TRUE BELIEVERS

On a whim I spent all evening rereading the history of the Cultural Revolution. The semi-rehabilitation of Lin Piao (林彪 'lam piu') since his peculiar death in 1971 is particularly interesting, since he was the man primarily responsible for the downfall of many of the important people who have subsequently been rehabilitated, some of them posthumously.

The Lin Piao faction also created the mythology of Lei Feng (雷鋒 'leui fung'), whose selfless and absolutely correct example we are supposed to follow, much like the church holds up Christian martyrs as paragons.
Regarding Lei Feng, I rather wish Edward Gorey had illustrated his life and death, sort of a version of "The Insect God", or "The Gashlycrumb Tinies" with sickening heroes as the deserving decedents.

Like Jesus, if there was no real Lei Feng his worshippers would surely have to invent him. And there are too few non-hagiographic sources to accept that he really existed.


One of the key slogans from fifty years ago was 造反有理 ('chou faan yau lei'; "to revolt is justified"), which clever cynics use to defend their actions, in light of the corrolary 不造反就是百分之一百的修正主義 ('pat chou faan jau si baak fan ji yat baak dik sau jeng jyu yi'; "if there is no rebellion, there is one hundred percent revisionism"). Rebell, overturn, destroy with fire.


One naturally suspects that the 紅衛兵 ('hung wai bing'; Red Guards) were largely China's incels, disaffected young white males, and dank basement dwelling Trump supporters, more or less. But made potent by the madness of that place and time. The similarities between the Chaiman and our own Orange-haired Dingo are rather striking. No wonder his fanclub comes across as seriously unhinged.

Similar thought processes and psychological defects, differing ideologies.

Egomanias and personality cults.




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