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> "Universities – which fall under the control of Communist Party committees – have repeatedly been told to maintain purity in their socialist ideology, includi

> "Universities – which fall under the control of Communist Party committees – have repeatedly been told to maintain purity in their socialist ideology, including steering clear of teaching topics such as press freedom and civil rights." This isn't new or anything, but every time I read about it, I find myself really angry. The behavior of the Chinese communist party is shockingly, disgustingly immoral. Blocking information because it might undermine the grip your ideological brainwashing has on a population. It really is a sort of fundamental evil, a primary stain on the history of the human species. I have some anecdotal stories from friends in China. It's actually quite a bit worse for the average academic than we think. The pressure to include communist party propaganda in one's research is incredibly strong – and in some cases mandatory (e.g. if you want funding).

PeterisP 9y ago
That reminds me of academia in USSR, where all students, no matter what they were studying, had mandatory subjects like scientific communism and marxism-leninism; and your thesis, no matter if it's about literature, agronomy, astronomy or math had better describe its relevance for the proletariat and communism if it's to be defended. Some of these preambles (can't link because that all is pre-internet) are quite funny from the modern context (especially those linking abstract sciences e.g. math to the party propaganda), but were treated as quite serious back then.
- yorwba 9y ago
  Marxism is still a mandatory subject in China. In one instance the exam date for a course I was taking as an exchange student had to be changed because some of the PhD students might have missed their examination on Marxism otherwise.
  - zhemao 9y ago
    I really wonder how contemporary Chinese students square the information from their Marxism class with what Chinese society is like today. Does the Marxism class teach real Marxism or "Marxism with Chinese characteristics"? Granted, it's doubtful most students pay much attention to it anyway, since they just need to memorize the info and regurgitate it on the exam.
- a_bonobo 9y ago
  Lysenkoism is a prime example where an ideology influenced the researcher so much that it all broke down. tl:dr for the younger folks: Darwinism was disliked by the Soviets as it was bourgeois pseudoscience implying that the people are different. Many geneticists and biologists were fired, shot or went to the gulag. Lysenko was a agriculturist who became famous by inventing an alternative biology similar to Lamarckism where organisms inherit acquired traits. This (most of the time) didn't work but you couldn't do research showing the opposite, Stalin loved it too much. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism

PeterisP 9y ago

That reminds me of academia in USSR, where all students, no matter what they were studying, had mandatory subjects like scientific communism and marxism-leninism; and your thesis, no matter if it's about literature, agronomy, astronomy or math had better describe its relevance for the proletariat and communism if it's to be defended. Some of these preambles (can't link because that all is pre-internet) are quite funny from the modern context (especially those linking abstract sciences e.g. math to the party propaganda), but were treated as quite serious back then.

yorwba 9y ago
Marxism is still a mandatory subject in China. In one instance the exam date for a course I was taking as an exchange student had to be changed because some of the PhD students might have missed their examination on Marxism otherwise.
- zhemao 9y ago
  I really wonder how contemporary Chinese students square the information from their Marxism class with what Chinese society is like today. Does the Marxism class teach real Marxism or "Marxism with Chinese characteristics"? Granted, it's doubtful most students pay much attention to it anyway, since they just need to memorize the info and regurgitate it on the exam.
a_bonobo 9y ago
Lysenkoism is a prime example where an ideology influenced the researcher so much that it all broke down. tl:dr for the younger folks: Darwinism was disliked by the Soviets as it was bourgeois pseudoscience implying that the people are different. Many geneticists and biologists were fired, shot or went to the gulag. Lysenko was a agriculturist who became famous by inventing an alternative biology similar to Lamarckism where organisms inherit acquired traits. This (most of the time) didn't work but you couldn't do research showing the opposite, Stalin loved it too much. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism