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Conflict between good and evil
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Essay Cultural Revolution
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The story “The Execution of Mayor Yin” takes a perilous look at the dark side of the events that happened during the Cultural Revolution. Chairman Mao’s Red Guards were tasked with a cultural cleansing that left many people more confused at the roles they played in society than it reinforced the social class structure. The story tells of a young member of the Red Guard and the personal conflict he suffered during the cleansing of Hsingan, which lay to rest his uncle and possibly even a good friend. The torment the people suffered and the personal struggle Hsaio Wu battled with coincide strongly with the age old question, “Are humans inherently evil?” In a last ditch effort to gain political control over China, Chairman Mao Zedong, launched the Cultural Revolution. The effort was due to the changes he saw happening in the Soviet Union. To avoid becoming more like the Soviet model, the Cultural Revolution aimed at removing the “Old China” ways (Harper). Met with disdain and seeing that his party was failing at his mission he launched the Red Guards. The Red Guards were a group of militant high school students recruited for the sole means of spreading the word of Chairman Mao. The students were typically recruited by the use of posters in the schools and after recruitment the groups of students would travel to areas of China where they typically were unknown or didn’t have familial ties (Lieberthal). The stories of the Red Guards remind me very much of the Stanford Prison Experiment, in which 24 university students were recruited for a psychological experiment in which half of the group would become a prison guard and the other half prisoners. The young men had rules that they had to live by during the week to two weeks the... ... middle of paper ... ...s still Hsaio Wu who put the gag in Mayor Yin’s mouth in carrying out his death sentence. If Chairman Mao would have been present during the proceedings and during the execution, how would things have turned out for Mayor Yin? The people that participated in the Stanford Prison Experiment as prisoners and the people that suffered through the Cultural Revolution have many things in common, both suffered through extreme acts of inhumane treatment and humiliation. But both also accepted their fate of deserving the treatment they received. Hsaio Wu and the guards shared in common the overwhelming quench for power and control and it eventually led both to perform acts that they may not do without a leader’s guidance to stop the acts from happening. Without a true leadership perspective, humans may be more than capable of the most extreme and inhumane acts thinkable.
Jonathan Spence tells his readers of how Mao Zedong was a remarkable man to say the very least. He grew up a poor farm boy from a small rural town in Shaoshan, China. Mao was originally fated to be a farmer just as his father was. It was by chance that his young wife passed away and he was permitted to continue his education which he valued so greatly. Mao matured in a China that was undergoing a threat from foreign businesses and an unruly class of young people who wanted modernization. Throughout his school years and beyond Mao watched as the nation he lived in continued to change with the immense number of youth who began to westernize. Yet in classes he learned classical Chinese literature, poems, and history. Mao also attained a thorough knowledge of the modern and Western world. This great struggle between modern and classical Chinese is what can be attributed to most of the unrest in China during this time period. His education, determination and infectious personalit...
Chapter one, The Observers, in the Death of Woman Wang demonstrates the accuracy of the local historian; Feng K'o-ts'an, who compiled The Local History of T'an-ch'eng in 1673. The descriptive context of the Local History helps the reader to understand and literally penetrate into people's lives. The use of records of the earthquake of 1668, the White Lotus rising of 1622 and rebels rising vividly described by Feng the extent of suffering the people of T'an-ch'eng went through. Jonathan Spence stresses on how miserable the two-quarter of the seventeen-century were to the diminishing population of the county. The earthquake claimed the lives of nine thousand people, many others died in the White lotus rising, hunger, sickness and banditry. P'u Sung-ling's stories convey that after the loss of the wheat crops there were cases of cannibalism. On top of all of this came the slaughtering of the entire family lines by the bandits. The incredible records of women like Yao and Sun in the Local History present the reader the magnitude of savagery the bandits possessed. All of these factors led to the rise of suicides. The clarity of events Spence given to the reader is overwhelming.
The study was based in a mock prison, and the main purpose of the study was to see if the participants would conform to their assigned roles (Haslam, 2014). As the experiment went on the participants reacted to their roles in predict, and unpredicted ways. The “prison guards” began to believe they were indeed in that role, and would become physical with the “prisoners”. The mental being of the prisoner participant’s began to diminish, and the experiment was then forced to finish before completion. This experiment shows how quickly the behaviors conformed to their roles, and caused the experiment to become unethical due to the fact the participants were than facing physical and mental harm as a result. Again we see here, the Stanford students conforming to an authoritarian role, and not following their own personal morals almost as if they were brainwashed into their new
The Cultural Revolution in China was led by Mao Zedong, due to this Liang and many others faced overwhelming obstacles in many aspects of their life such as work, family and everyday encounters, if affected everyone’s families life and education, Liang lets us experience his everyday struggles during this era, where the government determined almost every aspect of life.
Anita Chan, Stanley Rosen, and Jonathon Unger, “Students and Class Warfare: The Social Roots of the Red Guard Conflict in Guangzhou, “The China Quarterly, no. 83 (September, 1980)
When put into the position of complete authority over others people will show their true colors. I think that most people would like to think that they would be fair, ethical superiors. I know I would, but learning about the Stanford Prison Experiment has made me question what would really happen if I was there. Would I be the submissive prisoner, the sadistic guard, or would I stay true to myself? As Phillip Zimbardo gave the guards their whistles and billy clubs they drastically changed without even realizing it. In order to further understand the Stanford Prison experiment I learned how the experiment was conducted, thought about the ethical quality of this experiment, and why I think it panned out how it did.
The experiment was conducted in the Stanford Psychology department basement. The mock guards were told they could use anything to enforce prison rules except violence. Their goal was to be strict and psychologically demeaning to the prisoners. Guards were told to dehumanize the prisoners, calling them by their assigned number instead of their name. Zimbardo (1971) took the role as prison superintendent and watched over the guards and prisoners. To begin the experiment, Zimbardo (1971) cooperated with local law enforcement and had all 12 pri...
The debate over prison systems in the United States has been a long controversy. The question as to; if stuffing a facility full with convicted criminals to be guarded by a flock of civilian employees will foster progress. But a main factor that contributes, is the line between guard and civilian. A guard, while trained, is not a military personal. The power given to them over the lives of others when they are simply a citizen is not normal for everyday citizens. This is one of the things Dr. Phillip Zimbardo wanted to test in his prison experiment at Stanford University, working on staff. Zimbardo created a mock prison in the basement, drawing psychologically fit young gentlemen to see what would happen. In a short
There is no better way to learn about China's communist revolution than to live it through the eyes of an innocent child whose experiences were based on the author's first-hand experience. Readers learn how every aspect of an individual's life was changed, mostly for the worst during this time. You will also learn why and how Chairman Mao launched the revolution initially, to maintain the communist system he worked hard to create in the 1950's. As the story of Ling unfolded, I realized how it boiled down to people's struggle for existence and survival during Mao's reign, and how lucky we are to have freedom and justice in the United States; values no one should ever take for
The Stanford Prison Experiment, is "one of the most controversial studies in the history of social psychology." (Konnikova, M. (2015)) But really, it was a psychological study, in 1971, on the effects that a prisons can have on the individuals that inhabit there or the guards that guard those prisoners, for periods of time. In fact, it was a study to determine, understand, and gain knowledge on how an institution effected an individual or human 's behavior.
The Stanford Prison Experiment was a study put together by Phillip Zambardo to test the psychological effects of a prisoner and guard scenario in a mock prison setting. The experiment lasted approximately fourteen days and was comprised of twenty-four male students, all of whom were picked at random to take part in the experiment. Each individual was also randomly given the role of either guard or prisoner. The mock prisoners were subjugated to psychological abuse, harsh authoritarian rule by the guards, and intense living conditions to ensure maximum results were met. Due to the intense amount of stress brought on from the ordeal, a few prisoners were unable to continue and the experiment concluded prematurely. Everything about this observation
When put into an authoritative position over others, is it possible to claim that with this new power individual(s) would be fair and ethical or could it be said that ones true colors would show? A group of researchers, headed by Stanford University psychologist Philip G. Zimbardo, designed and executed an unusual experiment that used a mock prison setting, with college students role-playing either as prisoners or guards to test the power of the social situation to determine psychological effects and behavior (1971). The experiment simulated a real life scenario of William Golding’s novel, “Lord of the Flies” showing a decay and failure of traditional rules and morals; distracting exactly how people should behave toward one another. This research, known more commonly now as the Stanford prison experiment, has become a classic demonstration of situational power to influence individualistic perspectives, ethics, and behavior. Later it is discovered that the results presented from the research became so extreme, instantaneous and unanticipated were the transformations of character in many of the subjects that this study, planned originally to last two-weeks, had to be discontinued by the sixth day. The results of this experiment were far more cataclysmic and startling than anyone involved could have imagined. The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast the discoveries from Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment and of Burrhus Frederic “B.F.” Skinner’s study regarding the importance of environment.
While it lacked most of the characteristics of a proper experiment, the study is a major contribution to the field of psychology and our understanding of situational forces. Hock (2012) states, “the mock prison situation was so powerful that it had morphed…into reality. [The students and experimenters] had become their roles…These roles were so powerful that individual identities dissolved to the point that the participants and experimenters had difficulty realizing just how dangerous the behaviors in the ‘Stanford Prison’ had become.” The Stanford Prison Study made major waves in 1970s understandings of why people do what they do, what makes good people do bad things, and how situational forces can have control over people’s behaviors. The Stanford Prison Experiment was a game changer in understanding human behavior and what compels or motivates our actions—is it the situation or our principles?
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, beginning as a campaign targeted at removing Chairman Mao Zedong's political opponents, was a time when practically every aspect of Chinese society was in pandemonium. From 1966 through 1969, Mao encouraged revolutionary committees, including the red guards, to take power from the Chinese Communist party authorities of the state. The Red Guards, the majority being young adults, rose up against their teachers, parents, and neighbors. Following Mao and his ideas, The Red Guard's main goal was to eliminate all remnants of the old culture in China. They were the 'frontline implementers' who produced havoc, used bloody force, punished supposed 'counter revolutionists', and overthrew government officials, all in order to support their 'beloved leader'.
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution or simply the Cultural Revolution was launched by Mao Zedong in May 1966 and lasted until his death in September 1976. The first two years of the Revolution, which was the most violent phase of the struggle, was led by militia units comprised of students called the Red Guards. Their goal was to destroy anything in relation to the “four olds”: Old ideas, old culture, old customs, and old habits. They also engaged in the purpose of the Cultural Revolution according to the “Sixteen Points” by beating, humiliating, and even killing the “capitalist-roaders”. By mid-1968, Mao realized the young Red Guards were overly annihilative, so he abolished them. Although according to the “Sixteen Points”, the purpose of the Cultural Revolution was to eliminate those who are “capitalist-roaders” and to transform China into an equal, socialist society, Mao’s true, unrevealed goal of the CR was to eliminate his biggest enemy, who was the Chairman of China and Vice Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, Liu Shaoqi, in order to further consolidate his own power in the People’s Republic of China.