On the Cultural Revolution and Our Present Moment
In 1966, Mao Zedong began the “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution”. Its stated aim was to destroy and purge the existence of the elements of old, pre-modern Chinese society from existence. Specifically, the Cultural Revolution sought to bring about the destruction of the “Four Olds”: old customs, old habits, old culture, and old ideas.
To that effect, groups of Red Guards patrolled the streets of China, destroying anything that represented the dynastic China of old — this included temples, churches, mosques, monasteries, art, artifacts, and cemeteries.
They also sought to destroy the “nine black categories” of people: landlords, rich farmers, anti-revolutionaries, bad influences, right-wingers, traitors, spies, capitalist roaders, and intellectuals. This resulted in the loss of at least hundreds of thousands of lives, if not millions. Millions more were publicly humiliated in “struggle sessions”, or sent down to the countryside, ruining their educational and career plans. Of the categories, the intellectuals were considered to be the most dangerous; they were called 臭老九 (cho lao jiu, stinking old ninth) and were considered prime targets for the struggle sessions and the forcible deportation to the countryside due to their perceived ability to stir up dissent.
Schools no longer served as a place for education. Instead, they served as a place for indoctrination and for fomenting revolutionary fervor.
Mo Bo was one such individual. Merely 14 when the revolution started, he was drawn to how the movement purported to destroy the vestiges of China’s backwards, conservative pre-modern society, destroy an educational system that he saw was “oppressing” him, and because he didn’t want to be seen as “anti-revolutionary” or “backwards”. Starting from his teacher, he participated in denunciations, wrote 大字报 (da zi bao, big-character posters) shaming those he deemed counter-revolutionary. He rose up quickly through the Red Guard ranks, and got to meet Mao himself.
Another such individual was Yu Xiangzhen. Her story was similar to that of Mo Bo in how she joined the Red Guards. She, too, led the struggle session against her teacher, which resulted in the imprisonment of her teacher in a cowshed where she was made to crawl on the ground like a dog while ridiculed by her students.
Both of them would come to regret their actions. For Mo, it was when his actions resulted in his school being closed, which resulted in him being sent to the countryside, which, as someone who grew up in such an environment, knew that the conditions would result in untold suffering in 1960s China. For Yu, it was after seeing one of her fellow Red Guards pour rotten paste over her school principal. She quit the Red Guards soon afterwards, but not without severe social cost; she and her family were denounced as deserters and traitors to the revolution and were sent to hard labor themselves.
This violence and humiliation lasted for an entire decade, until Mao’s death in 1976.
Growing up in a Chinese family, I had heard of the stories from my mother about her childhood, which was lived under this backdrop. She would tell me about older peers of hers who, swept up in revolutionary fervor, joined the Red Guards. She would tell me about the gunshots she would hear outside of her window at home, from rival Red Guard groups fighting each other, all claiming to be the most legitimate warriors for Chairman Mao. While her family was not affected due to their military background, millions of others were persecuted, among them none other than the current paramount leader of China, Xi Jinping.
Which is why when, on a phone call with my mother, when talking about recent events, she said “this is like another Cultural Revolution”, I felt profound sadness, one that was rooted in knowing the history and its implications. Never did we imagine that half a century later, we would see a phenomenon similar in concept happen halfway around the world in America.
Over the past two months, in response to the brutal, inexcusable murder of George Floyd, we have seen a sea change in public opinion regarding the extent of racism within society, police accountability, and how American society perpetuates racism. This discussion should always be welcome. The United States still has a long way to go to achieve true equality of opportunity for all regardless of racial background.
However, alongside productive conversations, there has been an increasingly intolerant strain of thought that has gained traction, called critical race theory (CRT), whose core tenet is that society is at its root built on a foundation of racism and white supremacy, and that piecemeal reforms are insufficient to address the inequities it causes. To remedy the very real effects that this racism and white supremacy has had on society, these scholar-activists propose a radical restructuring of society and to destroy the vestiges of the old society. Any supposed dissent from the narrative pushed by the most revolutionary elements of society is dismissed as “white fragility”, and according to some of its most fervent devotees, just cause for struggle sessions, humiliation, destruction of livelihoods, and the demolition of any symbol that reminds America of its grotesque past, even those who sought to ameliorate it. It is an ideology which pushes not for constructive dialogue, but for a total remaking of education and knowledge on their terms. This philosophy and its praxis bear a startling resemblance to Maoism.
For decades, this ideology has been allowed to take hold in the academy. It is an ideology which questions the very methods of how we acquire knowledge, the value of the scientific method, and the role of higher education. It is an ideology which has core tenets which may not be questioned and scientific study refuting its central claims dismissed. Its envisioned role for education is, first and foremost, to train activist-scholars, not promote free inquiry. It seeks to expand and change the definition of racism. It seeks to export its ideology, which claims to stand for “diversity, equity, and inclusion” but is in fact inimical to those very goals, to the workplace. Far from being fringe, this ideology is endemic and ambitious. Much like its predecessors, this philosophy has devastating real-world implications.
Nowhere is this more emblematic than, similar to the Maoist zeal to destroy symbols of a deeply classist and parochial old China, the recent push to take down statues of important historical figures, due to their associations with slavery, racism, and colonialism. While in the past in the United States this has been relegated to statues of Confederate leaders who had betrayed their country to fight for a rebel government specifically designed to maintain slavery within its realm, the recent push has extended beyond them. Indeed, the very general most responsible for the Union’s win was the subject of destruction, because he owned a slave for 2 years prior to the Civil War that he could not bring himself to command and personally manumitted. It is one thing to refuse to honor those who advanced immoral causes, but is the push to destroy even those who did fight for the side of justice, in spite of participating in a vice that they were conscientious of, an attempt to rectify the wrongs of history, or an attempt to create a brave new world in which any deviation from modern standards of moral decency is cause for exile from society?
But that is far from this movement’s most destructive impulses. Take, for example, the case of David Shor. He worked at Civis Analytics, a data and polling analysis firm which works for the Democratic Party. On May 30th, he tweeted a study showing that while peaceful protests increased support for Democratic candidates in 1968, riots decreased such support. For this, he was fired from his job, after an intense social media shaming campaign, in which he was accused of insensitivity for speaking about political strategy at a time when black men and women are being killed by police.
Another example is Emmanuel Cafferty, a former employee of San Diego Gas & Electric Company. While driving on the road he flashed an “okay” hand sign in response to another driver flipping him off. Unbeknownst to him, this “okay” hand sign has been co-opted by white supremacists. Caught on video, this led to another modern day struggle session. He was fired for it, even though the driver admitted that he had likely misinterpreted the man’s gestures.
Yet another example is Majdi Wadi, a Palestinian-American who opened a food and catering business, the Holy Land, in Minneapolis. Last month, his landlord terminated his lease, and he lost all of his contracts. His crime? His 24-year-old daughter had posted anti-Semitic posts on Twitter and Instagram, the latest of which was 6 years ago.
For all of these, the tool of these struggle sessions has been high-tech “big character posters”; social media, playing the role of the town square, is home of these large-scale denunciations, where popular figures inspire mobs to turn against ordinary people for alleged “counter-revolutionary” thoughts and beliefs, even by association with someone holding the belief.
These events represent a sort of hijacking of society by a destructive intellectual contagion in the guise of justice and equality. This has happened before; the most populous country on Earth suffered at the hands of such a hijacking. While we are far from the extent of destruction wrought by the Maoist Cultural Revolution and the lives lost, and by no means are the two comparable in the level of violence, the psychology of the current moment draws striking parallels to the psychology of that time.
Ideological revolutionaries may believe their fervor necessary to enact deep, sweeping changes to society and dismiss collateral damage as a worthy sacrifice for the greater good. Indeed, this was the very argument used by the Maoist revolutionaries, and not without reason: pre-Maoist China was deeply parochial, classist, imperialistic, oppressive, and superstitious. Unfortunately, countless would-be heroes have thought this as well, prior to exacting terrible consequences on the societies which they led, such that they will forever be remembered in history as monsters, not saviors. Besides Mao himself, Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, Pol Pot, and Lenin, just to name a few, were all examples of such idealists who committed mass murder and incarceration of political opponents in the name of their cause.
How, then, can we right real wrongs, if not with the revolutionary fervor of critical race theory?
Humanism. Humanism is a belief which emphasizes the value and agency of human beings as individuals. It explicitly rejects the notion that society must be divided into discrete groups based on one’s skin color, sex, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, or national origin. It was a belief shared by the likes of not only Martin Luther King Jr., but also Bayard Rustin, A. Philip Randolph, Nelson Mandela, and Frederick Douglass. Douglass is particularly notable for being a late convert; despite his impassioned, polemical pre-Civil War speeches such as “What to the Slave is the 4th of July”, after the war, he defended civil rights for all, proclaiming “man is man the world over…The sentiments we exhibit, whether love or hate, confidence or fear, respect or contempt, will always imply a like humanity.”
Adherents of CRT argue that such humanism is insufficient when leveled against the cruelty of history, in which countless human beings were and presently are treated in unjust ways because of those very characteristics. But I believe that precisely because the problems of the past and present are caused by emphasis on and differential treatment based on immutable characteristics, that the most effective way to end injustice is to end such emphasis.
Adherents of CRT may argue that this approach is a form of gaslighting, as it supposedly does not recognize the inequalities that are still present. This, too, is false. It is entirely possible to accept that presently people are being mistreated due to immutable characteristics, while also to believe that the best way to combat these inequalities is to persuade society to de-emphasize, rather than emphasize even more strongly, those aspects of identity.
In the face of the passion and fervor of the revolutionary, humanism seems inadequate. This could not be further from the truth. It is the ideals of humanism and focusing on common humanity which won the Civil Rights Movement. It is the ideals of humanism which won the rights of women to live life to their full potential, to have control over their bodies, and to be accepted as full and equal partners in the workplace as well as in marriage. It is the ideals of humanism which won the debate on marriage equality and non-discrimination against those in the LGBTQ+ community.
As a society, without question, we have a long way to go still. Police officers are still not being held accountable as much as they should be. Racism still exists in all walks of life. There are still injustices in desperate need of rectification. But the injustices of the past and present are not solved by purges, struggle sessions, humiliation of one’s political enemies, and the destruction of livelihoods, symbols of the flaws of the past, or a rational, scientific outlook towards solving the ills of society — destruction of Enlightenment values often coincides with less rather than more societal justice. To build a more just society requires a different mindset than those of destruction and purges. Building such a society begins with an honest examination into the causes of problems yet to be solved, open debate into potential solutions, and a culture shift towards eliminating, as much as possible, the root cause of inequalities instead of destroying the symbols thereof. It is difficult, arduous work — far more work than that of destruction, but such destruction will only provide fertile ground for new grievances, a particular iteration of which was deftly stoked by the current occupant of the White House for political gain, and lead to more injustice.
As someone whose family has survived the aftermath of such a destructive moral panic, I believe the peace, stability, and justness of the country I now call home depends upon it.
