No More Learning

Without such inner as- sistance from each individual person, the agencies of change could have little success, and little justification for their existence. Ex- ternal challenge is thus always related to internal urges to know and to master.
This open confrontation causes a questioning of identity rather than thought reform's assault upon identity. It calls forth the most specifically human of faculties--introspection and symboliza- tion--rather than stunting these faculties by use of totalist coercion and dogma. The person so challenged is thrown back upon the re- sources derived from his own past without being thrust into thought reform's regressive stance. He experiences anxiety at the prospect of emerging from the security of existing identities and beliefs, pos- sibly even the severe anxiety of potential nothingness, but not the sense of being annihilated by all-powerful manipulators of anxiety. He feels the guilt and shame of unfulfillment--the "shock of recognition" of neglected personal capacities--but without the virulent self-hatred demanded by the accusatory totalist milieu. He may experience a deep sense of inner and outer disharmony, of un- comfortable personal alienation, but not the antagonistic estrange- ment of thought reform. The rebel who undergoes "a feeling of revulsion at the infringement of his rights,"3 the prospective re- ligious convert who becomes aware of his "divided self,"4 the seeker of psychotherapy who comes to recognize the debilitating nature of his neurosis, the artist who feels himself drawn into a new creative realm, and the ordinary man who at some point questions the pattern of his existence--all of these are examples of confrontation.
To act upon this confrontation is to advance to the next phase, that of reordering; and this means embarking upon the work of re-education and change. As in thought reform, reordering is likely to include a personal "emptying" process--some form of confession
? "OPEN" PERSONAL CHANGE 465
and exploration of existential guilt--in the service of exposing and altering past emotional patterns. But the personal exposure is dignified by privacy and balance; insights and interpretations are neither coercively publicized nor artificially guided along the nega- tive thought reform channels of self-betrayal and logical dishonor- ing. The involved individual cannot avoid the impact of his nega- tive identity, but he is not forced to view himself as nothing but this most debasing of self-images. In dealing with the harsh realities of his own limitations and of the world outside himself, he is by no means guaranteed a happy ending: he may indeed experience the terror and dread of a true sense of tragedy, but not the humiliating com- mand performance of thought reform's manipulated pseudo-tragedy.
Symbolic emptying is accompanied by a corresponding absorp- tion of new or refashioned ideas and emotions; this absorption can be accomplished by relatively free learning rather than by the nar- row impositions of a sacred science. This learning requires a measure of personal isolation, and even a temporary refractoriness to alternative influences, but not the hermetic self-sealing of totalism. There is the opportunity to test the personal validity of new ideas, to experiment with new forms of human relationships and creative expression, rather than the demand that all of these be subjugated to prefabricated totalist ideology and language. Through emptying and absorption, the individual (as in thought reform) constantly reinterprets his own past. He cannot reinterpret without ideological bias, without a certain amount of emotional polarization and an overcritical attitude toward his past conditioned by his urge to change; but he can find ways to moderate his judg- ments (through both introspection and outside influences), rather than having them further distorted by the always immoderate, guilt saturated totalist milieu.
The third and final stage consists of a sense of open renewal, contrasting with thought reform's closed form of rebirth. Renewal depends upon the new alignment--the new sense of fit--between personal emotions and personally-held ideas about the world; in other words, on a new interplay between identity and ideology in which both have been changed. Through renewal, the individual can free himself from exaggerated dependencies and experience an "emergence from embeddedness"5 rather than a plunge into a new form of totalist embeddedness. He can accomplish this only by
? 466 THOUGHT REFORM
viewing his relationships to old authorities as steps along his per- sonal path toward greater independence, not by making the illusory totalist effort to annihilate their inner remnants or deny their existence.
He is free to experience a new or reinforced commitment to an ideal or a cause, but a commitment made autonomously and in the face of alternatives, rather than as a compulsory loyalty as- sociated with a bond of betrayal. Instead of totalism's highly- simplified and distorted pure image approach to knowledge, he may acquire an enlarged receptivity to intellectual and emotional complexities around him. Nor can this renewal be consolidated by the symbolic submission of a "final confession" or a "final thought summary"; rather, there must be an awareness (whether gradual or sudden) of genuine self-knowledge and a readiness to accept its consequences. These include: a personal responsibility for expres- sions of love and hate, rather than a submission to their legislation by push-button enthusiasm or by ideological command; and a recognition of social identifications beyond the self--free of ideo- logical exclusiveness, and including yet transcending family, pro- fession, culture, and nation.
A person so renewed, instead of being coercively reshaped ac- cording to an imposed ideological myth, will be able to call forth the "submerged metaphor" ? of his own mythologically nourished imagination to further his efforts at self-expression. He will feel himself to be connected with his past, however critical he may be of it, and will not try, in the totalist manner, to cut himself off from it completely. This new harmony, however, cannot afford him total relief from personal conflict and confusion. A certain amount of conflict and confusion are in fact inherent in the enlarged life space which he attains, in contrast to their attempted elimination by totalist constriction. Such renewal, whether achieved through per- sonal search or by guided secular or clerical change, places one in more viable relationship to the universal human experience, or to "the principle of continuous life. " 7
In contrasting this open style of change with the closed thought reform mode, I am admittedly speaking in ideal terms. No such change can proceed entirely unhindered, as closed-system emotional patterns always exist within any person--patterns of regression,
? "OPEN" PERSONAL CHANGE 467
mistrust, and of incapacitating dependency--which undermine open change at every turn. The three steps I have described are, of course, schematic, since each is likely to be incomplete and all three can occursimultaneously.
Yet open change does occur and has been described. We can see it in the lives of great men: in, for instance, Camus' emer- gence from the "burning and disordered" years of his experiments with totalism (both Communism and nihilism) to become perhaps the most articulate moralist and exponent of autonomous com- mitment in our century. 8 We see it also in what William James described as the "willingness to be" of religious converts and the "states of knowledge" and "states of insight" of Eastern and Western mystics;9 and in what Michael Balint calls the "new be- ginning of love" of successfully treated psychoanalytic patients. 10 We have also observed change of this kind among the subjects of this study, in their casting off the closed influences of thought re- form and undergoinga personal experience of renewal (for example, Father Vechten, Father Luca, George Chen, and Mr. Hu). I would make the further claim that in the completion of every genuinely creative act, and in fact at some time during virtually every adult life, changes of this open variety take place.
Whether a change is open, closed, or something of each, it in- volves the entire person. For this reason I have stressed throughout this study the relationship of personal identity to specific attitudes and values as well as to larger ideologies; and I have used the con- cept of identity as a large configuration rather than a localized subdivision in the mental topography. Similarly, I have spoken little of "persuasion" and much of pressures toward identity change. For I feel that belief and identity are so intimately related that any change in one must affect the other. This means that anyone's approach to ideologies, within his own culture or without, will invariably be strongly influenced by existing group identifications
(or more broadly, by the need to belong), as well as by the ever- present inner struggle for a self-respecting personal definition. Also of great importance is the question of guilt, and especially ex- istential guilt. That which will permit a man to come to terms with his own feeling of limitation and at the same time afford him a sense of group affiliation and personal continuity is that which he will come to believe.
? 468 THOUGHT REFORM
This psychological interplay is always related to broader historical influences. Problems of identity and belief are likely to become more widespread and intense when individual change is associated with rapid culture change--and during our epoch rapid culture change has become the rule rather than the exception. Thus the changing identity sequence we described for China in Chapter 19 has important meaning for other countries still emerging from traditional individual and social patterns--countries in Asia, the Middle East, parts of Europe, Africa, and South America. Nations in all of these areas have, in widely diverse ways, shared an ethos of filialism and an identity of the filial son. Now mostly in some kind of transitional stage, they show strong evidence of rebellion against filialism and of adopting the identity of the modem student. Highly vocal "youth cultures" are appearing where they had never existed before--young people in great conflict with their parents and with family-oriented customs, demanding self-expres- sion in place of youthful deference, seeking active patterns (or even activism) rather than passive ones, experiencing bitter anger and painful guilt in connection with their rebellion, undergoing considerable confusion in identity, and feeling desperate ideo- logical hunger. This seems to be the individual pattern of culture change within any recently traditional society. And contesting ideologies--nationalism, liberal democracy (or democratic social- ism), and Communism--are also still battling as they did in China.
Certainly a major task of the human sciences is to relate knowl- edge of specific cultures to existing universal alternatives in the direction of change--and to gain more understanding of the actual process of change in both cultures and individual people. 11 As John Dewey wrote in 1949, "Social 'science' waits upon a grasp of the fact that the only possible stable coordinations are equilibria of movements in respect to one another. . . . Now that practically all things are 'in process/ failure to study the direction in which they are moving constitutes the present . . . disorganization. " 12
In pursuing this problem, we will do well to pay special attention to youth groups, to men and women from sixteen to thirty years old. It is they who most enthusiastically espouse the change- stimulating ideas and ideologies. And there is good reason to believe that in these youth groups we can regularly see, as we saw in China, a culture's experimentations with its own possible future
? "OPEN" PERSONAL CHANGE 469
courses. I do not wish to imply that these youth group phenomena alone initiate culture change, for there is no denying the im- portance of technological and industrial development, of altered patterns in child-rearing and education, and of new ideologies and social institutions. But I do suggest that youth groups represent a human vanguard in the sense that they are the first and most intense indicators of the kinds of psychological experience and identity shift which will occur subsequently in adult populations throughout a particular society,
Thus, I believe that the developmental phase of late adolescence and early adulthood has special significance for all subsequent per- sonal change. This is the period in which adult identity takes shape, and it is the time of strong enthusiasms, of a marked tend- ency toward emotional polarization, of great ideological receptivity, and of maximum experiential intensity. I suspect that during any adult change it is necessary to revive in some fashion--or else perpetuate--the predominant patterns of this phase of life, perhaps even more than those of the earlier phases of childhood to which psychiatry presently directs so much attention. This is not to minimize the importance of character formation during early life, but rather to suggest that the altering of adult identity depends upon a specific recapturing of much of the emotional tone which prevailed at the time that this adult identity took shape. This view is consistent with William James' association of religious conver- sion with "the ordinary storm and stress and moulting-time of adolescence," and his conviction that "conversion is in its essence a normal adolescent phenomenon, incidental to the passage from the child's small universe to the wider intellectual and spiritual
life of maturity/'13 The "moulting-time" of youth, then, establishes within each man a model for later adult change; and the sudden emergence of youth cultures can similarly provide a social model
(or several alternative models) for later historical change.
All of this has much bearing on the problem of ideological totalism. For the more intense the identity strains and patterns of alienation among the modern students of any country emerging from filialism, the greater the possibility of this group's adopting extremist approaches to the resolution of such strains. In China
these took the form of Communist ideology, and the "therapy" of thought reform. Other countries may respond similarly to the
? 470 THOUGHT REFORM
attractions of totalism, as a means of achieving rapid economic and technological growth and of simultaneously dealing with identity tasks similar to those described for China: the destruction of traditional filialism, the undermining of Western liberalism, the mopping up of transitional chaos, and the resurrection of filial emotions in the service of a closed mass movement. These countries, insofar as their specific cultural traditions allow, could conceivably also adopt some thought reform-like process for the purpose of carrying out a similar program. In studying patterns of historical change, we should divest ourselves of the psychological illusion that a strong filial tradition is a bulwark against modern ideological totalism (or most specifically, Communism). The opposite seems to be true. It is precisely the desperate urge to sweep away decay- ing yet still powerful filial emotions and institutions that can call forth political totalism.
Nor are post-industrial cultures--including our own "affluent society"--immune from identity strains of equal severity, or from possible attractions to various forms of totalism. In our country, these attractions could stem from a sense of purposelessness, con- fusion, and lack of commitment; of dissatisfaction with the ritualism and roteness created by overorganization of our professional and social spheres (big society and mass society); of mounting evidences of corrupt and irresponsible practice in public life and within com- munication media; and of our relative ineffectually in the face of the gains of ideological rivals (including some envy of their ap- parent totalist efficiency). Again some of the patterns of youth culture may be revealing; and in American youth we encounter-- amidst much quiet conformity--rebellion which concerns itself less with political preoccupations and more with patterns of social nihilism, iconoclastic criticism of existing cultural forms, and an urge for direct and absolute "experience. " Indeed, the Zen Buddhist plunge of the American beatnik has in it some of the same element of total rejection of one's past, in exchange for another's past, as the Chinese intellectual's initial plunge into Western sociopolitical forms.
This is not to say that totalism is by any means the sole (or even most probable) eventuality, either for ourselves or for the transi- tional cultures of which we have spoken. It rather suggests the faltering state of liberal alternatives to totalism, the paucity of
? "OPEN" PERSONAL CHANGE 471
nontotalist social visions for the future, and the urgent necessity for such visions. It may be that the most fervent of liberal antitotalists --those most confident of their moral stand--are among those intellectuals who have known the most extreme forms of totalism-- among Chinese, Poles, and Hungarians who have spoken out against their regimes. The actions of these groups have an additional significance, for they demonstrate that the open nontotalist mode of existence has been sufficiently experienced to have become part of the broad human consciousness, and is therefore likely to con- tinue to endure everywhere as a viable alternative to totalism. The youth rebellions opposing totalism in Eastern Europe, Russia, and China seem to combine urges toward privacy, personal freedom, and self-expression (frequently manifested by interest in non- Communist literature, art, and jazz music, or by "bourgeois ro- mance*') with patterns of nihilism not too different from those found in the United States and among youths throughout the world.
Surely the craving and the search are universal: man seeks new modes of existence--blending the scientific, the political, the artistic, and the spiritual--which will provide liberal alternatives to totalism along with the sense of feeling meaningfully related to a world whose most constant feature is change. No one can predict from what quarter such a vision, or elements of it, may emerge.
We can be sure that these alternative visions will in part depend upon a more accurate perception of current human transformations --individually, by generations, and in terms of the broader evolu- tionary process. It may be that this knowledge will teach us that we require--as has been suggested in relationship to primitive societies--wholistic configurations of change which take into ac- count all aspects of human life while at the same time permitting a sense of continuity with one's personal past. 14 But perhaps we shall also have to make a more conscious effort to preserve specific elements within our heritage even as so much of it is in the process of being altered. Certainly we must learn to live with a good deal of conflict, confusion, and ferment, and at the same time cultivate the emotional balance of "thought which recognizes limits. "15 By "we" I mean mankind: "the community today is the planet,"10 and it is indeed already beyond that.
In studying thought reform and related expressions of totalism,
? 4 7 ^ THOUGHT REFORM
I have been profoundly impressed with the dangers which face this expanding human community, dangers which arise from man's tendency to symbolize his universe within a suffocating circle of hatred. I have been equally impressed with his ingenuity in break- ing out of that circle, with his physical and emotional resiliency, and with the extraordinary scope of his imaginative faculties at moments when he feels his existence most threatened.
? APPENDIX
A CONFESSION DOCUMENT
The following is the confession of Professor Chin
Yiieh-lin, made during the thought reform campaign of 1951-52, as translated in Current Background, No. 213, Ameri- can Consulate General, Hong Kong, October i, 1952. Professor Chin, who spent a number of years studying in this country, mostly at Harvard University, has been regarded as China's leading authority on formal logic.
CRITICIZING MY IDEALISTIC BOURGEOIS PEDAGOGICAL IDEOLOGY
By Chin Yiieh-lin
(Peking Kuang Ming Jih Pao, April 17, 1952)
Bom of a bureaucratic landlord family, I have always led a life of ease and comfort. I went abroad at nineteen and stayed there for eleven years to absorb the way of life and the predilection for pleas- ure of the European and American bourgeoisie. The principal source of my various pleasures lay in the decadent philosophy of the bourgeoisie, and for thirty years I played a game of concepts. I was engrossed in this game of concepts because it was the only way for me to feel happy and free, and to escape from the restric-
473
? 474 THOUGHT REFORM
tive realities of society, I thus cultivated the habit of running away from realities, despising realities, and leading a life isolated from realities. However, since I still had to live in a society of realities, the only way for me to maintain this life isolated from the realities was to gain certain privileges. I needed those privileges, and I thus fell a victim to the ideology of special privileges.
MY CRUST OF SELFISHNESS
My life in school served to form this outer crust of mine which
can conveniently be divided into three phases:
I. My decadent bourgeois philosophy. While in school, I inces-
santly disseminated the trivialities of metaphysical idealism, in particular the inanities of metaphysical philosophical methods. As I gradually assumed a position of leadership within the Philosophy Department of Tsinghua, all sorts of injuries to the people's enter- prises inevitably resulted as manifested in: ( i ) I obstructed the development of the philosophy of materialistic dialectics in Tsinghua's Philosophy Department. Though I never actually tried to stop the discussion of materialistic dialectics among teachers and students, I nevertheless throttled the development of ma- terialistic dialectics in Tsinghua's Philosophy Department by sub- jecting it to attacks by a circuitous system of philosophical debate. (2) I trained those who concerned themselves only with the game of concepts, were not interested in politics, and were even re- actionary. As for instance, Yin Fu-sheng, one of the reactionary elements for whose training I was responsible, is now serving the Chiang bandits in Taiwan. I was further possessed of the bourgeois viewpoint of the education of the talented. I was thus very much struck by Professor Shen Yiieh-ting's powers in playing the game of concepts. As a result of my evil influence, Professor Shen is even now seriously isolated from the realities. (3) I disseminated the purely technical viewpoint in logic. For twenty years I taught logic to numerous students. All the time, however, I only tried to teach logic from the formalistic viewpoint, as for instance I was only concerned with the correctness of the reasoning without caring about the truthfulness of the premises. My mistaken viewpoint of education for the talented led me to think highly of Wang Hao, who even now is serving the interests of American imperialism by being connected with an American university. (4) I encouraged the
? A CONFESSION DOCUMENT 475
development of sectarianism within Tsinghua's Philosophy Depart- ment by stressing the highly involved analysis of concepts and the formulation of circuitous systems of philosophy as the most im- portaftt aspects of philosophy. I then thought that the Philosophy Department of Tsinghua was very good in these respects. This sort of sectarianism was inevitably one of the facts which obstructed the regulation of the departments and colleges.
II. My decadent "above-politics" "above-class" "out-of-the- worW", and "above-humanity" philosophy of life. Before the libera- tion, having absolutely no idea of the truth that the human world is created through labor, I mistakenly took the human race to be insignificant and the history of the human race to be but a minor episode in the main stream. I therefore tended to despise the world, and to become above-politics and above-class. My preoccupa- tion with this decadent philosophy of life led^ me to despise administrative work. I consequently tried by all means to minimize my personal affairs and adopted an attitude of absolute indifference toward all things. When I was charged with administrative work after the liberation, my mistaken attitude inevitably resulted in idiotic bureaucratism. Though a member of the University Adminis- tration Committee, I spoke up only once in all its meetings, and I honestly had nothing to talk about; and though the Dean of the College of Arts really had very little to do, what little there was I neglected altogether. For instance, I never seemed to remember that I was actually the Dean of the College of Arts when handling such matters as the resumption of publication of the Tsinghua Journal, the maintenance of proper relationship between the dif- ferent colleges and departments, etc. As Chairman of the Philos- ophy Department, I left the affairs of the department to take care of themselves, and I never bothered to do anything about personnel appointments within the department,
III. My ideology of special privileges. In order to maintain my way of life, I had to have special privileges. I felt the need for these privileges, I enjoyed these privileges, became obsessed by the ideology of special privileges, and I became one of the privileged few of Tsinghua. Though I was privileged, I yet refused to shoulder the ac- companying responsibilities. Thus, while I enjoyed special privileges in Tsinghua, yet I never burdened myself with administrative work.
The three above-mentioned phases constituted the main ingre-
? 476 THOUGHT REFORM
dients of my crust. The scope of the crust was moreover variable: one crust represented my individual self, one crust the Philosophy Department, while another represented Tsinghua. My personal crust being the "core" of this miniature universe, I accordingly remained completely indifferent to things which had little to do with my personal interests. Whenever the matter in question was in con- flict with my personal crust, I always sallied forth to give battle. As for instance, when the son of Professor Liang Ssu-ch'eng wanted to change his registration from the History Department to the Architecture Department, I, as an old friend of the family who knew him when he was born, tried to help him, in the thought that he was more suited to the study of architecture. Though there are certain strict restrictions in connection with the change of registra- tion from one department to another, yet I made use of my special privileges to work on his behalf which resulted in a series of serious mistakes. This is but one example of a situation which conflicted with my personal crust. I opposed the reform of curriculum be- cause I wanted to maintain the crust of the Philosophy Department in Tsinghua. When the regulation of departments and colleges started in 1950, I was dead against it7 for my most outstanding crust was Tsinghua University. Motivated by departmentalism, sectarianism, and the educational ideology of the bourgeoisie, I was of infinite harm to the program for the regulation of depart- ments and colleges. Had the regulation of departments and col- leges been carried out in 1950, then Tsinghua alone would have turned out another 5,000-6,000 cadres, and a far larger number would have been turned out throughout the country. Incalculable harm has thus been caused the democratic construction program of the entire country. For this I now hate myself beyond measure.
MY POLITICAL A TTITUDE
My crust is based on the past prevailing economic social founda- tion, that is, the capitalistic social system. In order to protect this crust, I had to give my political support to the old system of democ- racy. As a confirmed individualistic liberal, I have always based my political attitude upon this point of view. Only now have I realized that fact that the old democracy is but the dictatorship of the bourgeois class, and the so-called individual freedom is but the "freedom" for the bourgeoisie to exploit and oppress the laboring
? A CONFESSION DOCUMENT 477
people. My numerous criminal deeds of the past should thus be attributed to my acceptance of individual liberalism.
With regard to my attitude toward American imperialism, as a result of long years of studying in America, the evil influences of bourgeois education, my large number of American friends, and my constant contact with Americans, I became instilled with pro- American thoughts which prevented me from realizing American imperialism's plots of aggression against China during the past hundred years, and turned me into an unconscious instrument of American imperialistic cultural aggression. I cried bitterly over the Twenty-one Demands, but took no notice of the Sino-American Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation. While I was highly indignant at the time of the Tsinan Incident during the Northern Expedition, and was all for resisting Japan when the Muk- den incident and the Luguochiao Incident took place, I never- theless remained blind to the misdeeds of American soldiers in China. In 1943 I was one of the Chinese professors who went to America on the invitation of the American State Department. There, totally deprived of my national standpoint as a result of my pro-American thoughts, I even tried to persuade the American State Department to force bandit Chiang to practice democracy.
With regard to my attitude toward the Soviet Union, in always looking at the USSR from the viewpoint of old democracy, I consistently distorted and slandered the Soviet Union, and right up to the liberation I thought that individual "freedom" does not exist in the Soviet Union. I considered both the October Revolu- tion and the purges within the Party to be "going too far," and that the Soviet Union made use of the Communist Party in other countries to interfere in their internal affairs. All these ideas were of course mistaken and reactionary. My principal mistake lay in thinking of the Soviet Union as devoid of individual freedom. At that time, in failing to take the October Revolution as an epoch- making great event of history, I only tried to antagonize the Soviet Union on the basis of my individual liberal pro-America ideology. It was only after the liberation that I succeeded gradually in gain- ing an understanding of true freedom, and thus to change my at- titude toward the Soviet Union.
With regard to student movements, I nearly always maintained a negative and double-faced attitude toward all the student move-
? 478 THOUGHT REFORM
ments I came across in my teaching career. On the one hand I "loathed" the Kuomintang of the Chiang bandits, while on the other hand I opposed the Communist Party of China. I say "loathed" advisedly, because I never tried to oppose them by any positive effort. Before I left for America in 1943, I had to go through five days of Kuomintang training in Chungking before I could get my passport, and had to write a short essay of two hundred words on the advisability for local officials to visit the central govern- ment. This was really a shame. Though I honestly loathed the Kuomintang, this was not what mattered. The important thing was that I opposed the Chinese Communists. This dualism in my make- up was best shown at the time of the December First Incident [a student movement which took place in 1945 in Kunming]. Though I was highly enthusiastic at the start of the movement, when I followed the footsteps of the progressive elements, I later lost my interest and finally I stood for the resumption of class. This was because I opposed the Communists. Soon after the end of the movement I quarreled with Professor Chang Hsi-jo and I told him in the sternest manner and in tears that, "It is you people who made such a mess of China. After depriving China of 'freedom/ it will take I don't know how many years to have it restored/'
As viewed from the three above-mentioned aspects, my political attitude was truly intolerable. How was it possible that though early in life I loved my country and wanted to save her from the fate of partition, yet I turned out to be such a fool later? On this point I have to charge the American imperialists who made use of a mission school, that is, Tsinghua College, and of the education I received while in America, to turn me into an instrument of Amer- ican imperialistic cultural aggression, deprived me of my national standpoint, prevented me from making a distinction between our friends and our enemies, and led me to do things detrimental to the people.
MY IDEOLOGICAL CHANGE
My preliminary understanding of the People's Liberation Army and the Communist Party.
The miracles of the People's Liberation Army demanded my whole-hearted respect. I never thought such discipline possible, and they love the people so much. In the early days after the liberation, I was highly moved by an episode involv-
? A CONFESSION DOCUMENT 479
ing the son of my maid Liu. When her son, who was working in a certain factory, misbehaved himself, certain soldiers of the PLA stationed in that factory tried to reform him by education. When this failed, two comrades of the PLA approached Liu to request her to go and reform her son. In the end, the two soldiers treated the mother to a meal and finally saw her home. I consider such a fighting force as unique in history. In the spring of 1949, I was fortunate enough to have the chance to listen to a series of reports rendered by various senior Party cadres. There attitude was so very honest and sincere and they were always prepared to practice what they preach. Though all occupying senior positions within the Party, they yet were always ready to admit their mistakes publicly before the masses. Such a party I consider unprecedented in China. However, this kind of recognition was only the preliminary stage of cognition through emotion, something within the capability of all Chinese.
My change in philosophical ideology. Generally speaking this change can be divided into three periods. During the first period, I was still unable to link up the actualities of the revolution with Marxism-Leninism. Though I had already acquired a preliminary understanding of the Communist Party and the PLA, yet this did not mean that I was ready to accept materialistic dialectics and historical dialectics. When Comrade Ai Ssu-ch'i lectured in Tsing- hua, I even tried to argue with him. Starting from the months of March and April 1949, I began to attend various meetings for the exchange of philosophical opinions. Even at that time I still held two mistaken points of view: in the first place I still looked upon materialistic dialectics and the old philosophy as equals, and, under the illusion that our Communist comrades were ignorant of the old philosophy, had the wish to initiate them in the mysteries of old philosophy; in the second place, in the mistaken idea that materialistic dialectics and historical dialectics were not well sys- tematized, I thought of putting them to order by means of my trivial system of analysis. My unbelievable arrogance and ignorance was the result of the fact that I was still looking at materialistic dialectics on the basis of the old philosophy. As I took part in the first attempt at curriculum reform in the above mentioned spirit, naturally nothing was accomplished. The Philosophy Department was thus prevented from making any progress.
? 480 THOUGHT REFORM
The second period lasted roughly from the start of the second attempt at curriculum reform in 1950 to the spring of 1951. From the very start of this period I had already accepted the leading posi- tion of materialistic dialectics, and rectified my two above-men- tioned mistakes. I then considered materialistic dialectics as a piece of red string linking up all different branches of knowledge. Yet, though I admitted its importance in an abstract fashion, my real interests were still focused on philosophy, as one of the branches of knowledge linked up by materialistic dialectics. In this manner I was still trying to oppose the new philosophy by the old. Both on the basis of my mistaken views and in compliance to the then prevailing conditions in Tsinghua's Philosophy Department, I proposed to divide the departments into three groups: history of philosophy, logic, and history of art. Since this amounted to change in name only but not change in substance, I again succeeded in preventing Tsinghua's Philosophy Department from making any progress.
In the spring of 1951, I went regularly into the city to make a study of On Practice [an essay by Mao Tse-tung]. It was during this period that a radical change began to take place in my ideology. For almost two years before this, I had been going to the city regularly every Sunday to take part in the study activities of the Chinese Philosophy Society. Whatever I gained in the course of these two years, coupled with my study of On Practice, enabled me to realize the fundamental difference in nature between materialistic dialectics and the old philosophy. The old philosophy, being meta- physical, is fundamentally unscientific, while the new philosophy, being scientific, is the supreme truth. It was during the Curriculum Reform Campaign of 1951 that I succeeded in realizing that the mission of the Philosophy Department lies in the training of propa- ganda personnel for the dissemination of Marxism-Leninism. This time the curriculum reform was carried out in a comparatively thorough manner. However, insofar as my understanding of ma- terialistic dialectics was still based on abstract concepts, it inevitably brought serious consequences to Tsinghua's Philosophy Department.
THE DANGERS OF IDEALISM AND BOURGEOIS PEDAGOGICAL IDEOLOGY TO THE PHILOSOPHY DEP ARTMENT
Idealism and bourgeois pedagogical ideology have always oc- cupied a leading position in Tsinghua's Philosophy Department,
? A CONFESSION DOCUMENT 481
and I have all the time been an outstanding representative of this decadent ideology. This situation has remained more or less un- changed right from the liberation up to the moment. This naturally resulted in huge losses. In the main, our principal defects lay in our low level of political consciousness and the dislocation of theory from practice. The concrete manifestations are as follows:
To deal with materialistic dialectics by means of the analysis of concepts really amounts to the exposition of Marxism-Leninism by means of idealistic metaphysical methods. As for instance, should we try to carry out in class a conceptual analysis of "necessity and contingency" and "relative truth and absolute truth," we would inevitably fall into the trap of running around in abstract circles of concepts, with the students getting more and more confused. To teach Marxism-Leninism in such a manner can only result in the distortion of Marxism-Leninism. Marxism-Leninism which in itself is concrete, militant, and should serve as the guide for our action, has, in our hands, been turned into a lifeless and abstract heap of concepts.
Under the influence of this kind of idealistic bourgeois pedagogi- cal ideology, certain students naturally fell a victim to idealism. A student by the name of Li Hsiieh-chin is, in this respect, an out- standing example. Li entered Tsinghua in 1951, and within half a year he managed to read up on Wang Yang-ming [the idealist philosopher of the Ming Dynasty], the Buddhist philosophy of Hsiung Shih-li, Moslem philosophy, and various other obscure books. When certain students felt they were unable to study the subjects they needed, they naturally changed their registration to other de- partments. Of the thirteen students of the class of 1949, nine de- cided to enter other departments; of the seven students of the class of 1950, five changed to other departments; and of the eight stu- dents of the class of 1951, two are going to change their registration to other departments.
Another undesirable manifestation in pedagogy lay in the dog- matic attempt to stuff the students with various theories, without taking pains to solve the ideological problems of the students. In- asmuch as materialistic dialectics is one of the subjects taught in the general political course attended by the entire school, I only tried to deal with materialistic dialectics in a supplementary manner, in the mistaken idea that the responsibility for the solution of ideological problems lay with the general political course, while
? 482 THOUGHT REFORM
in teaching materialistic dialectics in the Philosophy Department we only had to deal with the theoretical aspects. I thus erred in idealistically divorcing the problems of ideology and theory to cause the students great confusion.
Though Marxism-Leninism is designed to solve practical prob- lems, yet in our hands, it is fundamentally unable to solve the ideo- logical problem of the students. To cite three graduates of the 1950 class of the Philosophy Department as examples: one by the name of Tang entered the graduate school of the Philosophy Depart- ment, but he was all the time more interested in mathematics; another graduate by the name of Chou gave up all his former train- ing to enter the Physics Department of Peita; while still another graduate by the name of Shui, though he had already qualified for the graduate school of the Philosophy Department, yet chose to enter Peita to study chemistry. Though all three students had ideological trouble, yet neither I nor the other teachers of the Philosophy Department succeeded in giving them timely assist- ance. Of this year's freshman students in the Philosophy Depart- ment, eight have already signified their wish to change their regis- tration. With the situation in our department even as serious as it was, we still failed to notice it, not to say remedy the situation. It is entirely due to the fact that we were so badly poisoned our- selves that we failed to notice the seriousness of the situation and to rectify it.
In the bourgeois pedagogical method there is fundamentally no relationship between the teacher and the student. I myself only went to class to lecture, without caring whether the students un- derstood me or whether they had any problems. I often missed classroom discussions, and I had no concern for the life, ideology, and state of health of the students. In adopting a liberalist attitude towards the students' studies, the teachers of the Philosophy De- partment always left everything to the individual efforts of the stu- dents. As for instance, we remained ignorant of the fact that a certain student studied for as many as seventy hours a week, and we certainly would not have done anything had we known it.
Though the mission of the Philosophy Department lies in the training of cadres for the dissemination of Marxism-Leninism, yet as a result of the predominance of idealistic philosophy and ped- agogical practice within the department, we inevitably failed to
? A CONFESSION DOCUMENT 483
carry out this task, thus bringing about the above-mentioned harmful effects. Whereas this responsibility should be borne by all the professors of the Philosophy Department, the greater part of the guilt should be attributed to me for I led them to become estranged from politics and isolated from realities.
THE TEACHERS' STUDY MOVEMENT AND THE THREE-ANTI CAMPAIGN
As stated above, it was in the spring of 1951 that I began to realize the scientific and truthful nature of Marxism-Leninism, though this realization was even then abstract and conceptual. Before the start of the study movement for the teachers of Peking and Tientsin and the Three-Anti Campaign, I failed to link up Marxism-Lenin- ism both with the realities in general and with my personal case. Though I took part in numerous activities in and out of Tsinghua, these activities never influenced me to any appreciable degree. It was only at the start of the teachers' study movement that I suc- ceeded in linking myself up, criticizing my old democratic individ- ual liberalistic ideology, and taking the first step in gaining a cor- rect understanding of the Soviet Union and of American imperial- ism. I was still unable to gain a correct understanding of my former ideological self. It was only at the start of the Three-Anti Campaign that I began to understand my former self, my crust of selfishness, and my ideological shortcomings. Late in the spring of 1951, I began to try to become a good teacher of the people. However, I never was able to succeed in this. Not only did I fail, but I even committed the gravest mistakes. With the assistance of others and following my own preliminary analysis, I now consider the funda- mental ideological source for my personal crust of selfishness to be the extremely depraved, epicurean, liberalist, and bourgeois ideology of striving after individual freedom. The philosophical manifestation of this ideology was found in my preoccupation with the completely impractical and extremely abstract game of concepts. In personal philosophy of life, this ideology was mani- fested in my decadent "above-politics," "above-class," "above-the-
world," and "above-humanity" viewpoint. In actual life at school, this ideology was manifested in my attempt to maintain my life of ease and comfort and to build up a crust of special privileges. This kind of ideology was the ideology of the exploitative class, or rather the exploitative ideology of the "share-holders" and "behind-the-
? 484 THOUGHT REFORM
scene-boss" of the exploitative class. It was owing to this ideology that I was led to become estranged from the social realities and prevented from gaining a correct understanding of the people even after the liberation. I shall smash my personal crust and eradicate the bourgeois ideologies which have for years dominated my life.
MY DETERMINATION
He who loves New China well must know that in New China the people are on their feet and have come into their own. There are 470,000,000 Chinese in New China and I am one of them. This New China is working for the interests and welfare of the people of China as well as of the world. I have no wish to be an onlooker both in connection with the revolution and with the people's con- struction enterprises. I want to take part in the glorious and mighty enterprises which should be participated in not only by the young, but by the people of all ages, including the old. I am now close to sixty, and I am a criminal for having sinned against the people. From now on, however, I shall strive to become a new man and a teacher of the people in substance as well as in name. I shall exert myself to study, as well as to work, for one year, two years, three years, or even five or ten years. Provided I am able to keep up my efforts, I shall ultimately succeed.
? NOTES CHAPTER 1 (3-7)
1 Edward Hunter, Brain-washing in Red China, New York, Vanguard Press, 1951.
a Robert J. Lifton, "Home by Ship: Reaction Patterns of American Prisoners of War Repatriated from North Korea/' American Journal of Psychiatry (1954) 110:732-739. This book does not concern itself with the military application of thought reform to Westerners. Much valuable work on the subject can be found in the contents and the references of the following three symposia: "Methods of Forceful Indoctrination: Observations and Interviews," Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry, Symposium No, 4, July 1957; "Brainwashing," The Journal of Social Issues (1957) XIII, No. 3; and "Communist Methods of Interrogation and Indoctrination," Bulletin of the New Yorfe Academy of Medicine (1957) 33:599-653. Edgar H. Schein has done especially compre- hensive work with American prisoners of war ("The Chinese Indoctrination Program for Prisoners of War: A Study of Attempted 'Brainwashing'," Psy- chiatry (1956) 19:149-172), as have Hinkle and Wolff ("Communist Inter- rogation and Indoctrination of 'Enemies of the State*," Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry (1956) 76:115-174).
CHAPTER 2 (8-16)
1 Mao Tse-tung, "Correcting Unorthodox Tendencies in Learning, the Party, and Literature and Arts," in C. Brandt, B. Schwartz, and J. Fairbank, A Docu- mentary History of Chinese Communism, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1951, 392.
a This "argument" is extracted and quoted from two authoritative statements on the rationale of thought reform made by a leading Party theorist: Ai Ssu- ch'i, "On Problems of Ideological Reform," Hsiieh Hsl, III, January i, 1951; and "Recognize Clearly the Reactionary Nature of the Ideology of the Bour- geois Class," Current Background, No. 179, American Consulate General, Hong Kong, May 6, 1952, translated from Hsiieh Hsi, March 16, 1952, a later "self- criticism" by Ai of his earlier article.
3 "Reform Through Labor of Criminals in Communist China," Current Background, No. 293, American Consulate General, Hong Kong, September 15,
485
? 486 THOUGHT REFORM
1954. This passage was translated from an editorial in Jen Min Jih Pao (The People's Daily).
*"Regulations Governing Labor Service for Reform of the People's Republic of China/* adopted by the Government Administration Council of the Peking Central People's Government, Aug. 26, 1954, tr. in Current Background, No. 293. The practices described in these regulations had apparently been in force long before this code was enacted.
CHAPTER 3 (19-37)
1 Vincent, like many of my Western subjects, knew enough spoken Chinese so that most of his reform could be conducted in that language; and his fluency greatly improved during his ordeal. A bilingual fellow prisoner (or, during interrogations, an official translator) was always available for Chinese- English interpretation, however,
3 The judge is actually a high-ranking prison official, and the interrogations which he presides over are official court proceedings; other prison officials of less exalted rank may conduct ordinary interrogations. These distinctions do not always hold.
3 The italics used in quotations from subjects during this and subsequent chapters are, of course, my own.
*Here, and in the next case as well, I could not be sure that the recollection of sleep-deprivation was completely accurate; I believe that in both cases it was reasonably so, although the subjects may have neglected to report brief periods of dozing. The officials always allowed prisoners to get sleep enough to be able to participate in the interrogations, but sometimes during this early period of imprisonment they were permitted little more.
CHAPTER 4 (38-64)
xThis was part of a widespread change in prison policy in 1952 and 1953, Some, but not all, of the extreme practices, especially those within the cells, were curbed. After this change, in many prisons individual prisoners were pro- hibited from discussing the criminal details of their cases with cellmates; these were to be reserved for sessions with prison officials. A prisoner was still ex- pected to confess details of personal evil within the cell, but primarily in con- nection with the re-education process.
CHAPTER 5 (65-85)
1 These have been altered and expanded from an earlier analysis presented in: Lifton, "Thought Reform of Western Civilians in Chinese Communist Prisons/' Psychiatry (1956) 19:173-195.
9 Erik H. Erikson, "On the Sense of Inner Identity," Health and Human Relations, New York, 1953. See also Erikson's, "The Problem of Ego Identity," Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association (1956) 4:56-121.
*Some prisoners are held in isolation for a few weeks at police headquarters before being assigned to a prison cell group. They experience particularly dis- turbing feelings of loneliness, hopelessness, and abandonment; their interroga- tions become their only form of direct communication with others. Through
? NOTES 487
a slightly different route they too experience a similar regressive stance, assault upon identity, and loss of personal autonomy.
*Much of the intense anxiety stimulated during this early phase thus be- comes associated with guilt. But in addition, a certain amount of anxiety arising in connection with the developing sense of "guilt may be perceived simply as anxiety, while the guilt remains unconscious. Piers has proposed the term "guilt anxiety" as a more accurate description of this phenomenon, I have not used it here because I have found that it also can be a source of confusion. See Gerhart Piers and Milton B. Singer, Shame and Guilt, Thomas, Springfield, 111. , 1953. See also H. Basowitz, H. Persky, S. J. Korchin, and R. R. Grinker, Anxiety and Stress, New York, McGraw-Hill, 1955.
6 This analogy, or one very similar to it, was originally suggested by Margaret Mead. See her discussion in: Lifton, "Chinese Communist Thought Reform/' Group Processes, Transactions of the Third Conference, Josiah Macy, Jr. Foun- dation, New York, 1956, 249.
"See Gert Heilbrunn, "The Basic Fear," Journal of the American Psycho- analytic Association (1955) 3:447. This basic fear is similar to what Erikson has called "an ego-chill . . . the sudden awareness that our nonexistence . . . is entirely possible," Young Man Luther, W. W. Norton & Co. , New York, 1958, 111. William James has also described "the fear of the universe" of "sick souls" prior to the experience of religious conversion: The Varieties of Religious Experience, Longmans, Green and Co. , London, 1952.
'Erving Goffman reports that, in the parlance of the society of the mental hospital, a psychotic episode is "hitting the bottom"; this phrase contains an element of affirmation--the understanding that the patient to whom this has happened "can come up in some sense a changed person. " See Goffman*s discussion in "Chinese Communist Thought Reform," Group Processes, supra, 265, See also, in the same volume, Goffman's paper, "Characteristics of Total Institutions. "
"The alternation between kind and vindictive interrogators, like the more general alternation between leniency and assault, is a technique of thought reform which is also widely used in penal and interrogative settings every- where. But the possibility always exists that the solicitous concern of a particu- lar officials--such as the doctor mentioned in this passage, or one of the inter- rogators--is genuine, and independent of reform policy. Even if it is, however, it may have the same effects upon the prisoner; he is indeed hard put to dis- tinguish between the technical maneuver and the humane sentiment.
*This concept was originally elaborated by Theodor Reik, The Compulsion to Confess, Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, New York, 1959. It has also been used extensively by Joost A. M. Meerloo (The Rape of the Mind, World Publishing Co. , New York, 1956, and in earlier articles listed therein) in connection with various forms of totalitarian mental coercion. I use the concept somewhat differently from either of these writers, although I have profited from both of their work. See also James Clark Moloney, "Psychic Self-Abandon and Extor- tion of Confessions," International Journal of Psychoanalysis (1955) 36:53-60.
w Erikson, Young Man Luther, 102.
"See Rollo May, "Contributions of Existential Psychotherapy/' in Rollo May, E. Angeo and H. F. Ellenberger, Existence, Basic Books, New York, 1958, p - c $ . May uses the term "ontological guilt" which he considers to be "rooted HI the fact of self-awareness" and which he distinguishes from neurotic guilt.
? 488
He also stresses, as I wish to stress here, that such guilt is universal, occurring in all cultures, and that under ordinary circumstances its recognition can lead to highly constructive effects. See also, Paul Tillich, The Courage to Be, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1952, 52.
13 Some of the communication concepts which I employ here and in later sections have been suggested by the writings of Jurgen Ruesch and Gregory Bateson. See J. Ruesch and G. Bateson, Communication: The Social Matrix of Psychiatry, New York, Norton, 1951; and Ruesch, "Synopsis of the Theory of Human Communication/' Psychiatry (1953) 16:215-243.
CHAPTER 6 (86-116)
1 Erikson locates the identity crisis "in that period of the life cycle when each youth must forge for himself some central perspective and direction, some work- ing unity, out of the effective remnants of his childhood and the hopes of his anticipated adulthood; he must detect some meaningful resemblance between what he has come to see in himself and what his sharpened awareness tells him others judge and expect him to be" (Young Man Luther, 14).
3 The immense personal value of such a research attitude in "extreme situa- tions" was movingly demonstrated by Bruno Bettelheim in a report of his observations made while he was in a Nazi concentration camp. He describes this as follows: "The study of these behaviors was a mechanism developed by him [Bettelheim--he refers to himself in the third person] ad hoc in order that he might . . . in this way be better equipped to endure life in the camp. His observing and collecting of data should . . .