism" (Millennial Socialism) Socialism) has experienced the financial crisis in 2008, the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011, the political mobilization of Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders in 2016, and the COVID-19 epidemic. The economic situation of many American working-class workers has declined to an intolerable level. The trade union movement, which has been suppressed by the U.S. government and big businesses for more than half a century, has regained its distinctive political attributes.

American workers’ collective action has been declining for decades. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics , only 10% of American workers are currently union members. However, this year’s polls show that public support for workers’ collective action has reached a new high since the mid-1960s, with about 70% of Americans supporting it. Workers’ collective action proved to be hugely influential. Due to the unresolved issue of workers' paid leave, 12 unions representing about 115,000 workers twice tried to launch the first railroad strike in the United States since 1992 this year. The railroad strike originally scheduled for December 9 was suspended on December 2 by President Biden 's newly signed bill. Although they have not yet secured the right to paid leave, railway workers have secured a cumulative 24% salary increase and an annual cash subsidy of US$1,000 over the next five years.

Also in December, the strike at the University of California, which lasted for more than a month, came to an end with the finalization of a labor agreement. It is worth mentioning that this is the largest academic strike in American history.According to this agreement, postdocs will receive a cumulative salary increase of approximately 21.5% in the next five years, and the initial term of the position will be increased from the original one year to two years. Academic researchers will receive a 29% salary increase during their tenure. In addition, the University of California has promised to provide better benefits in terms of paid time off, child care benefits and job security. Lorena Gonzalez, CEO of the California Labor Federation, said in an interview with the " New York Times " that the strike at the University of California is a milestone. "It marks a new vitality and empowerment. It is particularly noteworthy that these young workers are not considered union members in the traditional sense." She believes that these young people who are about to enter the professional field will bring this experience to the technology field and academic field.

Britain experienced its largest labor unrest in years in 2022. On December 1, the "Strike Calendar" compiled by " Guardian " showed that railway workers, nurses, school teachers, postal employees, bank security personnel and other groups will hold strikes of varying sizes in December, demanding salary increases and improved working conditions. According to incomplete statistics, from December 1st to 24th, there were only 6 days without strikes in the country. The massive, cross-industry strike stems from a cost-of-living crisis caused by the intensifying conflict between Russia and Ukraine. In September, the categories with the highest price increases in the UK were food, transportation and household necessities, with year-on-year increases of 14.6%, 10.9% and 10.8% respectively. In addition, energy prices have also surged. British household energy bills are expected to rise to 3,000-4,000 pounds in the winter of 2022, and the temporary subsidies provided by the government are only a drop in the bucket. Some observers have compared this wave of strikes to the "Winter of Discontent" of 1978-1979. At the time, a bitter pay dispute broke out between the British government and the public and private sectors, with a wave of strikes costing millions of working days. But after Mrs. Thatcher came to power in 1979, the unions failed in the struggle and their power was severely weakened.

Rebecca Earle, professor of history at the University of Warwick, believes that inequality in Britain today is in many ways a return to the early 19th century - with energy and food prices soaring, many ordinary Britons can neither afford healthy ingredients nor the fuel needed for cooking, just as the high cost of fuel during the Industrial Revolution forced many southern residents to give up cooking at home and subsist on white bread and sweet tea. In this country, which was the first country in the world to experience the "neoliberal turn" and where the welfare state mechanism established after World War II was continuously dismantled, the seeds of the current predicament have already been laid. Wang Bang quoted Simon John Duffy, former professor of philosophy at the University of Edinburgh and director of the Center for Welfare Reform in the UK. Duffy pointed out that too low welfare is the source of the current plight of ordinary British people. "In the past four decades, only the richest 15% of people have experienced real income growth, and the rest have all suffered relative income contraction. It is precisely because welfare is too low that the poor cannot do without low-paying jobs and become poorer. At the same time, employers are too lazy to invest in more productive ways."

The economic recession after the epidemic and the high inflation caused by the Russia-Ukraine conflict triggered two political crises in the UK. On July 7, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced his resignation. In addition to the scandal of covering up Deputy Whip Chris Pincher and his attempts to clear up the relationship with lies, which triggered a large-scale "resignation wave" within the Conservative Party, the various social conflicts accumulated during Johnson's term in office - from Brexit and inflation issues to the largest railway workers' strike in the UK in 33 years - have proven that he can no longer enjoy the trust of the people. Johnson's successor, Elizabeth Truss, hastily announced her resignation on October 20 after only six weeks in office. She proposed using a large-scale tax cut plan - a typical strategy of the Conservative Party since entering the neoliberal period - to provide economic relief, which was widely questioned as unrealistic and caused market turmoil. After Truss , No. 10 Downing Street ushered in the new Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.However, in the view of Liu Yufeng, a contributor to The Paper Market of Thoughts, "No matter how the owner of Downing Street changes, as long as the Conservative Party or the faction in the Labor Party that accepts Thatcher's legacy is still in power, in the face of the current cost of living crisis, we can only adopt some fire-fighting policies to treat the headache and the pain, unless the external situation changes fundamentally."

03 From Twitter Controversy to Food Crisis: Rethinking Globalization

Keywords: Elon Musk acquisition of Twitter, European energy crisis, global food crisis

The above describes the double-edged sword role of social media in social movements, and the series of disturbances surrounding Twitter this year have deepened our understanding of the dark side of social media.

At the end of October, Elon Musk acquired Twitter for $44 billion. Musk regards himself as a "Free Speech Absolutist" (Free Speech Absolutist). However, the operational reforms he launched on the world's most important social network platform after taking over Twitter reflect his double standards on the issue of "free speech" and its serious consequences. The Center for Countering Digital Hate, the Anti-Defamation League and other online platform research organizations found that after Musk acquired Twitter, comments vilifying African Americans increased from a daily average of 1,282 to a daily average of 3,876; comments vilifying gay men increased from a daily average of 2,506 to a daily average of 3,964; anti-Semitic comments surged by more than 61% in the two weeks after Musk acquired Twitter. At the same time, accounts related to extremist organizations such as the Islamic State and QAnon, which promotes far-right conspiracy theories, have also made a comeback on Twitter through paid verification. It is also worth being vigilant that Twitter recently disbanded the team that monitors dangerous or inaccurate speech, stopped implementing the new crown misinformation regulatory policy, and Musk also handed some content review issues to users in the form of voting. Researchers warned that these practices have exacerbated the proliferation of epidemic-related misinformation and conspiracy theories.

On the other hand, Musk has arbitrarily banned some Twitter accounts that may be detrimental to him or the company. On December 14, Twitter banned more than 25 accounts that used public information to track the location of private jets, including the account @ElonJet that tracked Musk’s private jet. Musk’s explanation for this was that these accounts violated a new Twitter rule—Twitter users cannot share the “real-time location” of others. Twitter has also banned the Twitter accounts of at least 8 journalists from media such as Time Magazine, CNN, and Washington Post. The reason for the ban is not clear, but what the above accounts have in common is that they have all posted tweets related to aircraft positioning accounts. On December 18, Twitter’s regulatory policy was upgraded again, announcing that it would no longer allow accounts purely for the purpose of promoting other social platforms such as Instagram, Facebook , Mastodon, etc. to be active on Twitter. Musk said this was to prevent "endless free publicity from competitors, which is absolutely ridiculous."

The founders of Twitter once claimed that Twitter is a "global town square". Former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey have made similar statements. Even Musk has said, "The reason I acquired Twitter is because the existence of such a digital town square is very important to the future of civilization."

But in the "New York Times" columnist Ezra According to Klein, the ideal we placed on Twitter has been shattered today. He criticized that unlimited Internet and massive information are degrading our ability to pay attention and reflect - Twitter's operating mechanism encourages users to tell rather than listen, express unconsidered views on various controversial issues, and attract likes and retweets.Writer and activist Richard Seymour Seymour pointed out in the book "The Twitter Machine", "If the Twitter machine has brought us a series of disasters, such as addiction, depression, fake news, trolls, cyberbullying, and far-right subcultures, then this machine is just exploiting and amplifying problems that are already prevalent in society... There is something waiting for us. "Addiction, and social media has reinforced this trend." Klein reminds us that this is actually a global problem that exists in all social platforms. The design of these platforms has the same starting point, which is to make creating and sharing content more convenient and addictive, and the companies behind the platforms have more attention and data to sell. Given that social networks are already one of the most important digital infrastructures of our time—almost all of us rely on them to access information and stay in touch with friends and family—it is urgent to explore new mechanisms for social networks that promote dialogue and understanding.

The world is flat, and the free flow of people, capital, and goods can promote the well-being of all people. This was once a beautiful promise of globalization, but it is being broken by the wave of anti-globalization. The conflict between Russia and Ukraine has exacerbated the European energy crisis . Russia is the world's second largest natural gas producer and the third largest oil and gas producer. Data from the beginning of this year showed that 40% of the natural gas of the 27 EU member states relies on imports from Russia. Benchmark natural gas prices in Europe have risen nearly tenfold in the past year as sanctions have restricted energy supplies from Russia, with consumers and businesses being hit hard. Gu Xuewu, tenured professor of political science and international relations at the University of Bonn in Germany and director of the Center for Global Studies, pointed out in an interview with Jiemian News that in an era when globalization is developing smoothly, energy importing countries and energy exporting countries are interdependent and win-win, but when geopolitics overrides On the basis of global economic ties, "the current energy crisis, including in Europe, is also a manifestation, a footnote, and a focus of the anti-globalization trend." Gu Xuewu also believes that as long as the laws of capitalist do not fundamentally change, the interruption of energy trade will only be temporary.

The wave of counter-globalization combined with the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has also made the global food crisis worse. According to the "Guardian" report, as early as 2021, wildfires in the United States, droughts in Latin America, and floods in Australia have already caused food production to decrease. Since both sides of this year's Russia-Ukraine conflict are major wheat exporters - Ukraine is the world's fifth largest wheat exporter and one of the major corn exporters, and Russia is the world's largest wheat exporter and second largest supplier of sunflower seeds - it is nothing short of adding insult to injury for the global food supply. Food shortages have already occurred in parts of Africa and the Middle East, which rely on the export of wheat and other crops from the Black Sea region. The United Nations warned in February this year that food shortages in Somalia will threaten the health of nearly half of children under the age of 5. The country is also working hard to combat an unprecedented drought. African countries that are experiencing food shortages due to drought include Burkina Faso, Chad, Mauritania and Niger. The food crisis has also affected some countries in Asia: at least 8 million children are on the verge of famine in Yemen, which has been ravaged by civil war; in Afghanistan, which is in political turmoil, 95% of Afghan families are unable to secure food due to economic distress; Sri Lanka is also in food crisis due to the economic crisis. The ultra-nationalist government proposed a fertilizer ban in April 2021, resulting in a food harvest failure.

The "Report on the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World" shows that in 2021, 823 million people will be hungry, and by 2022, this number will increase to 50 million people. As food prices continue to rise, an additional 19 million people are expected to face chronic malnutrition worldwide in 2023. Minouche Shafik, president of the London School of Economics and Political Science, said in an interview with The Paper , “I am very worried about the impact of the food and fuel crisis on low-income countries. The debt levels of many countries are already very high, and it will be difficult for them to borrow more money to pay for energy and food imports. Many families around the world will be affected by this crisis.We should do everything we can to protect the most vulnerable through humanitarian aid , cash transfers and benefits to the poorest households. "

Epilogue: What the future will be like depends on our reason and determination

Xixi, a Hong Kong writer who passed away this year, wrote in the novel "Qin Tian Jian" that imaginary lines are not only a tool for people to understand geography and astronomy, but also a tool for people to regulate their thoughts and behaviors. "Imagine lines are so useful and convenient that everyone accepts them, as if there are really many lines, as if the world is divided by imaginary lines. "Xixi said in a previous interview with Jiemian Culture that she used imaginary lines to metaphor various unfair and unreasonable phenomena in the world.

"Men are superior to women" is such an imaginary line. It seems real and indestructible, and has actually weakened the well-being and potential of some societies. Oded Geller, professor of economics at Brown University and founder of the Unified Growth Theory Galor pointed out that a key driving force for the transformation of human society from stagnation to growth for thousands of years is the entry of more women into society, and one of the origins of global wealth and inequality is the different attitudes towards gender roles in different regions. The more a society encourages women to join the workforce and develop, the more opportunities they can gain in wealth accumulation.

"Economic supremacy" is another imaginary line - in the Canadian writer F.S. Michaels. Michaels, the economy is the “monoculture” of our time, shaping our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. It makes us believe that we are rational, self-interested and entrepreneurial individuals competing with each other in a world composed of markets. The more extensive the market and competition are, the more optimal efficiency can be achieved. The relationship between people is also an impersonal, anonymous, and transactional economic relationship. If it is beneficial, we will unite, and if it is not beneficial, we will disperse. But it is this single culture that is causing more and more pain, confusion and inequality.

“The reason for much of the social grievance is that our social contract has been overwhelmed by technological change and demographic change,” Shafiq writes in The New Social Contract. “The result is that more risks—raising children, maintaining reemployment after unemployment, caring for oneself in old age—are beginning to be borne by individuals. We are increasingly living in a 'on your own' society, which has translated into a political climate of outrage, an epidemic of mental health problems, and worries about the future, both young and old. "To this end, Shafiq proposed that we need a "new social contract" that emphasizes collective interests and risk sharing. It needs to be based on three principles: first, everyone should receive the minimum guarantee to meet basic living needs; second, society should invest as much as possible in creating benefits for citizens. Opportunities; third, risks should be borne by individuals, families, employers, and the state.

Parker found that after the crisis in the mid-17th century, people's enthusiasm for political, economic, and religious changes cooled down, and the political situation became more stable and stable. Economic reforms occurred and religions became tolerant. Many governments shifted social resources from armaments to social welfare to rebuild the economy; the intellectual community also launched a series of new theories to deal with future crises. These innovations took particularly deep roots in the Western world and laid the foundation for the later "Great Divergence" between East Asia and Northwestern Europe. Today, more than two centuries later, we have reached a historical point full of crises. What the future will bring also depends on human reason and determination.

(Unless otherwise noted, the pictures in this article are from Visual China)