A Scar on the Chinese Soul - The New York Times - 1 views
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It “is that the Chinese, without direct orders, were so cruel to each other.”
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Cultural Revolution trauma differs from that related to other horrific events, like the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide, studies have noted, in part because in China, people were persecuted not for “unalterable” characteristics such as ethnicity and race, but for having the wrong frame of mind.
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neither joining the Red Guards nor believing in Maoism protected someone from suffering long-term trauma.
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The blurry distinction between perpetrators and victims makes collective healing by confronting the past a thorny project.
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The idea that life experiences could cause inheritable genetic changes has been identified among children of Holocaust survivors, who have been shown to have an increased likelihood of stress-related illnesses.
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The possibility of epigenetic inheritance has been raised by Chinese academics regarding the Cultural Revolution, but to research the topic would most certainly invite state punishment.
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I think this article is a little bit exaggerating. Nobody is perfect, even the Mao that saved China from the hand of the Japanese. The title "a scar on the Chinese soul" is just too heavy. It is only showing one perspective of the event and it can be misleading to the general population America. From a media course I took during the winter break, it shows that there are cultural elements influencing the media inevitably. For America, the key words are "freedom", "supremacy", "heroism", "democracy"... I can see those elements influencing the view of the author in this article. And he is not the only one. There is a book called "Street of Eternal Happiness". It is also talking about Chinese suffering. There is confirmation bias in whom the author is interviewing and what data he is using in support to his argument. --Sissi (1/19/2017)
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