Thomas_More
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I am not denying it. But feudalism existed prior to Imperial consolidation in the third century B.C.E.
Feudalism existed before Ch’in Shih Huang, when “China” was just a collection of petty kingdoms in the north. Confucius was feudalism’s spokesman. He was later adopted as symbol of social order after the brief rule of the Ch’in, when he, Confucius, was posthumously raised to honour.
The Maoists declared against Confucius and for the tyrannical Ch’in.
https://www.britannica.com/place/China/The-Zhou-feudal-system
From what I remember from reading Mao’s writings, they are almost completely about peasant guerrilla strategy.
The myth of Chinese “feudalism” was made gospel by the Maoists, and I believed it myself.
Mao knew very little about Chinese history. He was the heir of the peasant T’aip’ing movement of the 1850s, which he was exhilarated by, with all its savagery, intolerance and fratricide.
Having no real grasp of history beyond that, he merely adopted for China the European trajectory of social stages presented by Marx, and assumed Imperial China to be “feudal.” He also created a scenario in which chattel slavery, as in ancient Europe, preceded the first Emperor (Mao’s hero) who was supposed to have toppled it and “set up” feudalism.
In fact, Chinese feudalism died out by the time of the first Emperor, and Chinese society never had chattel slavery as its basis, but only in a minor way, like the Celts.
At every working class demonstration and protest, anywhere in the world, you will see them carrying the flag of the nation.
This is harder to break than anything else; harder even than calling for the abolition of money (which everyone laughs at anyway).Their identification with “the nation” has a greater hold on them than anything else. They are so brainwashed with it that it is far worse than any religion. Indeed, it is everyone’s religion, and national flags are their holy ikons. Dare to tell anyone among them that the “nation” needs to be chucked, even the most “radical”, the most leftist, and you become hateful to them.
Trollope said the more deprived and wretched the poor are, the more they fawn and snivel before the wealthy.
The most reactionary and nationalistic people I’ve met have also been of the lumpenproletariat.
My two lifelong friends were made through correspondence. Handwritten correspondence, by its nature, encourages the cultivation of real relationships and the lengthy expression of thought and feeling. One can return to a letter and one has leisure in its composition.
Digital communication tends, on the contrary, toward speed and brevity; relations are more numerous and accordingly void of depth. It encourages, by its nature, impetuosity and literacy becomes unimportant.
I also like calligraphy, especially the medieval illuminated book. But I also think the ink bottle with stilus ought to be used unselfconsciously to write ordinarily, and not just for calligraphy.
Which is why capitalism likes to say, with Henry Ford, that “history is bunk.”
And history is increasingly dumped from education and devalued. Meanwhile conspiralunatic “history” programmes are given mainstream air space on television and in book catalogues.
And the workers concur, because history holds no interest for them.
Nationalism, faced with real knowledge of history, cannot stand.
As a native asked the Trump during his first term when he said immigrants must go:
“So when are you leaving?”
All sadly true.
Trump’s policies, though, will openly accelerate this destruction. But yes, it is capitalism itself, and capitalism cannot resolve any of it, not even those politicians who like to appear to care, let alone those who openly don’t give a toss.Except the Law of the Jungle, in Kipling, is one of mutual assistance and cohesion, as are all nonhuman animal societies – the very opposite of capitalism!
” Now this is the Law of the Jungle — as old and as true as the sky;
And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that shall break it must die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk the Law runneth forward and back —
For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.”A friend’s explanation.
” … It [handwriting] is an art cultivated throughout the whole body, expressed through the finely tuned fingers; keyboarding is a skill, utilitarian but not aiming for beauty. It is probably more useful than penmanship for taking notes because it is speedier but it lacks specificity and individual expressiveness. All pages typed on the same keyboard will look the same, with varying serifs, perhaps.
I remember how proud I was at 4 when I learned to read, and a few months later, when I started printing my own words and stories. Cursive came later and I was prouder yet. Even though my writing has rambled far from the ideals of the Palmer method which I was taught, every deviation has been meaningfully designed, every curlicue and flourish. It belongs to me, not to a piece of storebought hardware. It is easily identifiable when an card from me arrives in the mail. Keyboarding is a lesser achievement.”
