Book Review: Dictatorship by Degrees: Xi Jinping in China by Steven P. Feldman

IF 2.3 3区 社会学 Q1 AREA STUDIES
Y. Lai
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Abstract

at the bottom. Today, these disparate groups of zhiqing, now retired, often organize outings and activities to commemorate their once collective life at the locale where they had been settled. On such occasions these various elderly individuals have a chance to recall the past and to interact with each other. This is when the ‘fault lines along class and ideology’ (p. 209) among them become visible. The high social and/or political groups with pleasant memories of the sent-down days, armed with their social and political capital, do not hide their supercilious contempt for the ordinary zhiqing. These hierarchical social interactions are vividly documented in entertaining detail in Chapter 6, in which a large contingent of former zhiqing who had been settled in the Heilongjiang countryside take a token ‘“New Long March” along the One Belt and One Road’ (p. 212), attempting to relive their Red Guard linking-up movement. These disparate groups of zhiqing do share one commonality – one aspect of their memories aligns with the official portrayal of the zhiqing’s experience, highlighting their youth, contributions, and positive personal qualities of perseverance and determination in the countryside. They have adopted what Xu repeatedly emphasizes is the official pattern of focusing on ‘people but not the event’, similar to museum displays, zhiqing literature, and their autobiographies. However, Xu has not probed for a deeper explanation. My own observations when I interviewed former Red Guards in the 1970s who had been sent down is that introspection would have led them to confront periods and episodes in which they had personally contravened ethical behaviour. Consciously or subconsciously zhiqing writings therefore lack self-reflection. Former good-class Red Guards prefer to remember their heroic self-reliance in the countryside, while some of the middling-class Red Guards and those who were not allowed to join the Red Guards remember themselves as victims for the entire course of their life history.
在底部。今天,这些已经退休的不同群体的知青经常组织郊游和活动,以纪念他们曾经在他们定居的地方的集体生活。在这样的场合,这些不同的老年人有机会回忆过去,并相互交流。这就是他们之间“阶级和意识形态的断层线”(第209页)变得明显的时候。社会和(或)政治上的上层集团,对下乡的日子有着美好的回忆,用他们的社会和政治资本武装起来,毫不掩饰他们对普通知青的傲慢蔑视。第6章生动地记录了这些等级社会互动的有趣细节,其中一大批在黑龙江农村定居的前知青队伍象征性地“沿着一带一路”(第212页)进行“新长征”,试图重温他们的红卫兵联系运动。这些不同的知青群体确实有一个共同点——他们的记忆有一个方面与官方对知青经历的描述一致,突出了他们的年轻、贡献以及在农村坚持不懈和决心的积极个人品质。他们采用了徐反复强调的“以人为本,不以事为本”的官方模式,类似于博物馆展览、知青文学和知青自传。然而,徐并没有探究更深层次的解释。上世纪70年代,当我采访被下放的前红卫兵时,我自己的观察是,内省会让他们面对自己个人违反道德行为的时期和事件。因此,自觉或潜意识的知青写作缺乏自我反思。以前的好阶级红卫兵更愿意记住他们在农村自力更生的英雄事迹,而一些中产阶级红卫兵和那些没有被允许加入红卫兵的人则在他们的整个生命历程中都把自己当作受害者。
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来源期刊
China Information
China Information AREA STUDIES-
CiteScore
3.50
自引率
4.80%
发文量
38
期刊介绍: China Information presents timely and in-depth analyses of major developments in contemporary China and overseas Chinese communities in the areas of politics, economics, law, ecology, culture, and society, including literature and the arts. China Information pays special attention to views and areas that do not receive sufficient attention in the mainstream discourse on contemporary China. It encourages discussion and debate between different academic traditions, offers a platform to express controversial and dissenting opinions, and promotes research that is historically sensitive and contemporarily relevant.
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