By some historical accounts, 40 years ago today the Cultural Revolution began in China.  I say "some historical accounts" because the Cultural Revolution is a big, sweeping series of events, stretching over years, with debatable beginning and ending points.  At the very least, by May 16th, 1966, it was clear that a political convulsion was spreading across China.

      There is no official commemoration or acknowledgment in the PRC today.   The Party has ordered the media not to discuss it.   Just another one of those major chunks of modern history, like the Great Leap Forward, the Party tries to forget.

        I want to remember the Cultural Revolution here as the disaster it was, but from Taoist and Confucian perspectives.

     A Taoist would not be surprised at the chaos and hurt created by the CR.  At its core, the CR was a utopian-idealistic political movement designed to, at most, fundamentally transform Chinese life, or to, at least, create a sense of continuous crisis that would bolster Mao Zedong’s supremacy.   Either way it was an over-sized effort to intervene into and change the course of society, to "take hold of all beneath heaven and improve it," and as such it had to "invariably fail" (Tao Te Ching, 29).  For a Taoist it was pure hubris, a massively misplaced belief in man’s ability to change the world, and its primary lesson should be "never again:" never again try to remake the world in a tyrant’s image.   

     The CR was also a Confucian nightmare.  Paradoxically, it made Confucius one of its chief targets, the most hated of the "old society," but, at the same time, it demanded a distorted Confucianist, absolute filial piety toward the national father, Mao.  The latter was, to my mind, most damaging for the contemporary articulation of Confucianism.  When we utter the name "Confucius" today, what springs to most minds, Chinese and American alike, is the image of complete obedience to paternal authority, not unlike the pictures of those thousands and thousands of hysterical Red Guards pledging fealty to Mao at Tiananmen Square. 

      Absolute authority is not at all what Confucius, and especially, Mencius had in mind.  Fathers and rulers had to earn respect every day through their careful performance of Humanity.  If they failed in that, they were no better than common criminals:

Emperor Hsuan of Ch’i asked: "Is it true that Emperor T’ang banished the tyrant Chieh, and Emperor Wu overthrew tyrant Chou?"

"Yes, according to the histories," replied Mencius.

"So is the murder of a sovereign acceptable?"

"A thief of Humanity is called a thief," replied Mencius.  "A thief of Duty is called a felon.  Someone who is both a thief and a felon is called a commoner.  I’ve heard of the commoner Chou’s punishment, but I’ve never heard of a sovereign’s murder." (33)

    Mao Zedong was a thief and a felon.  The best way to remember the Cultural Revolution would be the removal of his portrait on Tiananmen Gate.  We should remember the victims and banish the thief.