Random Thoughts 21: Viewing the Differences Between Eastern and Western Cultures from the Perspective of a Buddhist’s Universal Mindset
The New York Times published a half-page article in its first weekend edition of August 2014 titled “In a Wounded Chinese City, People Save Tiny Creatures.” The article described how Buddhists near Yushu, Qinghai, patiently rescued tiny shrimp stranded on the riverbank after the tide receded. They crawled along the riverbank, some carrying their babies on their backs, carefully using chopsticks to pick up the tiny shrimp one by one, placing them in plastic buckets beside them before releasing them back into the river.
The 2010 earthquake in Yushu, which claimed 3,000 lives, sparked a surge of religious fervor among the local residents. They said that Buddhism teaches us to love and cherish all life, no matter how small. They claimed that no one could rule out the possibility that many of those tiny shrimp and insects might be reincarnations of those who perished in the earthquake years earlier, and that we couldn’t allow them to die young on the riverbanks after their reincarnation.
A white woman told me that no matter how kind she became, she could give up pork, beef, or even chicken, but she couldn’t give up fish. Fish were too far removed from humans; she even said, “Science has proven that fish don’t feel pain.” I think there’s some truth to what this white woman said. We can’t exactly cherish the lives of bacteria and pathogens!
The white woman’s words align with the New York Times report above; they were surprised by the Buddhists’ efforts to save shrimp and insects, feeling that fish and shrimp were too distant from humans to have the same emotional capacity. This relates to Benbock’s theory of polar societies. Chinese civilization originated in a primitive society, while Western civilization began in a typical polar society, where competition and war forced people to view the world through a subject-object dichotomy. Because of this, the Bible states that God created man as the master of all things, but from the generation of Adam and Eve’s descendants, humanity has been killing each other—the beginning of Western civilization’s war-based civilization.
Chinese civilization, which began with primitive society, did not view the world in this way. The *Lüshi Chunqiu* (Master Lü’s Spring and Autumn Annals), in the chapter “Valuing the Duke,” states:
A man from the state of Chu lost his bow but refused to look for it, saying, “One man from Chu lost a bow, another man from Chu found it, so why should I look for it?” Confucius, upon hearing this, said, “Remove the word ‘Chu’ from his words.”
Two words would suffice. Lao Tzu, upon hearing this, said: “Remove the word ‘person,’ and it will be just right.” A person like Lao Tzu has reached the highest level of public-spiritedness. (Original text: A man from Jing lost his bow but refused to retrieve it, saying: “A man from Jing lost it, and a man from Jing found it; why should I retrieve it?” Confucius, upon hearing this, said: “Remove the ‘Jing’ part, and it will be fine.” Lao Tzu, upon hearing this, said: “Remove the ‘person’ part, and it will be fine.” Therefore, Lao Tzu was truly public-spirited.)
If Buddhists took a significant step forward compared to Western humanitarians by including shrimp and insects in their humanitarian considerations, then Lao Tzu took an even greater step forward, encompassing all things in the world, living and non-living, within his selfless humanitarian framework. In the emotional and aesthetic order of primordial society, including landscapes, there was an aesthetic and emotional exchange between humanity and its surroundings. Just as a child places a small pillow next to a large pillow and says, “The pillow wants its mother!”—that is, the child sees the pillow as being like themselves, needing a tall, supportive mother figure.
Both Confucianism and Taoism in China idealize a primitive society, but historically, China lacked the construction of a secondary social sphere for individual activity, as well as the rules and vision of such a society. While human nature and conscience are certainly important, without the behavioral norms of a secondary society, even in today’s secondary society, there will still be isolated cases of people failing to help those in distress on the street.
Thoughts 22: Do not demonize the Red Guards or the rebels, nor demonize anyone.
I. The precious sincerity of Cultural Revolution youth as seen in two poems from that era
1) Second Ascent of Qianling
Author’s Note: In 1971, I went to Guiyang with a classmate surnamed Hu, and was able to visit Qianling Mountain for the second time. I also met a local acquaintance from my first visit to Qianling Mountain four years earlier. This poem was written to record my feelings at that time. The Nanming River flows through the urban area of Guiyang.
Four autumns later,
My heart is filled with suspense and pain,
Empty regrets and heartless dreams have passed.
At the prime of youth,
innocent and carefree,
There is no selfishness involved.
Will as strong as steel
Passion is like fire.
Full of passion for the motherland.
End,
This revolutionary friendship,
The mountains and rivers will forever bear the marks of history.
Seeking the old in Qianling
Among the peaks,
Guiyang is shrouded in mist and clouds.
Looking back,
The turbulent and sparsely populated years,
Alas, what a pity I am now.
Heaven is merciless.
People grow old easily.
The Nanming River flows wide and turbulent.
Come on,
Sipping light tea leisurely by the window.
2) Prelude to Water Melody: Reading Chairman Mao’s poems
The majestic mountains and rivers,
Sentiments are as vast as the sky.
The clouds drift and the water murmurs,
A rainbow reflected in the blue sea.
Respond coldly to the anti-China wave.
Two superpowers dominated the world.
The croaking of frogs was deafening.
A song that shakes the earth, a whirlwind that sweeps across the clear sky.
Disdain
Timeless Poems
Leisurely feelings:
Sorrow and resentment at parting,
I endure the sight of flowing water and falling petals.
Furthermore, they planned to carry scrolls while climbing the mountain.
High praise for the rosy dawn and rising sun,
The melodious sound chases the east wind.
The sky and clouds were dyed red.
The red hue shines through the skin.
The two poems above were written during the Cultural Revolution. One of them reads: “In my youth, innocent and carefree, without a trace of selfishness. My will was as firm as steel, my passion as fiery as fire, my heart brimming with patriotic fervor. This revolutionary friendship will be forever etched in the mountains and rivers.” After graduating from university, I was assigned to a remote mountainous area in Guizhou, without a trace of resentment. A classmate of mine was assigned to the desolate Northwest. In early winter of 1971, he sent me a poem, “Prelude to Water Melody,” and I responded with a poem in the same rhyme scheme. At the end of my poem, I wrote: “Where can I pour this fervent patriotism, onto the barren mountains and scattered rocks, to warm them and melt away the frost? When the rain comes, the border grass sprouts, its verdant green spreading across the plateau.” These poems resonated with the feelings of most young people at the time; they were sincere, not fanatical, and offered a serene, ordinary perspective. Only a few individuals have taken extreme actions on isolated occasions, and even these individuals are mostly carrying out orders from above and following the trend of the times.
When the Gang of Four fell in 1976, I, like the rest of the nation, cheered the victory over their defeat and condemned the absurdity of the Cultural Revolution, without giving it much further thought. It wasn’t until Han Suyin’s death in November 2012 that I had the opportunity to reflect on my own experiences during the Cultural Revolution. In 1970s China, at least 100 million people had heard of Han Suyin. She was the only foreigner who frequently visited China during that era. In an era dominated by the passion expressed in her poems, which also felt somewhat monotonous, reading and discussing news about Han Suyin became a rare treat for the staff of my hospital, something everyone couldn’t get enough of.
Like most people in China, Han Suyin held drastically different attitudes towards the Cultural Revolution before and after its inception. Reading her writings from the early days of the Cultural Revolution, I deeply felt that there was no reason, nor any need, to deny the original intentions of the Cultural Revolution; there was no reason, nor any need, to demonize the Red Guards and rebels. If it was merely a child’s innocent smile, it was precisely because of that innocence that the smile was so charming. Let that childlike smile remain forever.
II. From the Fate of American Cultural Revolution Youth to Mao Zedong’s Sorrow in His Later Years
Han Suyin was one of the few scholars abroad who enthusiastically embraced the Chinese Cultural Revolution, but tens of thousands of young students abroad did as well. In the late 1980s, when I was at the University of Chicago, I heard that in early 1966, after hearing news of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, the students were so excited they couldn’t sleep all night—a situation not unlike that at Peking University, where I was studying at the time. Many American universities, like the University of Chicago, also had a large number of young people stirred by the Chinese Cultural Revolution. These American students were more unfortunate than we were. Faced with a powerful, money-driven American society, those American Cultural Revolution youths could only leave society to pursue their dreams. They formed communist societies, living communist lives together. Like me, they possessed a certain self-sacrificing spirit, like “pouring their passionate blood onto barren mountains and rocks, warming the frost and cold.” Their spirit of sacrifice met the same fate as mine, leading to a dead end with no results. The literature I read said that the communist groups formed by those passionate American Cultural Revolution youths succumbed to rampant sex and drug addiction and then self-destructed.
It is necessary to point out that China’s Cultural Revolution was part of a global trend in the 1960s, similar to the women’s and Black people’s self-liberation movements in the United States. While in Chicago, I chatted with an elderly white couple who mentioned that after the assassination of Black leader Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968) in April 1968, they didn’t dare leave their homes for three days, fortunately having enough food to avoid starvation. They said many people in Chicago didn’t go to work for a week, and the streets were almost deserted, like a ghost town. The level of chaos in the United States was not necessarily much better than during China’s Cultural Revolution: Westerners were used to such chaotic scenes and didn’t react with the same fascination as the Chinese.
We still vividly remember how excited the Chinese Cultural Revolution youth were in 1968, as the Cultural Revolution student movement was sweeping across France. We would read newspapers every day and discuss it until late at night. The French Cultural Revolution was similar to the Chinese one, but different from the American one. Both the Chinese and French Cultural Revolutions were not limited to students; they had a deeper social foundation and broader social participation. If my memory serves me correctly, the 1968 French student movement led to a change of government in France; I believe it was de Gaulle’s resignation. This, like the early student movements of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, resulted in changes of government at all levels. One consequence was that more Cultural Revolution youth forgot their original intentions—the feeling described in the first poem I wrote above, that after four years, the Cultural Revolution youth themselves felt inconsistent and helpless. Among the three countries—the US, France, and China—only the American Cultural Revolution youth formed a communist social group to realize their ideals, because they did not combine it with other social reforms as they did in China and France.
When I flew through Tehran, the capital of Iran, in the autumn of 1979, the Iranian student movement was at its peak. Everywhere I looked, there were huge banners proclaiming “Long Live the Cultural Revolution!” and portraits of Chairman Mao Zedong plastered everywhere. It wasn’t until several months later that they began occupying the US embassy. This firsthand experience allows me to use the term “American and French Cultural Revolution youth,” although I am also following their narrative and not the first author to use this term. I have not researched whether a minority of the French and Iranian Cultural Revolution youth eventually formed their own communist groups, just like the American Cultural Revolution youth.
But whether it was the Cultural Revolution youth in the United States, France, Iran, or China, if they didn’t change their original mindset, they would all eventually realize that while their ideals were beautiful, the real world was ugly and evil, and they were no match for the evil of that world. Even the great leader Mao Zedong did not escape the same fate. The author once wrote:
As a great figure in Chinese history, Mao Zedong had a tragic side: if he had learned more from Duke Xiang of Song, he wouldn’t have allowed his wife to commit suicide in prison. Mao Zedong described Duke Xiang as having “a pig-like sense of morality,” and the Cultural Revolution was a result of Mao Zedong completely disregarding his own established rules. According to memoirs by Ms. Zhang Rong and those who worked closely with Mao, the Lin Biao incident in 1971, involving his close comrade-in-arms, was a fatal blow to Mao, from which he never recovered until his death. The first five years of the Cultural Revolution were vigorous and colorful, while the last five years were lukewarm and ineffective, with the nationwide criticism of Lin Biao, Confucius, Deng Xiaoping, and other campaigns lacking energy. In his later years, Mao considered himself a failure, like Chiang Kai-shek who retreated to Taiwan and Nixon who was impeached and removed from office, so he particularly sympathized with them. Years ago, he wrote a poem, “Birds’ Dialogue,” the last line of which was: “Please fill my empty belly.” Before his death, Mao changed it to: “Let’s see the world turn upside down.” The situation indeed unfolded as he predicted: the world turned upside down. Imagine what it must have been like for such a powerful figure to spend the last five years of his life in utter defeat and inaction. Those around him said he often wept silently alone. Undoubtedly, Mao broke the rules and ran a red light, resulting in a five-year paralysis on the political stage during the blood-soaked Cultural Revolution.
I later read in China that when a highly respected intellectual met Chairman Mao for the first time, Mao burst into tears for no apparent reason. The person who was being received and honored was at a loss for words for a long time.
III. Mutual non-denial and the multi-directional nature of secondary societies
In recent years, with the rise of new leadership, there has been a consensus that the preceding and following thirty years should not be denied, meaning that the thirty years of reform and opening up should not negate the thirty years under Mao Zedong’s leadership and influence (1949-1979). This aligns with this blog’s theory of a two-tiered society. A two-tiered society has countless possible directions, and the Cultural Revolution led by Mao Zedong merely represents one such direction: we may disagree, we may choose not to follow that path, but there is absolutely no need to completely deny its existence and social value. The author firmly believes that, on the contrary, future society will return to the equality of the original society, not deviate from it. The lack of prospects for passionate youth during the Cultural Revolution, just as the lack of prospects for masterpieces by great artists in the face of gunfire, is not enough to deny the value of the Cultural Revolution and art.
The online Wikipedia defines the Red Guards as follows: In the study of modern Chinese history, historians often divide the Red Guards into two definitions: a broad one and a narrow one. The broad definition of Red Guards refers to various civilian groups that wear red armbands, including workers, peasants, students of military academies, and employees of government agencies and cultural groups. The narrow definition of Red Guards refers to student groups spontaneously formed by young students in universities and middle schools.
According to this definition, the Red Guards in a broad sense refer to all civilian groups wearing red armbands during the Cultural Revolution, while in a narrow sense they specifically refer to spontaneous student groups in schools. There is also a distinction between rebels and conservatives, but this distinction is relative. As far as I know, for a long time, schools and cities were divided into two factions, each claiming to be a rebel, while the other was a conservative; even the conservative faction tried hard to portray itself as a rebel. Therefore, this article will treat the rebels mentioned by Wang Chunnan below as equivalent to the Red Guards the author himself participated in, because this article can only be written based on the author’s personal experience and psychological understanding. Therefore, Wang Chunnan’s “rebels” will be replaced with “Red Guards,” and the subtle differences between the two will no longer be considered. The Wikipedia entry on rebels states that “the early ‘royalists’ of the Cultural Revolution turned to join the rebels.” The essence of rebellion is rebellion itself, advocating disruption and change of the existing order. The biggest secret (publicly known) of the rebels’ success is that they are actually acting on orders. For those in supreme power, what appears to be antisocial behavior is actually prosocial behavior. (The above is quoted from the author’s research on Chinese Wikipedia in early August 2014.)
In terms of “advocating disruption and change of the existing order,” this was the essence of the Cultural Revolution, and the most resounding representatives of this essence were the Red Guards and rebels. The so-called “rebellion by imperial decree” meant that the Chinese and French Cultural Revolution youth, as mentioned above, had a deeper social foundation and broader social participation. If the Red Guards and rebels were acting on Mao Zedong’s imperial decree, then on whose decree did Mao Zedong act, leading to his weeping in his later years?
Fourth, the social trends in Western Christianity that have not demonized Christian believers: if they were in power in China, they would not have demonized the Red Guards either.
The Chinese Cultural Revolution is called a Cultural Revolution because it focuses on the ideological superstructure, that is, the spiritual and cultural aspects. Western scholars often compare communist theory with Christianity, both of which emphasize spirit and ideals. A review of the history of Western Christianity here is very instructive.
Early Christians were a group of enthusiastic devotees living a communist lifestyle. Unafraid of execution, they grew in number despite the killings within the Roman Empire, ultimately leading to its recognition. The author writes…
Only Jesus extended his love for humanity to the lowest levels of society. When he said that God loves everyone, his voice was so warm and touching. So when the Roman Empire was forced to recognize the legitimacy of Christianity in 313 AD, the end of this empire built on cruel slavery was not far off. There were many reasons for the decline of the Roman Empire, and Christianity at least helped, although it did not involve violence and social conflict. Christianity strongly opposed theaters, arenas, public baths and other places for the entertainment of the ruling class. Wealthy Christians began to donate their money to build hospitals, orphanages, and nursing homes, which was something that had never happened before in the Roman Empire[1]. The arenas and theaters and other large public buildings in the cities of Rome were the glory of the Roman Empire, the pride and spiritual sustenance of the ruling class, and the symbol of Roman civilization. In the later period of the Roman Empire, the general decline of cities undoubtedly hurt the morale of the ruling class and accelerated the decline of the empire. In the Middle Ages, which lasted for about a thousand years, Christianity was the only humanistic force that maintained the unity of European culture and supported social stability[2].
If the bureaucratic corruption during the Cultural Revolution’s anti-bureaucratic campaign pales in comparison to today’s bureaucratic corruption, then the corruption of the Vatican, opposed by religious reformers like Martin Luther, may not even have reached the level of corruption among Chinese cadres before the Cultural Revolution. At that time, Catholic priests and officials at the Vatican at least did not openly marry. In short, the two are comparable in their pursuit of spiritual idealism. Here, I will temporarily compare Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution with the European religious revolutions initiated by Martin Luther to examine their historical processes and outcomes. Both were rebellions against traditional doctrines and rules, initiated by elites, and challenging existing authority and order through a democratic process involving the mobilization of the masses. Please consider the following basic facts:
1) Duration: The Cultural Revolution lasted ten years (from the May 16, 1966 Notice to October 1976); the Religious Revolution lasted a century (1517-1648).
2) Initial stage: Cultural Revolution, a monolithic world ruled by capitalist roaders; Religious Revolution, a monolithic world ruled by the Roman Catholic Church.
3) The final stage: The Cultural Revolution, from tolerance and concessions to capitalist roaders to the downfall of the Gang of Four, was a period of freedom and tolerance; The Religious Revolution, brought a new atmosphere of freedom and tolerance, and mutual tolerance among different beliefs and political views.
4) Costs: Cultural Revolution: millions of deaths, economic collapse on the verge of collapse; Zongli Yamen: 75 million deaths (including indirect deaths), economic recession.
5) Ushering in a new era: The Cultural Revolution was a major turning point for reform and opening up; the religious revolution paved the way for modern Europe and the modern world, leading up to the two world wars.
There is relatively little discussion about the pioneering role of the Cultural Revolution in the new era. Without the Cultural Revolution, China would most likely have continued along the path laid out in the early 1960s for a long time. The biggest and fastest step in the reform and opening-up process was the downfall of the Gang of Four, and the fact that this step was taken so smoothly, without any chaos or death, is a world-class miracle. This also reflects the consensus reached throughout the country during the Cultural Revolution: a tacit understanding of that momentous turning point was achieved nationwide. Vietnam has the foundation of French rule and a blend of Eastern and Western cultures; North Korea, with its purely Eastern culture, is closer to the prospect of China without the Cultural Revolution. North Korea had a significant Great Leap Forward-style Chollima Movement, but it did not experience a movement similar to China’s Cultural Revolution, which is at least one of the reasons for its current political stagnation.
As Deng Xiaoping pointed out: “We fundamentally negate the Cultural Revolution, but it should be said that the Cultural Revolution also had one merit: it provided negative lessons. Without the lessons of the Cultural Revolution, it would have been impossible to formulate the ideological, political, and organizational lines and a series of policies since the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee.”
Based on my years of experience living in the West, Westerners have no intention of condemning Christians, even though the religious revolutions in Europe resulted in more deaths and were far more bloody than the Cultural Revolution in China. It is said that there are now over a thousand different denominations of Christianity, the emergence of which is at least partly related to religious revolutions. The sectarian conflicts in the West are far more intense than the factional infighting during the Cultural Revolution; Thanksgiving in North America originated from the first year that persecuted minority groups from Europe fled to the Americas to celebrate a bountiful harvest.
V. Reading Consensus Net: Wang Chunnan: The demonization of the Cultural Revolution rebels is ridiculous.
I read an interview with Mr. Wang Chunnan on the Consensus website, titled: “The Demonization of the Cultural Revolution Rebels is Ridiculous and Laughable” (http://www.21ccom.net/articles/lsjd/lsjj/article_20140807110673.html). I strongly agree with this statement. Since we are criticizing the Cultural Revolution, we should not repeat its practices. To paraphrase a popular saying from the Cultural Revolution era: the proletariat has the ambition to liberate all mankind, and will liberate itself only after liberating everyone on Earth; the proletariat aims to eliminate the exploiting classes and the system of exploitation, not the individuals within the exploiting classes.
I wholeheartedly agree with negating the Cultural Revolution, but we should negate the Cultural Revolution itself, not the individuals who participated in it. While the atmosphere during the Cultural Revolution lacked the current relaxed atmosphere, it wasn’t entirely devoid of individual freedom of choice. People participated with varying levels of experience and understanding. An individual’s participation in the Cultural Revolution involved elements of voluntary participation, conformity, and inevitability. Postmodernism, in essence, is an era that doesn’t acknowledge ultimate truths or the fixed directions and rules of a two-tiered society; it’s also an era that allows for viewing the world from an individual perspective. Based on this view, we should evaluate the Cultural Revolution from the perspective of its participants, especially from the perspective of ordinary people. This doesn’t conflict with official government or historical assessments. Westerners say you can criticize the president, but you absolutely cannot say anything that offends the public, even if it’s only a segment of the public. Cultural youth represent such a segment of the public.
I believe that Marxist doctrine is based on resentment and condemnation of the evils of exploitation, oppression, and war throughout five thousand years of human civilization, which is why the communist doctrine of universal harmony exists. I remember during the Cultural Revolution, newspapers frequently raised the question of whether the dictatorship of the proletariat was Marx’s idea, claiming that Marx only used the term occasionally. However, during the Cultural Revolution, the dictatorship of the proletariat was widely discussed, along with the need for violence and armed revolution, even mentioning the concept of “red terror.” While occasional violence may have occurred in ancient societies, violent conflict is an unavoidable component of secondary societies. The violence during the Cultural Revolution was far less than that during the European religious revolutions, but in a country with Confucian traditions and a powerful Communist Party government, the numerous acts of violence during the Cultural Revolution should be condemned.
On another note, when I was a child, my history teachers didn’t condemn the violent events of the May Fourth Movement, such as the burning of Zhao’s house; instead, they taught them with a tone of praise. From the perspective of an individual during the Cultural Revolution, the violence of the Cultural Revolution and the burning of Zhao’s house during the May Fourth Movement share some similarities. Although I personally oppose the illegal use of violence.
literature
[1] RW Winks & SP Mattern (2004): The Ancient Mediterranean World, from the Stone Age to AD 600. New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press.pp.202-204.
[2] You Sheng (2009): Confucius and Jesus: Different Evolutionary Paths of Eastern and Western Humanities. From: “Looking at Life and the World from a Different Angle: Chinese Taoism in the 21st Century”. Beijing: Thread-bound Book Bureau.
Random Thoughts 23: There could be hundreds of different Cultural Revolutions in China during the ten years of the Cultural Revolution.
From the perspective of the two-tier society theory, there are countless possible directions for a two-tier society. Current society is the accumulation of numerous adjustments throughout history, lacking a comprehensive plan and mature design. Even now, there are many different opinions and directions on how to solve the problem of corruption in China, let alone the future direction of society. The author writes in his book, *Looking at Life and the World from a Different Angle: 21st Century Chinese Taoism*:
Since secondary societies are unrelated to human genetics, they are not subject to the laws of biological evolution, while cultural evolution has its own independence. Because they are not subject to human nature, secondary societies have countless possible forms; ancient societies were diverse, such as the caste system of India and the democratic society of Athens. The current trend towards homogenization at the national level is a result of cultural transmission, material competition, and the survival of the fittest. Therefore, current social homogenization does not equate to humanity having achieved its ideal society. Contrary to the current trend towards homogenization, secondary societies have vast potential for evolution.
Influenced by the innate, primal social structures inherent in humankind, young people and traditional Chinese farmers often lean towards the ideal of an egalitarian society. When I lived in Cambridge, England in the early 1980s, my landlady remarked, “Students and young intellectuals have historically leaned left, but older intellectuals tend towards conservatism. Cambridge politics reflected this.” The left-leaning she referred to was the egalitarian ideal stemming from the grassroots, a sentiment perhaps shared across cultures and throughout history. The trajectory of Western democratic societies is a temporary result of balance and compromise among different voters and the public, as was the case during China’s Cultural Revolution. Because the Cultural Revolution was a movement criticizing the existing system and striving for a future ideal, the ideal of a future after denying the existing system was perceived differently by different people. While saying that 800 million people in China had 800 million different ideas might be an exaggeration, similar ideas could be categorized into hundreds, or even forcibly grouped into seven or eight. One thing is certain: complete uniformity is impossible. Although people under totalitarian regimes cannot freely express their opinions, it doesn’t mean they lack their own views. In fact, they stubbornly express their opinions with different attitudes and tones. In the summer and autumn of 1966, Mao Zedong and Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping (Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping) clearly spoke of different Cultural Revolutions, which became the direct cause of Liu and Deng’s sidelining and eventual downfall. If Mao Zedong and Liu and Deng had different Cultural Revolutions, then there were also different Cultural Revolutions among the Chinese masses, but these were simply not taken into consideration when the central government made its decisions.
In a blog post dated August 29, 2014, this author wrote that the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s was a global phenomenon, though it wasn’t necessarily called the Cultural Revolution. For example, the student movements, women’s movements, and Black movements in the United States at that time were at least aligned with and influenced the Chinese Cultural Revolution. When I lived in Chicago in the 1980s, I knew an elderly white couple who told me that after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, they didn’t dare leave their homes for three days and didn’t go to work for a week. After three days, they had run out of food and were starving, so they secretly went out in the evening to find something to eat. They said Chicago was like a ghost town at the time, something they dared not tell me: Chicago was then a predominantly Black community, and young Black people took the opportunity to loot and burn white-owned stores to express their anger. Therefore, the American Cultural Revolution, like the Chinese Cultural Revolution, had a destructive side. Why do Americans consider it natural, while the Chinese cannot accept it?
I participated in the entire Cultural Revolution. I started as a so-called conservative Red Guard at Peking University, and this continued even after I transferred to medical school. However, there was no obvious factional struggle among my classmates. After being assigned to a job in 1970, I underwent a year of labor reform and then worked in a hospital. Neither I nor my classmates and colleagues participated in any armed struggles, nor did we spontaneously criticize or struggle against anyone, nor did we participate in any actions that seem excessive today. During the Cultural Revolution, I never encountered anyone who thought killing people was justified. In the early stages of the Cultural Revolution, during the “Destroy the Four Olds” movement, my classmates and I repeatedly protected university historical buildings to prevent other Red Guards from damaging them, but we ourselves did not destroy a single historical relic or burn a single book. We all participated in many criticism meetings; we simply raised our hands and shouted slogans. Those around me and I believed that Mao Zedong and Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping had differences in their political lines, but we all unanimously cheered the downfall of the Gang of Four and supported the rehabilitation of Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping. I conclude: Most of China’s 800 million people participated in the Cultural Revolution like I did. Don’t such participants have the right to define the Cultural Revolution for themselves in affirmative terms? We accepted Mao Zedong’s utopian ideas in the early stages of the Cultural Revolution, and later encountered resistance and trouble. However, there’s no need to deny the beauty and allure of Mao Zedong’s utopian ideas; it’s just that we didn’t realize them. Accepting Mao Zedong’s utopian ideas cannot be considered being deceived; we were all adults at the time.
I recently read online: Yang Jisheng: Blood Awakens People! The Myth of Blood (Preface, Tan Hecheng’s “The Myth of Blood”) (http://www.doc88.com/p-990232005870.html). I think his following words are accurate, objective, and to the point. He said:
Before the Cultural Revolution, the bureaucratic class dominated China, with officials enjoying privileges according to their rank. Workers and peasants nominally held higher political status but had no real right to participate in decision-making; they were economically deprived, receiving only minimal social security but remaining impoverished. The masses were extremely dissatisfied with this bureaucratic system. Whenever someone called for it, they would rise up to “smash” this “state apparatus.” Mao Zedong was also dissatisfied with this system and wanted to change it. The reasons for Mao’s dissatisfaction were multifaceted: it could be populist thought, utopian ideals, hatred of bureaucracy other than his own, or fear of losing power. Mao hoped to “smash” this system, aiming to achieve “great order through chaos.” He called on the people to rise up against the bureaucrats. Years of idol worship had cemented Mao’s sanctified status, and coupled with the people’s hatred of the bureaucrats, Mao’s call to action sparked a nationwide upheaval of anti-bureaucratic protests. The bureaucrats received both deserved and undeserved blows, and the bureaucratic system collapsed overnight. Without a bureaucratic system, society descends into chaos. Mao Zedong could not offer a substitute for the bureaucratic system; the Paris Commune and the May 7th Road were not effective systems to begin with and could not be used to quell the chaos. The country could not remain in a state of disorder for long. Faced with societal needs and the pursuit of bureaucratic interests, Mao Zedong had to yield to the bureaucrats, and the original bureaucratic system gradually returned to its original state. Once the bureaucrats who had been impacted returned to power, those who had responded to the call to revolt faced repeated retaliation: the “One Strike, Three Anti” campaign, the “Purge of May 16th,” and the “Cleansing of the Class Ranks” were all aimed at the common people. The “Criticize Lin Biao and Confucius” campaign and the “Counterattack Against the Right-Deviationist Reversal of Verdicts” were merely a contest between Mao Zedong and the bureaucrats who were restoring the old order. During the Cultural Revolution, various political forces rose and fell; “the flags changed hands frequently,” with some bureaucrats gaining power today and others tomorrow. Ordinary people who stood against those in power were persecuted. “Endless queues, countless apologies, endless self-criticisms, and countless tears.” This folk song, which circulated during the Cultural Revolution, perfectly reflects the plight of ordinary people.
Yang Jisheng clearly states here: “The masses were extremely dissatisfied with this bureaucratic system,” so when Chairman Mao issued a call, they smashed the bureaucratic system to pieces, but it was later restored. Similarly, African Americans were dissatisfied with the superior status of white Americans who held power everywhere. Using the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. by white youths as an example, they forced white people to stay home for three days and not go to work for a week, but afterwards, the social superiority of white people was not shaken. The United States has a continuous African American liberation movement; why can’t the Chinese people have their own history of anti-bureaucracy and the pursuit of an equal social ideal? If so, the Cultural Revolution would be a glorious chapter in this history.
Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968, and it wasn’t until about twenty years later, when I was in Chicago, that the United States designated a special holiday in his memory. Attending such a solemn commemorative event at the University of Chicago, I was deeply moved by King’s bold and radical words, just as I was moved by Mao Zedong’s bold and radical words during the Cultural Revolution. King’s life ended with assassination, and Mao’s ended with a later life marked by frequent weeping, but their spirit lives on.
Tan Hecheng’s “The Myth of Blood” does not describe the killings committed by the Red Guards and rebels during the Cultural Revolution, but rather the brutal massacre of rebels and so-called class enemies after the restoration of the original management system, further confirming the legitimacy of the Cultural Revolution’s rebellion.
Random Thoughts 24: The Origin and Development of Wealth Accumulation Culture from the Perspective of Two-Tier Society Theory
In *The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State*, Engels stated, “Base greed has been the driving force of civilization from its first day to the present; wealth, wealth, and third wealth—not the wealth of society, but the personal wealth of this insignificant individual—and this is the sole and decisive purpose of civilized times.”
Engels’s statement effectively validates the two-tiered society theory presented on this blog, which can be demonstrated in several ways. First, it validates the author’s conclusion: Western civilization began in a two-tiered society, while Chinese civilization began in a natural, primordial society. Therefore, Engels’s statement is a generalization about European civilization and does not apply to Chinese civilization. In the early stages of Chinese civilization, Yu the Great was a model of flood control labor, Yao and Shun were exemplars of morality, and even the Yellow Emperor, who led military campaigns, sought lasting peace to spare the people from the suffering of warring states. Here, there is no greed for wealth, wealth, and more wealth, nor the sinful acts accompanying base greed.
Western civilization began in the Mediterranean, where families broke up into city-states with secondary social units. Early civilizations couldn’t have established laws and moral customs overnight, so chaos and evil were inevitable. This is why there’s the legend of God regretting creating man, because humanity was inherently evil. Engels, in *Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy*, said, “Evil is the form in which the driving force of historical development manifests itself,” and “Since the emergence of class antagonism, it is precisely human depravity—greed and lust for power—that has become the lever of historical development.” This is consistent with the biblical story of God regretting creating man. The European philosopher Hegel pointed out, “People think that when they say human nature is good, they are expressing a great idea; but they forget that when people say human nature is evil, they are expressing a far greater idea.”
Consistent with the labor model of Yu the Great and the moral exemplars of Yao and Shun, China has the Confucian and Mencian saying, “At the beginning of life, man is inherently good.” Xunzi’s theory of the evil nature of man is not mainstream in Chinese thought and is often criticized and questioned. Recently, some scholars have even argued that the evil nature of man was not Xunzi’s original intention. This view of human nature, diametrically opposed to that of the West, is entirely related to the original social origins of Chinese civilization. Because these early societies were societies where humans had lived for millions of years, the chaos and evil of early Western civilization would not have occurred. The masters of these early societies were humans, not gods; the masters of secondary societies are gods, not humans. Western civilization, beginning with secondary societies, could only restore social order through divine retribution.
Secondary societies are man-made societies, and the people within them are also created by humankind. While primitive societies are based on a leisurely mindset and immediate pleasure and aesthetic appreciation during leisure time, secondary societies are based on the pursuit of utilitarian goals, hence the base greed Engels described. In his book, *Looking at Life and the World from a Different Angle: Chinese Taoism in the 21st Century*, the author writes, “From the construction of the ancient Egyptian pyramids, we can learn an important characteristic of human civilization. This is that a nation, a people, can mobilize all its subjects, using all their leisure time, year after year, generation after generation, to concentrate on one thing. They don’t build pyramids like the ancient Egyptians, but they do other things in the same way and with the same enthusiasm. We call this the social pyramid. In this way, humanity can achieve unparalleled grandeur and magnificence in the world. Behind various social pyramids are the invisible pyramids of social power that every civilized nation and society has already built, constantly expanding and pushing the social pyramid phenomenon to one climax after another.” (Beijing: Thread-Bound Book Bureau, 2009, pp. 93-94)
Only one dynasty in Chinese history achieved significant wealth accumulation and cultural advancement: the Song Dynasty. The Song Dynasty also possessed two unique characteristics not found in other Chinese dynasties: first, it faced equally matched adversaries in warfare; second, it had a thriving industry and commerce. While the Xiongnu threat from the north was significant during the Han Dynasty, their culture was less advanced. By the Song Dynasty, however, northern minority groups had begun to adopt Han Chinese political systems, becoming truly formidable adversaries. Developed wealth accumulation is invariably accompanied by developed industry and commerce; purely agricultural production is limited. Ancient Greece had a highly developed industry and commerce, producing and selling wine, olive oil, and pottery. Although the Qing Dynasty had a large territory, its wealth accumulation and cultural development were not advanced. It lived a life of isolation and conservatism, enjoying a period of peace and prosperity. When Western powers invaded, the Qing Empire was powerless to resist because the level of wealth accumulation between China and the West was vastly different. War is a contest of manpower and resources, and resources equal wealth; therefore, war and wealth are directly related. The continuous development of the West was a direct result of the continuous upgrading of material civilization, which is directly related to the escalating wars throughout European history. China, on the other hand, compressed the three-thousand-year history of Western warfare into a period of just over two hundred years during the Warring States period, with two thousand years of stability before and after that, during which the scale and frequency of wars did not change much.
Here I conclude with a quote from the author written several years ago:
The culture of wealth accumulation is also part of the spiraling, ascendant civilization of war, because war, empire, and civilization all require the support of wealth. Without money, nothing can be accomplished. Since the establishment of capitalism, the culture of wealth accumulation has become independent, though it remains intricately linked to the civilization of war. The independence of the culture of wealth accumulation relative to the civilization of war can be illustrated by the causes of the two World Wars. Most scholars believe that it was competition among capitalist powers that led to the world wars, not the other way around. The culture of wealth accumulation is no longer a subordinate part of the civilization of war, nor does it develop in response to the needs of war. The end of the Cold War did not diminish the culture of wealth accumulation in the slightest.
If the culture of wealth accumulation had separated from the civilization of war in medieval Europe, it might have had considerable room for independent development. However, given the current situation, this culture is also approaching its end. Limited by resource and environmental pollution, its fatal flaw lies in the fact that people will eventually realize that wealth only brings convenience and comfort, not happiness. According to a report by the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF), human development has exceeded the Earth’s capacity, and we will need two Earths by 2050. It is extremely urgent that humanity finds alternative ways of life as soon as possible. Chinese Taoism offers a good possible lifestyle option. Taoism emphasizes naturalness and simplicity; such a life is simple, yet full of joy. (From the book above, page 248)
literature:
A Study of Pre-Qin Daoist Philosophy, by Zhu Zhe, Shanghai People’s Publishing House, September 2000, p. 7.
Random Thoughts 25: A Look at the Fundamental Differences Between Chinese and Western Cultures and Polar Societies Through Illustrations of Three Dog Mindsets
This blog post contains images.
As shown in the diagram below, these dogs are in three different mindsets: relaxed, focused on their goal, and fiercely competitive.
If you ask dogs what they see in their world, and what they desire in life, those carefree dogs will say they see the whole world, including themselves, and they want to enjoy life, to enjoy ease and pleasure. If you express their answers in philosophical terms, that is Chinese Taoism. This pure aesthetic enjoyment has no utilitarian element whatsoever and does not conflict with other dogs of their kind.
If you ask the same question to dogs that are focused on their target, they will see nothing but the target, the rabbit, and they will not express any other demands besides the rabbit. This target can change at any time, and the process of achieving the target may conflict with those of other dogs.
When you ask two fighting dogs the same question, they are only seeing another of their kind; what they want is to conquer the other. This conquest is itself a goal, though not as direct and realistic as chasing a rabbit. Two dogs chasing a rabbit can eventually lead to them fighting. In the three mindsets of the dogs above, the latter two are interconnected and can transform into one another.
Readers may not know that Western painting, since ancient Greece, has focused solely on depicting human figures, only recently beginning to create landscapes like Chinese painters. Clearly, their tradition of constant city-state warfare limited their perspective to their own kind, highlighting the profound impact of such conflict on cultural formation. The goal of mutual conquest is unattainable; the result is either conquest or a stalemate. Fortunately, dogs are still governed by instinct and will soon tire. Civilized humans, however, have transcended this instinct, adhering to Echoard’s theory of the spiral of civilizational warfare, constantly escalating their conflict. This is precisely the history of five thousand years of European civilization—a history of escalating wars, culminating in the two recent World Wars. Whether humanity will escalate wars again on the scale of the two World Wars, eliminating six billion people to allow the remaining fifteen billion to enjoy the affluent lifestyle of modern America, remains to be seen.
The ancient Greeks were renowned for sculpting nude figures, and a few of their murals have survived. However, among the ancient Greek paintings I’ve seen, I haven’t found a single one specifically depicting a landscape. Landscape painting, as a subject and category of art, only began to appear in the West in the 17th century. In stark contrast to this Western visual art tradition, figure paintings in pre-Qin China were also scenes, landscapes composed of numerous figures. For example, the Song Dynasty painting “Along the River During the Qingming Festival” is essentially more like a landscape painting, simply containing figures. This also includes Chinese landscape painting; even when one or two small figures are added to the background of a landscape painting, it is still called a landscape painting.
Landscape painting, which focused on the earth, trees, and landscapes, only emerged in Europe in the 17th century. This style first appeared in the Netherlands and then in England. (See: Chi Ke, *A Brief History of Western Art*, 1983. Beijing: China Youth Press.)
The three mental states of dogs depicted above, along with the differences in Eastern and Western painting styles, can all be fully explained by the theory of a polar society. Ancient humans living in primitive societies, like other animals, observed the world with a leisurely mindset, combining this observation with their past memories to form their views on the world and life—what we call worldviews today. Ancient humans wouldn’t be foolish enough to consider the rabbits they occasionally chased as their entire world. This aligns with the polar society theory discussed on this blog: primitive societies are based on a leisurely, amateurish perspective and an emotional, aesthetic mindset. Artificial polar societies, however, have their own purposes, and use these purposes to create the people within these polar societies. In other words, people in polar societies are primarily influenced and controlled by the ideology of their respective polar societies. We are all products of society and culture. A society that subjects all citizens to twelve years of compulsory, brainwashing education in primary and secondary schools has no right to talk about natural humanity.
Ancient China formed a society similar to the United Nations to maintain peace, allowing the Chinese to live for a long period in a primitive stage of society until the Warring States period when they entered a secondary stage. The philosophies of Confucianism and Taoism, founded by Lao Tzu and Confucius respectively, both envisioned this primitive society as the ideal, influencing Chinese painting styles for two millennia. The escalation of warfare in China was concentrated during the Warring States period, preceded and followed by two thousand years of relative stability.
European civilization is a five-thousand-year history of escalating warfare, culminating in the failure of Germany’s attempt to unify Europe by force during the two World Wars. In this two-tiered society of war and life-or-death competition, people could only see their opponents in this life-or-death struggle: humanity itself. Therefore, while Chinese people painted landscapes, Europeans could only paint figures, because that was the only image visible in the arena of life-or-death competition. The Netherlands, a coastal nation, and Britain, an island nation, both renowned for their developed maritime industries, were able to escape the threat of European war, remaining relatively safe amidst the escalating threat of conflict. Precisely because of this, Britain remained unconquered during both World Wars. The Netherlands and Britain were able to return to the leisurely, amateurish mindset of primitive societies, broadening their horizons and allowing them to see images beyond humanity, leading their painters to begin painting landscapes. The Netherlands and Britain were also pioneers of modern democratic movements; modern times represent a process in which the West gradually recognized the shortcomings of a two-tiered society and gradually returned to a more primitive state.
author By Dr. You-Sheng Li
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