Saturday, January 31, 2009
Cultural Revolution... A possibility?
After reading up on some current events and reading some blogs (I especially like Kim's) I have come to the conclusion that a Cultural Revolution is likely to be able to occur again. With the mix of cultural repression, external and internal mistrust, and economic oppression, the writing is on the wall. I believe that another factor that would play into a revolution (which I have to say would be more along the lines of the people vs the government and not so much individual sectors battling one another) comes to us in the form of technology/mass communication. Gittings talked about how the government would try to suppress information during times of wished secrecy and would try to track the technology leaks but the task was almost impossible. The news would spread and cell phones and the internet were to blame. If something of this nature were to occur, I believe it would be expedited with the use of technology. I know that there are still many rural parts to China but those who are linked could make their way to those who weren't and become mobile technology messengers.
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I agree that China could have a cultural revolution, but I really don't think it would be so much violent uprising as changes in cultural attitudes... I think a lot of this is going on now. One of my good friends spent the last year in China teaching English at a university to students who wanted to study abroad. She said the cities were so immaculate and modernized, people with Ipods and Nikes. You go an hour away and people squat in the street when nature calls. China is a huge expanse with so many regions and people that it's hard to make general statements. The information and modernization is not reaching the peasants, not sure if they want it to or not.
ReplyDeleteIn reviewing some of the blogs it appears like most of us do believe that another Cultural Revolution can show it’s ugly face again in China. I agree with many of the issues that you spoke of and I mentioned many of them in my blog. The current economic crisis has and will continue to cause many countries to examine the process of economic globalization and dependence on exports. Unemployment, difficult economic times and other hardships will surely escalate tensions and turmoil possibly causing strained relations between the Chinese government and its people.
ReplyDeleteYou know, reading these actually brings a point to mind from the Giddings reading. He wrote about how when people talk about the prosperity of China that it is mainly referring to Beijing and how the image of China can be skewed by people generalizing things like prosperity and modernity to the whole country based on statistics coming out of this one part of China.
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