China’s Cultural Revolution and Our Own

China’s Cultural Revolution and Our Own

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Helen Raleigh is a Chinese-American who grew up under Communism and who has become a prominent conservative writer.ย  She sees parallels between the current American โ€œcultural revolutionโ€ that we have been discussing and Mao Tse Tungโ€™sย  โ€œGreat Proletarian Cultural Revolution.โ€

From her article in the Federalist, โ€œIf Washington and What He Stood For Can Be Condemned and Humiliated, None of You Are Safeโ€œ:

In anย editorialย for the Peopleโ€™s Daily,ย Maoโ€™s propaganda chief, Chen Boda, explained the aims of this proletarian cultural revolution:

โ€ฆnot only at demolishing all the old ideology and culture and all the old customs and habits, which, fostered by the exploiting classes, have poisoned the minds of the people for thousands of years, but also at creating and fostering among the masses an entirely new ideology and culture and entirely new customs and habits โ€” those of the proletariat.

Following this rallying cry, a campaign to get rid of the โ€œfour oldsโ€ โ€” old customs, old culture, old habits, and old ideas โ€” was launched across on college campuses in Beijing. Professors and leaders with western educational backgrounds, as well as those who demonstrated any traditional Chinese cultural influence, were quickly denounced and publicly humiliated as โ€œmonsters and demonsโ€ by their enthusiastic students.

She describes how the Red Guard in 1966 targeted the father of Chinese culture Confucius, tearing down his monuments, destroying his tomb, and burning his writings.

In retrospect, that November marked the beginning of the darkest decade in Chinaโ€™s history, during which many more places would be destroyed, many more books burned, and many more families torn apart after children denounced their parents and spouses denounced each other in a desperate attempt to survive by demonstrating โ€œideological purity.โ€ An estimated two million Chinese were either executed or driven to suicide as a result. Millions more suffered malnutrition due to famine fueled by a broken economy. Only later would people finally come to realize that the Cultural Revolution not only destroyed the culture but also ruined the country.

History may not repeat itself exactly the same way, but it does rhyme. The destruction weโ€™re witnessing in America today is beginning to resemble 1966 China more every day. . . .

Annihilation comes in many shapes and forms beyond the demolition of physical objects. More people who refuse to conform to the mobโ€™s demand will lose their jobs and see their lives be ruined. The mob wonโ€™t stop until they destroy everything we hold dear and attain complete power over us.

Eric Kaufmann, whose articleย The Great Awokening and the Second American Revolutionย we have been discussing this week (see here and hereย and here), also sees parallels between todayโ€™s progressives and the Red Guard.ย  He too discusses โ€œThe Four Oldsโ€:

The past is raked over for imperfections as left-modernist ideologues render the most grievance-based interpretation of history imaginable. This wins plaudits from movement leaders on social media, much as youthful Red Guards sought to impress Mao and his commissars with their crusading zeal in destroying Confuciusโ€™s tomb or sticking up posters denouncing officials. In 1960s China, these zealots tried to outdo each other by attacking the four โ€œoldsโ€: Old Culture, Old Customs, Old Habits, and Old Ideas. Priceless historic monuments and manuscripts were destroyed in an orgy of vandalism designed to wipe the collective mind clean. Those who observed old customs or read historic poetry, or whose families had been merchants in the Kuomintang era, were deemed bourgeois โ€œcapitalist roaders.โ€

This โ€œyear zeroโ€ mentality is common among heaven-on-Earth utopian movements and corresponds to a view that people are slates that can be wiped clean and restored to their pristine, blank conditionโ€”their souls must be purified. As with the social construction of โ€œracismโ€ and harm, they have a point. Propaganda can alter peopleโ€™s sense of reality to some degree. But not everyone can ignore the evidence that is before their eyes, which is why the Maoist or Soviet experiments ultimately failed. While social construction can shape peopleโ€™s ideological beliefs, as we have seen, it is much less effective at altering scientific facts, which hit people between the eyes.

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Photo by Elekes Andor, โ€œCultural Revolutionโ€ [Denouncing of Local Leaders by Red Guard, 1966] via Flickr, Creative Commons 2.0 License

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