From “Be Yourself” to “More Possibilities”: Which Small Everyday Freedoms Do Young People Want Now?

Includes a wish list of 74 small everyday freedoms.

A grand question: what is freedom?

You have probably heard the philosophical declarations countless times by now — “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains,” “Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better,” “Freedom is the right to do whatever the law permits” — and you have probably also spent daily life imagining the plain sort of freedom one person might have: “I’ll quit my job once I have money,” “I’ll buy whatever I want,” “I’ll do what I love without being disturbed.” Whether or not you have a clear definition of freedom, one fact is hard to deny: freedom is no longer a concept floating in the clouds. It is a way of living — arguably, it is life itself. From “steamed buns or twisted rolls this morning” to “can I choose euthanasia at the end,” it is almost everywhere.

Two common misunderstandings about freedom are “I can do whatever I want” and “everyone else has it, so I should too — and if nobody has it, I don’t need it either.” The first is a bit like “I have the right to insult anyone on social media, and blocking me restricts my freedom of speech.” But as the Weibo blogger Old Liu in Texas put it, “freedom of speech is a matter between a person and the government, not between him and another ordinary person.” It is guaranteed by those in power, not by another individual standing on the same level as you. It is a bit like coming and going freely in your own home, but not being free to walk into someone else’s. The second is like insisting that “if everyone at the table is drinking and you aren’t, you’re in the wrong” — even if everyone raises a glass, you still have the right not to touch a drop. Neither example is perfect, but together they show that freedom is bounded by law, morality and social order, and that the agreement of a majority does not oblige a minority to comply unconditionally.

The British philosopher Isaiah Berlin once proposed a pair of concepts, “positive liberty” and “negative liberty,” as two measures: whether there is an inner obstacle, and whether there is an external, man-made one. We have written before about how many people don’t like sharing about themselves on social media — some because “no particular reason, I just don’t want to,” others because “I want to, but the friction coefficient of the online environment is too high.” The first group’s voluntary silence is closer to positive liberty; the second group’s forced silence looks more like negative liberty.

The reason to raise the distinction is that in real life the two states are not so cleanly separated. “I want sweet tofu pudding” might be because you like it sweet, but it might also be, to some degree, because you can’t get the savory kind, or because everyone keeps telling you “sweet is the authentic version.” (An oversimplified example, admittedly.)

There is another formulation: “freedom is the voluntary choice you make once you have all the information.” Fair enough. If all you know is sweet tofu pudding and you have never heard of a savory one, then choosing sweet is still freedom of a kind, just a discounted one. The trouble is that what you actually know amounts, at most, to the flavors sold by the few breakfast stalls near your home and your office; you are never going to eat your way across the whole country. So your choice is probably only a local optimum — never mind more complicated matters. Seen this way, freedom is also bounded by other objective conditions: there is no “best,” only “better.” And even if you know what “better” looks like, you cannot make that choice on someone else’s behalf, because it is their freedom, not yours.

As for “how far freedom converts into happiness,” we will simplify and treat the former as an important source of the latter. And on “whether the boundary of freedom has an ideal resting place,” you can go read our piece on “What Is Dignity.”

With that framework in place, we can talk about what we are calling “small everyday freedoms.” Roughly, these are tiny-scale freedoms you can actually reach “inside some particular setting of contemporary life,” and they generally also meet the following conditions:

• Whatever your current circumstances, in theory you “should” be entitled to it — like turning down a drink, above;
• There is room to choose, and you know what the options are — like “graduate school, or stay home and take the civil-service exam, or go make it in a big city”;
• It is voluntary and self-initiated, chosen with a clear sense that you have a choice — like the “yes means yes” principle in sex;
• It doesn’t infringe on anyone else’s lawful rights, and it keeps basic decency — like “in a debate you can say anything, just don’t insult people”;
• And it may carry two meanings at once: “the freedom to get / to be free of ___” and “the freedom to give yourself ___” — like “being free to meet people (someone of the opposite sex, say) and free of the fear of sexual harassment.”

On that basis, “cursing people out on Weibo” is free but not especially decent, so it’s out; “freedom to love” is too broad and needs breaking into specifics; “sleeping in every morning until you wake up on your own” works too, but only with the precondition “you can get by without working,” or “your company is fine with it.”

Financial Freedom

On one hand, hardly any worldly freedom can exist apart from money. On the other, money has been turned into a tool for “measuring how much freedom you deserve by what you can afford to buy.” In an era when even spending is supposed to be about “being yourself,” the financial freedom young people want is less “having money” than “not losing your dignity for lack of money, while earning a secure income that roughly matches your effort” — and, from there, taking satisfaction in these small details:

1. Convenience store: walk into a FamilyMart or 7-Eleven, grab whatever snacks you want with your eyes closed, and go pay.

2. Supermarket: be able to tell your parents (or yourself) that from now on, at the supermarket, just take whatever’s on the shelf without comparing prices — it’s on me.

3. Produce market: kale, okra, cilantro — whenever you feel like eating it, buy a bunch.

4. Fruit stand: cherries, avocados, dragon fruit — buy as much as you want to eat.

5. Video streaming sites: pay for an annual membership, and skip the 90-second ads that are everywhere.

6. Book-buying apps: order the book you want the moment you want it, instead of reflexively hunting for a pirated ebook or waiting for a sale.

7. Food delivery apps: pick what you want to eat without doing the math on minimum orders and delivery fees — use the coupons if you remember them, skip them if you don’t.

8. Car-hailing apps: “Accept surge pricing?” “Yes.” “Carpool?” “No thanks.”

9. Movie ticket apps: tap the nearest theater and book, without hunting specifically for a 2D screening.

10. The App Store: download whatever’s on the paid chart whenever you like — no waiting for it to go free, no hour spent looking for a cracked version.

11. Shopping apps: whether it’s a 9.9-yuan group buy or overseas luxury shopping, you can get what you need.

12. Duty-free shops: one trip, one round of duty-free shopping, and you’re not wiped out.

13. Renting in Beijing or Shanghai: you can’t afford to buy, but you can at least find a decent complex.

Freedom From Information Overload

A 2015 CNN report once cited survey data showing that a person consumes as much as 74 gigabytes of information a day — the equivalent of nine DVDs. By one account, what a modern person takes in daily nearly matches what someone a thousand years ago encountered in a lifetime. From the moment we open our eyes, we read news, chat, talk shop, scroll social media, binge shows, listen to music, browse Taobao, read articles, click ads. Under that density of bombardment, everyone wants to stop and breathe — to find a moment’s quiet in an “information detox.”

1. Not having to check Moments and everyone else’s updates, and not having to worry, at the next gathering, that “I’ve fallen behind on what everyone’s been doing” again;

2. Not having your screen flooded with the same trending news on every platform, and being able to find “different” content whenever you want;

3. Being able to block trending internet slang on social media and danmu (bullet-comment) apps, and not being startled by a screen full of “666” or identical, robot-sounding catchphrases;

4. Escaping pop-ups, video ads that play unasked, and “an ad cutting into a show halfway through,” which protects the mood you had just worked up;

5. Turning off the overeager, always-wise-after-the-fact “recommended for you,” and seeing only what you chose yourself;

6. Having one social account with no coworkers, classmates, or even your partner on the friends list;

7. A social media timeline without excess ads, marketing accounts you never followed, “your friends are all watching this,” or “tens of thousands of users are following this”;

8. Reading news and articles without clickbait headlines that don’t match the story, or eye-catching fake news.

Office Freedom

As communication tools have developed, the line between work and private life has blurred further. Unless you have the energy and spare hours to cultivate hobbies, for most people the whole stretch from entering the workforce to retirement is a life radiating slowly outward from the office. Which is exactly why even a bit more “right to switch off” feels precious:

1. Not having to stare at instant-messaging apps all day, and not having to hear “we settled this over WeChat, didn’t you see it?”;

2. Work emails going only to the people actually involved, rather than stuffing dozens of names into the CC line and name-checking every team leader in the body just to fix one small bug;

3. Not fielding bizarre brainteaser questions in an interview, and not having to change your WeChat avatar and screen name to some “company-standard format” once you’re hired;

4. When the boss talks to himself in the work group chat, not requiring everyone to answer “OK” or “got it” in unison within five minutes, on pain of being called out by name;

5. Being able to switch off your phone on weekends and sleep until you wake up on your own, instead of lighting up the screen the second your eyes open to check for work messages;

6. Not having to attend every team-building event that is really overtime in disguise, and not having to cancel a plane ticket you already bought to accommodate a department trip;

7. When you travel, not being on call 24 hours a day, which turns a vacation into working from a different place;

8. Talking one to one instead of dragging a crowd into a big meeting to say nothing much — that means an overlong slide deck beforehand, and the “brainstorm” in the middle is really an awkward silence while everyone invents ideas on the spot.

Freedom to Chat as Equals

A Quartz article this year argues that sending WeChat voice messages is a workplace status symbol: sending someone a voice clip instead of text amounts to announcing “I’m busier and more important than you.” The sender saves time and makes the recipient pay in inconvenience. So “voice messages,” “not replying,” and “you there?” are more or less the three chat habits young people find most irritating today. The “equal” chat we want looks more like this:

1. I reply to your messages right away, and I hope you’ll reply promptly too, instead of vanishing halfway through a conversation;

2. When I bring you something serious, you listen properly, instead of firing off memes the moment you disagree;

3. Before video-calling or sending a voice message, you ask first whether “now’s a good time”;

4. After “hey, you there?”, you go ahead and tell me “I’m messaging about xxx”;

5. If you send me a voice message and I answer with one too, you don’t quietly wonder “is that on purpose?”;

6. If I never fob you off with a bare “oh” when we talk, I hope your replies won’t always be so sparing with words either.

Freedom in Intimate Relationships

Which part of intimate relationships most needs freedom and most lacks it? Probably “how to say no.” So far women face more of that unfreedom, but that doesn’t mean men never struggle to say no. Whatever your gender or sexual orientation, a good dating culture and a good course of intimacy should include these shared understandings:

1. When you meet someone you like, not forfeiting your chance to old dogmas like “whoever confesses first loses” or “a woman chasing a man has only a sheet of paper to get through”;

2. Facing a public, candle-lined declaration of love, being able to refuse without baggage, rather than thinking “I’ll say yes to save their face”;

3. After turning down someone’s pursuit, not having to worry about repeated harassment or spiteful revenge;

4. Even at the flirting stage, still being able to say “no, I don’t want to have sex yet”;

5. Having agreed to sex, being able to say partway through “I want to think it over,” or to tell the other person “I don’t like this part, I’d rather do it another way”;

6. Even if you consented later, or even ended up together, the first time that went against your wishes does not count by default as “water under the bridge”;

7. After any of the refusals above, not having to worry about being mocked as someone who “can’t take a joke”;

8. Zero tolerance for a partner’s violence, rather than “put up with it and it will pass”;

9. Even as a couple, being allowed to hold a different view from your partner on some questions, and vice versa;

10. However long you have been together, if either person finds it isn’t working, they can still raise a breakup;

11. Even after having children, still being able to put your own needs first, rather than “everything for the next generation.”

Freedom of Appearance

The QDaily Research Lab has griped before about two very tricky concepts, one called “masculinity,” the other “the independent woman.” The contradiction in the first is that it preaches variety in beauty while still using “a man who’s like a woman” as an insult. The second ties a woman’s self-reliance and self-respect to managing her looks, as if without bold red lipstick, a fitted blazer, endless legs and a commanding aura, you can’t score full marks as an independent woman. In this new era, shaking off that dogma about appearance means:

1. Being able to say your age out loud, if you want to;

2. When someone teases your looks to your face, you can laugh it off, or you can answer straight out, “do you know how offensive that is?”;

3. Getting an interview for a job without attaching a dozen headshots, suit photos and lifestyle shots;

4. Turning down companies whose job ads say “our office is full of beautiful women, and our HR girl is gorgeous”;

5. Skipping makeup without being told “you’re neglecting your image, that’s disrespectful to other people”;

6. No ab lines, no A4 waist, no swan arms — that’s fine, I still think I’m beautiful. And if I decide that’s unhealthy or unattractive, whether to work out or get plastic surgery is my own business;

7. Not liking mainstream standards of beauty without being told “your taste is bizarre” or “are you just jealous?”;

8. Ignoring the outdated rule that “a woman with no makeup and short hair is a tomboy, and a man who wears makeup and pink is a sissy”;

9. Not having to force yourself to endorse the so-called “hot mom,” “presence,” “high-class face” or “no-makeup makeup” just because celebrities and ads keep pushing them;

10. Being able to refuse quantified-looks systems like “X out of 10 before makeup, X out of 10 after.”

Freedom to Grow Up

An awkward reality: those of us raised on a Chinese-style education, even once we are adults and know that children are independent people rather than a so-called “continuation of our own life,” still retrace, consciously or not, the road our own parents walked once we start raising kids ourselves. But recall how we grew up, and it’s not hard to guess what the next generation wants most:

1. Space of their own, rather than “Mom, why didn’t you knock before coming in” or “why did you read my diary again”;

2. When they do something wrong, being taught with reasons and evidence, instead of a beating first;

3. Nobody standing over them the whole time they do homework, read, or chat with classmates;

4. Being able to play games, read for fun, or go out and play in their free time;

5. Being able to ask parents or teachers about sex education and get a serious answer, instead of “what’s a kid asking that for?”;

6. Being allowed to date, as long as they stay safe;

7. As adults, choosing freely whether to date, whom to date, how many people to date, and whether to marry — instead of being pushed the whole way through blind dates, marriage, a child, and a second child;

8. If they choose to live with a partner without marrying, not getting their parents’ verdict of “living together unmarried — where does that leave our face?”;

9. Whether they work in another city or near home, getting understanding and support either way, rather than “why go so far, isn’t staying home fine?” — and the reverse holds too.

Freedom From Anxiety

The German philosopher Walter Benjamin wrote in One-Way Street: “The world today is full of theories of life and worldviews, and the reason such arguments sweep all before them in this country is that they almost always end up propping up some entirely meaningless private situation.” Homegrown success gospel, the peddling of anxiety, peer pressure, consumption upgrades — the reason all of it feels “unlikeable” is precisely that it set out to free people from unfreedom and ended up manufacturing a new unfreedom: the sense that “if you don’t live this way, you’re doing it wrong.” In our survey “Where does your rebellious spirit go these days?”, we gathered the freedoms people most want — the freedom not to listen, not to believe, not to be defined:

1. Not getting anxious over “how do you spend a million-yuan salary in Beijing, Shanghai or Guangzhou” or “your peers are leaving you behind”;

2. Not feeling small after hearing “a person should think big” or “what can a few thousand yuan a month buy you in a big city”;

3. Not being sneered at as “putting on airs” for liking or copying middle-class living habits;

4. And not being written off as “tacky and behind the times” for having no use for those middle-class habits;

5. “Playing games after work / flopping on the couch / staying home instead of going out to socialize” is my hobby, not “no ambition” or “no idea how the world works”;

6. Reaching thirty in the ordinary way without suddenly, for no reason, being labeled “old,” “balding” or “greasy”;

7. When everyone is using some app, watching some variety show, or in love with some celebrity, I can just as easily not use it, not watch it, not care;

8. Shopping festivals, Girls’ Day, Queen’s Day, must-buy hits, influencer-famous shops, “the XXX everyone needs in life” — concepts where the ritual outweighs the substance — we’re not buying it;

9. Dealing with anti-intellectual, tasteless, brainwashing ads not only by ignoring them, but by voting with your feet.

That is part of what we have gathered on the small everyday freedoms of contemporary life. Some come from the plain wish to “just be yourself”; others come from a search for “more and broader possibilities.” You may think “these have been on my wish list for ages,” or you may purse your lips and think “not one of them hits the mark, this isn’t what I want.” Anyway, whether the freedom you dream of is changing your gender, your nationality or your whole way of living, or simply sitting at a roadside stall after work with skewers and the evening breeze, nobody can promise you all of it. All we can do is wish you an undaunted road in the pursuit.

Illustrations by Zheng Shuya