Cultural shift: parents, teacher and students starts to perceive neijuan as harmful and therefore hold
an anti-neijuan attitudes
Anti-neijuan: a realisation fo the harmful consequences of neijuan, but not restricted to lying-flat
Neijuan: Neijuan where individuals feel compelled to continuously increase their effort and
competition in order to maintain or improve their relative position, despite not having substantially
improved the overall outcome.
Beneficial: improvement in children’s well-being as well as in academic performances, thus includes
equality of opportunity, autonomy of free time and leisure, sustainable academic performances,
family, friend-relationship and mental health
Harmful:disadvantages and cost of neijuan that creates mental-health issues, stress and burnout,
reduced human capital, lack of autonomy and pursuit for interests, increasing inequality based on
wealth, reduced academic achievements/competitiveness and interests in studying.
None of the sides need to prove neijuan is good or bad but prove the cultural shift is more harmful or
beneficial, for that the resolution is focusing on the culture shift of neijuan instead of neijuan itself.
Therefore both sides should focus on the effect of the attitude. If one of the teams focus too heavily
on the consequences of the neijuan, they are not targeting the resolution and therefore the
argument is irrelevant to the debate today.
Pro’s burden: to prove that the rejection for neijuan is creating benefits to the society because it is
rejecting something that is harmful and provides why rejecting this norm brings more benefit than
the harm it brings. Therefore it should be done on net-calculation and outweigh.
The judge should prioritise autonomy and sustainable human development both in mental health
and physical health. For that autonomy gives the freedom of choice and allows people to practice
according to their own will instead of others will and sustainable human development is the most
basic and fundamental thing to have for a good or just a better quality of life. If a cultural norm
pushes constant escalation until people burn out, culture becomes fragile and creativity declines.
Anti-neijuan corrects this by shifting society toward healthier and more meaningful ways of striving.
Contention 1:​
The cultural rejection of neijuan increases the overall-wellbeing of the child through reducing
self-blame and allowing parents and teachers to realise that academic performance isn't everything.
Instead of thinking I am stupid and dumb, students will think that if I am not good at traditional
academics, I can develop other things I am good at. This is because that Neijuan emphasis on
academic performances on core school subjects such as maths and Chinese. However, for those who
are not talented, they will fall out. Research paper published by xianjiaotong-liverpool university said
that: it undermines children’s creativity, intrinsic motivation, and overall well-being, and suggested
academic involution as the stagnation of education system when it fails to advance beyond a given
social configuration at a specific developmental stage, which ultimately contributes to exhaustion
and emotional strain among both children and parents. So the impact of anti-内卷 culture is clear, it
not only reduces emotional strain for both parents and children, it also allow children to project their
creativity, and increase overall well-being for children. This matters because a child’s sense of
self-worth is not judged entirely on their grades but on their talent and uniqueness. Judge,
self-blame magnifies harm with negative thinking that creates long-term emotional pain and leads to
depression and anxiety. While self-worth, created through anti-neijuan culture ensures that everyone
will be proud of themselves and therefore increase overall-wellbeing.
Contention 2:​
Post-university neijuan can reduce motivation for students when they entre university. A research
paper published by Donghua university in BMC psychology suggests that students lose interests and
motivation after high-school due to a psychological rebound effect. Students assert that they are
entitled to freedom as they graduate from high school. Upon the removal of external pressure that
previously served as motivation, students often exhibit a lack of self-motivation for an extended
duration. One participant said: “After entering a qualified university, the moment I reached college, I
felt like I didn't want to study any longer.I felt empty. All my motivation disappeared because I didn't
know what I really wanted to be.” This proves that it would be beneficial to reject a norm that
focuses on getting into a good university but not actually focusing on how to live in adulthood. An
anti-neijuan cultural shift could address this problem by changing the purpose of education from
competing for external achievements to developing intrinsic motivation, personal interests and
meaningful goals. Hence encouraging the development of future pursuit instead of getting into a
good university. This matters because it replaces pressure of gaokao with self-directed motivation,
allowing meaningful and long-term self-development instead of emptiness. Therefore, we proudly
urge for a pro ballot.