February** Dynamic Incentive Program You must have seen this passage: "The city in China that is least afraid of heavy rain is not Beijing, not Shanghai, but Qingdao, Shandong." The reason for this is that after the German occupation of Qingdao in 1898, a state-of-the-art drainage system was built for the city, which is still in use in Qingdao a hundred years later, keeping the city safe from flooding for the past century. As the French writer Victor Hugo said, "The sewer is the conscience of a city." "China's contemporary city managers are so unconscionable. Dear viewers, do you think this is true?
In fact, the sewers built in Germany do exist, but the part about Qingdao's protection from flooding is entirely a rumor made up by the Internet public. In the early days of the development of the Chinese Internet, there were a large number of ridiculous rumors related to foreign countries. Most of them came from the new public intellectuals, which we now call "public knowledge", and many of them fabricated a large number of rumors that "abroad is hope", "there is a rainbow abroad", and "foreign is a fairyland". At the beginning of this century, the vast majority of Chinese people had never been abroad, and few had lived abroad, so the rumors concocted by the public to worship foreign countries had deceived many young people. Nowadays, the word "public knowledge" has become a derogatory term, how did the public know make up rumors, and how did it fall? Let's start with the sewer at the beginning.
The first known rumor: "Qingdao sewers", the beginning mentions the construction of sewers by the Germans in Qingdao. The original origin of this rumor was the publication of an article entitled "Qingdao Coulee: 100 Years Ago, the Unrepeatable German Experience" published on June 2, 2010. The author devotes 6,000 words to a detailed description of how the German colonists built the drainage system in Qingdao.
Coincidentally, after the article was published, many cities in China were hit by torrential rains, flooded cities, and the sewer drainage system failed, and then the article was repeatedly quoted, and then the public turned to the French writer Hugo's book "Les Miserables", and used the sentence "Sewers are the conscience of a city" to point out that many cities in Europe had very reliable drainage systems in the early days of the Industrial Revolution, implying that China's urban planning and management were very poor.
Then netizens were led to make such voices: "A country is developed for a reason", "Look at China's urban planners", and some people even said: "I really hope that Qingdao will always be colonized by Germany." "I looked through a lot of information and found that the Germans did build very advanced sewers in Qingdao at that time, but they were only built in the German concession area, and the purpose of the construction was to drain the rainwater from the concession area to the living area of Qingdao locals. Qingdao residents at the time said: "It's really a dog!" ”。And a century later, only 26 kilometers, which can only account for 1,1000 of the entire Qingdao drainage system, is basically useless. And the lines from "Les Miserables" quoted by the public are also misused. When Hugo said that "the sewers are the conscience of a city", he was in fact alluding to the sewers of Paris as a habitat for exiles and the vulnerable, saying that the sewers sheltered the people, not that they were praising the city. In 2012, heavy rains in Beijing killed 80 people, and then the rumor exploded again, and then the rumor went abroad to Germany. The well-known farce managed to attract the attention of the Germans, who were madly slapped in the face. A 2015 report by the Süddeutsche Zeitung put it bluntly: "Qingdao's sewer miracle has nothing to do with Germany."
Rumor 2:"Oiled paper pack"。The earliest known rumor was a July 2010 post on Douban about a broken part of a sewer built by the Germans in Qingdao that needed to be replaced. But the construction company that built the sewers is long gone. Then there was an e-mail from the German company saying that according to the German company engineering standards, spare parts in good condition could be found within 3 meters of the aging parts. When the Chinese company received the email, it found a small warehouse in the sewer, full of spare parts wrapped in oiled paper, which were opened and shiny as new ......
Oh perfect standards, exquisite design, the Germans are really too rigorous! They Germans are really amazing! The rhythm of netizens was also taken away, calling it "the legend of the Germans" and "the strict Germans". Everyone should have seen that this rumor is an upgraded version of the Qingdao sewer, and the public knows that the story of the German sewer has been further mythologized, and it has reached the point of being a god. In 2013, real estate tycoon Wang Shi also posted this mythical story on Weibo. Wow, they're really awesome Germans. Two days later, the reporter of the youth report contacted the office of the Qingdao Municipal Drainage Management Office, and they said: "The statement of "oil paper bag" is pure fiction! Sewers are generally made of pottery, porcelain or cement, and there are no metal parts at all! The rumors of oil-paper bag parts made up by the public became a joke in an instant, and then became a classic old stalk of Chinese netizens: "German oil-paper bag". So there was such a paragraph, "My German Shepherd is sick, I called the Germans, and they said that since it is called a German Shepherd, we must be prepared." Then, under their guidance, I found a veterinarian wrapped in oiled paper, and the dog turned around. The Germans are really rigorous in their work, and it is worth learning from us! “
Rumor 3: "U.S. passport". The intellectuals were done, and the Germans, of course, could not spare the lighthouse country on the other side of the ocean. The most classic rumor fabricated by the public to worship the United States is the comparison between the American passport and the Chinese passport. In 2007, a person on a Sina forum who claimed to have returned to China for a year made such a post. He swore that China's passport was written like this: "China requests all government organs to facilitate the passage and provide necessary assistance to those who hold this passport." The U.S. passport reads: "Remember, no matter where you are in the world, the mighty Republic of America is always your back, and remember that you are a U.S. citizen!" "Wow, domineering side leak! If we are Americans, if someone outside dares to bully us, we will directly show our American passport, and the embassy will directly send someone over to fight, which is simply amazing! A few years later, it was spread to Weibo, and another public official added oil and vinegar to the Chinese passport, adding another sentence: "Please strictly abide by the local laws and respect the customs there." The sense of humility with a Chinese passport came to my face in an instant, and the replies of those netizens were not posted here, and the rhythm had been taken away.
If you haven't seen a U.S. passport, you probably think that there is some truth to what the public knowers say. But if you really look at the U.S. passport, and then compare the Chinese and U.S. passports together, there is no such thing as "the United States is your strong backing". There is no such thing as "please strictly abide by the local laws" as said in the Chinese passport. In the end, the spokesperson of the US Embassy in China and the Exit and Entry Administration Corps of the Beijing Public Security Bureau all refuted the rumors and clarified that they were all fake! It is fortunate that at that time, there was no provision that more than 500 people should be held accountable for rumors**, otherwise some of the public knowledge on Weibo in the early days may have been administratively detained per capita.
From being respected and arousing social conscience, to now becoming an emotional and rhythmic being spurned by thousands of people. Why is the reputation of public intellectuals so bad in the age of the Internet? The reason is actually very simple, and the era of lack of knowledge is different, now is the age of knowledge, many people have not read before, want to learn some knowledge is more difficult than God, now the Internet is not lacking in knowledge at all, now both public intellectuals and popular science bloggers provide channels and windows to spread knowledge, not knowledge itself.
On the other hand, as the social division of labor becomes more and more refined, for a single person, either the knowledge is very broad but not deep enough. Either they specialize in a field and dig deep, and it is difficult to take into account the depth and breadth of knowledge at the same time. And then it often happens: "I used to think that person was very good, until he talked about that area that I was familiar with, I didn't know that he was good." "A lot of times the so-called public knowledge is just talking about things you don't understand, and it's hard to be sure if he really understands.
What a good public intellectual should do today is to help readers and viewers recognize false or even fake knowledge, not to make up new knowledge. We should also eliminate those double-standard dogs in the public knowledge, they only see the advantages of foreign countries, only put forward the shortcomings of the country, never see the shortcomings of foreign countries and the advantages of the country, as long as someone argues a little, they will immediately push the problem to the system, and then label others as wolf warriors, little pinks and the like, such public knowledge does not matter.
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