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JIANG XIAO-YANG & WANG JIAN-ZHAN*
Marxism College of China Pharmaceutical University,210000
Abstract The "information cocoons" increasingly highlights the impact on ideological and political education with the development of the economy and social progress. The root cause of this is the simplicity of thinking. The complexity of social phenomena also requires today's ideological and political education to change its way of thinking. It is necessary to grasp complexity, openness and holistic thinking. The advantages of using big data and personalized customization of the Internet and data digging to better serve the ideological and political education of college students.
Key words Information Cocoons ,Complex thinking ,Ideological and political education
Ideological and political education for college students has always been a work highly valued by the Party and the state. The social environment, values and ideology are more diversified and complex with the development of economy, which urgently requires the conversion of the way of thinking of ideological and political education for college students. With the popularity of the Internet, the convenience of information transmission and the fissionable growth of information volume, everyone can choose the topics they want to pay attention to, and only pay attention to what they choose and what makes them happy, this kind of information selection behavior will lead to the formation of "information cocoons".
1. The Characteristics of "Information Cocoons "[1]
First, the " information cocoons " leads to the closed message. People often focus on the part of information they are interested in, and it is difficult for other different views and contents to enter their attention area. For example, according to the age difference, the senior students in university are more concerned about the information related to examinations and jobs, while the junior students are less concerned and there is no intersection between them.
Secondly, the "information cocoons" tends to lead to one-sidedness of information available. The reason for this is that the students are not able to see the whole picture because they only focus on the part they want to know. The information group formed according to personal preference and interest is not of high information value by itself. Moreover, the cognitive level of college students is still developing, the information they get is also one-sided.
Thirdly, it is the closed information and one-sided access to information that lead to the fragmentation of the information group. The most serious consequence of this is the disconnection between ideas and groups, complete independence and fragmentation. With the independence of ideas among college students, then the difficulty of communicating and forming mainstream values becomes enormous.
2. The Embodiment of Simplicity Thinking in College Students' Ideological and Political Education
(1) The meaning and characteristics of simple thinking
Simplicity has been with us for a long time, and the core way of thinking is "simplicity". Simplicity does not mean naivety, it is simply a way of thinking about the world from the point of view of the science of thinking. The early days of the natural sciences were characterized by a simple way of thinking. Newton and Einstein were both quite high on simplicity, believing that everything in the universe could be simplified and that the world could be presented in an "orderly" and "rational" manner. Of course, the idea of simplicity brought great achievements to natural science, whether it was Newton's law of gravity or the theory of relativity that directly and indirectly gave birth to quantum mechanics, the great scientific achievements brought by simplicity also influenced people's daily thinking and penetrated into the field of humanities and social sciences, such as Comte's positivism, Spencer's mechanical equilibrium, Rousseau's theory that the purpose of education is to make people natural. The theory of natural education, etc., are all examples of the results of simplicity thinking. From this, we can know that both the field of natural science and the field of humanities and social sciences have the use of simplicity thinking, and the ideological and political education of college students is also influenced by it.
Simplicity thinking acts exactly according to rigid rules, does not take into account any variables, and does not change intrinsic conditions due to external changes. The most prominent manifestation is absolute rationality. Throughout the history of Western philosophy, starting from ancient Greek philosophy, rationality has always been a yardstick for their understanding of the world, believing that the reality of the world is embedded in the nature of rationality. The world is viewed with absolute rationality, denying the subjective initiative of human beings, believing that the world does not shift by human will, and that only once human beings recognize the essential laws of things and act in accordance with them can human beings have a bright future. By the modern society, absolute rationality increasingly affects the development of science and technology, utilitarianizing human values and also carrying out rational consciousness calculation. It is secondly believed that a complex thing is constantly broken down to its smallest unit, and this smallest unit is analyzed, and finally they are combined to get the original picture of this complex event, and the complex thing can be known completely and accurately. This simplistic reduction is also an important feature of simplicity thinking. The essence is to reduce the high level things to the low level, using the laws of motion of the low level things to replace the laws of motion of the high level things. This isolated, static metaphysical way of thinking has influenced for centuries. In addition, there is a stable and orderly relationship between things. There is a regularity in the cause and effect of all things that occur, and randomness is only hidden under the laws, to be explored. This mechanical determinism reached its zenith in the eighteenth century, when it was believed that the world developed exactly according to a mechanical, linear cause-and-effect relationship, and that all the movements of the world were determined by definite laws. People's perception of the world was a simplified perception of the world as a universal principle.
(2) Simplicity thinking in the ideological and political education of college students
Ideological and political education is a kind of holistic education, a complex, multi-factor system. It contains the elements of moral, intellectual, physical, aesthetic and labor, but it is not a simple superposition of these five elements. From the point of view of simplicity, as long as the five elements of moral, intellectual, physical, aesthetic and social education are completed alone, the task of ideological and political education will be accomplished. The current university ideological and political education system presents an educational model based on simplicity thinking. The work of ideological and political education for university students is divided among various departments. Under this division of labor, the effectiveness of education is largely dependent on the communication and cooperation between departments. At the same time, this division of labor obviously ignores the totality and complexity of ideological and political education. In the situation that each department is responsible for its own work, it forgets that there is a great correlation between the comprehensive quality of training a person. Some even think that ideological and political education is only the responsibility of Civic Science teachers and Civic Science classes, and this leads to the loss and weakening of the function of Civic Education.
The fragmentation of ideological and political education and the environment is also a common problem in ideological and political education. Under the perspective of simplicity thinking, the focus of ideological and political education of college students is too narrow. Focusing only on the matter of ideological and political education of college students itself, it ignores the inseparable connection between ideological and political education and the environment. The external factors such as society, school and family all affect the ideological and political education of college students. College students are not people who live in a virtual vacuum, and all kinds of events and voices in the real society will make their thoughts change. The factors that are inconsistent and discordant with the mainstream voice of ideological and political education in the market economy will make college students confused and disoriented. You cannot simply blame all the problems on ideological and political education.
Under the simplicity thinking, the three most important factors in ideological and political education, teachers, students and educational contents, present a simplicity, linear and rigid connection. And this connection without dynamic and affinity makes the effect of ideological and political education of college students gradually weakened.
The single arrow of teacher-student communication. The teacher is the one who preaches and solves problems. In the era of information scarcity, teachers represent the absolute authority, and students simply receive the content as a container. But this kind of reception itself is against the concept of ideological and political education. This one-way communication between teachers and students is not helpful for teachers to grasp the dynamics of students' thoughts and cannot reach the deeper contents of students' minds. The teacher's attention to the students is only on the surface, without paying attention to each specific, real individual. The purpose of ideological and political education cannot be truly achieved.
The rigidity of students and education content. In the process of education, each educated person is an independent individual with his or her own thoughts, feelings and preferences. Linear educational content is only objective, universal and common, which leads to the fact that for students any departure from this unity is prejudice. There is no collision between the student and the educational content, and then the educational content itself is not truly acceptable to the student.
Student-to-student interaction is rigid. The classroom system of instruction divides students. It is difficult for students of different majors, ages, and classes to have contact with each other; even if there is an opportunity to bring together students of different classes, ages, and majors, it will not produce any substantial communication for various reasons. In turn, students of the same major and age will subtly present a closed and exclusionary attitude to others because of the great competitive pressure. This leads students to indulge in the online world of interaction and communication to get fresh information and information.
3. Strategies for Ideological and Political Education of College Students in the New Era
(1) Complex thinking
The rapid development of technology and the trend of global integration have challenged the traditional way of thinking. The rise of complexity science at the end of the twentieth century has led to the development of complexity thinking. Complexity thinking is compared to simplicity thinking. Simplicity thinking promotes simplicity, order, and rationality. It focuses on the balance and regularity of things when studying them. Complexity thinking, on the other hand, integrates relative concepts and considers problems in a comprehensive and holistic way. Within a larger framework and dimension, order and disorder, inclusion and improvement are achieved side by side. A way of thinking that is closer to the real world.
To begin with, use holistic thinking to observe the world and examine the system. The world is an organic and unified whole. This whole has elements, properties and functions that the parts do not have. In a multi-layered, holistic world, analyzing a social event without linking it to its surroundings would result in isolation and one-sidedness. Holistic thinking is the understanding of the world from the whole. Its approach is to view the world in terms of the nature and structure of the whole. In this mode of thinking the world is an organic and unified whole. Each of the things that make up the world are universally interconnected. This interconnection also governs each other. All the elements in this whole are also small, and each small whole is organic.
Next, the system is viewed with an open mind. Moran points out, "The complexity approach requires us to never close concepts in our thinking, to shatter closed boundaries, to reconstruct connections between what is divided, to strive to master multifacetedness, to take into account particularity, place, time, and never forget the totality that plays an integrative role." [2]There are no things that exist in isolation, things that exist in their surroundings are interconnected and influence each other, constantly exchanging information or energy with their surroundings. Open-mindedness advocates looking at things from different perspectives and multiple directions. A system can only be truly defined and understood by placing it in the context in which it exists.
(2) The Application of Complex Thinking in the Ideological and Political Education of College Students
Education itself is a systematic and complex work. The ideological and political education work of college students can try to use complexity thinking to explore. Put the ideological and political education work of college students into real implementation on cultivating the all-round development of people, caring for people, respecting people and reflecting people-oriented.
First of all, you can use holistic thinking to grasp the whole picture from a macro perspective. In such a holistic way to recognize the connection and constraints of the parts and the whole. As Edgar Moran says, "For integrating the parts into a whole to know it will complement to melt the whole into the re-conception within the parts."[3] For ideological and political education itself, it is important to clearly understand that it is an organic whole. The whole is greater than the sum of the elements of the parts. The sum of the elements of the parts is different from the whole. The elements in ideological and political education, moral, intellectual, physical, aesthetic and labor, are interrelated and interact with each other. The effect of the combined force of ideological and political education of college students far exceeds the effect of individual elements in their independent state. The overall to promote the ideological and political education of college students will achieve good results. Not only should we take into account the role of individual elements for the whole, but more importantly, we should recognize the comprehensive effect of the interaction between the elements for the whole.[4]
At the same time, ideological and political education should be placed in the general environment of the whole society. Schools are responsible for the cultivation of professional ability and influence the formation of college students' outlook on life, worldview and values. For college students it is only a small environment in which they live. Undeniably, for the ideological and moral quality of college students themselves, the general social environment and their respective family environment will have a greater and more profound impact. College students' ideological and moral education draws energy for their own development according to the development of society, and also has an effect on various aspects of society, such as politics, economy, culture and ecology. Therefore, the ideological and moral state of college students reflects not only the ideological and moral problems of the college student group, but also the current situation of the whole society. It shows the problems faced by the whole society at present. College students' ideological and moral education urgently needs the support of a good social environment and a beautiful and harmonious family environment. The cooperation of school, family and society. Form an education system with school education as the leading, family education as the main support, and social education as the main line, and try to form an overall synergy of the whole society caring for and supporting the ideological and political education of college students .
The second point is that the ideological and political education of college students needs open thinking. Complexity science tells us that only an open system can develop in an orderly way, and an isolated and closed system can only lead to the final death. As the society is diversified and complex, the ideological and political education of college students can only keep up with the times and highlight its vitality if it maintains a dynamic and stable development at all times. More open the educational information is, more information is exchanged and faster, and the development of the system will be more stable, rapid and energetic. Nowadays, the environment is complex and open, which has a multi-faceted impact on the ideology, life value and ideal belief of college students. There are also many new situations and characteristics in the consciousness level of college students, and they face more new problems in practice. The temporary closure may be effective for a short period of time, but in the long run, such closure will eventually lead to the loss of vitality, decline and degradation of the function of ideological and political education. It is only by exchanging information with the outside continuously that we can draw the energy we need in the process and better develop in dynamic stability. More important is that the relationship between the educator and the educated - the core two in the educational process - should also be open, while the educational information is open. An equal and democratic dialogue should be established between teachers and students. Both teachers and students should dispute and reject unreasonable points. [5]Only by breaking the balance of ideological and political education with collision can we bring vitality and vigor to the current ideological and political education of college students. A pool of stagnant water without vitality will only make the ideological and political education go silent in the end.
(3) Technical realization of complex thinking
The Internet is encroaching on people's daily lives for an increasing amount of time. Internet users get information and communicate through the Internet, and due to the development of 5G Internet use is becoming more and more convenient and fast. High school students are the high-frequency users of the Internet. According to the survey results, more than 40% of college students spend more than five hours a day on the Internet with their cell phones. Social chatting is the most common behavior of students online, over 80%. The second and third ranking are checking information and listening to songs, accounting for about 60%.[6] Ideological and political education for college students can be carried out entirely by relying on the complex technical means represented by the Internet. Teachers' ability to obtain educational information is greatly improved by such technical means. At the same time, the learning interest of college students can be fully explored. It provides a favorable way to solve the problem of ideological and political education of college students.
Take full advantage of big data and personalization of the Internet. The "information cocoons" improves the efficiency of users' information search. The mechanism is to filter out spam information according to the user's own preferences. In the face of a huge amount of fragmented information, users can precisely match and quickly find their target. College students have an active mind and need to use data tracking and research. Better grasp and predict the future behavior and speech of college students. Simplicity thinking emphasizes linearity and invariability, which is obviously not suitable for a holistic, comprehensive and dynamic grasp of human thoughts. Only the use of big data technology and complexity thinking for overall observation can be more suitable for the current college students' thinking and education work. Educators can grasp the thought dynamics of each student more timely and have a clearer purpose in carrying out college students' thinking and political work.
The geese will leave traces and people will leave sounds. We can use the Internet to collect data related to college students' thoughts and behaviors in the actual college students' thinking and political education. Go to analyze and simulate the thinking pattern of college students, predict the next thought condition, behavior possible, by collecting, processing, digging, and referring to the past behavior. In this way, the control of the future behavior and thoughts of college students is realized. It is also more conducive to carry out the ideological education work in a more targeted way in practice. Big data presents a holistic grasp of the system and multiple features between elements and results, which makes big data an important technical support to deal with the complexity of college students' thinking and political education.
The "information cocoon" is increasingly leading to the problems of information occlusion, weakened individual thinking ability and group polarization among college students with the gradual maturation of algorithmic technology. However, it is undeniable that its own characteristics can be slightly utilized to strengthen the construction of ideological and political education of college students. What's more, the complexity of social phenomena, the complexity of college students' subjects, and the complex role among the elements within the ideological education all fully indicate that complexity is in an important position in contemporary ideological education. Introducing complexity thinking to deal with the ideological and political education of college students is an inevitable policy, changing the present way of thinking and possessing the thinking of complexity.
REFERENCES
* Corresponding author:Wang Jian-Zhan, Female, Marxism College of China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, Jiangsu ,Associate Professor,13655170591@163.com
[1] Keith Sunstein. Information Utopia [M]. Biyue, Y. Translation. Beijing Beijing: Law Press, 2008
[2] Edgar Moran, "Complex Thought: The Science of Self-Consciousness" [M] Chen Yi zhuang, Beijing University Press 2001:151
[3] Edgar Moran, " Complexity Theory and Educational Issues" [M] Chen Yi zhuang, Beijing University Press2004:179
[4] Ke Dizhu: How to form a synergy of ideological and political education Guang ming Daily [N] December 12, 2007
[5] Chen Wanbai, Zhang Yaochan. Principles of ideological education and political science (3rd edition) [M]. Beijing: Higher Education Press, ,2015:150
[6] China Youth Network: "College students cell phone Internet survey: more than 40% of the daily Internet access more than 5 hours [ EB/OL ] http://news.youth.cn/gn/201910/t20191018_12097203.htm ,October 18, 2019