Tom Paine 1949
Diamond Member
- Mar 15, 2020
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The U.S. today is a completely different world than peasant China was at the time of Mao Zedong’s truly mad “Cultural Revolution.” Yet the human capacity to fear and demonize imagined “enemies” remains what it has always been.
Demagogues leading ignorant masses are a danger today as they also were in Weimar Germany, where Hitler was able to demonize Jews on his road to dictatorial power.
In our society the language of “demonization” is widespread and powerfully influential among Fundamentalist Christians. It is widely used by cynical MAGA Trumpsters, who seem to love using the phrase… “Demonrats.”
Trump is an expert and utterly unprincipled demagogue. He is now ever more relying on the language of demonization, as in his recent speech where he called the FBI and DoJ “vicious monsters.” Why? Because he and his supporters are scared. Trump was caught possessing top secret documents he had no right to possess, denied having, claimed were personally “de-classified,” and even accused the FBI of “planting.”
In times of “culture war” and political uncertainty, demagogues always use such language against opponents. Often enough, if these demagogues come to power, the momentum of their “Big Lies” and demonization leads them to persecuting, jailing, often even killing their opponents. Such language by itself already … “undermines democracy.”
Here is a reminder of one unusual case history of an ignorant but “popular” movement that used such language to launch an incredibly chaotic “civil war,” a broad national political purge serving the petty narcissism and megalomania of one man … that did immense harm to an entire civilization.
’Monsters and Demons’ (牛鬼蛇神, niugui sheshen) was the term used to vilify specialists, scholars, authorities and ‘people who entrenched themselves in ideological and cultural positions’ during the Cultural Revolution. After the publication of the editorial "Sweep Away All Monsters and Demons" in People’s Daily on 1 June 1966, and after it was rebroadcast and reprinted, the Red Guards started a huge purge which swept the country, ‘dragging out’ and prosecuting all those ostensibly fitting the description. The editorial was written under Mao Zedong’s order by his political secretary Chen Boda, one of the members of the Central Cultural Revolution Group headed by Jiang Qing….
Niugui sheshen … was the most recurrent supernatural metaphor used during the Cultural Revolution. It was rooted in Buddhist demonology and an especially potent weapon to demonize one’s opponents. Other terms included ‘devils’ (魔鬼, mogui), ‘demons’ (鬼怪, guiguai), ‘monsters’ (魔怪, moguai), ‘vampires’ (吸血鬼, xixue gui), and ‘apparitions and spectres’ (wangliang guimei). All these ‘evil spirits’ could be identified with the ‘demon-exposing mirror’ (照妖镜, zhaoyao jing) of Mao Zedong Thought.
Trump calls FBI, DoJ ‘vicious monsters’ in first rally since Mar-a-Lago search
Monsters and Demons (1966-1967)
https://chineseposters.net/themes/monsters-demons
Demagogues leading ignorant masses are a danger today as they also were in Weimar Germany, where Hitler was able to demonize Jews on his road to dictatorial power.
In our society the language of “demonization” is widespread and powerfully influential among Fundamentalist Christians. It is widely used by cynical MAGA Trumpsters, who seem to love using the phrase… “Demonrats.”
Trump is an expert and utterly unprincipled demagogue. He is now ever more relying on the language of demonization, as in his recent speech where he called the FBI and DoJ “vicious monsters.” Why? Because he and his supporters are scared. Trump was caught possessing top secret documents he had no right to possess, denied having, claimed were personally “de-classified,” and even accused the FBI of “planting.”
In times of “culture war” and political uncertainty, demagogues always use such language against opponents. Often enough, if these demagogues come to power, the momentum of their “Big Lies” and demonization leads them to persecuting, jailing, often even killing their opponents. Such language by itself already … “undermines democracy.”
Here is a reminder of one unusual case history of an ignorant but “popular” movement that used such language to launch an incredibly chaotic “civil war,” a broad national political purge serving the petty narcissism and megalomania of one man … that did immense harm to an entire civilization.
’Monsters and Demons’ (牛鬼蛇神, niugui sheshen) was the term used to vilify specialists, scholars, authorities and ‘people who entrenched themselves in ideological and cultural positions’ during the Cultural Revolution. After the publication of the editorial "Sweep Away All Monsters and Demons" in People’s Daily on 1 June 1966, and after it was rebroadcast and reprinted, the Red Guards started a huge purge which swept the country, ‘dragging out’ and prosecuting all those ostensibly fitting the description. The editorial was written under Mao Zedong’s order by his political secretary Chen Boda, one of the members of the Central Cultural Revolution Group headed by Jiang Qing….
Niugui sheshen … was the most recurrent supernatural metaphor used during the Cultural Revolution. It was rooted in Buddhist demonology and an especially potent weapon to demonize one’s opponents. Other terms included ‘devils’ (魔鬼, mogui), ‘demons’ (鬼怪, guiguai), ‘monsters’ (魔怪, moguai), ‘vampires’ (吸血鬼, xixue gui), and ‘apparitions and spectres’ (wangliang guimei). All these ‘evil spirits’ could be identified with the ‘demon-exposing mirror’ (照妖镜, zhaoyao jing) of Mao Zedong Thought.
Trump calls FBI, DoJ ‘vicious monsters’ in first rally since Mar-a-Lago search
Monsters and Demons (1966-1967)
https://chineseposters.net/themes/monsters-demons
