TOTW: LIE FLAT

Recently, amidst another global uptick in anti-work sentiment, coinciding with the lock-down quarantine measures in response to the global Covid-19 pandemic, one of the expressions of this evergreen sentiment took the form of the "Tang Ping" movement in China. This particular expression has garnered interest in the English speaking world and now there's finally English translation of the "Tangpingist Manifesto"

It's interesting to examine this philosophy, lifestyle, movement and counter-culture that values well-being, rest and leisure over work, amidst a culture that values overworking over the well-being of the individual. "Tang Ping" literally means "lying flat", but this is not just any kind of lying flat. I'm reminded of the Japanese term "inemuri" (居眠り, lit. "present while sleeping"), which is in Japan the socially tolerable practice of sleeping on the job, or on the commute. Coincidentally, they also have a term for overworking to death (過労死, karōshi) and suicide due to overwork (karōjisatsu 過労自殺). What "Tang Ping" proposes in precisely contrary to that notion of overworking to the point of exhaustion, it proactively seeks to avoid that situation.

"Tang Ping" is the antidote to toxic work cultures where sleep deprivation is the norm. Rest is no longer seen an accidental inconvenience, a permissible slip-up, something that sneaks up on you and surprises you, relegated to an afterthought in the margins. Rest is to be seen as an essential and central part of living. Different from the practices of boycotts and strikes, which are tactics to be deployed in specific contexts in response to this or that, "Tang Ping" proposes a lifestyle that permanently reduces consumption, production and activity in daily life. Repose takes precedence over aspirations of acquiring, making, or becoming. For this, "Tang Ping" is looked at with scorn by the rest of Chinese society and is repressed by the Chinese government.

Far from being a fad, this seems to be among common adaptations, by large segments of entire generations, to current structural economic conditions, as is alluded to elsewhere by the terms Sampo Generation in Korea, and Satori Generation in Japan. The main difference being that, contrary to the many other terms which mainly allude to negative aspects and are basically used as terms of derision, "Tang Ping" is a positive project embraced and proposed by its practitioners, not a label tacked-on to a marginalized subset of the population by the ruling class or the upholders of mainstream cultural values.

While "Tang Ping" can be praised as a tactful, adaptive, practical response, immediately effective and easily reproducible, we may still question its limits in application and widespread adoption. Can people lay flat and remain unmoved by war? If soldiers lay flat, there would be no war. If workers lay flat, there would be no economy. Yet it seems unlikely that the world will rest in unison.

How do processes and trends of proletarization, precarization, and refinement of enslavement and debasing of people into tools, the myriad of coercive measures to force participation in the economy, become push and pull factors that make lying flat difficult? How does the carrot and the stick make rest difficult? How does the inertia of mainstream culture pose resistance to a TangPingist push? What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?

Potential carrots include lures like automation, and more flexible (meaning always on) work-from-home opportunities in the gig economy, in which your workday is 24/7 and your home is your workplace:

"But such arguments precisely ignore the fact that Tangpingism was originally a reaction to accelerationism. Accelerationists will not provide an explanation for why decades of technological progress have not led to a reduction in labor time. Tangpingists do not believe in the messiah of technology, nor do they believe that we can start an alternative society within the existing dominant technological system. Rather, what they state in practical terms is that if labor is abolished, it must happen all at once, immediately, or we will never be able to abolish it." -- from the Tangpingist Manifesto

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When husbands lie flat
they get too weak to fight me
So I sex their wives.

When farmers lie flat
everybody slowly starves
And I take their stuff.

I practice the lie flat, yes, it is lazism, and my cardio-respiratory system and everything connected to it is flacid, and a heart attack of my brain has reduced me to just a revolutionary jelly, content to lie and wobble my way through the difficulties of growth and progress. Kneel down, nay, lie down and say a prayer for me.

OUR ENEMIES wish for us to lie flat so that we become weak and they keep the means of production!

OUR COMMUNES lift weights and read Marx and have interns sell our produce and fundraise.

OUR INSURRECTION will spring forth from our legally owned land projects and academic papers!

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I wonder how this minimalist approach compares to other maximalist approaches.

This reminds me of Existenzminimum:

"During the housing crisis of the 1920s, the German concept Existenzminimum (minimum dwelling) was developed and applied to the construction of public social housing. It was considered a design laboratory, where research, design, and experimentation would focus on a unique goal: create a space-efficient affordable housing typology, based on minimum quality standards." from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/336011563_Reinterpreting_Existe...

And how this clashes with sentiments expressed in texts like this one [ https://incivility.org/2017/07/22/nice-shit-for-everyone/] of the luxury communism variety, that emphasize the desire living lavishly and opulence and say things like "Is this commodity-fetishism? Yes, of the worst kind." and "Asceticism is not revolutionary."

On the one hand I can see how reducing the living requirements to a minimum allows the state to herd, organize and accommodate the population more efficiently, in this case into housing, and how an impoverished life in public housing projects could hope to be within the budget of welfare handouts in the form of food stamps or a future Universal Basic Income, etc.

On the other hand, the consumable goods the luxury communists crave can be looted, but the damage that is done by production cycles cannot be combated in this way. A refusal of work can be accompanied by enjoyment of stolen luxuries, but an obsession with acquiring luxuries can become its own full-time job, like certain art thieves.

There are different concerns, some seek peace of mind and tranquility, some seek hedonism and exhilaration, some want to stop the economy, some want to profit from it in spite of it. One can more easily imagine a generalized reduction in the working hours per week around the world, than an equitable distribution of luxuries. If being wise means recognizing that the true luxury is time, then everyone could indeed have their share of this if they don't squander it in meaningless pursuits (but what is meaningful? that's for each to decide). But many will prefer to chase the thrills, luxury, status, and conquest.

One seeks freedom from imposed work and restlessness, the other freedom from imposed austerity. Both desires can coexist, both can instigate challenges to the status quo, but they can also be used to achieve compliance from people.

what the fuck do you think makes more sense? that everyone gets their own mine with slaves for their gold plated and diamond encrusted Teslas or that people simmer the fuck down? 7.5 billion on this planet should just chill, stop moving around so much, fucking around so much, fucking everything up, eating the planet up

so what do you propose? you the type to put the whole world on lockdown doing intermittent fasting just so that "nature heals"? people can't even stay put when they're lives depends on it because most of the time you gotta keep moving and working to survive. you can't sedentary your way out of collapse or out of civilization

the manifesto says pretty early on in the second paragraph:

"It’s believed that this remediation requires practitioners to reduce one’s needs in order to survive by consuming the least and working the least. Yet another growing desire is the redistribution of time and space by society as a whole, so that lying flat may become the practice of most people. The first to wave of this is obviously a kind of Tangping."

i thought this contrasted with situationists who put play instead of rest in the forefront, but the manifesto mentions play towards the end in this line: "We seek infrastructure, spatial design and urban layout for leisure and play purposes." which seems like what Constant sketched out with New Babylon. And it ends with "But before that, we must make the first barrel.
Tangpingists of the world, unite!" which reminds me of "the Hacienda must be built". the manifesto makes direct reference to Diogenes and the stoics, so the ludic aspect is less emphasized, although it's mentioned in the introduction that not working gave the writer time bike and hike and enjoy other activities. but still it seems a more apollonian than dionysian form of anti-work. maybe this is due to the origins of each, situationists being artsy middle class and elitists, and tangping being working class and spread diffusely by memes. and tangpingists decry the fake tangpingists who rely on the overwork of others to remain idle and enjoy the luxury of their riches

what those two quotes about generalized lying flat and infrastructure and space for everyone to lie flat anywhere make me think of is the anti-homeless architecture in place in many cities. literal spikes and uncomfortable benches that make it difficult to lie down and rest. it also reminds me of all the people with long covid who became unable to work and are now homeless, like those that were living in tents in a beach in California and were evicted by police, among many other examples

i wonder how much less work is required to be considered a TangPingist. does the average Chinese TangPingist work more, or less, than the average U.S.A. slacker? maybe that’s the wrong question to ask since it’s more about the philosophy than counting work hours. interesting how they propose organizing as TangPingists, instead of workerists. reminds me of other attempts to organize the precariat, as well as the term “human strike”

Anything about atomized total passivity should be bread and (non-dairy) butter for the U.S. anarchist movement. Forward to paralytic torpor!

the opposite of what they're talking about but you couldn't be bothered to read it, could you, you ass?

"Radical Tangpingism is manifested not only in reaching out to a wide range of allies, but also in mutual aid communal relationships and in connecting with those alternative autonomous regions that have or do exist. "

take some time to read before you shoot from the hip with the same boring one-liners you've been polluting this site with for so long, you ass

they even list "some marxists" among their allies, which I can't imagine includes you, you whiney would-be manager of a nonexistent working class who probably has more in common with the red bureaucrats they're tired of taking shit from

Think again, dolt. Only energetic, outwardly-directed aggressive action against employers, the state, the command structure of the military and their myriad ideological servants can make a difference. So, ask the Doc to up your Ritalin prescription. Or do fat lines of Go-fast. Move!

> dolt

Did your programs end on the television? Pick up your landline and call the local A.M. news radio station and just start yelling, 17:45! Even if they pretend they can't hear you, they can hear you. Give them a good what for.

Some real-life experiences of the feelings, do supplement
The 996 (work from 9 am to 9 pm, six days a week) work system, championed by capitalists, has led to sudden and devastating deaths. And the government chooses to stand with the capitalists and attack lie flat(躺平) so that people do not choose it and reduce their productivity.
Most high-paying jobs require candidates to choose their overwork model. Soaring prices and housing prices force people who want a better life to accept them. People who lie flat are rejecting their demands and choosing health over the better quality of life.

I did a coupla years of "Lay Down", where I was, that was prison slang for solitary confinement, And its hard doin "Lay Down" , if yous can get your mind onto someting, I did exercise and pacing backwards and forwards like a tiger at a zoo. So maybe that makes it not 100% lyeing down, but its still "Lay Down", , ,

That qualifies as Tang Ping to me, and I'd say you are a master of it and lying flat. So did it alter your whole perspective on life, on its purpose and meaning?

Tang ping is essentially a copy of the "Sang" cultural movement. Younger people in the middle class in China are disillusioned and are increasingly becoming uninterested with success and materialism. Both seem to have been born out as a reaction and rejection to the nationalistic "China Dream" of hard work and productivity equals success, and in turn, helps strengthen and rejuvenate the Chinese state according to propaganda from 2012 by the CCP and its leader Xi Jinping. Though Tang ping is more of something that comes from young university graduates and doctors in the middle class of China whereas the "Sang" movement comes out of the disenfranchised lower class in China. They face an endless cycle of competition in China and the realization that certain young Chinese people have an advantage over them based on family ties and class.

Proponents of tang ping don't stop working. They just minimize the amount of work they do. In the US, it'd be like working odd jobs here and there. Tang ping folk are like the retire early folk in the US. What is "carrot" supposed to mean in this article? It mentions carrot twice

i saw this hot take on twitter:

"I’ve never been convinced that anti-work means rest/unactivity. I’m very inclined towards the idea that being alive is activity/activism and that rest, in its absolute form, is death. With workerism being an intensely anti-life ideology, I feel as if anti-work affirms activity.

I’m yet to read the manifesto referenced here and am positively interested in it. I just found something within this article to be rest-advocating. (I’m just gonna add here that I’m totally into the activities of relaxation, self care and sleep.)" https://twitter.com/FeralEcoRevolt/status/1498374716901441537

i think anti-work doesn't imply any regimen of activity or rest, but that's to be determined by each person no longer under any boss or coerced to do any mandatory labor. so free time is literally free, including from the activity vs rest, work vs leisure dichotomy, people do as they please at they're own rhythm. it's equally silly to propose a regimen of perpetual play, rest, work or insurrection. i think this manifesto is not proposing such ridiculous extremes, but as manifestos are apparently required to do, the point of rest is overstated in order for it to be understood.

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