"We stacked the books up next to a bonfire, and one by one I tore out the pages and tossed them into the fire. Like drowning ghosts, they writhed in the heat and were swallowed by flames. At the moment they turned to ash, a strange force took hold of me. From then on, that force would gradually extend its command of my body and mind, until it matured into a form that even the strongest enemy would find intimidating. It was a commitment to reason, to a sense of beauty—these things are unbending, uncompromising, and any effort to suppress them is bound to provoke resistance.
The Anti-Rightist Campaign was targeted at the cultural elite, but the Cultural Revolution set its sights on everyone. Schools closed down to allow students to 'engage in revolution,' and many teachers, accused of taking the 'bourgeois education line,' were abused and humiliated, or worse.... Hide-and-seek was our favorite game, and once, in search of a good hiding place, I climbed through a window into an empty office.... I was struck dumb by what I saw there: before me lay photographs of my father and family, bundles of letters, and pages and pages written in his familiar hand. These things had been our most prized possessions... my father’s most personal memories...."From "1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows" by Ai Weiwei.
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24 comments:
The ambitions of the left. I wonder how far they will get before it all collapses?
never Really got the FEEL of the cultural revolution.. It always seemed so distant and foreign
Thankl Gaia that i will soon understand it VERY WELL.. It will Soon seem like everyday life.
'Schools closed down to allow students to 'engage in revolution...'
Sounds like modern-day America.
Give school children time off to march with BLM, Antifa, NARAL, and the LGBTQRS flavor of the month.
It's good for the GPA and it reinforces liberal brainwashing.
Win-win.
I think we need to look at the curriculum and the attitude toward free speech in the Education schools (teacher training) in order to understand why teachers are acting like Red Guards against parents and conservative students. I believe there must be an atmosphere of stifling conformity in addition to whatever Maoist texts they use there. No one has ever come out alive to say so but that just shows how bad it is in there. Right?
The following was written by a Russian, Sozhenitsyn, about the Soviet Gulags, but is perfectly applicable to the Red Guards and the Maoist Cultural Revolution, and to other tyrants today.
"And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say goodbye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrest, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood that they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand? After all, you knew ahead of time that those bluecaps were out at night for no good purpose. And you could be sure ahead of time that you’d be cracking the skull of a cutthroat. What about the Black Maria sitting out there on the street with one lonely chauffeur – what if it had been driven off or its tires spiked. The Organs [Soviet state institutions] would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt!"
Here's hoping the Ukrainians have a greater will to resist their invaders than the rest of Europe and the US, and that the Taiwanese understand that scorched earth is the only way to meet communists with any hope for the future.
The progressives would never do that. Burn books. They'll just block you from social media and freeze you bank account. They're not afraid of books because kids don't read.
If America is still worth saving, we will see it in people shooting American would be Red Guards
I confess I'm a bit surprised that people haven't been setting up in nearby buildings, shooting a couple of Antifa / BLM rioters, and then disappearing.
I guess the situation is that they haven't yet tried to destroy the life of a competent gun owner
In the words of Suzy Creamcheese (aka, Frank Zappa): "It can't happen here."
It was not safe in China at that time to keep any physical connection to the past and so many families did what Weiwei's did.
Much of China's past was destroyed in those years and there are ancient Chinese books which can only be read in the West, since all the Chinese copies were destroyed. Not much in China is very old, too many wars and revolutions.
Coming soon to the U.S.A.
I am going to read this book. Thank you.
This is not, as Stephen St. Onge and others have said above, coming soon to America. It is already here but -- and this is a big-ass but -- it is here in the American form. That form, a metaphorical pinata filled with both candy and poison, will never allow a true repeat of the Cultural Revolution, the Soviet revolution, or the French Revolution. Deep in our DNA and shallow in our Constitution are barriers to absolute sway of any ideological homogeneity. The Canadians, the Australians, the New Zealanders all have a touch of our rebel spirit but we Americans are born in it, drenched in it, shaped from head to toe by it. We are all Protestant nations and that word "protest" defines us.
I'm not worried about America falling into ruin. The great reversal is never more than an election or two away.
Isn't this just like the way Maus was destroyed as we were discussing a couple weeks ago?
@John Henry:Isn't this just like the way Maus was destroyed as we were discussing a couple weeks ago?
Poe's Law: without a clear indicator of the author's intent, every parody of extreme views can be mistaken by some readers for a sincere expression of the views being parodied.
Who, when, where, and how did they manage to transpose the parties' color associations in America?
"I'm a bit surprised that people haven't been setting up in nearby buildings, shooting a couple of Antifa / BLM rioters, and then disappearing."
The State would do everything in its power to hunt you down if you did such. Antifa/BLM get away with their riots because they have the blessing of the State; you do not. In a de-policed society, the remaining police will be deployed selectively.
"It was a commitment to reason, to a sense of beauty—these things are unbending, uncompromising, and any effort to suppress them is bound to provoke resistance."
“Ignorance is not a motionless state. It is an active accomplishment requiring an ever-vigilant understanding of what not to know” (Gross & McGoey, 2018)
This is the modern Left and the Academy. Yes, I am sure our hostess had wonderful fancy cocktail parties with these people, and was wowed by their big heartedness to their fellows.
But all for the party and nothing outside the party.
Althouse has, I believe, felt the other side of their tongues.
How does one reform these people?
Great Sci-Fi book, by a Chinese author about heros including Chinese folk, is The Three Body Problem
First couple chapters include dramatization about this period, from a daughter of a physicist, (who goes on to contact the aliens.)
If the 1st amendment ain't working for ya', then try the 2nd!!
Blogger Greg The Class Traitor said...
I confess I'm a bit surprised that people haven't been setting up in nearby buildings, shooting a couple of Antifa / BLM rioters, and then disappearing
It's because only cucks like you think of doing that but lack the courage of your convictions. It's ironic but everyone knows that big talking macho cowards like you are afraid to do what is essentially a cowardly act. At least that dumb fuck Rittenhouse kid was willing to get down and dirty in the street.
Howard said...
Greg The Class Traitor said...
I confess I'm a bit surprised that people haven't been setting up in nearby buildings, shooting a couple of Antifa / BLM rioters, and then disappearing
It's because only cucks like you think of doing that but lack the courage of your convictions. It's ironic but everyone knows that big talking macho cowards like you are afraid to do what is essentially a cowardly act. At least that dumb fuck Rittenhouse kid was willing to get down and dirty in the street.
Rittenhouse was a nieve kid who thought there were protesters who were valuable people.
I'm not that stupid.
Rioting and destroying peoples property when you're part of a mob that the police have been ordered to leave alone is a cowardly act.
Shooting Brownshirts is a public spirited act.
I'm happy to report that the Brownshirts have stayed away from where I live, and nobody, so far, has "cancelled" me, putting me in the position of "nothing left to lose, let's see how many I can take with me."
Howard, you do realize that your side is the Nazis, right? That when the government is trying to kill people (by freezing their ability to buy food, buy gas, pay to heat their homes, etc) for the "crime" of donating $40 to a peaceful political protest, and you're cheering them on, that marks you as being the total scum?
Or are you really too stupid to figure that out?
Howard, last summer BLM/alsofa decided to mount a demonstration in Boise, ID.
The streets were lined with 2A enthusiasts.
BLM/alsofa skeddadled.
Howard. Someone might choose to leave the stage as the Eastwood character in "Gran Torino".
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