How to understand the phenomenon of "involution" in universities?

Since the summer vacation last year, the word "involution" has appeared around my life. Starting from the article "Grade Points Are King", the anxiety about the phenomenon of involution gradually spread from the top universities in 985 to spread to every corner of society. In fact, involution is a very elitist term, and the group it addresses is actually very small. At least in my school and my major, most people have not put in the effort worthy of "involution."

The essence of involution is that the resources you can allocate are less than before, and you have to spend several times your efforts, or even do some meaningless things to show your excellence. Get the same resources as before, and it's hard to quit. In the past, you could divide a piece of cake with a plastic knife, but now you have to fight for it with a chainsaw, and if you don't cut it, you'll go hungry. And how does our society divide who gets more resources? What is the so-called "knife"? Grades, education.

Involution

Involution is originally a sociological term, which generally refers to the stagnation in the development of social and cultural models. Nowadays, many college students use involution to refer to irrational internal competition, which is similar to raising worms and quarreling with each other. Originally, everyone might only need to put in 70% of the effort to get the reward, but some people just put in 80% or more of the effort, and in the end everyone had to put in almost 100%.

In the process of human development, competition is an eternal topic. There is a very classic "Prisoner's Dilemma" in game theory.

The story of the Prisoner's Dilemma is that two suspects were caught by the police after committing a crime and were locked in different rooms for interrogation. The police knew the two men were guilty but lacked sufficient evidence. The police told everyone: If both deny, each will be sentenced to one year; if both confess, each will be sentenced to eight years; if one of the two confesses and the other denies, the one who confesses will be released, and the one who denies will be sentenced to ten years. ?

Resources are limited, but competition is unlimited, so it is undeniable that involution is "irrational", but it is inevitable in human nature. There is a joke: Two people went to Africa to hunt for treasure. By chance, they met a lion. At this time, one of them put down what he was holding, opened the bag behind his back, and quickly put on his running shoes. Another person was puzzled and said, "Can you outrun a lion?" The other person said, "Yes! Of course I can't outrun it, but I just need to run faster than you."?

One of the symptoms of involution is that in order to gain recognition from teachers or leaders, classmates or colleagues complete additional tasks that do not improve them, forcing them to keep up with their classmates or colleagues. footsteps. For this kind of behavior, 45% of the respondents think that it should not be imitated; 39.5% think that this kind of behavior should be imitated, and 15.5% have an indifferent attitude.

Generally speaking, rational competition has a certain improvement effect on people, but does irrational competition also do the same? 66.5% of the respondents believed that involution has improved their abilities; 33.5% believed that involution did not help improve their abilities.

When asked about the impact of involution on the improvement of personal abilities, 45% of the respondents believed that it can make them more competitive, understand the gap between themselves and others, and find goals; 32.5% said They believe that this makes them more self-disciplined and positively supervises their learning and progress; 22.5% also believe that involution forces them to do useless work without effective gains.

Involution

I have always believed that craftsman is the happiest profession in the world, and the spirit of craftsman is the antidote to involution. As long as I'm focused enough on my work and I'm putting everything I have into what's right in front of me, those external anxieties won't rub off on me. What's more, when I am obsessed with this thing enough and become an expert on it, I will definitely have my own value in the eyes of more people. People have many needs, whether they are actual needs or vanity needs. The "craftsman spirit" is essentially castrating one's other needs, making one's needs small enough or even leaving only the work in front of him, so that he does not have to bear more responsibility. Much anxiety. It's a cop-out, but it works.

Take proper rest

Nowadays, involution has become a common phenomenon in society, and many people feel angry when they hear it. However, in fact, "involution" is not terrible, and there is no need to be anxious. Healthy competition and moderate involution are not necessarily bad things, but what needs to be noted is that when dealing with "involution", we must avoid falling into the vicious circle of vicious competition.