Wake up（261）

 

Chapter 46 Brainwashing

 

261

 

The night view of Hong Kong is very dreamy. In this dreamy night, the two professors Hong Wenxuan and Shen Zhirui continued to chat in this small cafe in Hong Kong. They chatted about the past events of the Cultural Revolution and going to the countryside. They also talked about whether there will be a version 2.0 of the Cultural Revolution in China today, and once again promoting the "new era project" of going to the mountains and going to the countryside, what will it bring to people's livelihood.

In many respects, Shen Zhirui and Hong Wenxuan have a common understanding. They are opposed to overturning the case of the Cultural Revolution, and they are also opposed to promoting the new movement of going to the mountains and going to the countryside.

Hong Wenxuan, professor of sociology, explored the characteristics of Chinese culture from a sociological perspective. Chinese people always like to show off the splendor of Chinese culture, but what is Chinese culture? Hong Wenxuan believes that the brainwashed Chinese people are increasingly being obliterated by the so-called "Chinese culture". In fact, "Chinese culture" is a kind of mass culture, which regards mediocrity and vulgarity as the most valuable thing.

Hong Wenxuan said: Chinese culture is the civilization system of China and the Greater China region. Its earliest form was the Central Plains culture developed in the Central Plains region of the Yellow River Basin. Later, after a long period of historical evolution, and continuous contact with foreign nations and cultural integration, Formed the Chinese culture known today. Chinese culture is based on the "Poetry", "Book", "Li", "Yue", "Yi", "Spring and Autumn", six arts, auspicious, fierce, guest, military, Jia five rituals and benevolence, righteousness, The five constants of propriety, wisdom and faith are the core. A large amount of scientific accumulation from the research on the evolution of the natural environment and the evolution of Chinese civilization shows that Chinese culture has the characteristics of "multiple and integrated structure".

The Three Emperors and Five Emperors are said to be the origin of Chinese civilization. These ancient histories and figures often appear in the form of myths, and it is difficult to investigate their authenticity. The debates in today's academic circles about the origin of Chinese civilization are actually disputes over "hypotheses".

Chinese mythology generally refers to a collection of ancient legends, history, religion, and rituals. It is usually circulated in ancient societies through oral, fables, novels, rituals, dances, or operas. Myths may reflect the real situation in ancient times. , but no matter how you interpret it, it is just a myth.

"Historical Records" records that history begins with the Yellow Emperor. From Tang, Yu to Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties were all feudal times, and emperors and princes divided and ruled. The biggest feature of the culture of the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties is the enfeoffment system. The biggest difference between the Zhou Dynasty and the Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties is that there is a system of patriarchal clan system and ritual education.

During the period from Wei Jin to Tang, Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, the introduction of Buddhism and the subsequent rise of Taoism have become important elements of Chinese culture. Western culture and technology were introduced to China with missionaries in the Ming Dynasty. Therefore, in the late Ming Dynasty, many disciplines such as mathematics, physics, astronomy, geography, botany, medicine, and rhythm, as well as technologies such as machinery, metallurgy, agriculture, and water conservancy, were scientifically created and summarized. However, due to the adoption of "eight-legged essays" in the imperial examination, for the sake of unification of thought and fairness of examination scoring, the thinking of literati became increasingly rigid. Later, the Ming Dynasty perished, but Chinese people’s study of Western culture continued until the late Kangxi reign of the Qing Dynasty. Later, the “Chinese Ritual Controversy” occurred because of the Roman Holy See’s order to prohibit Chinese Christians under the Qing Dynasty from offering sacrifices to Confucius and their ancestors. Emperor Yongzheng, Emperor Qianlong, and Emperor Jiaqing of the Qing Dynasty strictly banned religion, which hindered scientific and cultural exchanges between China and the West.

On the eve of the fall of the Qing Dynasty and the early days of the Republic of China, the ideas of democratic politics and communism formed in the West had a huge impact on Chinese culture. The Beiyang warlord government advocated Confucianism, so in the early 20th century, the Chinese cultural circle launched the New Culture Movement, advocating the replacement of Confucian culture with modern democratic and scientific Western culture, and promoting the progress of Chinese culture with Western culture.

After the Chinese Communist Party seized power, Soviet-Russian culture became popular in China. When the Cultural Revolution swept across China, the original Chinese culture was destroyed. At first, only 8 sets of model operas or plays promoting class struggle were performed, as well as loyalty dances and a series of revolutionary songs. Lao Mao posters were plastered all over the streets. Wool clothing has also become a cultural feature of clothing at this time. The Movement to Destroy the Four Olds and Criticize Confucianism overthrew traditional Chinese culture. The so-called new culture is actually Chinese culture influenced by Marxism-Leninism. What are the characteristics of Chinese culture today? That is the religious culture that accepts the leadership of the Communist Party, as well as the Confucius Institutes that promote communism. The most popular folk proverbs in popular culture are "Get promoted and get rich", "Everything depends on money", "Money can make ghosts grind", "Stay silent make a fortune".

Hong Wenxuan told Shen Zhirui: Thousands of years of Chinese history have not created an excellent and splendid culture and civilization. The so-called Chinese culture is the emperor's culture of loyalty to the emperor and serving the country, the philosophy of slaves, and the education of foolish people. The grassroots are always easy to become part of the ignorant group controlled by the ruler. The ignorant grassroots are easily used by the ambitious rulers. Even if you think you are just echoing, in fact, these grassroots have become ruler The victim's accomplice is self-mutilation.

Shen Zhirui said: I have studied psychology for a long time, and in recent years I have studied group psychology. Analyzing China today from a psychological point of view, I believe that the exaggerated tendencies of grassroots groups only affect emotions, and have no effect on intelligence. The grassroots group is not good at reasoning, does not know how to think independently, but is eager to act, and these actions are blind and ignorant. That self-righteous person does not think that the movement to the countryside is a disaster. On the contrary, he cherishes that time very much. He said: "Seven years of hard life in the mountains and the countryside has given me a lot of exercise." "I almost never rest 365 days a year, except for illness. When it rains and winds, I cut grass with them in the cave dwelling and watch it at night. Then go to herd sheep with them, and do all kinds of work, because I carried 200 catties of wheat at that time, and I didn’t change shoulders on the mountain road for ten miles.” “The experience of going to the mountains and going to the countryside has a profound impact on me, which made me form a down-to-earth, The character of self-improvement."

The crime of the Going to the Countryside Movement is that it deprives the educated youth of their natural human rights to make a living, choose a job, and move freely. The vast majority of educated youth were either brainwashed or coerced into that movement due to strong political pressure. Although the pressure of urban employment was suspended at that time, the youth of tens of millions of young people was wasted and countless families were torn apart.

Hong Wenxuan said to Shen Zhirui: I don't think he was nostalgic for that time. He said these words with ulterior motives, and he used this to resume a new round of going to the mountains and going to the countryside. This is not purely to solve employment and economic problems, but a means to consolidate the regime and control the people. We cannot and will not forget Mao Zedong's continuous "anti-restoration" struggle in the cultural field.

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Mao Zedong attached great importance to the "anti-restoration" struggle in the ideological field. He believed that in order to overthrow a regime, public opinion must be built first, and ideological work must be done first. The revolutionary class is like this, and the counter-revolutionary class is also like this. .

As early as the Yan'an period before the founding of the People's Republic of China, Mao Zedong immediately wrote a letter of thanks to the Yan'an Pingju Theater after watching the Pingju Opera "Forcing the Liangshan Mountains", saying: "History is created by the people, but on the stage of old dramas (in all old literature and old arts that have left the people) (above) The people have become scum, and the stage is ruled by masters, wives, young masters and ladies. This kind of historical reversal is now reversed by you, and the historical appearance has been restored. Since then, the old drama has opened up a new life, so it is worth celebrating."

Having established the People's Republic of China, Mao Zedong believed that while consolidating power and restoring the economy, close attention must be paid to class struggle in the cultural sphere. He personally led and criticized the films "Secret History of the Qing Palace" and "The Biography of Wu Xun", criticized Hu Shi's bourgeois ideology, and supported and criticized Yu Pingbai's "A Study of a Dream of Red Mansions". He commanded and personally criticized the so-called "counter-revolutionary group" composed of a group of intellectuals headed by Hu Feng. Mao Zedong was most dissatisfied with the cultural and art departments. He often severely criticized the work in the ideological and cultural fields such as culture, education, health, and theory, and severely criticized the departments of the party and the state leading the work in the ideological and cultural fields. The struggle is regarded as an important struggle to consolidate the dictatorship of the proletariat and prevent the restoration of the old system and capitalism.

Since 1962, Mao Zedong faced the harsh fact that the imperialists attempted to implement "peaceful evolution" in China, and Khrushchev-style figures came to power in the Soviet Union, Hungary, Poland and other socialist countries. The trend of class struggle in the ideological field, the string of class struggle in the ideological and ideological field is getting tighter and tighter, from criticizing cultural figures and works in these fields, gradually pointing at the party and government leaders who lead these departments, and then suspecting that the central government has Revisionism, otherwise problems in the field of ideology and culture will not be repeatedly banned, and even show a serious tendency towards restoration.

Li Jiantong, a relative of Liu Zhidan, wrote the historical novel "Liu Zhidan" reflecting the history of the revolutionary base in northern Shaanxi. Because the history of the revolutionary base in northern Shaanxi is an important part of the history of Chinese revolution, from July 28 to August 4, 1962, "Workers' Daily" serialized some chapters of Li Jiantong's historical novel "Liu Zhidan", and "China Youth Daily" Also reproduced. However, regarding the history of the revolutionary base areas in northern Shaanxi involved in the novel, there has been controversy among the founders of some revolutionary base areas in northern Shaanxi. The people who founded the northern Shaanxi base reported to the central government that Xi Zhongxun and others who were implicated in the 1954 investigation of the "Gaorao anti-party group" had provided materials for Li Jiantong, so the novel did not correctly reflect the history of the northern Shaanxi base. Kang Sheng, the leader of the CCP in charge of ideology, and others believed that Li Jiantong wrote this novel with political purposes, and the publication of the novel was to reverse the case of the "Gao-Rao Anti-Party Group", and reported the opinions reflected by Yan Hongyan and others to Mao Zedong.

On September 24, 1962, at the Tenth Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, Mao Zedong talked about the entire historical period of the proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat. Regarding the class struggle in the field of ideology, Mao Zedong said to the novel "Liu Zhidan": "Isn't writing novels popular now? It is a great invention to use novels to carry out anti-party activities. Whenever a regime is to be overthrown, public opinion must first be formed. The ideological work must be done first. This is true of the revolutionary class, and it is also true of the counter-revolutionary class.”

Shen Zhirui said to Hong Wenxuan:

Xi Zhongxun was knocked down, and his son lost his free youth for this. But his son seems to have forgotten the suffering his father experienced, and instead raised the old Mao's banner even higher. This is not his ignorance, but his ambition. For him, the false and the true can work almost equally. They clearly show the brainwashing courses that do not distinguish between the true and the false. They turn a thought into an act of belief and require all the people to brainwash their hearts. This is really a shameless manipulation. Folk art.