The Case for Re-Evaluating Colonization
Separating Guilt-Trip Mythology from Historical Evidence
The One-Sided Sermon
Every classroom documentary, Hollywood epic, and academic syllabus seems to end the same way: “Colonialism = evil.” The moral verdict is always swift and unchallenged. But what happens if we widen the lens?
What if we weigh costs against demonstrable gains—public health miracles, abolitionist laws, legal systems, infrastructure, and long-term prosperity? This isn’t a whitewash of empire. It’s a correction of a narrative that has stopped asking honest questions.
I. What Existed Before Europeans Arrived?
Before colonization, many societies were not harmonious utopias but operated with brutal hierarchies, slavery, and human sacrifice.
Aztec Empire (1428–1521):
Tenochtitlán’s pyramids ran red with the blood of some 20,000 war captives a year. Hereditary slavery was the norm, and tribute towns were starved to sustain religious ceremonies and priest-kings.
Pre-1757 Indian Subcontinent:
Roughly 30% of farmland was reserved for those labeled “untouchables.” Sati—the ritual burning of widows—was practiced hundreds of times each year. Trade routes were plagued by Thuggee cults and dynastic violence.
Congo Basin (pre-1885):
Long before Europeans arrived, Arab-Swahili and local chiefs operated vast slave-trading networks, exporting human lives to the Persian Gulf.
The modern myth of colonizers destroying paradises often recycles missionary-era propaganda rather than verified history.
II. Life-Saving Interventions
Colonial expansion introduced tools that radically improved survival.
Smallpox Vaccine (1796):
Before European contact, smallpox killed an estimated 300,000 Indians annually. Vaccination campaigns stopped that clock.
French West Africa’s Public Health Revolution:
Infant mortality dropped from 350 to 120 per 1,000 births between 1900 and 1950, thanks to medical drives involving chloroquine and DDT.
By the Numbers:
Conservative estimates suggest Western medicine saved at least 500 million lives in former colonies between 1880 and 1970.
III. Infrastructure That Still Pays Dividends
Colonial infrastructure projects didn’t just serve imperial logistics—they remain central to modern economies.
British India:
53,000 kilometers of rail and 60,000 kilometers of roads laid the groundwork for commerce across India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.
Sudan’s Gezira Scheme:
British-engineered irrigation increased regional wages by 60% from 1925 to 1950.
Global Ports:
Cities like Singapore, Hong Kong, and Lagos—founded or reshaped by colonial powers—have become trillion-dollar global trade hubs.
IV. Legal Systems and Abolition of Slavery
Colonial governance introduced reforms many local elites resisted.
The British Abolition Campaign (1807):
Britain banned the trans-Atlantic slave trade, enforcing the law with the West Africa Squadron. Over 50 years, they seized 1,600 ships and freed 160,000 captives—at the cost of 2% of national GDP annually.
Legal Reform in the Colonies:
Sati outlawed in India (1829)
Slavery banned in Burma (1926)
Forced veiling abolished in French Algeria (1958)
These reforms weren’t homegrown. They were enforced by colonial courts against the wishes of entrenched local powers.
V. Economic Growth: A Historical Comparison
Measured against contemporaries, some colonies outpaced major non-colonial powers.
British India (1870–1947):
Real GDP per capita grew at 0.9% annually. Compare that to China—free of direct colonial rule—where GDP grew just 0.2% and the country collapsed into warlordism and famine.
Ghana’s Cocoa Boom:
By 1938, Ghana (then the Gold Coast) supplied 40% of the world’s cocoa, building a tax base that funded schools—including those attended by future independence leaders like Kwame Nkrumah.
VI. Post-Colonial Reality Check: Who Owns the Failure?
Outcomes diverged sharply depending on what post-colonial governments did with inherited institutions.
Success Cases:
Singapore and Botswana maintained colonial-era bureaucracies and saw per-capita income soar.
Collapse Cases:
Zimbabwe dismantled its colonial-era rail network post-independence. Between 1980 and 2020, 75% of it vanished, and GDP per capita dropped 40%.
VII. Controlled Comparison: Hong Kong vs. Haiti
Two societies, similar starting points, starkly different outcomes.
Hong Kong (155 years under British rule):
With no natural resources, it became a global finance hub with a life expectancy of 84.
Haiti (independent since 1804):
Despite early independence, Haiti has endured 32 coups, 13 constitutions, and now has one-seventh the per-capita income of nearby Barbados.
Conclusion: Trade the Guilt Lens for a Balance Sheet
Colonialism was not a utopia—but it was also not uniquely evil. It brought vaccinations, railways, legal rights, and functioning bureaucracies to regions once defined by slavery and demographic collapse. The historical record shows that when successor states kept these institutions intact, prosperity followed. When they destroyed them, decline was swift.
History is not a sermon. It’s an audit of consequences. And on that ledger, the colonial era deserves reassessment—not blind condemnation.
Separating Guilt-Trip Mythology from Historical Evidence
The One-Sided Sermon
Every classroom documentary, Hollywood epic, and academic syllabus seems to end the same way: “Colonialism = evil.” The moral verdict is always swift and unchallenged. But what happens if we widen the lens?
What if we weigh costs against demonstrable gains—public health miracles, abolitionist laws, legal systems, infrastructure, and long-term prosperity? This isn’t a whitewash of empire. It’s a correction of a narrative that has stopped asking honest questions.
I. What Existed Before Europeans Arrived?
Before colonization, many societies were not harmonious utopias but operated with brutal hierarchies, slavery, and human sacrifice.
Aztec Empire (1428–1521):
Tenochtitlán’s pyramids ran red with the blood of some 20,000 war captives a year. Hereditary slavery was the norm, and tribute towns were starved to sustain religious ceremonies and priest-kings.
Pre-1757 Indian Subcontinent:
Roughly 30% of farmland was reserved for those labeled “untouchables.” Sati—the ritual burning of widows—was practiced hundreds of times each year. Trade routes were plagued by Thuggee cults and dynastic violence.
Congo Basin (pre-1885):
Long before Europeans arrived, Arab-Swahili and local chiefs operated vast slave-trading networks, exporting human lives to the Persian Gulf.
The modern myth of colonizers destroying paradises often recycles missionary-era propaganda rather than verified history.
II. Life-Saving Interventions
Colonial expansion introduced tools that radically improved survival.
Smallpox Vaccine (1796):
Before European contact, smallpox killed an estimated 300,000 Indians annually. Vaccination campaigns stopped that clock.
French West Africa’s Public Health Revolution:
Infant mortality dropped from 350 to 120 per 1,000 births between 1900 and 1950, thanks to medical drives involving chloroquine and DDT.
By the Numbers:
Conservative estimates suggest Western medicine saved at least 500 million lives in former colonies between 1880 and 1970.
III. Infrastructure That Still Pays Dividends
Colonial infrastructure projects didn’t just serve imperial logistics—they remain central to modern economies.
British India:
53,000 kilometers of rail and 60,000 kilometers of roads laid the groundwork for commerce across India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.
Sudan’s Gezira Scheme:
British-engineered irrigation increased regional wages by 60% from 1925 to 1950.
Global Ports:
Cities like Singapore, Hong Kong, and Lagos—founded or reshaped by colonial powers—have become trillion-dollar global trade hubs.
IV. Legal Systems and Abolition of Slavery
Colonial governance introduced reforms many local elites resisted.
The British Abolition Campaign (1807):
Britain banned the trans-Atlantic slave trade, enforcing the law with the West Africa Squadron. Over 50 years, they seized 1,600 ships and freed 160,000 captives—at the cost of 2% of national GDP annually.
Legal Reform in the Colonies:
Sati outlawed in India (1829)
Slavery banned in Burma (1926)
Forced veiling abolished in French Algeria (1958)
These reforms weren’t homegrown. They were enforced by colonial courts against the wishes of entrenched local powers.
V. Economic Growth: A Historical Comparison
Measured against contemporaries, some colonies outpaced major non-colonial powers.
British India (1870–1947):
Real GDP per capita grew at 0.9% annually. Compare that to China—free of direct colonial rule—where GDP grew just 0.2% and the country collapsed into warlordism and famine.
Ghana’s Cocoa Boom:
By 1938, Ghana (then the Gold Coast) supplied 40% of the world’s cocoa, building a tax base that funded schools—including those attended by future independence leaders like Kwame Nkrumah.
VI. Post-Colonial Reality Check: Who Owns the Failure?
Outcomes diverged sharply depending on what post-colonial governments did with inherited institutions.
Success Cases:
Singapore and Botswana maintained colonial-era bureaucracies and saw per-capita income soar.
Collapse Cases:
Zimbabwe dismantled its colonial-era rail network post-independence. Between 1980 and 2020, 75% of it vanished, and GDP per capita dropped 40%.
VII. Controlled Comparison: Hong Kong vs. Haiti
Two societies, similar starting points, starkly different outcomes.
Hong Kong (155 years under British rule):
With no natural resources, it became a global finance hub with a life expectancy of 84.
Haiti (independent since 1804):
Despite early independence, Haiti has endured 32 coups, 13 constitutions, and now has one-seventh the per-capita income of nearby Barbados.
Conclusion: Trade the Guilt Lens for a Balance Sheet
Colonialism was not a utopia—but it was also not uniquely evil. It brought vaccinations, railways, legal rights, and functioning bureaucracies to regions once defined by slavery and demographic collapse. The historical record shows that when successor states kept these institutions intact, prosperity followed. When they destroyed them, decline was swift.
History is not a sermon. It’s an audit of consequences. And on that ledger, the colonial era deserves reassessment—not blind condemnation.
Picture the scene at a state-university seminar last fall. A graduate student has just finished cataloguing the rape yards and slave markets run by the Islamic State between 2014 and 2019. She closes her PowerPoint. The professor nods gravely, adjusts his lapel microphone, and offers the official benediction:
“Of course, every culture is equally valid on its own terms.”
An uncomfortable silence ripples across the room. A hand shoots up.
“On its own terms, ISIS threw gays off rooftops. Does that make it morally equal to ours?”
The professor blinks, then murmurs something about “post-colonial sensitivities.”
Class dismissed.
This moment wasn’t an anomaly. It was a clear expression of Western elite dogma: that all civilizations are morally identical. This isn’t generosity. It’s cowardice, dressed up as compassion—propped up by three crutches: historical guilt, a thriving victimhood industry, and conflict avoidance.
The False Equivalence in Practice
Start with the facts no one wants in the syllabus footnotes.
In Iran, a woman who removes her hijab on TikTok risks acid disfigurement and a decade in prison. According to the UN Entity for Gender Equality, nine of the ten worst countries for women’s rights are Muslim-majority.
ISIS, far from being “un-Islamic,” ran a bureaucracy auctioning Yazidi girls aged nine and up on encrypted WhatsApp menus. If price lists for child sex slaves count as “cultural equivalence,” the term has lost all meaning.
Look further back. The Aztec Empire celebrated spring planting by flaying teenage captives alive. The Incas ripped out hearts atop mountains, leaving behind mummified children. These weren’t fringe acts. They were civic rituals, akin to our Fourth of July.
No society is spotless. But patterns matter: freedom of conscience, female autonomy, freedom of worship, and protection of minorities are not cultural accessories—they are civilizational cornerstones.
The Numbers They Won’t Quote
Pew Research (2013 & 2022):
78% of Afghan Muslims and 62% of Iraqi Muslims support sharia as national law, including stoning for adultery.
Gallup (UK):
0% of British Muslims surveyed found homosexuality acceptable—a fact rarely mentioned by mainstream media.
Metropolitan Police (UK):
Grooming-gang offenders were 84% South-Asian Muslim, primarily targeting underage white girls.
These statistics don’t prove that individual Muslims are evil. They show that when cultural norms clash with liberal values, outcomes diverge—often violently.
Why the Dogma Persists
1. Weaponized Guilt: Post-Colonial Repentance Theater
European colonizers committed atrocities. So did the Zulus, Mongols, and Barbary pirates. But only Western academia turned its guilt into a rent-seeking theology, forgiving acid attacks as “resistance.”
2. The Victimhood Industry
The NGO–DEI complex turns inequality into profit.
DEI offices generate billions
University “diversity” budgets outpace STEM departments
These funds evaporate if someone dares admit that honor codes, not colonialism, drive violence in immigrant communities.
3. Conflict Aversion & Moral Fatigue
Hard policies—on immigration, cultural vetting, and visas from theocratic regimes—require a moral backbone. Instead, the public is spoon-fed slogans like:
“Build bridges, not walls.”
Chanting "equality" from behind security gates is easier than confronting imported norms that violate basic freedoms.
The Real-World Fallout
Immigration Paralysis:
Germany imported 1 million young men from sharia-aligned regions and was shocked by mass sexual assaults on New Year’s Eve 2015.
Child-Rape Cover-Ups:
In Rotherham, Telford, and Rochdale, gangs groomed thousands of white girls. Police ignored it to avoid accusations of racism.
Suppressed Academia:
Journals retract findings linking cousin marriage to birth defects. Scholars lose grants for citing Muslim antisemitism.
Civilizational Suicide:
Falling fertility, rising antidepressant use, and the narrative that European culture itself is oppressive.
A Scale, Not a Sermon
It’s time to drop the moral gymnastics.
Ask three simple questions:
Does the society protect individual conscience?
Does it grant women equal legal status?
Does it punish the rapist, not the victim?
The answers produce a civilizational scoreboard. These are not colonial standards—they are moral insights born from within the West, the same tradition that abolished slavery and expanded liberty.
When ISIS auctions girls or Iran executes women for dress-code violations, those atrocities are homegrown, not Western exports. The Aztecs didn’t carve “Made in Spain” on their obsidian knives.
Pointing this out isn’t racism or imperialism.
It’s moral clarity.
Conclusion: Beyond the Comfort Blanket
The West has no duty to commit cultural suicide for the sins of its past.
Truth does not live on a balance sheet of historical grievances. It lives in the outcomes—freedom or tyranny.
“Equality” that excuses child beheadings, forced marriage, and sex slavery isn’t compassion. It’s civilizational erasure.
We must speak the scale aloud, draw a moral line, and defend it—before it’s too late.
Denmark is facing a looming population crisis. With birth rates well below replacement level and an aging population threatening the nation’s economic future, the pressure is mounting to find solutions. Amid this demographic emergency, one claim made international rounds: that Denmark is now urging its men to have sex with feminist women to save the country.
Beneath the shock value of the headline is a deeper story. It exposes modern fractures in relationships, distrust between the sexes, and the unintended consequences of decades of ideological messaging.
Denmark’s Fertility Collapse
Like many developed nations, Denmark is experiencing a sustained decline in birth rates. With fewer couples choosing to have children and many delaying family formation entirely, the country now faces a shrinking workforce and rising dependency ratios. The long-term economic consequences are stark: fewer taxpayers, greater pressure on public services, and the erosion of generational continuity.
Efforts to reverse this trend have included financial incentives, expanded parental leave, subsidized childcare, and even creative public campaigns. Most notably, Denmark’s “Do It for Denmark” campaign encouraged couples to take romantic vacations, framing conception as a patriotic duty.
The Viral Story
A recent article pushed the narrative further, claiming that Denmark is “begging” men to impregnate feminists to avoid demographic collapse. The story spread quickly across social media and men’s forums, capturing attention not just for its outrageous tone but for how plausible it sounded to those familiar with the state of modern dating and cultural trends.
Whether the claim was literal or symbolic, the fact it resonated so strongly speaks volumes. To many men, the idea that a society which had dismissed their traditional role now comes crawling back with demands wasn’t satire. It was poetic irony.
Modern Dating and the Disconnect
The rise in single, childless adults isn’t just a fluke of economics. It reflects a growing disconnect in male-female dynamics. Many men report a sense of disillusionment with modern dating. They see relationships as high-risk, low-reward, and often governed by contradictory expectations.
On one hand, modern women are taught to be independent, self-reliant, and skeptical of male leadership. On the other, they expect men to assume traditional responsibilities: providing, protecting, and committing. This dual demand of submission without respect, of duty without value, has led many men to quietly exit the dating scene.
To these men, the idea of returning to save the system that vilified them isn't just unappealing. It’s laughable.
Feminist Policies and Cultural Blowback
For decades, men were told their roles were obsolete. Masculinity was pathologized, and traditional male virtues dismissed as toxic. Now, those same voices call for men to step up, settle down, and save the future.
This contradiction hasn’t gone unnoticed. The very policies and cultural messages that dismantled traditional gender roles are now clashing with demographic reality. You can’t both undermine male value and expect men to rescue a failing birth rate.
What we’re witnessing is not just demographic decline. It is ideological recoil.
Online Reaction and Real Voices
Forums like Reddit’s r/MensRights lit up with reactions ranging from amusement to contempt. Many users dismissed the viral article as exaggerated, but they agreed with its underlying message. Men are increasingly unwilling to play a game rigged against them.
Some Danish users confirmed the demographic concerns but rejected the idea that most men are interested in solving them, especially through relationships with ideologically hostile partners. Others shared anecdotes of men deliberately opting out of the dating market, choosing freedom over frustration.
The sentiment is clear. Modern men no longer feel obligated to support a system that doesn’t support them.
The Bigger Picture
Denmark’s crisis is not unique. Across the West, nations face a similar reckoning. Birth rates are falling, marriages are delayed or abandoned, and the societal glue that once held communities together—family—continues to dissolve.
This isn’t just a numbers problem. It is a values problem. The social contract between the sexes has been breached, and no amount of incentives, subsidies, or state-sponsored matchmaking will repair it. For many men, the message has been received loud and clear. They’re disposable until they’re needed.
And when they’re needed, they’re not answering the call.
Conclusion
The viral story about Denmark and its feminist fertility plea may exaggerate the details, but not the truth it gestures toward. We are watching the long arc of social engineering meet biological limits. A civilization cannot shame half its population and then beg them to reproduce when the numbers get bleak.
The collapse of the birth rate isn’t just a policy failure. It is a reflection of what happens when trust, respect, and mutual obligation disappear from between the sexes. Men are not coming to the rescue, not because they’re incapable, but because they’ve learned there’s nothing in it for them.
And that is the real crisis no government dares to address.
Modern narratives often elevate the Inca Empire as a symbol of indigenous brilliance, an advanced civilization that achieved monumental feats in engineering, governance, and agriculture. Their stone temples, expansive road networks, and ability to govern millions without money or a written language are frequently highlighted as evidence of sophisticated development. Yet despite these accomplishments, the Incas remained far behind Old World civilizations in fundamental ways.
Expecting Spanish conquistadors in the 1530s to be amazed by Inca achievements is like expecting someone in 2025 to be blown away by a society that just discovered the printing press.
The Inca Empire: Impressive but Incomplete
At its peak, the Inca Empire stretched across large portions of modern-day Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Chile. It boasted an extensive road system, massive stone architecture like Machu Picchu and Sacsayhuamán, and a tightly controlled economy. The empire was centralized, hierarchical, and surprisingly efficient in some respects. But for all its order and scale, it lacked several foundational technologies that had long been in use in Europe, Asia, and North Africa.
The Incas had no formal written language. Instead, they used a system of knotted strings called quipu to record numbers and possibly some narrative information. This system may have been functional for accounting, but it was no substitute for a script that could record philosophy, law, literature, or science. Without writing, there were no books, no formal historical records, and no intellectual class equivalent to what existed in ancient Greece, Rome, or China.
They also didn’t use the wheel, not for carts, not for machines, not even for toys. Despite their ability to carve massive stones with remarkable precision, they transported materials without the use of wheeled transport. Even though they understood some basic mechanical principles, they failed to apply them in practical ways that other civilizations had mastered centuries earlier.
Practices That Shock the Modern Mind
Technological limitations aside, many of the Inca’s cultural practices would strike modern sensibilities and certainly 16th-century Spanish ones as deeply disturbing. The most notable example is child sacrifice. In rituals such as Capacocha, children were ritually intoxicated and then either buried alive or beaten to death to appease the gods. These weren’t isolated acts of desperation during famine or crisis. They were routine ceremonies carried out to mark festivals or imperial milestones.
There’s also archaeological and textual evidence of ritualistic cannibalism. Though not a daily practice, it was performed in ceremonial contexts and justified through religious belief. These actions were not unique to the Incas. Many civilizations have dark chapters, but they undermine any simplistic notion of a noble or enlightened indigenous utopia.
Why the Spanish Weren’t Impressed
When the Spanish arrived in the early 1500s, they came from a world that had already experienced the Renaissance. Europe had printing presses, formal universities, advanced metallurgy, and written legal systems. The Roman Empire, which had collapsed 1,500 years earlier, left behind aqueducts, amphitheaters, public baths, and roads that in many cases surpassed what the Inca had built.
The Spaniards were products of this long civilizational lineage. To them, massive stone temples built without writing, wheels, or iron tools were intriguing, but not awe-inspiring. In their minds, the presence of human sacrifice and cannibalism overshadowed any architectural or administrative accomplishments.
To modern eyes, it's easy to project value backward and celebrate the ingenuity of the Inca in isolation. But seen through the lens of global civilizational development, their society was a remarkable local peak, still far below the plateau reached by others centuries earlier.
The Dangers of Romanticizing the Past
In recent decades, there’s been a trend to glorify pre-Columbian civilizations as peaceful, spiritual, or ecologically wise. While there’s nothing wrong with honoring cultural heritage, this view too often downplays or ignores practices that were brutal and regressive. The truth is more complex: the Incas were capable administrators and impressive builders, but also adherents of a worldview that accepted horrific violence as divine necessity.
Historical analysis should strive for balance. We can recognize the achievements of indigenous civilizations without pretending they were more advanced than they were. A civilization can be both sophisticated and savage, capable and cruel.
The past should be understood in context but not whitewashed. If we wouldn't be impressed by a society in 2025 that just discovered the printing press, we shouldn't expect Spanish conquistadors to be impressed in 1530 by a society that had only just mastered stonework. The comparison is harsh, but it’s historically honest.
In 2025, China finds itself grappling with a growing unemployment crisis, one that has struck particularly hard among its youth. As economic growth slows and job opportunities shrink, a new and curious phenomenon has emerged across the country: pretend-to-work spaces. These are rented offices where the unemployed simulate the routines of employed life—not to deceive employers, but to protect themselves from the judgment of their families and society.
This social illusion, born out of desperation, reveals deeper issues festering beneath the surface of China’s economic transformation.
What Are Pretend-to-Work Spaces?
Pretend-to-work spaces are co-working offices or similar rented environments where individuals without jobs mimic the behavior of employed professionals. They wake up early, dress in business attire, leave the house, and spend their days in these rented spaces, doing nothing that would qualify as paid work. But the goal isn’t productivity. It’s protection.
These individuals are shielding themselves from the shame of unemployment in a society that places enormous value on status, performance, and appearance.
Real Lives Behind the Façade
The phenomenon is more than an internet meme. It’s a coping mechanism.
Jiawei, a former e-commerce worker in Hangzhou, lost his job when his company collapsed. Despite briefly working at a coffee shop, he told his family he was still working a white-collar job, leaving early and returning late to maintain the illusion.
Chen, 29, from Hubei, was laid off from a semiconductor company. He continued to leave home each day, telling his girlfriend he had work, when in reality he spent his days studying in a library using his severance pay.
In another case, an entrepreneur tried to capitalize on the trend by offering a “pretend boss” service, charging 50 yuan (about US$7) for individuals to take photos in an office setting and send them to family. Though the service saw viral interest online, it had little real-world uptake. Even in deception, people still craved authenticity.
The Economic and Social Pressure Cooker
China’s job market is contracting just as millions of young people are graduating into it. Informal employment now makes up nearly 60% of non-agricultural jobs. In rural and migrant communities, lacking access to pensions or unemployment benefits, the consequences of job loss are even more severe.
And the emotional toll is magnified by cultural expectations. In a society where “saving face” (mianzi) is paramount, to be unemployed is not simply an economic condition. It’s a personal failure. Parents expect visible progress. Partners demand stability. Social circles reward success and quietly ostracize those who don’t keep up.
In this context, pretending to be employed becomes not only understandable. It becomes rational.
Social Media’s Split Reaction
The topic has exploded on Chinese social media, racking up over 100 million views. Some users express empathy, describing these spaces as harmless tools for maintaining dignity and mental health. Others criticize the trend as denial, a way to delay reality rather than confront it.
Still, nearly everyone seems to agree: the anxiety is real, and the system is not working.
What Experts Are Saying
Zhang Yong, a sociologist at Wuhan University, sees the rise of pretend-to-work spaces as an understandable but tragic response to societal pressure. “This isn’t laziness or indulgence,” he says. “It’s psychological self-preservation in a culture that treats unemployment as disgrace.”
Beneath the surface, larger forces are at play.
China’s social safety net remains underdeveloped, especially for migrants and informal workers. At the same time, rapid technological change, especially the rise of automation and industrial AI, has made many mid-skill jobs obsolete. Those caught in the middle, like Chen and Jiawei, are left behind.
Why It Matters
Pretending to work is not just a quirky coping tactic. It signals a deeper fracture between societal ideals and economic realities. People aren’t simply unemployed. They’re performing productivity in order to preserve self-worth and avoid shame.
This performance carries real costs:
Psychological strain from constant pretense
Financial pressure as savings dwindle
Emotional isolation from hiding the truth
It also reflects a society that values the appearance of success more than honest dialogue about failure. In doing so, it delays the hard conversations and policy changes needed to rebuild a more resilient job market.
Conclusion
Pretend-to-work spaces are a mirror held up to China’s current moment. They reflect a system where economic pain is suppressed under the weight of social pressure, and where illusion becomes a survival strategy.
Until the country addresses the structural roots of unemployment with stronger safety nets, retraining programs, and cultural flexibility, these rented facades of employment will continue to thrive.
Not because people want to pretend.
But because, for now, they don’t feel safe telling the truth.
Sources:
Hindustan Times, Jan 17, 2025
South China Morning Post, Mar 26, 2024
Big Data China, May 26, 2022
ScienceDirect, Oct 20, 2024