From the Civilian War in China to the BBC to the Mass Outbreak of "Murdered Paranoia" (Part 2)

Hello, everyone, my name is Marley, and today we will continue to talk about the topic of "persecution paranoia". Last time we mentioned that in Europe before the outbreak of World War I, although the economy, culture and science reached the peak of human beings. But with the rise of emerging countries, the whole of Europe was shrouded in the shadow of nationalism and persecution paranoia, and finally inevitably went to the abyss of war. After the war, idealism and the entanglement of interests between the great powers further gave birth to the spread of nationalism and persecution paranoia around the world. Among them, the most affected is China, which is waiting to be rebuilt.

Our history textbooks tell us that the great outburst of nationalism and the May 4th Movement was triggered by the Paris Peace Conference powers ceding the rights and interests of Shandong and Qingdao to Japan. Under the strong recommendation and condemnation of national public opinion, the Chinese delegation could only refuse to sign the treaty, which was regarded as a humiliation of a weak country without diplomacy in the mainstream historical view. Almost from that moment on, the Chinese nation seemed to be branded with a deep imprint of backwardness and immortality, and the immortality of imperialism.

But what is the truth that most history textbooks won't tell you?

We can briefly sort it out. It is indeed a fact that Japan wants the interests of Shandong. However, in the early days of the Republic of China, there were internal and external troubles, and the national strength was indeed very weak. At that time, the Beiyang government was forced to deal with foreign powers diplomatically, and there was a big dispute between the pro-Japanese faction and the pro-American faction. The pro-Japanese faction hopes to rely on Japan's power to fight against the foreign powers, while the pro-American faction advocates the tendencies of democracy, freedom and national independence.

We all know that since the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China, due to the rise of Japan, it has always been the preferred study target for many intellectuals and elites. Therefore, it is not surprising that the pro-Japanese faction in the Beiyang government occupies the mainstream, and it signed a clause with Japan on the so-called sale of Shandong's rights and interests, in order to obtain a large amount of Japanese loans and assistance to participate in the First World War. Many of these materials have been ignored. The "Exchange of Letters on the Shandong Issue" signed in 1918 clearly mentioned that Japan would withdraw its troops in Shandong, China, and hand over the railway line to the Chinese Civil Affairs Administration. The Jiaoji Railway will be managed by China and Japan. State-run joint venture. Strictly speaking, this does not mean that this is a traitorous treaty. I can imagine the infrastructure projects that countries along the “Belt and Road” have signed with China. Can you say that they are all traitors?

Since Japan dominated East Asia during the First World War, China could only be in vain. Therefore, with such a background and the interests of the foreign powers, China did not have much bargaining chips at the Paris Peace Conference. At that time, the Wolf Warriors, represented by Lin Changmin, who was the chief justice of the cabinet, used this to hype up the patriotism of the students. "Imperialism" has since become synonymous with evil forces, and the Chinese nation's "victim paranoia" It has since become a major ailment. At the time, the Paris Peace Conference was seen as a diplomatic failure, overshadowed by a sense of humiliation. But they don't know that there are still many voices supporting China in the US Congress. In addition to the Shandong issue, China has also signed peace treaties with Hungary, Bulgaria, and Austria, canceling the Chinese privileges occupied by Austria, Hungary and other countries. China also joined the League of Nations and got a good position. I don’t know that there will be a Washington meeting later, and I don’t know that various issues left over at the Washington meeting can be better resolved. For example, Japan’s verbal commitments made at the Paris Peace Conference can be implemented to return most of the interests of Shandong.

Looking back today, according to the outcome of the Washington Conference, the Paris Peace Conference cannot be regarded as a diplomatic failure. There is some kind of continuity between the two meetings. Although there were internal and external troubles during the Beiyang government period, the first batch of Chinese diplomats took advantage of the changes in the international situation and took advantage of the situation to win back some rights and interests for China, a "weak country", which is worthy of recognition.

Therefore, looking back at the entire pattern from the eve of the First World War to the impact on China after the war, in conclusion, any contradiction between countries is not monolithic. The wisdom and diplomatic means of the rulers have a great impact on the specific situation at that time. relation. Ordinary people are often the most easily manipulated group of people. Due to information asymmetry and high nationalist sentiment, it is easy to reversely influence the decision-making of the ruling class, resulting in a collective outbreak of persecutory paranoia. This was true of countries during World War I, and it was true of Germany and Japan during World War II.

We come back to the question of China, after the May 4th Movement, China did not bring Mr. De and Mr. Sai. Instead, it brought strong xenophobia, warlord melee, tit-for-tat between traditional culture and Western culture. More importantly, the sound of the October Revolution is quietly changing the fate of China.

Since then, the word "revolution" has become a key word in China throughout the following decades. When I was a child studying history, I often had a confusion as to why revolutions should distinguish between bourgeois revolutions and proletarian revolutions. Bourgeois revolutions are always decadent, profit-driven and incomplete. And proletarian revolutions (including peasant uprisings) are bottom-up, just, and represent the broad masses of the people.

When we criticized Marx before, we said that Marxism-Leninism always forcibly divides society into classes, the bourgeoisie is always evil, the proletariat is always an oppressed group, and justice is transformed, so the contradiction between the two classes is always irreconcilable. That's why it is necessary for the proletariat of the world to unite against the evil capitalists and imperialism. Speaking of which, everyone seems to understand a reason why the Chinese people's "delusional disorder" is so easy to be manipulated, that is, when someone thinks it is necessary, they will set up a hostile force for you. But most of the common people do not understand the roles of these enemies and friends who persecute them, and they are very easy to be fooled. I will tell you a few short stories.

The first is the confusion about the concept of history and the concept of right and wrong from my youth.

When we were children, whether it was a history textbook or a TV series, we would have a label about right and wrong, justice and evil for historical events. When it comes to the Korean War, the reason why China entered the war is the well-known "resistance of US aggression and aid to Korea to defend the homeland and defend the country". I was very puzzled at the time, why do you want to fight against the United States? Why would the U.S. military pose a threat to China if it hit the Yalu River? Aren't Americans our once allies? Didn't you just help us drive away the Japanese devils and maintain world peace?

Another example is when it comes to the Soviet Union, which has always been China's iron buddies, why did it become revisionism in the 1960s? What is revisionism? How did it become? How can it be imperialism with him?

When I was young at that time, I was confused, but the textbooks and TV did not answer my questions, or I couldn't understand the answers in the textbook. It was not until the advent of the Internet age that I slowly understood the reason.

Second, about the public opinion attitude of national heroes when they face criticism.

The most representative is the "Dongxing Yaoyang" series of turmoil. Since the Rio Olympics, Sun Yang has been scolded by Horton as a liar who takes medicine. This time, the whole country is in unison to crusade. Even Bai Yansong, known as the media conscience, began to sneer. Everyone has always believed that Horton is the clown who can't afford to lose. It was not until later that Sun Yang was banned by FINA for the incident of destroying urine samples again. The national public opinion was almost one-sided in criticizing the hypocrisy of Westerners and their hostility towards China. Later, the whole chain of evidence became more and more unfavorable for Sun Yang. Suddenly, the media The collective lost their voices, and this matter slowly faded out of the public's sight.

Third, the over-interpretation of cultural works

This is an increasingly obvious trend among the people in recent years, which is mainly reflected in the emergence of more and more non-governmental political and economic analysts after the development of self-media, which has become a cultural phenomenon. That is to say, the so-called conspiracy theory is prevalent, which often does not require the official and big V to bring the rhythm, and there will always be someone who will come out and show off their IQ. I call this "shaking" behavior. For example, the various strange and humiliating phenomena mentioned before have been over-interpreted, causing all staff to boycott. Sometimes even the official can't stand it anymore and have to come forward to regulate everyone's emotions. One of the more representative ones is the boycott of the movie "Dunkirk" a few years ago. Some people received exclusion from the overseas filming of "Wolf Warrior" in the same period of the year, indicating that the West is obviously culturally xenophobic, conservative and closed. However, "Dunkirk", which shows the escape of the British army, was bought in China, but it ignored that the Chinese Expeditionary Force served as cannon fodder for the retreat of the British army in Chokeba, Burma. The analogy of this kind of persecution paranoia was indeed a lot of support in the circle of friends back then. In short, imperialism really does whitewash itself.

Of course, because this brain hole is too surprising and traversal, even the seat of the war can't stand it. He wrote on Weibo: From this movie, I can see the difference between Chinese and Western film culture: the Dunkirk Retreat is a A real historical event is not a virtual story; it is the enemy who fled in a panic like losing his armor and disarming. Few people are willing to shoot this kind of subject. Nolan has a unique perspective. He saw that there is a kind of victory called retreat. Without the retreat of 400,000 people in Dunkirk, there would be no great victory in the anti-fascist war! "

We look back on history and then face the reality, from the end of the Qing Dynasty to the National Revolution to the establishment of New China to the current Sino-US relationship, all Chinese people have been developed into a new national narrative, eager to get rid of the sick man of East Asia He hopes that the future China will revise the original international system and cancel the constraints imposed on him by this system. However, if the foreign powers are not all willing to revise these conditions, then it must be because the imperialism will not die, which is the so-called "victim paranoia". This logic has been greatly highlighted with the domestic propaganda of the rise of national strength, but the cognition of the people at the bottom is still under the ambivalence that backwardness will be beaten, and it shows a kind of great power chauvinism and great power against Western civilization. Han chauvinism, any conflict with the international can be reduced to interference in internal affairs and malicious intentions.

Finally, let’s return to the essence of “delusional persecution”. In addition to more than 100 years of national humiliation education and class struggle narratives, I found an interesting topic during research these days, and I want to share it with you. It is called the difference between "high context" and "low context" for Chinese and Western cultural exchanges.

American anthropologist Hall (Hall) first proposed in 1976 in "Beyond Culture" that context is divided into high context and low context. Under different contexts, there are significant differences in the encoding and decoding of information meaning. This is also the direct cause of a series of misunderstandings and estrangements in the current cross-cultural exchanges between China and the West. How to distinguish the difference between these two contexts, explore appropriate communication strategies, and then overcome the communication barriers in different contexts, is an essential quality of Chinese cross-cultural communication.

The general characteristics of the so-called high-context culture are that it has more non-verbal coding, few reactions are exposed, it focuses on interpersonal relationships, and it is highly flexible in time processing. On the other hand, low-context culture is characterized by being more direct, revealing reactions, not close interpersonal relationships, and highly organized time. It can be seen that high-context culture mainly relies on the pre-established, ancestor-based procedures of people's thoughts to convey information, such as many unwritten traditional customs, self-evident values and socially recognized behavior patterns. And low-context culture, which emphasizes rationality and logic, is based on rational practices, draws logical conclusions, and conveys clear messages through clear language.

For example, an advertisement that we are very familiar with, "Jiannanchun in the prosperous age of court wine in Tang Dynasty", expresses the long history and noble quality of Jiannanchun, which is meaningful, tactful but reveals confidence.

The United States is accustomed to using direct and concise expressions, such as "JUST DO IT", which everyone is very familiar with, which is in line with the young people's desire to do what they want and pursue their own individuality, creating a feeling of exhilaration.

It is not difficult to see that the oriental culture represented by China is broad and profound. Unlike the West, we have always formed such a high-context cultural system. However, it is also easy to cause adverse effects such as unspoken rules, embarrassment, and suspicion. Especially when talking directly with the Western order, it is easy to bring one's own high-context culture into the understanding of the other party. For example, when our diplomatic rhetoric and scholars are debating with the West, you will find why you always feel that the sharp questions of Western journalists are all with tinted glasses, arrogance and prejudice. Quoting the scriptures first to oppose the opposing army. You think you're doing a good job, but the other party still doesn't understand what you're talking about, and instead thinks you're avoiding the problem. This is the biggest communication barrier between high-context and low-context cultures.

Therefore, from this point of view, it is not surprising that high-context Chinese culture is prone to persecutory paranoia, over-interpretation, and conspiracy theories.

So let's go back to the theme of this time. When the uncle in Beijing turned against the BBC and went to Wuhan, the aunt responded without hesitation that the BBC virus came from the United States, and the media, as a national think tank, was proud to trigger the whole network carnival, we have already lost the right to speak.

Finally, I ended the series with a sentence from a Douban netizen, "Relaxing is an advanced form of self-confidence. But there are always some people who regard themselves as warriors. However, sometimes, others understand that the battlefield has long since disappeared. So, the fighters look ridiculous and suspicious."

I'm Marley, this is Marley's new channel, Marley, if you think this video is not bad, please help to forward, share, subscribe and support, we'll see you next time, 88.