Major battles in philosophy—whether they are ancient or recent, I love the study of philosophy

 By Steve Otto

I have studied philosophy most of my adult life and I started back in high school. Whether reading Mao TseTung's Five Essays on Philosophy[1] or a Yellow Dog[2] comic book, I could always learned something from writings on philosophy. I've read some ancients such as Titus Lucretius Carus and modern contemporaries such as Jean-Paul Sartre. Of course I like reading the Marxist classics, Karl Marx, VI Lenin and Mao.

Over the last few weeks I commented on some really important philosophers of Ancient Greece. And as long as I was writing about them, I figured I might as well write about two major Marxist leaders and philosophers from China (other than Mao), Jiang Qing and Deng Xiaoping. One of these leaders I consider to be very important and a hero of mine, and that is Jiang Qing. The other is someone I consider to be a Marxist traitor, Deng. So here are three works on epic philosophy battles.  

 

Epic Battles in Practical Ethics: Stoicism against Epicureanism—And yes...I have taken my side

When I started college, at Newman University, in Wichita,  had to take a course on ancient civilization. That might seem interesting but it was the ancient philosophers who had all the interesting ideas. I have to admit that I did not know that much about these ancient philosophers and their relationship to Karl Marx.

Marx had written a dissertation on the difference between the philosophy of Democritus/ Δημόκριτος and Epicurus / Ἐπίκουρος. In an introduction to his dissertation on the difference between The philosophy of Democritus and Epicurus he admits that these two philosophy, have never been given their full respect. He admitted that he had to chose one philosophy over the other because he was writing a dissertation. He said he had to chose one over  the other.

So I had read Marx's views on these ancient philosophers. I had also realized that these philosophers had developed important views on philosophy and life itself. Since that time I have found that many young Marxist find little they need in these ancient philosophies. In fact, not long ago a young Marxist wrote to me and said that modern Marxists have developed philosophy beyond the needs of the earlier philosophers that they no longer have any need for those ancient philosophies. But I'm not convinced of that. The earlier ancient philosophers laid the ground work for what we are trying to decide today.  

Now let 's fast  forward to an article I read recently, "Epic Battles in Practical Ethics: Stoicism vs Epicureanism."

It just so happens that the author's name was not on this article, so he/she/it was not someone I could find. Why it was not signed I don't know. But I haven't found the author yet.

Since reading the ancient texts of Epicurus I have considered that my religion, if there is such a thing. The author of this above article is clearly an enthusiast of stoicism.  According to Wikipedia:

 

Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium in Athens in the early 3rd century BC. It is a philosophy of personal ethics informed by its system of logic and its views on the natural world. According to its teachings, as social beings, the path to eudaimonia (happiness, or blessedness) is found in accepting the moment as it presents itself, by not allowing oneself to be controlled by the desire for pleasure or by the fear of pain, by using one's mind to understand the world and to do one's part in nature's plan, and by working together and treating others fairly and justly.

The Stoics are especially known for teaching that "virtue is the only good" for human beings, and those external things—such as health, wealth, and pleasure—are not good or bad in themselves (adiaphora), but have value as "material for virtue to act upon." Alongside Aristotelian ethics, the Stoic tradition forms one of the major founding approaches to virtue ethics. The Stoics also held that certain destructive emotions resulted from errors of judgment, and they believed people should aim to maintain a will (called prohairesis) that is "in accordance with nature." Because of this, the Stoics thought the best indication of an individual's philosophy was not what a person said but how a person behaved. To live a good life, one had to understand the rules of the natural order since they thought everything was rooted in nature.

 

I have rejected the Stoic world view, which I believe is close to the US conservative movement. In many ways people might find me a hedonist. And Epicurus, in my opinion, is simply not a hedonist. Aristippus/Ἀρίστιππος  is a good example of a hedonist. He took part in all kinds of pleasures. I have some hedonistic tendencies. But I have also insisted on trying to make the world a better place. It was Marx who said that “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.”

So perhaps I have a unique view of the philosopher's view of the world. While the author of that article clearly takes the side of the Stoics, I take the other side. So to some extent, the Marxist side does resemble Stoicism. And yet I have taken the Epicurean side. Right or wrong, I have taken a side and I do not regret that.

A few thoughts on Chiang Ching/ 江青- It was right to rebel!

 

Some people I know consider Chiang Ching/ 江青 to have been mean and a tyrant. She was mean at times. As she went through life a lot of people didn’t take her seriously. To them she was just some women (at times just a girl) who they didn’t have to take seriously. She started out her career as an actress. Some producers and directors did not take her seriously at all. As a communist there were many leaders and activist who dismissed her as someone they didn’t really need to have around. When she came to power, everyone who dismissed her regretted it. As a child she was not always popular with other children or the adults around her. She didn’t really become politically active until years after she married Mao Zedong/毛泽东. When she did become active, she was probably the most important woman to rise into a communist system. The only other examples of such women were Rosa Luxemburg and Louise Michel.

Not many women have risen up in a communist system and Chiang Ching had a very hard time making her way through that of China’s. Like it or not, the communist government, underneath Mao, was much like a ‘good ‘ol boy’ network of men. Despite all the talk of ‘women holding up half the sky’ the reality of the Communist Party of China (CPC) was that it was made up of comrades that were more interested in promoting men than women. Many did not like Chiang Ching. But there were some who did like her and they appreciated her politics and leadership. The highest leaders who supported her became known as the Gang of Four. When Mao was alive, he protected her and no one in the party dared to cross him or his wife. But when he died, the rightist in the party staged a coup and Chiang Ching and her followers were immediately the target of their revenge. There was a power struggle and the military backed Deng Xiaoping/ 邓小平 and his right-wing followers. Deng and his followers formed the right-wing of the party and they really didn’t like Mao. They took all of their dislike out on Chiang Ching.

Chiang Ching built a powerful faction within the CPC. She was a major player in the Cultural Revolution. There have been other wives of communist leaders, who wanted to become leaders after their husbands died, such as Elena Ceaușescu, wife of Nicolae Ceaușescu, of Romania. Ceaușescu was a communist, as her husband, but Chiang Ching was probably a more dynamic leader. Chiang Ching was more than just a communist. She was a feminist and a rebel. She supported the poorest of China’s people as well as the country’s university students. Culture was a major interest to her and she was a major impression on culture during the Cultural Revolution. Her politics were different from Mao’s despite her claim that she was mostly subservient to Mao.

“I was Chairman Mao’s dog. What he said to bite, I bit.”
Jiang Qing on her role in the Cultural Revolution

 

Her show trial was designed to discredit her. Deng and his faction figured that she would cower before them and ask for forgiveness. They expected to make a fool out of her. They were mistaken. She fought back and at times made fools of Deng and his cohorts. They accused her of crimes against various party members and other people. She pointed out that those who put her on trial never made any efforts to stop these crimes while Mao was alive. Chiang Ching exposed them as cowards. She turned the tables on them and they came out looking like fools. Unlike a lot of her cohorts, she never gave into to her accusers. Her famous line “It is right to rebel” became a powerful slogan to those who supported the left-wing of China’s Communist Party. Even some right-wing authors who have written biographies of her admired her for standing up to the communist government.

Chiang Ching has been a big influence on my politics.  

-Some of this information came from Comrade Chiang Ch'ing, by Roxane Witke, 1977.

Some thoughts on Deng Xiaoping—That revisionist sucked!

 

 Deng Xiaoping/  邓小平 is probably my least favorite revisionist Marxist leader ever. I have heard all the arguments on how bad Nikita Khrushchev/ Никита Хрущёв was. And for a while I really did not like Leonid Brezhnev/ Леонид Брежнев. For a time I did not like Fidel Castro. But since the fall of the Soviet Union I have changed my mind about Castro and Brezhnev. That’s not to say that I really like Brezhnev now. But I don’t dislike him as much as I used to. And I now like Castro even if he is a revisionist.

I still dislike Deng and I dislike him a lot. A lot of Chinese leaders have come and gone. But none of them had the power that he and Mao Zedong/ /毛泽东 had. Mao was the Chairman of the Communist Party of China (CPC). He had a post and it was a powerful post.He had built up a personality cult. Deng also built a personality Cult.

Unlike Mao, Deng had a position that was supposed to be ceremonial. He was on a board of  Eight Elders. When Mao died they did away with his post because they did not want such a powerful leader. But Deng set himself up to be just as powerful. He ran China the way Al Capone ran Chicago. He did not have a powerful position as Mao did. But he ran the country anyway. And the comparison of him with that of a gangster is a fair one.

Politicians and pundits here in the US and other Western countries loved Deng. He opened his country to Western economies. Under Deng, China no longer supported revolutionaries in other countries. He introduced a lot of capitalism in China. He came up with the slogan "To get rich is glorious." Naturally leaders and pundits in the West just loved him when he said that. After all, nothing is more important to Western leaders than getting rich. That is what the United States of America and other Western nations are all about. Deng was so pro-Western that he convinced Ronald Reagan that China was no longer a threat to the Western countries and the US could now just focus on Russia and its satellites as the main cold war enemy.

To be fair, Deng was a communist. He presided over the Anit-Rightist Campain launched by Mao. And yet his economic policies caused him to fall out of favor with Mao so he was purged twice during the  Cultural Revolution.[1] However he built up a right-wing faction in China's Communist Party. Mao had designated Hua Guofeng/ 华国锋 to take over after he died. However Deng out maneuvered him. Deng was shrewd and clever. However his brand of communism looked way more like Josip Tito's of Yugoslavia than anything Mao tried to do.

Deng's handling of the Tiananmen Spuare protests demonstrated just how brutal he could be. When such protests took place under Mao, the helmsman co-opted the students into a roll for the Cultural Revolution. But Deng chose to crush the students and he did it violently and brutally. He showed no sympathy for the students. Deng declared martial law.[2] He had finally done something that western leaders and pundits could not justify.

While the West claimed that Deng had opened the country up, both economically and politically, it was all just smoke and mirrors. Deng did open up the economy for Western corporations and for local business people. But politically it was more repressive than life under Mao. That's right— more repressive, not less!

Under Mao, China had two factions within the party. He balanced them off each other, taking some influence from Taoism and Lao Tzu/ 老子, especially from the concept of the yin and yang. He ran an anti-rightist campaign, but never actually closed down the right-wing faction. It was as if China was a two party system. When Deng took over, he completely shut down the left-wing faction that Mao had favored. He started with the Gang of Four and then he slowly purged out all the members of the left faction.

Maoism was then crushed in China. He still kept some pictures and some statues of Mao to give some tribute to the late founder of the People's Republic of China. Mao is still pictured on their money today. But all those pictures are more or less, "George Washington Mao." That is to say he is only a hollow symbol, much like Washington is today.

President Washington was against all political parties. He never joined one, even though he is often listed as being a Federalist, when all the presidents are listed in order. He is the only US president in history who did not belong to a party. He also warned people against foreign entanglements. He didn't believe in the separation of religion and state. These are all the things that US politicians ignore. But they do tell a story of him chopping down a cherry tree belonging to his dad.  When his dad asked he supposedly said "I can't tell a lie. I did it." In reality that story started in a biography written after his death. No one knows where it really came from or if it is true. The point here is that, just as Washington is more of a myth to US culture than fact, Mao today is known mostly as myth. The real Mao is gone, leaving just a hollow image.

Not everyone I consider a revisionist is bad. I consider Castro a revisionist, but I like him and I have a lot of respect for him. Since the fall of the Soviet Empire, leaders look very different to me. Castro seems like a good guy. I have mixed feelings about Brezhnev. 

There have been other leaders in China since Mao and Deng. Mostly they have amounted to clones of Deng. Most of those have reminded me of the US presidents between Ulysses Grant and Theodore " Teddy " Roosevelt. Those presidents, between them, did very little to get noticed by historians. Many people cannot even remember their names. However, Grant was a good drinker and Roosevelt was a terrible imperialist, but a pro-working class leader.

Today China is run by Xi Jinping / 习近平. He is considered to the left of the past leaders and to the left of Deng. He is not considered to the left of, and not even close to as far left as Mao. It may be many years before China has a REAL leftist leader. I have mixed feelings about Xi. Earlier in his reign he created a tribute to Marx. Such a tribute angered many Western pundits who hate Marx and everything he stands for. But I am sure of one thing. He is not as bad as Deng. He may not be a good leader, but Deng really sucked and he sucked real bad. Xi could do a much better job, but he is no Deng and we can be thankful for that.

"A good discourse is more hidden than the precious green stone, and yet it is found with slave-girls over the mill-stones." Instructions of Ptahhotep, "Thou canst learn something from everyone" (from the Middle Kingdom of Egypt) 

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[1] Foreign Language Press, Bejing, 1977.

[2] Yellow Dog, Print Mint, Vol II, No. 5, 1970.

[3] I originally posted a link in this article from Wikipedia, "Cultural Revolution."
After looking at that article I realized it was not only biased against the Cultural Revolution, it was wrong. Much of what is written about that event is wrong and misleading. Any article that starts out telling the reader that the Cultural Revolution was: "The Cultural Revolution, formally the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a violent sociopolitical purge movement in China from 1966 until 1976." is pure bullshit. The link I replaced it with actually explains the Cultural Revolution.

[4] Some of the information for this article came from The Tiananmen Papers, 2002. 

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