我的心血之作《黄河清圣人出，如何认识我们的圣贤》以及网友评论今天都被网管删除了！没有理由！我的文章里面并没有任何反党反社会主义言论。
呜呼哀哉！我的文章，我的爱！
不能说话，不能表达，对人来说，是大不幸！我感到悲哀！
可是我的一个朋友，中共党员，政府部门一个副处级干部。他说，政府不让看国外的网站，我自己也不想看呀；你说绿霸，我的电脑都没安装啊，我也认为我有充分的言论自由呀。。。
他有这样的认识，一方面是因为他大小也算是官僚阶层一员（虽然以他的能力，不应该只是一个副处），放弃他那个阶层和那一点即得利益是不容易的。另一方面，源于他在经历了人生若干磨难后，以党员干部之身，皈依了佛门（当然，这些都是隐秘的，不能让组织知道），于是他似乎开悟了。他从此看轻了一切灾难痛苦的根源 ——都在于他自己。于是他把一切家庭、生活、工作的不幸都认为是自己的错！他还认为体制没有好坏，人一切不幸的根源都在于人自己，在于人性的弱点。
这看起来是多末超脱啊。可是至少，一、他不能放弃自己的即得利益，象佛祖放弃荣华富贵和王位那样，离开他的工作岗位到民间去体验疾苦。如果他体会一下一个下岗工人，一个失地农民，一个卖淫女，一个上访者，一个毒奶粉受害儿童的家长，或者一个家即将被拆迁的业主。。。的生活困境，会怎样？他会说我总是只看到黑暗的一面，说我眼里没有光明。但是佛眼里面就只有众生的痛苦，于是他才义无返顾地离开美丽光明的王宫去寻找普度众生的真理的。
二、他更不能公开表明自己的信仰，他还要在履历表上填明自己是中共党员，还要接受每年的党员干部考评，不断地参加党员干部的政治学习，不断地向党汇报思想，不断地在各种会上，说很多假话，可能他自己不认为这算是假话吧，但是佛祖知道。
三、当今中国，大部分不幸归根结底是体制之误，这个结论是若干年前他自己也认识到了的。至于里面人性的成分，也不是没有，可以具体分析，但是体制是首要的根本的矛盾。
此文以被新浪管理员隐匿一次，所以抢救至此。
我想你一定还记得我为什么离开祖国。你不是也坚定地支持我的决定吗？因为你知道自由于我，就如同空气，没有它我就会死啊。
今天我借此文纪念我被查封的文章，同时希望我的朋友真正地皈依到佛祖的怀抱，作一个真正的、自由的、慈悲的佛的孩子。
Monday, December 14, 2009
致新浪博客审查员先生
致新浪博客审查员先生(2009-12-14 11:44:41)
[编辑][删除]
标签：网管 杂谈 分类：政治杂谈
新浪博客审查员先生：
接到您的通知，说我的文章“《60年前的承諾（續三）》中因含有不适当内容，已被设置为私密博文”。这实在令我大惑不解，因我这篇文章中的内容都是来自我党的《解放日报》和《新华日报》上个世纪40年代的社论。这两份报纸作为我们党的喉舌，是上世纪40年代最具有进步意义的媒体，在当时的解放区国统区人民中间都享有很高声誉，为解放战争的胜利，为新中国的建立立下了汗马功劳，是需要后人，尤其是媒体人、知识分子牢记的光荣历史。
所以特此请教您通知中所指的不适当内容是什末？有没有什么文件规定依据？我想，虽然当前对网络等媒体的审查控制更加严格了，但是《解放日报》和《新华日报》绝对不应在禁绝之列。所以，请做进一步调查，取消对我这篇文章的限制为盼。
谢谢！
自由的风儿
分享到新浪微博
已投稿到： 排行榜 圈子(已加精)
阅读(25)|评论(3)|收藏(0)|打印|举报
前一篇：60年前的承諾（續二）
后一篇：我的文章及致友人
评论 重要提示：警惕虚假中奖信息，点击查看详情 免费任选1000款游戏新手卡[发评论]
*
怀念无瑕：
2009-12-14 11:57:48 [删除]
怎么?要对党在解放前的历史,进行河蟹?河蟹得也太过份了吧?
来自：“怀念无瑕“圈子
博主回复： 2009-12-14 22:42:04 [删除]
是啊！也许网管不太明白那段历史，或者只要是民主、自由，就草木皆兵。岂不知民主自由是我党获得人民支持，取得革命胜利的宝贵历史经验。
*
自由的风儿：
2009-12-15 00:43:11 [删除]
我的“黄河清，圣人出，认识我们的圣贤” 被删，甚至连通知都没有！
博主回复：
*
自由的风儿：
2009-12-15 03:42:33 [删除]
通知收到，可是删除是什么理由呢？只是本人的一些梦呓式只言片语，您是否过于敏感？
博主回复：
[编辑][删除]
标签：网管 杂谈 分类：政治杂谈
新浪博客审查员先生：
接到您的通知，说我的文章“《60年前的承諾（續三）》中因含有不适当内容，已被设置为私密博文”。这实在令我大惑不解，因我这篇文章中的内容都是来自我党的《解放日报》和《新华日报》上个世纪40年代的社论。这两份报纸作为我们党的喉舌，是上世纪40年代最具有进步意义的媒体，在当时的解放区国统区人民中间都享有很高声誉，为解放战争的胜利，为新中国的建立立下了汗马功劳，是需要后人，尤其是媒体人、知识分子牢记的光荣历史。
所以特此请教您通知中所指的不适当内容是什末？有没有什么文件规定依据？我想，虽然当前对网络等媒体的审查控制更加严格了，但是《解放日报》和《新华日报》绝对不应在禁绝之列。所以，请做进一步调查，取消对我这篇文章的限制为盼。
谢谢！
自由的风儿
分享到新浪微博
已投稿到： 排行榜 圈子(已加精)
阅读(25)|评论(3)|收藏(0)|打印|举报
前一篇：60年前的承諾（續二）
后一篇：我的文章及致友人
评论 重要提示：警惕虚假中奖信息，点击查看详情 免费任选1000款游戏新手卡[发评论]
*
怀念无瑕：
2009-12-14 11:57:48 [删除]
怎么?要对党在解放前的历史,进行河蟹?河蟹得也太过份了吧?
来自：“怀念无瑕“圈子
博主回复： 2009-12-14 22:42:04 [删除]
是啊！也许网管不太明白那段历史，或者只要是民主、自由，就草木皆兵。岂不知民主自由是我党获得人民支持，取得革命胜利的宝贵历史经验。
*
自由的风儿：
2009-12-15 00:43:11 [删除]
我的“黄河清，圣人出，认识我们的圣贤” 被删，甚至连通知都没有！
博主回复：
*
自由的风儿：
2009-12-15 03:42:33 [删除]
通知收到，可是删除是什么理由呢？只是本人的一些梦呓式只言片语，您是否过于敏感？
博主回复：
60年前的承諾
60年前的承諾(2009-12-11 06:00:53)
[编辑][删除]
标签：民主 政治 承諾 新華社 杂谈 分类：政治杂谈
60年前，我们共和国的缔造者在進行人民解放戰爭的辉煌篇章时，就签署了一张每一个人都能继承的期票。这张期票向所有人承诺———每人都享有天赋的生存权、自由权和追求幸福权。 这一庄严的承诺犹如灯塔的光芒，给千百万在那摧残生命的戰爭之火中受煎熬的人带来希望。
然而60年后的今天，我国显然对她的大部分公民拖欠着这张期票！我们必须正视大部分人还没有得到自由这一事实。60年后，大部分人依然生活在物质繁荣翰海的贫困孤岛上。60年后，大部分人依然在我国社会中间向隅而泣，依然感到自己在国土家园中流离漂泊。所以，我们今天来到这里，要把这让人难以置信的情况公诸于众。
我们决不相信正义的银行会破产。我们决不相信这个国家巨大的机会宝库会资金不足。因此，今天，我们来兑现这张支票。这张支票将给我们以宝贵的自由和正义的保障。
我们来到這裡还为了提醒國家：现在正是万分紧急的时刻。现在不是从容不迫悠然行事或服用渐进主义镇静剂的时候。现在是实现民主诺言的时候。。。现在是使上天的所有孩子真正享有公正的时候。
忽视这一时刻的紧迫性，对于国家将会是致命的。自由平等的朗朗秋日不到来，弱者顺情合理哀怨的酷暑就不会过去。這一年不是一个结束，而是一个开端。
如果国家依然我行我素，那些希望弱者只需出出气就会心满意足的人将大失所望。在我們得到公民权之前，我国既不会安宁，也不会平静。反抗的旋风将继续震撼我们国家的基石，直至光辉灿烂的正义之日来临。
我们將得体地进行斗争。我们將不断升华到用灵魂力量对付肉体力量的崇高境界。
－－－馬丁 路德 金 我侑一個夢想
讓我們重溫60年前共和國締造者對於民主的承諾
見後面3篇博文
[编辑][删除]
标签：民主 政治 承諾 新華社 杂谈 分类：政治杂谈
60年前，我们共和国的缔造者在進行人民解放戰爭的辉煌篇章时，就签署了一张每一个人都能继承的期票。这张期票向所有人承诺———每人都享有天赋的生存权、自由权和追求幸福权。 这一庄严的承诺犹如灯塔的光芒，给千百万在那摧残生命的戰爭之火中受煎熬的人带来希望。
然而60年后的今天，我国显然对她的大部分公民拖欠着这张期票！我们必须正视大部分人还没有得到自由这一事实。60年后，大部分人依然生活在物质繁荣翰海的贫困孤岛上。60年后，大部分人依然在我国社会中间向隅而泣，依然感到自己在国土家园中流离漂泊。所以，我们今天来到这里，要把这让人难以置信的情况公诸于众。
我们决不相信正义的银行会破产。我们决不相信这个国家巨大的机会宝库会资金不足。因此，今天，我们来兑现这张支票。这张支票将给我们以宝贵的自由和正义的保障。
我们来到這裡还为了提醒國家：现在正是万分紧急的时刻。现在不是从容不迫悠然行事或服用渐进主义镇静剂的时候。现在是实现民主诺言的时候。。。现在是使上天的所有孩子真正享有公正的时候。
忽视这一时刻的紧迫性，对于国家将会是致命的。自由平等的朗朗秋日不到来，弱者顺情合理哀怨的酷暑就不会过去。這一年不是一个结束，而是一个开端。
如果国家依然我行我素，那些希望弱者只需出出气就会心满意足的人将大失所望。在我們得到公民权之前，我国既不会安宁，也不会平静。反抗的旋风将继续震撼我们国家的基石，直至光辉灿烂的正义之日来临。
我们將得体地进行斗争。我们將不断升华到用灵魂力量对付肉体力量的崇高境界。
－－－馬丁 路德 金 我侑一個夢想
讓我們重溫60年前共和國締造者對於民主的承諾
見後面3篇博文
自由中国颂 Ode to a Free China
这里是一个自由的家园。不管你在世界的哪个角落，我们都是炎黄的子孙，我们都是兄弟姊妹，我们都有一个共同的家园－－自由中国！
我们炎黄子孙，同胞之情，血浓于水，我们无法看到同胞遭受苦难而不顾；我们此生别无他求，就是要实现自己的使命：为子孙后代的自由幸福而奋斗！希望您能理解我们，加入我们。
这是来自生命深处地呼唤：炎黄的后代，华夏的英雄， 在这个重要的历史转折关头，让我们勇敢地承担起我们的使命和责任吧！
为了自由和子孙后代的幸福，我们义无返顾地扑向烈火。
当有一天，
我们的子孙后代问起我们，
在这个特殊的危急的时代，
你为你的同胞，做了些什么？
我们可以自豪的说：
我曾经为了我们的自由而奋斗！
我曾经 为了给你一个美好的未来而奋斗！
我曾经颠沛流离，四海为家，
为了你能拥有一个美丽的家园！
我曾经仰天长啸，痛哭流泪，
为了你总是阳光灿烂，笑靥如花！
我曾经流血牺牲，为了你不再流血牺牲！
When one day, our children ask us:”
What have you done for Chinese people,
when they were in that special and urgent time?”
We can answer them proudly like this:”
I have fought for the freedom of our people!
I have fought for you to have a better future!
I have been exiled and roamed everywhere,
for you to have a beautiful and peaceful home.
I have shouted to the heavens,
I have cried with tears that flood my eyes,
for you to have sunshine on your face,
for you to have smiles like flowers forever!
I have bled, wounded and sacrificed my life,
for you will never have to bleed, wound and sacrifice”
我们炎黄子孙，同胞之情，血浓于水，我们无法看到同胞遭受苦难而不顾；我们此生别无他求，就是要实现自己的使命：为子孙后代的自由幸福而奋斗！希望您能理解我们，加入我们。
这是来自生命深处地呼唤：炎黄的后代，华夏的英雄， 在这个重要的历史转折关头，让我们勇敢地承担起我们的使命和责任吧！
为了自由和子孙后代的幸福，我们义无返顾地扑向烈火。
当有一天，
我们的子孙后代问起我们，
在这个特殊的危急的时代，
你为你的同胞，做了些什么？
我们可以自豪的说：
我曾经为了我们的自由而奋斗！
我曾经 为了给你一个美好的未来而奋斗！
我曾经颠沛流离，四海为家，
为了你能拥有一个美丽的家园！
我曾经仰天长啸，痛哭流泪，
为了你总是阳光灿烂，笑靥如花！
我曾经流血牺牲，为了你不再流血牺牲！
When one day, our children ask us:”
What have you done for Chinese people,
when they were in that special and urgent time?”
We can answer them proudly like this:”
I have fought for the freedom of our people!
I have fought for you to have a better future!
I have been exiled and roamed everywhere,
for you to have a beautiful and peaceful home.
I have shouted to the heavens,
I have cried with tears that flood my eyes,
for you to have sunshine on your face,
for you to have smiles like flowers forever!
I have bled, wounded and sacrificed my life,
for you will never have to bleed, wound and sacrifice”
黄河清圣人出，如何认识即将来到中国的圣贤
2008年6月份，黃河壺口瀑布十里龍槽上游五百多米的水流寬度縮小至兩百多米，並出現河水變清的罕見景象。在三國時期，魏朝的李康在《運命論》中提到： 「夫黃河清而聖人生。」傳說黃河五百年變清一次。甚至還有「千年難見黃河清」的說法。唐朝著名的預言《推背圖》第五十四象中的頌曰：不分牛鼠與牛羊去毛存 鞹尚稱強 寰中自有真龍出 九曲黃河水不黃。黃河壺口的河水由黃變清似乎在告訴人們聖人已在神州。
這個即將來到我們中間的聖人到底是怎麼樣的人呢？当她／他来到你身边的时候，你能认出來他／她来嗎？请用你的心來認識他／她／他們吧
他／她們是先知，他們與宇宙天地相通，他們是宇宙天道與人之間的橋梁，肩負上天賦予的神聖使命。帶着宇宙天道的信息和力量，他們的目光穿越時空，他們的智慧貫穿過去、現在和未來。所以他們将站在这个時代的最前列，引導人民走向自由。
他們知道自己的神聖使命，知道自己何時該來。
他們身上的天賦使命使得他們象耶穌基督和释迦牟尼佛祖一樣毫無自私自利之心，為了普天下的大眾，為了人类子孫後代的利益，執著奮鬥，甚至獻出生命。
她／他們也許就在你的周圍。你可以看到他／她們身上具有这样一些特别的品質：
她／他們知識豐富，智慧卓然，具有深邃的洞察力，是時代的思想家；
他／她們品德高尚、堅持正义，不與恶世俗同流合污；
他 ／她們意志堅定，执着地去做他／她們該做的事情，执着地走在他／她們的道路上；
他／她們具有自我犧牲的精神和平等博愛的情懷，用溫和悲憫的目光關注所有的人、生命和自然。
如羅素說：這樣的人一生的信念就是追求愛、真理和對民眾疾苦的同情。
幾千年了，除了先秦的百家諸子，你認為這樣的人，還不該再次降臨中華大地嬤？
難道今日上天只眷顧西方之欧陆嬤？不，遙遠的東方這塊神州，也是上天所眷顧的土地；這裡的人民，也是上天所眷顧的人民。
她／他們會再來的。她／他也許是一個人，也許是一群人。他们將是当代的老子，是中國的摩西、佛祖、耶稣基督、默罕默德、華盛頓、傑奜遜、甘地、馬丁路德金、图图，昂山素季......
当他／她們出現的時候，人們將追隨他們。而他們將改變這塊山河大地，帶領人們，引導人民走向自由！
不要認為你也許只是平常人。追問你的內心，你是否正在困惑？是否感覺侑神祕的力量曾支配你的心和良知，驅使你的行為？你是否感覺到了這力量？
每個人都侑自己的使命，上天賦予我們每個人不同的使命。 追問你的內心，找到你的使命！跟隨你的使命的召喚！
歷史的潮流浩蕩前進，不可阻擋！每個人都可以在這個特殊的時刻，找到自己的位置。每個人都可以成為英雄！或許你的使命就是追随着圣贤的脚步，做時代的英雄，推動歷史的進步！
• 汉长风：
2009-11-29 13:09:57 [删除]
你在问谁？你就是！黄河清，圣人出。记住，不是圣人出黄河清。向雷锋同志学习！
清阳温荷：
2009-12-01 01:11:33 [删除]
上帝赋予每个人正义、勇敢与仁爱之心。
博主回复： 2009-12-12 05:15:30 [删除]
是的。上帝／天道也赋予每个人各自的使命。发现你的使命，用你正义、勇敢与仁爱之心去实现它。
• 汉长风：
2009-12-09 20:35:47 [删除]
看不懂雷锋？就是向你学习！
博主回复： 2009-12-12 01:42:18 [删除]
雷鋒並不在我上面列舉的聖賢之列。他所崇敬的不是天道真理，而只是某一個人。他侑那末好的天性，但是他短暫的人生還沒來得及接觸其它的東西就結束了，他還沒有來得及思考和質疑。如果他活的長久一些，也許他的天性會讓他接近真理。
新浪网友：
2009-12-12 00:33:21 [删除]
如其说是圣人，不如说大师更好。
是的，这场人类从来不曾有过的伟大事业，的确在呼唤它的大师。
这样的大师，他们有圣人的品格，如你所言，他们爱、平等、坚忍、牺牲，乐于奉献，没有任何个人的名利，只以天下苍生为己任，因而他们具有万众归心的人格魅力和精神感召力。他们虚怀若谷，从善如流，因而能精诚合作；
这样的大师，他们是最杰出的思想家。他们博览群书，学识超群，对人类文明已经达到高度有全面幽深的认知，因而思想深刻，洞察人情；
这样的大师，他们也应该是非凡的政治家、组织工作者、社会活动家。他们不是书斋里的学者，而是有丰富的人生阅历，经历过许多坎坷、磨难甚至迫害，因而对社会现实有深切的了解，这种丰富的阅历也煅炼他们超强的活动能力。
大师安在哉？！
博主回复： 2009-12-12 02:15:29 [删除]
謝謝！是的！時代在呼喚聖賢大師的出現！
聖人、聖者、聖哲、大師，無論稱呼，其中藴涵的意義是一致的。是的，她／他們是聖賢、思想家和行動者。
她／他們的出現必定是上天的安排，是上天對神州的眷顧。他們肩負神聖的天道使命，上天賦予他們的人格力量，和他們在人世所經歷的特殊的磨礪鍛造，將使他們化解一切困難，來到人們中間，帶領人們行動！
她／他們出現的時候，人們一定會認出來，追隨他們
這個即將來到我們中間的聖人到底是怎麼樣的人呢？当她／他来到你身边的时候，你能认出來他／她来嗎？请用你的心來認識他／她／他們吧
他／她們是先知，他們與宇宙天地相通，他們是宇宙天道與人之間的橋梁，肩負上天賦予的神聖使命。帶着宇宙天道的信息和力量，他們的目光穿越時空，他們的智慧貫穿過去、現在和未來。所以他們将站在这个時代的最前列，引導人民走向自由。
他們知道自己的神聖使命，知道自己何時該來。
他們身上的天賦使命使得他們象耶穌基督和释迦牟尼佛祖一樣毫無自私自利之心，為了普天下的大眾，為了人类子孫後代的利益，執著奮鬥，甚至獻出生命。
她／他們也許就在你的周圍。你可以看到他／她們身上具有这样一些特别的品質：
她／他們知識豐富，智慧卓然，具有深邃的洞察力，是時代的思想家；
他／她們品德高尚、堅持正义，不與恶世俗同流合污；
他 ／她們意志堅定，执着地去做他／她們該做的事情，执着地走在他／她們的道路上；
他／她們具有自我犧牲的精神和平等博愛的情懷，用溫和悲憫的目光關注所有的人、生命和自然。
如羅素說：這樣的人一生的信念就是追求愛、真理和對民眾疾苦的同情。
幾千年了，除了先秦的百家諸子，你認為這樣的人，還不該再次降臨中華大地嬤？
難道今日上天只眷顧西方之欧陆嬤？不，遙遠的東方這塊神州，也是上天所眷顧的土地；這裡的人民，也是上天所眷顧的人民。
她／他們會再來的。她／他也許是一個人，也許是一群人。他们將是当代的老子，是中國的摩西、佛祖、耶稣基督、默罕默德、華盛頓、傑奜遜、甘地、馬丁路德金、图图，昂山素季......
当他／她們出現的時候，人們將追隨他們。而他們將改變這塊山河大地，帶領人們，引導人民走向自由！
不要認為你也許只是平常人。追問你的內心，你是否正在困惑？是否感覺侑神祕的力量曾支配你的心和良知，驅使你的行為？你是否感覺到了這力量？
每個人都侑自己的使命，上天賦予我們每個人不同的使命。 追問你的內心，找到你的使命！跟隨你的使命的召喚！
歷史的潮流浩蕩前進，不可阻擋！每個人都可以在這個特殊的時刻，找到自己的位置。每個人都可以成為英雄！或許你的使命就是追随着圣贤的脚步，做時代的英雄，推動歷史的進步！
• 汉长风：
2009-11-29 13:09:57 [删除]
你在问谁？你就是！黄河清，圣人出。记住，不是圣人出黄河清。向雷锋同志学习！
清阳温荷：
2009-12-01 01:11:33 [删除]
上帝赋予每个人正义、勇敢与仁爱之心。
博主回复： 2009-12-12 05:15:30 [删除]
是的。上帝／天道也赋予每个人各自的使命。发现你的使命，用你正义、勇敢与仁爱之心去实现它。
• 汉长风：
2009-12-09 20:35:47 [删除]
看不懂雷锋？就是向你学习！
博主回复： 2009-12-12 01:42:18 [删除]
雷鋒並不在我上面列舉的聖賢之列。他所崇敬的不是天道真理，而只是某一個人。他侑那末好的天性，但是他短暫的人生還沒來得及接觸其它的東西就結束了，他還沒有來得及思考和質疑。如果他活的長久一些，也許他的天性會讓他接近真理。
新浪网友：
2009-12-12 00:33:21 [删除]
如其说是圣人，不如说大师更好。
是的，这场人类从来不曾有过的伟大事业，的确在呼唤它的大师。
这样的大师，他们有圣人的品格，如你所言，他们爱、平等、坚忍、牺牲，乐于奉献，没有任何个人的名利，只以天下苍生为己任，因而他们具有万众归心的人格魅力和精神感召力。他们虚怀若谷，从善如流，因而能精诚合作；
这样的大师，他们是最杰出的思想家。他们博览群书，学识超群，对人类文明已经达到高度有全面幽深的认知，因而思想深刻，洞察人情；
这样的大师，他们也应该是非凡的政治家、组织工作者、社会活动家。他们不是书斋里的学者，而是有丰富的人生阅历，经历过许多坎坷、磨难甚至迫害，因而对社会现实有深切的了解，这种丰富的阅历也煅炼他们超强的活动能力。
大师安在哉？！
博主回复： 2009-12-12 02:15:29 [删除]
謝謝！是的！時代在呼喚聖賢大師的出現！
聖人、聖者、聖哲、大師，無論稱呼，其中藴涵的意義是一致的。是的，她／他們是聖賢、思想家和行動者。
她／他們的出現必定是上天的安排，是上天對神州的眷顧。他們肩負神聖的天道使命，上天賦予他們的人格力量，和他們在人世所經歷的特殊的磨礪鍛造，將使他們化解一切困難，來到人們中間，帶領人們行動！
她／他們出現的時候，人們一定會認出來，追隨他們
Friday, July 17, 2009
Return to the Cave
Return to the Cave:
Education in a Transitional Society
1. Introduction
As John Dewey said, different societies have different types of education, so does the spirit, material and method of education. He said, “to make the general ideas set forth applicable to our own educational practice, it is, therefore, necessary to closer quarter with the nature of present social life” (Dewey, 1916). In this paper, I present my philosophy of education, as shaped by my life experiences as a member of Chinese society but influenced by my exposure to American society in the last two years.
More specifically, I have come to realize that education has two levels. At one level, education offers knowledge and information, providing people with a range of skills, from literacy to science and mathematics. At a second level, education teaches people to discover themselves, to fulfill their natural gifts and to pursue the truths of life. At both levels, there is a central figure involved: the teacher. In schools, instructors are central and in life’s education processes we also encounter influential persons who are also our teachers. In this paper, I trace both my philosophy of the role of teaching in education and my own narrative in my voyage to become a teacher as well.
2. The Cave
My homeland, China, was essentially a feudal society for over two thousand years (221B.C. to 1912A.D.), a mixture of feudal, colonial and democratic societies for 37 years (1912-1949), and a typical communist society for 29 years (1949-1978). After 1978, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began to implement economic reforms that transformed China’s formerly planned economy into a Chinese-style market economy with somewhat similar characters to western-style market economies. The CCP has also made some political reforms, but compared with its economic reform, the political changes have been very small.
According to Plato’s Republic, there are five forms of government: the ideal states ruled by philosopher kings, timocracy, oligarchy, democracy and tyranny. I would catalog the present Chinese government as a tyranny, although I believe this is a transitional system and that the country will move toward democratic reforms as its economic development process accelerates and as the historical wave of countries that have moved to democracy continues.
Under this transitional society, there is a philosophical void to guide people’s hearts. About 100 years ago, many Chinese were looking for the reasons why China was a weak nation, and they attributed it to Chinese old philosophy---as expressed by Confucius Idea. So many criticized this philosophical worldview and converted instead to Marxist ideas, which were adapted by Mao and other communist followers to a society that was mostly feudal, and peasant-based (see Schurmann, 1968). This process reached its peak during the Cultural Revolution, which started in the mid-1960s, when the communist movement decided to get rid of any remaining pockets of Confucius ideas. Formal, academic education was essentially stopped and Chinese people were told to be educated in practice, with communist principles as the only guiding philosophy.
After 1978, the CCP changed its economic policies and Marxist economic ideas were heavily criticized, but still, in the political field, the CCP maintained its communist ideology and its control over the political system. This has generated a big conflict in the whole society. People are taught Marxism in school, but the whole society has changed and no one really believes those ideas any more. Recognizing this divide, the CCP has directed people to pursue material wealth, hoping that this focus will allow them to control people’s minds, but people cannot live without a spiritual foundation, without principles and philosophy. This has led to CCP to strengthen their grip on ideology and power. In schools, in the media, and elsewhere, discussion of freedom, democracy and alternative philosophies are strictly controlled. People cannot have any freedom of independent thinking, freedom of belief, and they are afraid to criticize the government.
The image I have of Chinese society at the present time is that of a dark cave. The schools, the media, etc. function in the shadow; and people can only see the shadows and are happy with the shadows, believing that the shadows are the truth. The CCP ideology taught in the schools and in the media feeds this illusion.
But there are some people who question the state’s monopoly on ideology, they think on their own, and can escape from the cave. Some are illuminated by their own self-consciousness and the need for freedom and self-determination. Western philosophers such as Rousseau, religious beliefs and their faith in God motivate others. They began to wake up, to break their chains, and escape to the outside. I am one of them.
As a former member of the Cave, I lived a very comfortable life there. But my exit is not connected to wealth. I am exiled by my own soul, a soul seeking freedom. I would rather live in light than stay in darkness. I believe the philosophy postulated by Rousseau and others that a basic human characteristic is self-determination. The pursuit of freedom is in our human nature, the calling from our soul. If you have never been in the Cave, you will never understand the empty feeling of living in shadows and the satisfaction of receiving light, of thinking and speaking freely, even while suffering some material shortage and a harder life.
I have told my own stories in my first paper---a way to enlightenment. Now, it is my time for me to prepare to return to the cave, to awake the other sleepy souls.
That is the reason I want to be a teacher. …
3. To be enlightened, to be a teacher, to return to the cave
What is the function of a teacher? An ancient Chinese scholar Hanyu said, “A teacher is someone who could propagate the Tao (the truth), impart professional knowledge, and resolve doubts.” This idea, that teachers seek to develop the ability of their students to think, to find the truth, to answer questions, resonates all the way to the present, as in the poem by John Schlatter: “I am a Teacher. I was born the first moment that a question leaped from the mouth of a child. I have been many people in many places. I am Socrates exciting the youth of Athens to discover new ideas through the use of questions. I am Anne Sullivan tapping out the secrets of the universe into the outstretched hand of Helen Keller. I am Aesop and Hans Christian Andersen revealing truth through countless stories.”
To fulfill these functions requires a teaching profession of the highest excellence. This is an issue that has resonated with educational researchers everywhere. I agree that only “the best and brightest should be entitled to teach” (Tomorrow’s Teachers, 1986).
And along this view, it means that the society should treat teachers with the highest respect. Historically, societies that gave the highest prestige to philosophers, scholars, and intellectuals also had some of the longest-lasting influences on the world. At the present time, it is, in fact, those school systems that see teaching as a high-prestige occupation in their country that have been the most successful, whether in Finland or in Singapore.
In Chinese history, teachers were highly respected; they have been called fathers of the children, or the holy persons. But since the Cultural Revolution, this tradition has been destroyed completely. At that time, teachers and professors became the symbol of “capitalist bourgeois intellectualism,” and the profession moved to the bottom of the ladder in prestige. Despite changes since the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976, teachers remain today with much lower prestige within the society. That is the tragedy of China as a society.
Now I am myself here at Teachers College, studying philosophy, economics, education, politics and so on, to become a teacher and –with others—change Chinese society so it recognizes the value of teachers. I love the knowledge I am acquiring at TC, because I believe knowledge can answer the questions in my life and enlighten me, just as I also believe that it can and should enlighten those back home in the Cave. I believe many of my country-people have the same questions as I have and they need to be enlightened as I needed before when I was there. So, it is our duty, us, who have escaped to return to the cave to educate our people with the truth we have learned. This is our duty, because the land there is our home. Although we have escaped, we still belong. The blood in our body, the food we have been feed, the culture we have been instilled etc., those are connections between us and the homeland that can never be broken. So, it is our duty now to be freely educated and to return to the cave, to be teachers, to wake up others, to save them. As teachers, we must become the best, wisest, and the noblest to do that.
My thinking on these issues follows John Dewey’s. He himself saw democratic institutions as the basis for strong, progressive societies. As he says: “Such societies were found to be democratic in quality, because of the greater freedom allowed the constituent members, and the conscious need of securing in individuals a consciously socialized interest, instead of trusting mainly to the force of customs operating under the control of a superior class.” And he saw education, and teachers specifically, as being crucial to sustaining and developing democratic institutions. He believed that the teacher needed to be gifted, stating that the teacher was “the prophet of God” and the “usherer of the true kingdom of God.”
Education is a timeless, lifelong process for human beings. The development of new knowledge and the transmission to society is a timeless activity. For those countries that are in Caves, our escape from those Caves is also a timeless mission, for the cave in China is one of many that mankind needs to dispel. In a world of great poverty, inequality, environmental degradation, etc., the presence of democracy and freedom of thought is one of many tasks that need to be accomplished. There are still many other caves in human life. The truth is far away, happiness is far away.
Will there always be caves that we can never escape from? The answer is yes, of course. Then it is the teacher’s duty to provide mankind with the light of hope. To tell us that despite the darkness, there is truth out there that we need to continue seeking. And to tell us that we should never give up to pursuit of truth.
4. Characters of present Chinese Education and the Purposes of Education
In understanding the Cave, I want to sketch in more detail some of the main problems facing Chinese education. A serious challenge in present Chinese education system is that the teachers do not know the purpose of their teaching and students do not know what the purpose of study is. According to both teachers and students, the goal of schooling is to obtain higher scores on exams. So, areas of study that are not tested are ignored and those that are tested are studied only insofar as they can improve test scores.
As a product of this system, I also thought that the goal of studying was to get higher test scores. Paradoxically, I first questioned this view until when I became thirty years old and decided to go to graduate school in US, which required me to prepare for the GRE. I was reading a GRE test review book that asked the question of why we should study. The answer given by the book was that we should study to: “make our mind a pleasant place in which to spend our time; to replace an empty mind with an open one; to help us to become autonomous, creative, inquiring people who have the will and intelligence to create our own destiny; to develop the personality of the individual and the significance of one’s life to oneself and to others. This is a basic architecture of a life; the rest is ornamentation and decoration of the structure; to let each child have a chance of equal opportunity, not to become equal, but to become different to realize whatever unique potential of body, mind, and spirit he or she possesses”. Tears came down my cheek at that time for I was awakened abruptly by these words and I began to feel that I have been cleverer from then on.
Another problem in Chinese education is at a second level; the Chinese teach students a view of their society that is far away from the reality. So, not only does the educational system has as a goal to train students to become tests machines, but also to train citizens who will not think by themselves and will not question government. So they force students to receive communist ideology and nationalist ideas when they are very young, from kindergarten to university.
Another issue in Chinese education relates to the huge inequality in schooling between poor rural and richer urban schools, so the kids in rural areas can hardly change their fate from the lower class, and hardly realize that others have taken rights and benefits that they do not have. Without a great amount of schooling, rural populations just migrate and become part of the huge, cheap urban labor market that helps make profits for very few in the country. So as Dewey said, what he considered to be a poor educational system will educate some people to become masters, and others to become slaves. This is the case of China.
How would the educational system differ, if the cave were to be removed? In China, children and youth are educated to become citizens of a society that is based on control by the CCP and where dissent and freedom of expression is limited on this regard. A democratic society also educates people to be good citizens in their society. The difference is that, as Dewey emphasizes, the democratic society is set up for the mutual benefit of the people. By definition, democracy is based on the choices of most of the people in a country, so it will be to the benefit of most people in that society.
In a democracy, people have freedom of the press and many choices to acquire information, and they have the freedom also to not to listen to some ideas they do not like. But in a tyranny, most people are excluded from obtaining full information about the society and there is no freedom of choice. Only successes are advertised and mistakes are hidden. The Chinese system is constantly advertised as a success, with a focus on some economic results while ignoring others, such as the rising inequality, the growing environmental deterioration and congestion, etc.
Of course, the tension between educating a free-thinking individual and one that can function within society’s rules and conventions still exists within any regime, whether democratic or tyrannical. Rousseau in Emile declared that “Everything is good as it leaves the hands of the Author of things; everything degenerates in the hands of man.” He wished to educate children with the natural goodness of human nature. But Rousseau also acknowledged that every society “must choose between making a man or a citizen” and that the best “social institutions are those that best know how to denature man, to take his absolute existence from him in order to give him a relative one and transport the I into the common unity.” To “denature man” for Rousseau is to suppress some of the “natural” instincts that he extols in The Social Contract. It is an effort to explain how natural man can live within society. John Dewey also points out other purpose as Social Efficiency, which is similar to Rousseau’s second idea---is to supply precisely what nature fails to secure; namely, habituation of an individual to social control; subordination of natural powers to social rules. It can be translated into specific aims, such as to equip people with abilities or skills to have a better life; to be a good citizen.
` As for me, what are the goals of education? I think there are four basic levels of education.
The most important and urgent education, especially in a transitional society such as China, is awaking people’s soul, enlighten them to realize their freedom and self-determination as individuals, to discover their rights and to guide them to the light of truth. This is the first phase of education. I do not believe it can be implemented in a tyranny society officially. When souls wake up, they will not follow the tyranny’s rules, and they will begin to discover themselves the inhumanity of tyranny.
The second phase is making people discover their own natural gifts and make good use of those gifts to achieve everyone’s mission in society and their right to
pursue a meaningful and happy life. I assume that this phase could be implemented in both democracies and tyrannies.
The third phase is John Dewey’s aim: to educate individuals to become good citizens. For China, this can only be implemented when it can be transmitted in a democratic society. I think the social efficiency also means that all members in the society seek to democratically bargain for and negotiate a social contract which provides a mutually beneficial outcome. Ideally, this way society can get to a Pareto efficient outcome, where no one individual can be better off without making another individual worse off. No further improvements can be made and the whole society gets to a balance where everybody is the happiest they can be. This is my ideal society.
The highest level of education is Rousseau’s return to a true man. As Dewey said, Rousseau had identified “God with Nature, to him, the original powers are wholly good, coming directly from a wise and good creator”. I think the message he brought about us---maybe the only way for the future of human beings-- is to return to the Garden of Eden, and human return to true man, where there is no sin, no suffering, no inequality and everything is good…we can finally live poetically on the earth….so to make human return to nature, the eternal teacher is God himself, or truth , or life. I think that is why Dewey thinks teachers are “the prophet of God” and the “usherer of the true kingdom of God.” This level is idyllic in nature and is likely no society can achieve it.
5. Some Methods of Education
In terms of teaching, I start by noting that as human beings of teachers, or even Prophets of God, have many limitations compared with God himself and should be modest. Dewey himself said that teachers can learn from children: ‘With respect to sympathetic curiosity, unbiased responsiveness, and openness of mind, we many that the adult should be growing in childlikeness”.
The same point was made by Hanyu in a different way: “Anyone who was born before me and learned the Tao before me is my teacher. Anyone who was born after me and learned the Tao after me is also my teacher. Where there is the Tao, there is my teacher. The ancient sages did not limit themselves to particular teachers. Confucius had learned from who were not as virtuous and talented as him. He said ‘If three men are walking together, one of them is bound to be good enough to be my teacher’. A student is not necessarily inferior to his teacher, nor does a teacher necessarily be more virtuous and talented than his student. The real fact is that one might have learned the doctrine earlier than the other, or might be a master in his own special field”.
Some things we need to leave to Nature to teach, as Rousseau did for Emile. Since the highest level purpose of education is to return to true man, and since children are purest and the most beautiful creatures, some part of education must just let children grow up by themselves, with nature as their teachers. As a tree in the wilderness, they will naturally grow as well in this regard. Education is a process of living, as Dewey said. So we should give back some time to children for themselves, to let them play with their peers, with their own games rules, to set up their own worlds, and do not disturb them with our false ideas.
But since children will need to enter into society, we still need to educate them with the knowledge of that society. The teaching of Socrates---questions and dialogs-- is a good way of teaching and learning. The teacher is just directing students to realize the truth in their inner heart. In fact, the hardest knowledge to acquire, for which there are no standard answers, this way may be the best approach.
Show students what we have learned in any specific field. This kind of knowledge is accumulated in human civilization, and needs to be transferred to the next generations. For applied knowledge one must also learn from life, from experience, experiments.
6. The target of Education
The first and most important target of education is children. So in a transitional society, it is urgent to save our kids first from the cave, because they are the future. Since they have not been polluted by human concerns over ideology, power, etc., and they can therefore achieve more easily the educational levels and paths I discussed earlier.
There are a number of important challenges for children in Chinese society today. Educational researchers, for example, often note the lack of creativity and innovation displayed in Chinese classrooms (Tobin, Wu and Davidson, 1989). The emphasis on discipline which permeates the CCP-based system of education tends to have this consequence, which is disastrous for free-thinking, innovative individuals. In the U.S., American children tend to be more improvisational and creative because in their mind there is no forbidden area to restrict their thinking ---they can fly if they want. The ideology of limiting thinking has resulted in a rigid and disciplinary system of schooling that restricts individuality.
The one child policy adopted by China to reduce population growth has also had some other consequences. In seeking to obey the policy, families have fallen into actions that reflect no respect for children and life. In rural areas, the old life style and ideas still exist and people are eager to have a son. As a result of the One Child Policy, many girl babies have been aborted. In addition, one wonders about the consequences for Chinese children of not having brothers and sisters, and whether this may affect their feelings of sharing, caring, and courtesy. Furthermore, parents often put lots of pressures on the one child they have since their future hopes are often based on that one child. They have the heaviest school bags, the least hours of sleep and play compared with their peers in the world.
The second target of education is adult, especially in rural areas. This represents one of the areas of inequality in the country that I noted earlier. Adequate resources are not provided to educate the adult, rural populations of the country. The absence of voice among these populations on China’s CCP leadership has resulted in their marginalization. The only choice available is to change policies.
And indeed, one should not give up in terms of educating those in power. They are in the cave too. We should let them know that their way of ruling cannot make themselves better off in the long-run and that the problems that the current system has generated may eventually come back to haunt them.
7. Concluding Remarks
Return to the cave is part of a process of eliminating barriers and darkness, a process that is unlikely to end. Western democracies face their own challenges as well. The sunshine of truth is so far away from all of us. Maybe when we escape from this cave, we will fall into another cave, or maybe we will enter into a bigger cave. Enlightenment and education are ceaseless processes.
Can we in China get out of the cave? Following a now well-known political slogan: Yes, we can. We are getting there. China is getting there, because it is the calling from our hearts to break the ropes; the human basic need for participation, freedom of speech and religion, and basic human rights. These ideas will rise in Chinese people’s soul. Light will come and enlighten the darkness in our soul. This mission is calling us who have escaped, to return to the cave and bring about light there.
As Bertrand Russell said in his three passions of life: Three passions have governed my life: The longings for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. I share these passions and they guide my desire to become a teacher. Bearing the sense of duty, I will continue to grow myself, getting enlightened soon, equipping with love, knowledge I have learned from the great teachers present and in human history, and the truth I have found, return to the cave, to free our people.
8. References
Dewey, John. 1916. Democracy and Education. New York: MacMillan Publishing Company.
Dewey, John. Dewey on Education (Selections). Teachers College, Columbia University.
Plato. Republic. Hackett Publishing Co.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Emile. Introduction, Translation, and Notes by Allan Bloom. Basic Books.
Holmes Group. 1986. Tomorrow’s Teachers. East Lansing: The Holmes Group.
Schurmann, Franz. 1968. Ideology and Organization in Communist China. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Tobin, Joseph, David Yu and Dana Davidson. 1989. Preschool in Three Cultures: Japan, China and the United States. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Education in a Transitional Society
1. Introduction
As John Dewey said, different societies have different types of education, so does the spirit, material and method of education. He said, “to make the general ideas set forth applicable to our own educational practice, it is, therefore, necessary to closer quarter with the nature of present social life” (Dewey, 1916). In this paper, I present my philosophy of education, as shaped by my life experiences as a member of Chinese society but influenced by my exposure to American society in the last two years.
More specifically, I have come to realize that education has two levels. At one level, education offers knowledge and information, providing people with a range of skills, from literacy to science and mathematics. At a second level, education teaches people to discover themselves, to fulfill their natural gifts and to pursue the truths of life. At both levels, there is a central figure involved: the teacher. In schools, instructors are central and in life’s education processes we also encounter influential persons who are also our teachers. In this paper, I trace both my philosophy of the role of teaching in education and my own narrative in my voyage to become a teacher as well.
2. The Cave
My homeland, China, was essentially a feudal society for over two thousand years (221B.C. to 1912A.D.), a mixture of feudal, colonial and democratic societies for 37 years (1912-1949), and a typical communist society for 29 years (1949-1978). After 1978, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began to implement economic reforms that transformed China’s formerly planned economy into a Chinese-style market economy with somewhat similar characters to western-style market economies. The CCP has also made some political reforms, but compared with its economic reform, the political changes have been very small.
According to Plato’s Republic, there are five forms of government: the ideal states ruled by philosopher kings, timocracy, oligarchy, democracy and tyranny. I would catalog the present Chinese government as a tyranny, although I believe this is a transitional system and that the country will move toward democratic reforms as its economic development process accelerates and as the historical wave of countries that have moved to democracy continues.
Under this transitional society, there is a philosophical void to guide people’s hearts. About 100 years ago, many Chinese were looking for the reasons why China was a weak nation, and they attributed it to Chinese old philosophy---as expressed by Confucius Idea. So many criticized this philosophical worldview and converted instead to Marxist ideas, which were adapted by Mao and other communist followers to a society that was mostly feudal, and peasant-based (see Schurmann, 1968). This process reached its peak during the Cultural Revolution, which started in the mid-1960s, when the communist movement decided to get rid of any remaining pockets of Confucius ideas. Formal, academic education was essentially stopped and Chinese people were told to be educated in practice, with communist principles as the only guiding philosophy.
After 1978, the CCP changed its economic policies and Marxist economic ideas were heavily criticized, but still, in the political field, the CCP maintained its communist ideology and its control over the political system. This has generated a big conflict in the whole society. People are taught Marxism in school, but the whole society has changed and no one really believes those ideas any more. Recognizing this divide, the CCP has directed people to pursue material wealth, hoping that this focus will allow them to control people’s minds, but people cannot live without a spiritual foundation, without principles and philosophy. This has led to CCP to strengthen their grip on ideology and power. In schools, in the media, and elsewhere, discussion of freedom, democracy and alternative philosophies are strictly controlled. People cannot have any freedom of independent thinking, freedom of belief, and they are afraid to criticize the government.
The image I have of Chinese society at the present time is that of a dark cave. The schools, the media, etc. function in the shadow; and people can only see the shadows and are happy with the shadows, believing that the shadows are the truth. The CCP ideology taught in the schools and in the media feeds this illusion.
But there are some people who question the state’s monopoly on ideology, they think on their own, and can escape from the cave. Some are illuminated by their own self-consciousness and the need for freedom and self-determination. Western philosophers such as Rousseau, religious beliefs and their faith in God motivate others. They began to wake up, to break their chains, and escape to the outside. I am one of them.
As a former member of the Cave, I lived a very comfortable life there. But my exit is not connected to wealth. I am exiled by my own soul, a soul seeking freedom. I would rather live in light than stay in darkness. I believe the philosophy postulated by Rousseau and others that a basic human characteristic is self-determination. The pursuit of freedom is in our human nature, the calling from our soul. If you have never been in the Cave, you will never understand the empty feeling of living in shadows and the satisfaction of receiving light, of thinking and speaking freely, even while suffering some material shortage and a harder life.
I have told my own stories in my first paper---a way to enlightenment. Now, it is my time for me to prepare to return to the cave, to awake the other sleepy souls.
That is the reason I want to be a teacher. …
3. To be enlightened, to be a teacher, to return to the cave
What is the function of a teacher? An ancient Chinese scholar Hanyu said, “A teacher is someone who could propagate the Tao (the truth), impart professional knowledge, and resolve doubts.” This idea, that teachers seek to develop the ability of their students to think, to find the truth, to answer questions, resonates all the way to the present, as in the poem by John Schlatter: “I am a Teacher. I was born the first moment that a question leaped from the mouth of a child. I have been many people in many places. I am Socrates exciting the youth of Athens to discover new ideas through the use of questions. I am Anne Sullivan tapping out the secrets of the universe into the outstretched hand of Helen Keller. I am Aesop and Hans Christian Andersen revealing truth through countless stories.”
To fulfill these functions requires a teaching profession of the highest excellence. This is an issue that has resonated with educational researchers everywhere. I agree that only “the best and brightest should be entitled to teach” (Tomorrow’s Teachers, 1986).
And along this view, it means that the society should treat teachers with the highest respect. Historically, societies that gave the highest prestige to philosophers, scholars, and intellectuals also had some of the longest-lasting influences on the world. At the present time, it is, in fact, those school systems that see teaching as a high-prestige occupation in their country that have been the most successful, whether in Finland or in Singapore.
In Chinese history, teachers were highly respected; they have been called fathers of the children, or the holy persons. But since the Cultural Revolution, this tradition has been destroyed completely. At that time, teachers and professors became the symbol of “capitalist bourgeois intellectualism,” and the profession moved to the bottom of the ladder in prestige. Despite changes since the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976, teachers remain today with much lower prestige within the society. That is the tragedy of China as a society.
Now I am myself here at Teachers College, studying philosophy, economics, education, politics and so on, to become a teacher and –with others—change Chinese society so it recognizes the value of teachers. I love the knowledge I am acquiring at TC, because I believe knowledge can answer the questions in my life and enlighten me, just as I also believe that it can and should enlighten those back home in the Cave. I believe many of my country-people have the same questions as I have and they need to be enlightened as I needed before when I was there. So, it is our duty, us, who have escaped to return to the cave to educate our people with the truth we have learned. This is our duty, because the land there is our home. Although we have escaped, we still belong. The blood in our body, the food we have been feed, the culture we have been instilled etc., those are connections between us and the homeland that can never be broken. So, it is our duty now to be freely educated and to return to the cave, to be teachers, to wake up others, to save them. As teachers, we must become the best, wisest, and the noblest to do that.
My thinking on these issues follows John Dewey’s. He himself saw democratic institutions as the basis for strong, progressive societies. As he says: “Such societies were found to be democratic in quality, because of the greater freedom allowed the constituent members, and the conscious need of securing in individuals a consciously socialized interest, instead of trusting mainly to the force of customs operating under the control of a superior class.” And he saw education, and teachers specifically, as being crucial to sustaining and developing democratic institutions. He believed that the teacher needed to be gifted, stating that the teacher was “the prophet of God” and the “usherer of the true kingdom of God.”
Education is a timeless, lifelong process for human beings. The development of new knowledge and the transmission to society is a timeless activity. For those countries that are in Caves, our escape from those Caves is also a timeless mission, for the cave in China is one of many that mankind needs to dispel. In a world of great poverty, inequality, environmental degradation, etc., the presence of democracy and freedom of thought is one of many tasks that need to be accomplished. There are still many other caves in human life. The truth is far away, happiness is far away.
Will there always be caves that we can never escape from? The answer is yes, of course. Then it is the teacher’s duty to provide mankind with the light of hope. To tell us that despite the darkness, there is truth out there that we need to continue seeking. And to tell us that we should never give up to pursuit of truth.
4. Characters of present Chinese Education and the Purposes of Education
In understanding the Cave, I want to sketch in more detail some of the main problems facing Chinese education. A serious challenge in present Chinese education system is that the teachers do not know the purpose of their teaching and students do not know what the purpose of study is. According to both teachers and students, the goal of schooling is to obtain higher scores on exams. So, areas of study that are not tested are ignored and those that are tested are studied only insofar as they can improve test scores.
As a product of this system, I also thought that the goal of studying was to get higher test scores. Paradoxically, I first questioned this view until when I became thirty years old and decided to go to graduate school in US, which required me to prepare for the GRE. I was reading a GRE test review book that asked the question of why we should study. The answer given by the book was that we should study to: “make our mind a pleasant place in which to spend our time; to replace an empty mind with an open one; to help us to become autonomous, creative, inquiring people who have the will and intelligence to create our own destiny; to develop the personality of the individual and the significance of one’s life to oneself and to others. This is a basic architecture of a life; the rest is ornamentation and decoration of the structure; to let each child have a chance of equal opportunity, not to become equal, but to become different to realize whatever unique potential of body, mind, and spirit he or she possesses”. Tears came down my cheek at that time for I was awakened abruptly by these words and I began to feel that I have been cleverer from then on.
Another problem in Chinese education is at a second level; the Chinese teach students a view of their society that is far away from the reality. So, not only does the educational system has as a goal to train students to become tests machines, but also to train citizens who will not think by themselves and will not question government. So they force students to receive communist ideology and nationalist ideas when they are very young, from kindergarten to university.
Another issue in Chinese education relates to the huge inequality in schooling between poor rural and richer urban schools, so the kids in rural areas can hardly change their fate from the lower class, and hardly realize that others have taken rights and benefits that they do not have. Without a great amount of schooling, rural populations just migrate and become part of the huge, cheap urban labor market that helps make profits for very few in the country. So as Dewey said, what he considered to be a poor educational system will educate some people to become masters, and others to become slaves. This is the case of China.
How would the educational system differ, if the cave were to be removed? In China, children and youth are educated to become citizens of a society that is based on control by the CCP and where dissent and freedom of expression is limited on this regard. A democratic society also educates people to be good citizens in their society. The difference is that, as Dewey emphasizes, the democratic society is set up for the mutual benefit of the people. By definition, democracy is based on the choices of most of the people in a country, so it will be to the benefit of most people in that society.
In a democracy, people have freedom of the press and many choices to acquire information, and they have the freedom also to not to listen to some ideas they do not like. But in a tyranny, most people are excluded from obtaining full information about the society and there is no freedom of choice. Only successes are advertised and mistakes are hidden. The Chinese system is constantly advertised as a success, with a focus on some economic results while ignoring others, such as the rising inequality, the growing environmental deterioration and congestion, etc.
Of course, the tension between educating a free-thinking individual and one that can function within society’s rules and conventions still exists within any regime, whether democratic or tyrannical. Rousseau in Emile declared that “Everything is good as it leaves the hands of the Author of things; everything degenerates in the hands of man.” He wished to educate children with the natural goodness of human nature. But Rousseau also acknowledged that every society “must choose between making a man or a citizen” and that the best “social institutions are those that best know how to denature man, to take his absolute existence from him in order to give him a relative one and transport the I into the common unity.” To “denature man” for Rousseau is to suppress some of the “natural” instincts that he extols in The Social Contract. It is an effort to explain how natural man can live within society. John Dewey also points out other purpose as Social Efficiency, which is similar to Rousseau’s second idea---is to supply precisely what nature fails to secure; namely, habituation of an individual to social control; subordination of natural powers to social rules. It can be translated into specific aims, such as to equip people with abilities or skills to have a better life; to be a good citizen.
` As for me, what are the goals of education? I think there are four basic levels of education.
The most important and urgent education, especially in a transitional society such as China, is awaking people’s soul, enlighten them to realize their freedom and self-determination as individuals, to discover their rights and to guide them to the light of truth. This is the first phase of education. I do not believe it can be implemented in a tyranny society officially. When souls wake up, they will not follow the tyranny’s rules, and they will begin to discover themselves the inhumanity of tyranny.
The second phase is making people discover their own natural gifts and make good use of those gifts to achieve everyone’s mission in society and their right to
pursue a meaningful and happy life. I assume that this phase could be implemented in both democracies and tyrannies.
The third phase is John Dewey’s aim: to educate individuals to become good citizens. For China, this can only be implemented when it can be transmitted in a democratic society. I think the social efficiency also means that all members in the society seek to democratically bargain for and negotiate a social contract which provides a mutually beneficial outcome. Ideally, this way society can get to a Pareto efficient outcome, where no one individual can be better off without making another individual worse off. No further improvements can be made and the whole society gets to a balance where everybody is the happiest they can be. This is my ideal society.
The highest level of education is Rousseau’s return to a true man. As Dewey said, Rousseau had identified “God with Nature, to him, the original powers are wholly good, coming directly from a wise and good creator”. I think the message he brought about us---maybe the only way for the future of human beings-- is to return to the Garden of Eden, and human return to true man, where there is no sin, no suffering, no inequality and everything is good…we can finally live poetically on the earth….so to make human return to nature, the eternal teacher is God himself, or truth , or life. I think that is why Dewey thinks teachers are “the prophet of God” and the “usherer of the true kingdom of God.” This level is idyllic in nature and is likely no society can achieve it.
5. Some Methods of Education
In terms of teaching, I start by noting that as human beings of teachers, or even Prophets of God, have many limitations compared with God himself and should be modest. Dewey himself said that teachers can learn from children: ‘With respect to sympathetic curiosity, unbiased responsiveness, and openness of mind, we many that the adult should be growing in childlikeness”.
The same point was made by Hanyu in a different way: “Anyone who was born before me and learned the Tao before me is my teacher. Anyone who was born after me and learned the Tao after me is also my teacher. Where there is the Tao, there is my teacher. The ancient sages did not limit themselves to particular teachers. Confucius had learned from who were not as virtuous and talented as him. He said ‘If three men are walking together, one of them is bound to be good enough to be my teacher’. A student is not necessarily inferior to his teacher, nor does a teacher necessarily be more virtuous and talented than his student. The real fact is that one might have learned the doctrine earlier than the other, or might be a master in his own special field”.
Some things we need to leave to Nature to teach, as Rousseau did for Emile. Since the highest level purpose of education is to return to true man, and since children are purest and the most beautiful creatures, some part of education must just let children grow up by themselves, with nature as their teachers. As a tree in the wilderness, they will naturally grow as well in this regard. Education is a process of living, as Dewey said. So we should give back some time to children for themselves, to let them play with their peers, with their own games rules, to set up their own worlds, and do not disturb them with our false ideas.
But since children will need to enter into society, we still need to educate them with the knowledge of that society. The teaching of Socrates---questions and dialogs-- is a good way of teaching and learning. The teacher is just directing students to realize the truth in their inner heart. In fact, the hardest knowledge to acquire, for which there are no standard answers, this way may be the best approach.
Show students what we have learned in any specific field. This kind of knowledge is accumulated in human civilization, and needs to be transferred to the next generations. For applied knowledge one must also learn from life, from experience, experiments.
6. The target of Education
The first and most important target of education is children. So in a transitional society, it is urgent to save our kids first from the cave, because they are the future. Since they have not been polluted by human concerns over ideology, power, etc., and they can therefore achieve more easily the educational levels and paths I discussed earlier.
There are a number of important challenges for children in Chinese society today. Educational researchers, for example, often note the lack of creativity and innovation displayed in Chinese classrooms (Tobin, Wu and Davidson, 1989). The emphasis on discipline which permeates the CCP-based system of education tends to have this consequence, which is disastrous for free-thinking, innovative individuals. In the U.S., American children tend to be more improvisational and creative because in their mind there is no forbidden area to restrict their thinking ---they can fly if they want. The ideology of limiting thinking has resulted in a rigid and disciplinary system of schooling that restricts individuality.
The one child policy adopted by China to reduce population growth has also had some other consequences. In seeking to obey the policy, families have fallen into actions that reflect no respect for children and life. In rural areas, the old life style and ideas still exist and people are eager to have a son. As a result of the One Child Policy, many girl babies have been aborted. In addition, one wonders about the consequences for Chinese children of not having brothers and sisters, and whether this may affect their feelings of sharing, caring, and courtesy. Furthermore, parents often put lots of pressures on the one child they have since their future hopes are often based on that one child. They have the heaviest school bags, the least hours of sleep and play compared with their peers in the world.
The second target of education is adult, especially in rural areas. This represents one of the areas of inequality in the country that I noted earlier. Adequate resources are not provided to educate the adult, rural populations of the country. The absence of voice among these populations on China’s CCP leadership has resulted in their marginalization. The only choice available is to change policies.
And indeed, one should not give up in terms of educating those in power. They are in the cave too. We should let them know that their way of ruling cannot make themselves better off in the long-run and that the problems that the current system has generated may eventually come back to haunt them.
7. Concluding Remarks
Return to the cave is part of a process of eliminating barriers and darkness, a process that is unlikely to end. Western democracies face their own challenges as well. The sunshine of truth is so far away from all of us. Maybe when we escape from this cave, we will fall into another cave, or maybe we will enter into a bigger cave. Enlightenment and education are ceaseless processes.
Can we in China get out of the cave? Following a now well-known political slogan: Yes, we can. We are getting there. China is getting there, because it is the calling from our hearts to break the ropes; the human basic need for participation, freedom of speech and religion, and basic human rights. These ideas will rise in Chinese people’s soul. Light will come and enlighten the darkness in our soul. This mission is calling us who have escaped, to return to the cave and bring about light there.
As Bertrand Russell said in his three passions of life: Three passions have governed my life: The longings for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. I share these passions and they guide my desire to become a teacher. Bearing the sense of duty, I will continue to grow myself, getting enlightened soon, equipping with love, knowledge I have learned from the great teachers present and in human history, and the truth I have found, return to the cave, to free our people.
8. References
Dewey, John. 1916. Democracy and Education. New York: MacMillan Publishing Company.
Dewey, John. Dewey on Education (Selections). Teachers College, Columbia University.
Plato. Republic. Hackett Publishing Co.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Emile. Introduction, Translation, and Notes by Allan Bloom. Basic Books.
Holmes Group. 1986. Tomorrow’s Teachers. East Lansing: The Holmes Group.
Schurmann, Franz. 1968. Ideology and Organization in Communist China. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Tobin, Joseph, David Yu and Dana Davidson. 1989. Preschool in Three Cultures: Japan, China and the United States. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Mao Zedong: Savior or Dictator?
Mao Zedong: Savior or Dictator?
Introduction
Professor Nathan raised an important question regarding Mao Zedong: why people followed him? This question induced me to write this exploratory paper. As a Chinese resident, looking back on how Mao Zedong is seen in China, among colleagues and friends, I realize that people in China fervently followed him not only when he was alive but also even today. Furthermore, people not just in China, but around the world worship him. Maoist political and insurgency movements still exist in many parts of the world. Many remember him as a savior of the poor, a successful revolutionary and a good war and foreign policy strategist. In today’s China, plagued by rampant corruption, many miss Mao’s time when the people could question and beat officials. Others are concerned about the big gap between rich and poor and miss the greater degree of equality prevailing under Mao. But many just miss his populist appeal: in times without heroes, they miss the towering figure of Mao. Of course, there are dissenting views. Some share the prevailing view among many western scholars that Mao was a dictator like Hitler and Stalin. Others have mixed feelings about Mao. But the reality is that Mao Zedong enjoyed for decades –and continues to enjoy today-- the strong support of many in the Chinese population.
The question of why Mao Zedong was followed so ardently is an issue that permeates populist political science. Many others, from Peron to Fidel Castro, have received broad popular support. It is an important question to determine why they are followed, not only because populist leaders have influenced history, but because they will continue to emerge in politics, whether it is a Hugo Chavez or some other strongman elsewhere. But I like to find out why Mao Zedong was followed because of my own personal reasons. I am one of those confused Chinese people who have such complicated feelings on him. This is an essential topic for Chinese people, again not only involving history but also the present and future of China, because populism could make its way back into Chinese politics. This exploratory paper provides my own initial steps towards answering this question.
How to make judgments about continuing support for a leader? Often, people do not have a clear principle of how to judge leaders who have a complicated personality or have accomplished various deeds. But what should be that principle? I realize that our judgment should be based on a humanistic principle---the impact the leader has had on us as human beings. This impact can vary and be difficult to assess due to the many dimensions we have as individuals, relating to class: landlord, capitalists, workers and farmers; wealth: rich or poor; religion: atheist, Buddhist, etc.; regional: urban versus rural, or provincial; time: whether we focus on the past, present or future, and even psychologically and culturally, in terms of how we see authority figures. Each person makes an overall assessment of a political leader on the basis of how valuable the leader is to him or her. Therefore, to determine what moves someone to support a populist leader, one can examine his or her main political, economic, education, cultural, etc. positions and policies, and analyze how their implementation has influenced a person’s life. I will start this exploration by focusing on my own evaluation of Mao Zedong’s policies and deeds.
My evaluation of Mao Zedong
Period before 1949. This must be considered Mao’s most successful. It was a time when China’s old and traditional social system entered into a transition period when many people felt a duty to look for a new system to make China a stronger and modern country. In 1912, Sun Yet Sen had set up a government whose goal was to set up democracy in China, but the process was delayed by the warlord war and stopped by the Japanese invasion. Many saw Mao as a modernization alternative, one which would destroy the archaic, semi-feudal system in the country while strengthening the nation. Indeed, Mao was an ardent nationalist when he was young. He was ambitious, smart and wanted to help the country. He realized the importance of workers and peasants and wanted to alleviate their suffering. He also had strong leadership abilities, which allowed him to beat all his enemies inside the CCP (Wangming, Zhang Guotao, etc.) and outside it, including Qiang Kai sheik.
Of course, in reaching power, Mao led bloody movements which had substantial destructive power as well. But from the vantage point of 1949, one can understand why many people supported him and had great hopes for the future.
The political policy after 1949: Law must run a country, but as professor Nathan mentioned in class, there was essentially no legal system in China at all during Mao’s time. So there were no laws to protect people’s rights, no laws to regulate government performance, etc. As a result, Mao and his supporters had no boundaries in pursuing adversaries and imposing their will on anybody within the country. From the country’s Minister of Defense, Peng Dehuai, President Liu Shaoqi, to any landowners, capitalists, intellectuals, etc., could be persecuted, without any guidelines. There are political movements one by one, and many people have been persecuted. One recent scholarly account asserts that in rural China alone some 36 million people were persecuted, of whom between 750,000 and 1.5 million were killed, with roughly the same number permanently injured .
Mao had called for democracy on in his 1945 article “On the Combined Government.” But after he gained power, he reversed course and, on the contrary, he built a One Party Dictatorship, just as he had criticized in Qiang Kaisheik’s government. He cheated other parties, such as the Democratic Union, which originally supported the CCP, and fooled the whole Chinese people who had admired him so much. While his supporters and his political and military machinery ardently followed him, a significant fraction of the population was marginalized. Fears and hatred was promoted about populations within China, to gain the support of the masses. This approach was at its peak during the Cultural Revolution.
The Chinese communist system became Mao’s personal dictatorship. Mao said he would build the “Proletarian dictatorship and will take away all the bad people’s right of speech, but only give proletarian people the right of speech” . And he did it. He was successful in maintaining his political power, but this came at a substantial cost to the country, not only in terms of civil rights and the lack of personal freedom, but also economically.
Economic policy: Mao copied from the Soviet Union the planned economic system, totally giving up on markets. In the agricultural sector, after 1949, the land owned by landlords and peasants was taken away and redistributed to poor peasants, which was the policy Mao used to induce peasants to join his army (following other peasant rebellions of the past). But soon, Mao betrayed the peasants who had helped him. The peasants’ land, tools and animals were taken away when collective farms were created and later changed into communes. He also implemented the household policy that prohibited the mobility of peasants. The aim was to use cheap agriculture products to support the industrialization in cities. These policies seriously hurt the peasants’ quality of life and led to a loss of incentives for agricultural production.
Mao’s economic policies were also disastrous in the industrial sector, Mao tried to develop heavy industry quickly, as he wanted to enter into a communist society as fast as he could. He said China would surpass the steel production of the UK in 15 years. But due to a lack of technology and skilled labor, this Great Leap was never realized. On the contrary, the collapse of agriculture and the lack of industrial progress led to the death of 20 to 30 million people through 1959—1961 because of starvation. Liu Shaoqi made a speech in 1962 at Seven Thousand Man's Assembly criticizing that "The economic disaster was 30% fault of nature, 70% human error." Mao’s economic policies were abandoned after the Deng Xiaoping ‘s reforms, when China returned to a market economic system.
Culture and education policy: Education policy in China was dominated by communist ideology and shifted depending on Mao’s whims and those of the system he had implanted. Mao had an anti-intellectual side that emerged periodically in purges of intellectuals and cultural workers. The maximum expression of this was during the Cultural Revolution, when universities were closed, literature was forbidden, books burned and the Red Guards destroyed many ancient sites. Intellectuals were sent to labor camps between 1955 and the 1970s. Between 12 and 18 million youth were sent to countryside. They only received primary to high school education. Higher education was stopped. At the same time. 369 million of Mao’s Quotations and 1,214 million of his pictures were printed .
Conclusion. My own detailed personal assessment of Mao’s accomplishments is mixed, but definitely tilts towards a very negative assessment. His period before 1949 suggested a strong leader with great potential to improve the human condition in China. His personality and motivation were influenced by his family, the background of Chinese society at that time, Marxism, and ancient Chinese culture. As a Marxist and Qing Shihuang, Mao became in effect the last emperor during the long march of Chinese searching for a modern social system. He appeared at first as an idealist who wanted to build up a communism Utopian or Datong (Great Harmony) society. He had done good research on the past Chinese emperors and peasants uprisings, and he acquired power on the basis of strong strategic analysis of his enemies.
But the hopes that Mao represented in 1949 were never realized and the political and economic disasters during the 1949 to 1976 period dominate any assessment to be made of Mao as a leader. His self-absorbed and ambitious personality and desire to maintain power blinded any broader societal goals and, despite greater equality, led to poverty and dismal economic growth.
Given the evident political and economic disasters under Mao’s rule, one must rely on other factors to explain why Mao has had so much support. It is possible that nationalist and communist ideologies, deeply ingrained in education and society during Mao’s era, could have led to judgments that were not based on reality. This is especially the case in communist countries where indoctrination is part of the strategy to maintain support for a leader. This does not explain, however, why Mao has maintained so much prestige among various political movements outside the country. Misinformation, however, could explain this. The fact is that the CCP decided to provide a rosy picture of Mao and has provided the world with limited negative information about Mao. In addition, Mao damaged mostly people in his own country, inside China, and he did not do harm to other countries, such as Hitler did. This also limited negative attitudes towards him outside China.
This exploratory paper has served as my first step in the examination of the question of why Mao Zedong has been followed so ardently. I believe this is an important question that must be studied carefully. The influence of populist leaders on a country’s political system can run deep. Even today, within the CCP, there are still Mao’s shadows there: the authoritarian regime, the pragmatic foreign policies, the view that practice is the only way to test the truth, etc. In fact, the CCP’s documents and the style of writing of Chinese media and people still follow the style adopted under Mao. It is important, therefore, to understand Mao’s appeal.
Finally, I should conclude with some more general thoughts I have on my investigation of Mao’s life and his accomplishments (or lack of them). I find that the philosophy of politics of its leaders is very important to a country. Mao had a pragmatic view that justified any means to achieve a goal, including the most abject ignorance of life (through violence and war), and lack of humanity (as reflected in the excesses of the Cultural Revolution). As it turns out, an alternative political philosophy, one which could have been more successful, I believe would have been based on a humanistic idea, which involves an emphasis on human rights, negotiation, and tolerance with each other, instead of hate, war and violence. A political system based on these values is more likely to lead to long-term improvements in quality of life.
References:
Jin Zhong (Editor), Mao Zedong Pipan(Critisize), KeNing Public House, Taiwan, 1994
Chen Zhirang, Mao Zedong and Chinese Revolution, edited by the CCP’s Historical Document Rublish House,1963
Zhisui, Li, The Private Life of Chairman Mao--the Memoirs of Mao’s Peronal Physician, Translated by Professor Tai Hung-chao, with the editorial assistant of Anne F. Thurston, New York, Random House, 1994.
Terrill, Ross, Mao: A Biography, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000.
The Honesty Words (Zhiyan), Lirui’s worry and thinking during 60 years, Lirui. Today’s China Publish House
Introduction
Professor Nathan raised an important question regarding Mao Zedong: why people followed him? This question induced me to write this exploratory paper. As a Chinese resident, looking back on how Mao Zedong is seen in China, among colleagues and friends, I realize that people in China fervently followed him not only when he was alive but also even today. Furthermore, people not just in China, but around the world worship him. Maoist political and insurgency movements still exist in many parts of the world. Many remember him as a savior of the poor, a successful revolutionary and a good war and foreign policy strategist. In today’s China, plagued by rampant corruption, many miss Mao’s time when the people could question and beat officials. Others are concerned about the big gap between rich and poor and miss the greater degree of equality prevailing under Mao. But many just miss his populist appeal: in times without heroes, they miss the towering figure of Mao. Of course, there are dissenting views. Some share the prevailing view among many western scholars that Mao was a dictator like Hitler and Stalin. Others have mixed feelings about Mao. But the reality is that Mao Zedong enjoyed for decades –and continues to enjoy today-- the strong support of many in the Chinese population.
The question of why Mao Zedong was followed so ardently is an issue that permeates populist political science. Many others, from Peron to Fidel Castro, have received broad popular support. It is an important question to determine why they are followed, not only because populist leaders have influenced history, but because they will continue to emerge in politics, whether it is a Hugo Chavez or some other strongman elsewhere. But I like to find out why Mao Zedong was followed because of my own personal reasons. I am one of those confused Chinese people who have such complicated feelings on him. This is an essential topic for Chinese people, again not only involving history but also the present and future of China, because populism could make its way back into Chinese politics. This exploratory paper provides my own initial steps towards answering this question.
How to make judgments about continuing support for a leader? Often, people do not have a clear principle of how to judge leaders who have a complicated personality or have accomplished various deeds. But what should be that principle? I realize that our judgment should be based on a humanistic principle---the impact the leader has had on us as human beings. This impact can vary and be difficult to assess due to the many dimensions we have as individuals, relating to class: landlord, capitalists, workers and farmers; wealth: rich or poor; religion: atheist, Buddhist, etc.; regional: urban versus rural, or provincial; time: whether we focus on the past, present or future, and even psychologically and culturally, in terms of how we see authority figures. Each person makes an overall assessment of a political leader on the basis of how valuable the leader is to him or her. Therefore, to determine what moves someone to support a populist leader, one can examine his or her main political, economic, education, cultural, etc. positions and policies, and analyze how their implementation has influenced a person’s life. I will start this exploration by focusing on my own evaluation of Mao Zedong’s policies and deeds.
My evaluation of Mao Zedong
Period before 1949. This must be considered Mao’s most successful. It was a time when China’s old and traditional social system entered into a transition period when many people felt a duty to look for a new system to make China a stronger and modern country. In 1912, Sun Yet Sen had set up a government whose goal was to set up democracy in China, but the process was delayed by the warlord war and stopped by the Japanese invasion. Many saw Mao as a modernization alternative, one which would destroy the archaic, semi-feudal system in the country while strengthening the nation. Indeed, Mao was an ardent nationalist when he was young. He was ambitious, smart and wanted to help the country. He realized the importance of workers and peasants and wanted to alleviate their suffering. He also had strong leadership abilities, which allowed him to beat all his enemies inside the CCP (Wangming, Zhang Guotao, etc.) and outside it, including Qiang Kai sheik.
Of course, in reaching power, Mao led bloody movements which had substantial destructive power as well. But from the vantage point of 1949, one can understand why many people supported him and had great hopes for the future.
The political policy after 1949: Law must run a country, but as professor Nathan mentioned in class, there was essentially no legal system in China at all during Mao’s time. So there were no laws to protect people’s rights, no laws to regulate government performance, etc. As a result, Mao and his supporters had no boundaries in pursuing adversaries and imposing their will on anybody within the country. From the country’s Minister of Defense, Peng Dehuai, President Liu Shaoqi, to any landowners, capitalists, intellectuals, etc., could be persecuted, without any guidelines. There are political movements one by one, and many people have been persecuted. One recent scholarly account asserts that in rural China alone some 36 million people were persecuted, of whom between 750,000 and 1.5 million were killed, with roughly the same number permanently injured .
Mao had called for democracy on in his 1945 article “On the Combined Government.” But after he gained power, he reversed course and, on the contrary, he built a One Party Dictatorship, just as he had criticized in Qiang Kaisheik’s government. He cheated other parties, such as the Democratic Union, which originally supported the CCP, and fooled the whole Chinese people who had admired him so much. While his supporters and his political and military machinery ardently followed him, a significant fraction of the population was marginalized. Fears and hatred was promoted about populations within China, to gain the support of the masses. This approach was at its peak during the Cultural Revolution.
The Chinese communist system became Mao’s personal dictatorship. Mao said he would build the “Proletarian dictatorship and will take away all the bad people’s right of speech, but only give proletarian people the right of speech” . And he did it. He was successful in maintaining his political power, but this came at a substantial cost to the country, not only in terms of civil rights and the lack of personal freedom, but also economically.
Economic policy: Mao copied from the Soviet Union the planned economic system, totally giving up on markets. In the agricultural sector, after 1949, the land owned by landlords and peasants was taken away and redistributed to poor peasants, which was the policy Mao used to induce peasants to join his army (following other peasant rebellions of the past). But soon, Mao betrayed the peasants who had helped him. The peasants’ land, tools and animals were taken away when collective farms were created and later changed into communes. He also implemented the household policy that prohibited the mobility of peasants. The aim was to use cheap agriculture products to support the industrialization in cities. These policies seriously hurt the peasants’ quality of life and led to a loss of incentives for agricultural production.
Mao’s economic policies were also disastrous in the industrial sector, Mao tried to develop heavy industry quickly, as he wanted to enter into a communist society as fast as he could. He said China would surpass the steel production of the UK in 15 years. But due to a lack of technology and skilled labor, this Great Leap was never realized. On the contrary, the collapse of agriculture and the lack of industrial progress led to the death of 20 to 30 million people through 1959—1961 because of starvation. Liu Shaoqi made a speech in 1962 at Seven Thousand Man's Assembly criticizing that "The economic disaster was 30% fault of nature, 70% human error." Mao’s economic policies were abandoned after the Deng Xiaoping ‘s reforms, when China returned to a market economic system.
Culture and education policy: Education policy in China was dominated by communist ideology and shifted depending on Mao’s whims and those of the system he had implanted. Mao had an anti-intellectual side that emerged periodically in purges of intellectuals and cultural workers. The maximum expression of this was during the Cultural Revolution, when universities were closed, literature was forbidden, books burned and the Red Guards destroyed many ancient sites. Intellectuals were sent to labor camps between 1955 and the 1970s. Between 12 and 18 million youth were sent to countryside. They only received primary to high school education. Higher education was stopped. At the same time. 369 million of Mao’s Quotations and 1,214 million of his pictures were printed .
Conclusion. My own detailed personal assessment of Mao’s accomplishments is mixed, but definitely tilts towards a very negative assessment. His period before 1949 suggested a strong leader with great potential to improve the human condition in China. His personality and motivation were influenced by his family, the background of Chinese society at that time, Marxism, and ancient Chinese culture. As a Marxist and Qing Shihuang, Mao became in effect the last emperor during the long march of Chinese searching for a modern social system. He appeared at first as an idealist who wanted to build up a communism Utopian or Datong (Great Harmony) society. He had done good research on the past Chinese emperors and peasants uprisings, and he acquired power on the basis of strong strategic analysis of his enemies.
But the hopes that Mao represented in 1949 were never realized and the political and economic disasters during the 1949 to 1976 period dominate any assessment to be made of Mao as a leader. His self-absorbed and ambitious personality and desire to maintain power blinded any broader societal goals and, despite greater equality, led to poverty and dismal economic growth.
Given the evident political and economic disasters under Mao’s rule, one must rely on other factors to explain why Mao has had so much support. It is possible that nationalist and communist ideologies, deeply ingrained in education and society during Mao’s era, could have led to judgments that were not based on reality. This is especially the case in communist countries where indoctrination is part of the strategy to maintain support for a leader. This does not explain, however, why Mao has maintained so much prestige among various political movements outside the country. Misinformation, however, could explain this. The fact is that the CCP decided to provide a rosy picture of Mao and has provided the world with limited negative information about Mao. In addition, Mao damaged mostly people in his own country, inside China, and he did not do harm to other countries, such as Hitler did. This also limited negative attitudes towards him outside China.
This exploratory paper has served as my first step in the examination of the question of why Mao Zedong has been followed so ardently. I believe this is an important question that must be studied carefully. The influence of populist leaders on a country’s political system can run deep. Even today, within the CCP, there are still Mao’s shadows there: the authoritarian regime, the pragmatic foreign policies, the view that practice is the only way to test the truth, etc. In fact, the CCP’s documents and the style of writing of Chinese media and people still follow the style adopted under Mao. It is important, therefore, to understand Mao’s appeal.
Finally, I should conclude with some more general thoughts I have on my investigation of Mao’s life and his accomplishments (or lack of them). I find that the philosophy of politics of its leaders is very important to a country. Mao had a pragmatic view that justified any means to achieve a goal, including the most abject ignorance of life (through violence and war), and lack of humanity (as reflected in the excesses of the Cultural Revolution). As it turns out, an alternative political philosophy, one which could have been more successful, I believe would have been based on a humanistic idea, which involves an emphasis on human rights, negotiation, and tolerance with each other, instead of hate, war and violence. A political system based on these values is more likely to lead to long-term improvements in quality of life.
References:
Jin Zhong (Editor), Mao Zedong Pipan(Critisize), KeNing Public House, Taiwan, 1994
Chen Zhirang, Mao Zedong and Chinese Revolution, edited by the CCP’s Historical Document Rublish House,1963
Zhisui, Li, The Private Life of Chairman Mao--the Memoirs of Mao’s Peronal Physician, Translated by Professor Tai Hung-chao, with the editorial assistant of Anne F. Thurston, New York, Random House, 1994.
Terrill, Ross, Mao: A Biography, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000.
The Honesty Words (Zhiyan), Lirui’s worry and thinking during 60 years, Lirui. Today’s China Publish House
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
