Making Sense on Our Own Terms：Premature Death of the “Post-Work Era”

Making Sense on Our Own Terms：

Premature Death of the “Post-Work Era”

Three Predicaments under Knowledge Centralization: Aesthetic Bullying, Collapse of Credibility, and Value Vacuum

This essay proposes that the core feature of what I call the “post-work era” (hou zuopin shidai) is the systemic failure of the mechanisms that reproduce cultural creation. This failure manifests as a scarcity of high-quality creators and works of depth, a widespread public resistance to contemporary cultural production, and an excessive reliance on and repeated re-staging of historical canonical texts. I argue that the root of this cultural impasse lies in “knowledge centralization” (zhishi ji-quan), that is, a small group of cultural elites monopolizing the power to define aesthetics, allocate resources, and assign discursive value, thereby exercising comprehensive control over the field of cultural production.

This essay undertakes a systematic analysis of three intertwined predicaments: aesthetic bullying, internal cultural colonization, and a vacuum of spiritual values. It shows how knowledge centralization constructs “bodily classes,” consolidates cultural capital, and dismantles evaluative systems, ultimately leading to the distortion of the creative ecology and the impoverishment of public cultural life. I argue that only by breaking the monopoly of knowledge and rebuilding plural mechanisms of dialogue can we prevent the premature death of the post-work era and restore both the public and spiritual dimensions of cultural creation.

Contemporary cultural fields increasingly present a paradoxical landscape. On the one hand, technological media and information dissemination are more developed than ever; on the surface, the quantity of cultural products has exploded. On the other hand, the public widely feels that there are “no works worth watching” and “no texts worth reading.” There is a collective estrangement from contemporary literary and artistic production, and a compensatory obsession with reconstructing, parodying, and reproducing historical classics. This backward-facing cultural posture is not a conscious continuation of tradition, but rather a passive response to the current loss of voice and loss of quality in creation. I define this phenomenon as the “post-work era,” whose essence is a systemic standstill in the mechanisms that reproduce cultural creation.

The “post-work era” does not mean that creation has stopped in an absolute sense. Rather, it refers to an overall decline in cultural production along three dimensions: spiritual depth, aesthetic innovation, and public resonance. When creation degenerates into a game of “traffic” (liuliang, that is, clicks, views, and social media reach), an appendage of power, or a set of internal codes decipherable only within certain circles, works lose their cultural function of carrying thought, catalyzing dialogue, and nourishing the inner life. This in turn causes a rupture in the creation-reception chain.

I argue that the deeper driving force of this phenomenon is knowledge centralization: cultural capital, discursive power, and aesthetic standards are monopolized by a small elite group, leading to the silencing of creative subjects, the loss of trust among audiences, and the dysfunction of the cultural ecology. The following sections develop a critical analysis of three interrelated predicaments to show how knowledge centralization gradually dismantles the creative ecology, and then tentatively propose possible paths for cultural reconstruction.

I. Aesthetic Bullying: Bodily Class Conflict under Knowledge Centralization

1. Aesthetics as an Instrument of Power: From Binary Oppositions to Aesthetic War

In principle, aesthetics should be the result of diverse perceptions and value judgments formed by individuals and communities in the course of cultural practice. Within a structure of knowledge centralization, however, aesthetics is alienated into an instrument for consolidating cultural power. Its strategy consists in constructing a series of binary oppositions, such as highbrow versus vulgar, avant-garde versus conservative, global versus local. The taste of elite groups is defined as “universal aesthetics,” while heterogeneous aesthetic experiences are denigrated as “illegitimate.”

The essence of this aesthetic bullying is a covert “aesthetic war,” whose purpose is to monopolize cultural capital by excluding others, thereby preserving elite privilege in academia, the market, and institutional systems.

In the arts, aesthetic bullying is directly embodied in a rigid “hierarchy of disdain” (bishilian) and is tightly bound to the construction of “bodily classes.” Take dance as an example. As an art form premised on being looked at, dance already contains an intrinsic power asymmetry between viewers and dancers. Knowledge centralization intensifies this by manufacturing hierarchies within the community of dancers themselves, stratifying them according to genre (classical ballet above street dance), institutional pedigree (professionally trained above non-professional), and bodily conditions (those meeting the “three long, one small” standard are ranked above those who do not).

“Three long, one small” is a widely used Chinese phrase in dance and modeling circles, referring to a long neck, long torso, long legs, and a relatively small head. It functions as a shorthand for an idealized, normatively “beautiful” body.

Such stratification is not based on the actual expressive value of the art, but on a set of “bodily norms” that have been sacralized by knowledge-power. The result is not only the marginalization of non-standard bodies, but also the alienation of dance itself: technical display replaces emotional communication, and bodily discipline suppresses individual expression. Under aesthetic bullying, a culture of obsequiousness toward authority and mutual disdain among dancers flourishes.

2. The Construction Logic of “Bodily Classes”: Norms, Exclusion, and Everyday Life

“Bodily classes” are the concrete form of aesthetic bullying. The term refers to a hierarchy based on visible bodily traits that is constructed by knowledge-power. It operates through three mechanisms:

1. Manufacturing and privileging “standard bodies”. In visually dominated art forms such as dance, theater, film, and fashion, elites rely on conservatory training, industry auditions, and media exposure to construct certain bodily features (such as the slender limbs of ballet dancers or the “camera-friendly face” in film and television) as “scientific” and “universal” professional standards. Bodies that match these norms naturally occupy the center of the stage, receive leading roles, and enjoy media visibility, thereby becoming the embodied symbols of aesthetic power.

2. Marginalizing and instrumentalizing “other bodies”. Bodies that do not conform to these standards, including racialized bodies, fat bodies, disabled bodies, or bodies with non-conforming gender expressions, are systematically excluded from mainstream representation and confined to functionalized, stereotypical supporting roles. These bodies are compelled to pursue self-transformation through dieting, cosmetic surgery, and other methods. Here knowledge-power turns into a form of “gentle violence”: it does not always appear as overt physical force, but achieves discipline through aesthetic negation.

3. Everyday normalization of aesthetic bullying. The logic of bodily classes now permeates the workplace, social life, and consumption. Workplace dress codes, body worship on social media, and the “ideal body” images in advertising all link aesthetic norms with discourses of “success,” “self-discipline,” and “health.” Individuals thus find themselves under constant visual surveillance and judgment, with aesthetic choices becoming markers of social stratification.

3. Double Alienation of Creation and Reception

Aesthetic bullying further distorts both the creative and the receptive sides of cultural production.

On the creative side, some creators fall into “authorial arrogance” (zuozhe ao-man). They deliberately deploy obscure jargon, privatize their traumatic experiences, and plant cryptic cultural codes, turning their works into identity tokens for those in the same circle. This self-enclosed mode of creation appears to champion artistic autonomy, but in fact serves elite strategies of distinction. By cutting off public dialogue, it accelerates the inward-turning, self-referential tendencies of creation.

On the reception side, algorithmic technologies and traffic logics jointly generate a “visual hegemony.” Dance is forced to chase “screen-grab-ability” and photogenic moments; theater productions over-invest in “visual spectacle”; music is chopped into short video clips optimized for social platforms. The “core functions” of art (movement, spoken text, melody) are displaced by visual symbols designed for circulation and consumption. Algorithms reinforce a single aesthetic preference by enclosing users in “information cocoons,” thereby hiding alternative expressions. Gradually, audiences lose the capacity for aesthetic judgment and become passive responders to traffic data.

4. Imbalance of Discursive Power: Algorithmic Conditioning and Aesthetic Polarization

The collusion between knowledge centralization and algorithmic technology produces extreme imbalances in discursive power within cultural fields. On the one hand, algorithms, in the name of “user preference,” harden aesthetic cocoons and deprive the public of access to heterogeneous texts. On the other hand, cultural elites, through academic factions, educational resources, and media platforms, build exclusive circles that reject external critique.

Together, these forces hollow out the evaluative agency of ordinary audiences. Different aesthetic communities, lacking channels for dialogue, drift toward mutual hostility, as seen in the mutual stigmatization of “elite aesthetics” versus “mass aesthetics.” Cultural consensus becomes increasingly fragile, further catalyzing the arrival (and premature exhaustion) of the post-work era.

II. Internal Cultural Colonization Syndrome: Collapse of Credibility and Creative Paralysis under Knowledge Centralization

1. Feudalized Monopoly of Cultural Capital

Behind aesthetic bullying lies the systematic monopolization of cultural resources by knowledge centralization. The contemporary cultural field displays a distinctly “feudalized” pattern: a small number of cultural elites (well-known scholars, curators, industry authorities) control key resources such as academic credentials, project funding, exhibition opportunities, and media channels, forming closed “cultural interest groups.”

This monopoly produces two major consequences. First, extreme inequity in resource distribution makes it difficult for young creators and marginal groups to gain support. Second, academic ethics erode: plagiarism, ghostwriting, name-lending, resource predation, and exploitation of newcomers become rampant, stripping professional evaluation of its credibility. When the public no longer trusts academies, awards, or expert endorsements, the very legitimacy of cultural production collapses.

2. Intergenerational Transmission of Cultural Capital and the Production of “New Servility”

Knowledge centralization reproduces cultural capital across generations through the education system. Individuals born into elite cultural families or trained at top institutions acquire elite aesthetic language and networks from an early age, giving them built-in advantages in cultural competition. Creators from culturally marginal backgrounds, by contrast, face a dual scarcity of economic and cultural capital.

To gain entry into the field, the latter are often forced into “self-colonization”: abandoning local aesthetic traditions, imitating elite modes of expression, and even internalizing elites’ contempt for their own cultural backgrounds. This “new servility” is the most covert form of violence enacted by knowledge centralization. Individuals become their own cultural police, voluntarily conforming to hegemonic aesthetics in exchange for recognition. The cost, however, is the demise of cultural diversity and the spiritual castration of creative subjects.

3. Breakdown of Evaluative Systems and Collective Linguistic Regression

Knowledge centralization also leads to the failure of traditional systems for evaluating cultural production. In order to preserve vested interests, elite groups continuously twist evaluative standards: sometimes enshrining traffic data as the ultimate criterion, at other times replacing quality assessment with network ties and insider relationships. As a result, standards lose both stability and legitimacy.

The disorder of evaluation triggers a “collective linguistic regression.” Creators, lacking trustworthy value references, drift between styles and lose a sense of meaning; audiences, unable to distinguish better from worse works, fall back on purely emotional reactions; academic discourse devolves into insider jargon that forfeits any public critical function. Once culture loses a shared evaluative language, it ceases to function as a medium of social communication.

4. Algorithmic Logic and “Circle Culture”: Intensifying the Syndrome of Colonization

The rise of algorithmic recommendation systems intensifies internal cultural colonization in a technologized form. In the name of optimizing traffic efficiency, algorithms divide users into isolated, closed “aesthetic circles,” with each circle forming its own self-contained and exclusionary value system. This “circle culture” (quanceng wenhua) is essentially a technical extension of knowledge centralization. It generates three symptomatic effects:

1. Normalization of covert violence. Different circles, driven by aesthetic differences, engage in ongoing online battles; digital harassment spills over into offline life.

2. Intensified intra-group burnout. Individuals oscillate between “lying flat” (tangping, a popular term for opting out or giving up) and “involution” (neijuan, hyper-competition and over-conformity to group rules). In this oscillation, creative energy is consumed from within and gradually withers.

3. Spiritual exile. Trapped long-term in information cocoons, individuals lose their grip on reality and their capacity for critique, becoming the cultural puppets of algorithmic systems.

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Taken together, these symptoms form what I call “internal cultural colonization syndrome,” which leaves cultural production in a state of paralysis.

III. Vacuum of Spiritual Values: Nihilism and the Abandonment of Creative Mission

1. Amplification of Individual Trauma and the Spread of Nihilism

The deconstruction of cultural meaning by knowledge centralization ultimately yields a vacuum of spiritual values. When aesthetics degenerates into a class label, resources are monopolized, and standards fail, both creation and reception lose meaningful anchor points. Some creators equate “private trauma” with universal truth, piling pain, anxiety, and despair into their works without offering any transcendent reflection or narratives of redemption. Audiences, immersed in such content over time, become infected by nihilistic moods and lose sensitivity to hope, solidarity, and critical thought.

This nihilism is not an authentic response to existential hardship, but a symptom of emptied cultural meaning. When works no longer provide spiritual nourishment, the public can only seek temporary consolation in the repeated consumption of historical texts.

2. Self-Symbolization and Digital Alienation

Under the rule of traffic logic, individuals increasingly “symbolize” themselves. Creators carefully cultivate their “persona” (renshe, a curated public identity), and works become accessories to personal branding. Audiences, for their part, construct identity by consuming particular cultural symbols.

This self-symbolization is a fundamental betrayal of authentic creation. Art no longer functions as a medium for the subject to engage in dialogue with the world; instead, it becomes a tool of digital identity management. The creative process is alienated into an assembly line of symbol production, and the spiritual core of culture is emptied out. The “loss of speech” in creation that characterizes the post-work era thus becomes locked in.

3. A Binary Trap of Creative Mission: Self-Imposed Isolation or Going with the Flow

Within this vacuum of spiritual values, creators face a cruel binary: either “draw a circle on the ground and confine oneself within it,” retreating into an elitist discursive fortress and upholding a pseudo-purity through opacity and exclusion; or “go with the flow,” fully submitting to traffic and markets and producing flattering, shallow, and homogenized content.

These two options in fact share the same underlying logic: both are passive conformities to the structure of “knowledge centralization plus traffic hegemony.” Genuine creative subjectivity finds no place within this structure. As a result, culture loses the possibility of sincere expression and is left only with the extraction and over-use of historical legacies.

Conclusion: Toward a Cultural Reconstruction that Breaks Knowledge Centralization

The premature death of the post-work era reveals the systemic damage that knowledge centralization has inflicted on the cultural ecology. Aesthetic bullying, internal cultural colonization, and a vacuum of spiritual values are intertwined, collectively causing the breakdown of creative mechanisms, the rupture of public dialogue, and the exhaustion of cultural meaning.

To stem this trend, we must fundamentally dismantle the monopoly of knowledge and rebuild a pluralistic and democratic order in the cultural field:

1. Advance the decolonization of aesthetics. Acknowledge and activate marginalized aesthetic traditions, break the normative violence of bodily classes, and cultivate dialogue across social strata and cultures.

2. Reform mechanisms for distributing cultural resources. Through tools such as anonymous review processes, grassroots funding, and public platforms, weaken the feudalized monopolies of elite circles and provide sustainable support systems for marginal creators.

3. Foster a critical public sphere. Resist algorithmic cocoons, and encourage media, schools, and communities to become spaces for cross-aesthetic encounters and rational dialogue, thereby restoring the public’s capacity for cultural evaluation.

4. Recover the spiritual mission of creation. Support creators in transcending the binary trap described above. While directly confronting contemporary experience, they must also uphold the intellectual and public dimensions of art, so that culture can once again serve as a site for generating meaning, reflecting on society, and co-creating a shared inner life.

   
   

Only through such structural transformations can cultural production break free from the shackles of knowledge centralization, emerge from the shadow of the post-work era, and rebuild a creative ecology that is both innovative and spiritually rich.