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I haven't thought too long about the article, but to me one perspective seems missing: Psychologist Robert Jay Lifton wrote an extremely impressive and surpris

I haven't thought too long about the article, but to me one perspective seems missing: Psychologist Robert Jay Lifton wrote an extremely impressive and surprisingly sober book "Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism" on the torture methods used in mainland China. He interviewed victims that had just escaped to Hong Kong (then still a safe harbor for civic freedom). This book has much more detailed, personal impressions of what "struggle" means. Struggle in torture prisons is a sequence of absolute physical and psychological destruction, followed by the attempt of the tortured to break and destroy their old selves, to denounce what they identified with, loved and fought for, to try and re-model themselves into model citizens. Only, what exactly the party demands model citizens to be is often left vague. I was left with the impression that the extreme violence exerted on individuals cannot be left out of any high-level analysis of what totalitarianism does.

im3w1l 3y ago
What makes it all the weirder is the impracticality of the whole enterprise. Like you could just lock troublemakers away and call it a day. Thus I think we must conclude that it is motivated by ideology rather than the realpolitik of maintaining the system.
- pixl97 3y ago
  Locking troublemakers away just means you have a tiger that's locked in a cage and that will eat you when it escapes. No, instead they torture the tiger until it becomes a zookeeper itself.
  - uniqueuid 3y ago
    This is precisely what happened: "reformed" inmates (after a year or so) would be matched with newcomers and instructed to "help" them in their own path, i.e. to beat, humiliate and criticize them.
    - robocat 3y ago
      The article and your comment reminds me of Joe in Elan School: https://elan.school/18-back-in-the-day/ https://elan.school/18-back-in-the-day/
- anigbrowl 3y ago
  Imprisoned people (especially political prisoners) are apt to cooperate, either breaking out or radicalizing everyone who comes into contact with them. There's abundant examples of this, both from history and in gang recruitment/membership patterns in contemporary prisons. The totalitarian brainwashing definitely serves ideology, but the technique is not unique to any particular ideology, any more than the concept of a loop is unique to any programming language. Pre-communist imperial Chinese society was pretty totalitarian in its own right. Over a longer historical scale Chinese history abounds with examples of hyper-authoritarianism, eg printing the emperor's full name in a dictionary was grounds for the execution of your entire family: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naming_taboo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naming_taboo
- pookha 3y ago
  How do you know who the troublemakers are? What happens when there's blowback or your socialist bureaucracies aren't playing nice? The CCP has to then start enforcing their will across a giant area...You can't expect a central clearing house to handle that. What it looks like they did is create two classes of people. One that published out nonsensical dogma and one that was expected to worship it. They then (Mao and his hynchmen) found the dumbest, most impressionable members of this consumer class (typically the only ones that would buy the bullshit wholesale) and set them loose at the ground level to wage guerilla warfare on (perceived) non-believers. After the smoke cleared and the bodies were piled up Mao had a strangle hold on the bulk of the population and most of the country without having to do that much. That's how I view Maoism. Bullshit dogma and giving the dumbest elements of society power versus just a place to vent in hate-sessions.
- retrac 3y ago
  Exactly. After all, the PRC doesn't do it today. Nor did the later USSR. Not quite like they did back in the day. There was/is the whole thought control and censorship apparatus, and perceived enemies and threats were/are dispatched, secretly and sometimes not so secretly, but millions of random innocent citizens were/are not systematically tortured in the later USSR or China. Because it's not /necessary/. The ruling clique does not really expect mass, loving-terrified worship, just compliance. One analogy that keeps coming to mind is the religious rapture of a medieval or early modern crowd as a witch is burned, an act they sincerely believe is good and necessary to save the soul of the person they're burning. > “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” - C. S. Lewis
  - gessha 3y ago
    Peasants: We have found a witch! (A witch! a witch!) Burn her burn her!
  - lisasays 3y ago
    After all, the PRC doesn't do it today. Except for what's going on in the Uyghur internment camps. Which does look a lot more like what went on back in the day. And (in the CPC's view) it's for their own good, no less.
    - muyuu 3y ago
      It's proportionate to the perceived need and perceived resistance. This is nowadays basically just Uyghur and Hong Kong, where the civil religion of the areas refuse to be completely assimilate. If Taiwan were to be successfully invaded, there would be massive repression until they would be broken.
  - pookha 3y ago
    I don't see any resemblance to the witch-scare. The most popular books back then were about finding witches: https://theontarion.com/2020/02/28/witchcraft-and-the-magic-of-early-printed-books/ https://theontarion.com/2020/02/28/witchcraft-and-the-magic-... Which means it was mostly unplanned mass hysteria... Classic Maoism is NOT unplanned. It's is all about taking advantage of the dumbest members of society to enforce arbitrary dogma that is pushed by the state.
- none_to_remain 3y ago
  You think "why go through the trouble of inflicting all this suffering" but to this mindset inflicting suffering is not a trouble, it's a pleasure
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
  Locked-up troublemakers still make trouble though, don't they? Their very existence signals to those not locked up yet that there is something wrong. That you can be punished for having ideas and behaving in ways they don't want. They are many things at that point. A source of inspiration, a lesson in how to maybe not be locked up yourself. A target for rebels to rescue (that would be embarrassing). Getting more extreme doesn't fix it... if you simply execute them, then they're martyrs. It can't be fixed later (like with prisoners, potentially). You don't get to un-martyr them. The question is how you erase them from existence itself. And the totalitarians have started to figure out the solution to that problem in the 21st century, I fear.
jmole 3y ago
This video came to mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPrnZAUi0l0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPrnZAUi0l0 The reaction of the correctional officers to finding a feather in the inmate's cell is particularly poignant. The TV can stay, but any means of creative expression has to go.

im3w1l 3y ago

What makes it all the weirder is the impracticality of the whole enterprise. Like you could just lock troublemakers away and call it a day. Thus I think we must conclude that it is motivated by ideology rather than the realpolitik of maintaining the system.

pixl97 3y ago
Locking troublemakers away just means you have a tiger that's locked in a cage and that will eat you when it escapes. No, instead they torture the tiger until it becomes a zookeeper itself.
- uniqueuid 3y ago
  This is precisely what happened: "reformed" inmates (after a year or so) would be matched with newcomers and instructed to "help" them in their own path, i.e. to beat, humiliate and criticize them.
  - robocat 3y ago
    The article and your comment reminds me of Joe in Elan School: https://elan.school/18-back-in-the-day/ https://elan.school/18-back-in-the-day/
anigbrowl 3y ago
Imprisoned people (especially political prisoners) are apt to cooperate, either breaking out or radicalizing everyone who comes into contact with them. There's abundant examples of this, both from history and in gang recruitment/membership patterns in contemporary prisons. The totalitarian brainwashing definitely serves ideology, but the technique is not unique to any particular ideology, any more than the concept of a loop is unique to any programming language. Pre-communist imperial Chinese society was pretty totalitarian in its own right. Over a longer historical scale Chinese history abounds with examples of hyper-authoritarianism, eg printing the emperor's full name in a dictionary was grounds for the execution of your entire family: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naming_taboo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naming_taboo
pookha 3y ago
How do you know who the troublemakers are? What happens when there's blowback or your socialist bureaucracies aren't playing nice? The CCP has to then start enforcing their will across a giant area...You can't expect a central clearing house to handle that. What it looks like they did is create two classes of people. One that published out nonsensical dogma and one that was expected to worship it. They then (Mao and his hynchmen) found the dumbest, most impressionable members of this consumer class (typically the only ones that would buy the bullshit wholesale) and set them loose at the ground level to wage guerilla warfare on (perceived) non-believers. After the smoke cleared and the bodies were piled up Mao had a strangle hold on the bulk of the population and most of the country without having to do that much. That's how I view Maoism. Bullshit dogma and giving the dumbest elements of society power versus just a place to vent in hate-sessions.
retrac 3y ago
Exactly. After all, the PRC doesn't do it today. Nor did the later USSR. Not quite like they did back in the day. There was/is the whole thought control and censorship apparatus, and perceived enemies and threats were/are dispatched, secretly and sometimes not so secretly, but millions of random innocent citizens were/are not systematically tortured in the later USSR or China. Because it's not /necessary/. The ruling clique does not really expect mass, loving-terrified worship, just compliance. One analogy that keeps coming to mind is the religious rapture of a medieval or early modern crowd as a witch is burned, an act they sincerely believe is good and necessary to save the soul of the person they're burning. > “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” - C. S. Lewis
- gessha 3y ago
  Peasants: We have found a witch! (A witch! a witch!) Burn her burn her!
- lisasays 3y ago
  After all, the PRC doesn't do it today. Except for what's going on in the Uyghur internment camps. Which does look a lot more like what went on back in the day. And (in the CPC's view) it's for their own good, no less.
  - muyuu 3y ago
    It's proportionate to the perceived need and perceived resistance. This is nowadays basically just Uyghur and Hong Kong, where the civil religion of the areas refuse to be completely assimilate. If Taiwan were to be successfully invaded, there would be massive repression until they would be broken.
- pookha 3y ago
  I don't see any resemblance to the witch-scare. The most popular books back then were about finding witches: https://theontarion.com/2020/02/28/witchcraft-and-the-magic-of-early-printed-books/ https://theontarion.com/2020/02/28/witchcraft-and-the-magic-... Which means it was mostly unplanned mass hysteria... Classic Maoism is NOT unplanned. It's is all about taking advantage of the dumbest members of society to enforce arbitrary dogma that is pushed by the state.
none_to_remain 3y ago
You think "why go through the trouble of inflicting all this suffering" but to this mindset inflicting suffering is not a trouble, it's a pleasure
NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
Locked-up troublemakers still make trouble though, don't they? Their very existence signals to those not locked up yet that there is something wrong. That you can be punished for having ideas and behaving in ways they don't want. They are many things at that point. A source of inspiration, a lesson in how to maybe not be locked up yourself. A target for rebels to rescue (that would be embarrassing). Getting more extreme doesn't fix it... if you simply execute them, then they're martyrs. It can't be fixed later (like with prisoners, potentially). You don't get to un-martyr them. The question is how you erase them from existence itself. And the totalitarians have started to figure out the solution to that problem in the 21st century, I fear.

jmole 3y ago

This video came to mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPrnZAUi0l0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPrnZAUi0l0 The reaction of the correctional officers to finding a feather in the inmate's cell is particularly poignant. The TV can stay, but any means of creative expression has to go.