The Red Guards & the Cultural Revolution

I first began reading about this time in Chinese history recently. Well, correction - I had been assigned the book Eighth Moon, by Bette Bao Lord, in high school. It's about the time period of the revolution before the Cultural Revolution. Even before the Red Guard terrorized the Chinese people, particularly the teachers and other educators, the roots of that madness were apparent.

Lord wrote of events she had experienced first-hand, before she was able to escape to freedom in the United States. I doubt that her story would be considered worthy of study in schools dominated by Progressive ideology, that chose to ignore the abuses of Left-leaning governments.

What I find interesting is the degree to which both modern movements, such as Occupy Democrats and other 'anti-fa' actions, and the original Red Guards of Mao's China, work as a Collective. The quotes below come from an amazing study, published in 2001, Student Attacks Against Teachers: The Revolution of 1966, by Youqin Wang. She is a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago.

In most cases, beatings were a collective activity, conducted not by individual students but by a group of Red Guards. A group of Red Guards acted together, inciting each other and encouraging hostilities. Sometimes, a beating took place in front of hundreds of people. On such occasions, everyone just wanted to show his/her sympathy for brutality and cruelty against the “enemies.” On the other hand, when a person was beaten to death, the group of beaters would not take responsibility as individuals and thus did not fear committing murder.

The callous use of young people is one of the most disgusting parts of this. By using kids to denounce influential adults (including, at times, their own family), the Chinese leadership obliterated the traditional respect for older people, and forced kids to rely on the 'revolutionary cadre' for their family.

Was extreme youth a factor? Certainly, the leaders targeted younger people as the most malleable group. However, it must be said that these were not those we think of as middle-school age. They were certainly old enough to have developed a conscience.

 the middle school students beat many more teachers to death than college and elementary school students. In the summer of 1966, middle school students were from fourteen to nineteen years old. They had received more than seven years of education—higher than the average level of education in China. Therefore, “ignorance” or “innocence” cannot be used as excuses for the cruelty. Nonetheless, the degree of the violent persecution that students implemented may be related to their ages to a certain extent.

Coincidentally, that's the age which has been used by many high school 'activist' teachers to round up bodies for their 'protests'.

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The Handmaid's Tale

Far from being a disturbingly prophetic glimpse into America's future, should Trump and his ilk not get ousted, The Handmaid's Tale is a tired, dated, and slanted view of non-Democratic Party goals.

Take one aspect of the story: Offred is forced to participate in a bizarrely-described ritual to compensate for the infertility of the ruling class wives.

Well, that DOES happen today - we call it 'surrogate pregnancy'. Can't even call it 'surrogate mothering' anymore - the Progressives that favor that practice have divorced the conception part - egg meets sperm in a petri dish - from the gestation part - the fertilized egg is deliberately NOT placed into the woman who donated it, but into another woman's womb.

Why?

Because by splitting up those parts of a pregnancy, the woman who carries the child for 9 months has no genetic connection to that child, and, hence, absolutely NO messy parenthood rights.

The new 'parents' can take the kid, make their cash payment, and walk away without a thought for that woman. Who - BTW - will be feeling the natural post-partum emotional letdown and physical repair, without a child to ease the process.

It's what Elites do with those 'deplorables'. They use them, and walk away.

The actual genetic mother to that child, after selling that egg (in the process of providing eggs, she will have exposed herself to chemicals that often have devastating after-effects), will not have developed a relationship, and will, therefore, be considerably less likely to assert parental rights.

Who are those people who are most often using these surrogacy services?

Elites. Not MAGA-cap wearers. Not Bible-believing Christians - Elites are far more likely to be lukewarm 'spiritual' practitioners, or secularists. Those with the money for that process are MORE likely to ally with Progressive views.

The Handmaid's Tale is recycled Progressive lunacy (it was written while Reagan was president). I read it at that time - it was a mediocre story, even then.

Those who think this is a timely allegory for our society are engaging in Group-Think.

Group-Think is a major problem in societies. This book, and the show made from it, are attempting to inflame emotions and enforce conformity of thought.

For a look at a time period when a society tried to encourage its young people to use force to get all citizens to conform, look to the Chinese Cultural Revolution.

BTW - did you know that an early meeting of the Red Guards with Mao Ze Dong was in Tianenman Square, August 18 1966?

I am becoming passionately interested in the Cultural Revolution and the Red Guards. I will be scheduling a future post on that topic.

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