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Originally Posted by Heibges
Or maybe folks just want to feel "great".
You could say the same thing about Stalin in Russia. After 60 years of programmed "De-Stalinization", he is more popular than ever.
Fact of the matter is that Mao got Westerners out of China, and that goes a long way.
Look at India. They would much rather build weapons than feed their own people.
You could even say folks feel much the same about Reagan. He moved all our jobs overseas, and killed the family farm, but he made America feel "great".
You have to wonder what the Germans really feel about Hitler?
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I think that you make an error is considering Mao, Stalin, and Hitler all as equivalent. True they were all tyrants of the 20th Century but Hitler is not a national figure that is celebrated and sold in memorabilia and Stalin is regarded in a different way that Mao. China is the only nation of the three that still encorporates the cult of personality for Mao into its mandatory culture for all citizens. The practises of indoctrination are still present and he is regarded as a hero for the people. Now you can make whatever claims about the ruthless efficiency of Stalin but peope still recognize his true colours. The general feeling of Mao I get from delusional Chinese people is that he never did anything wrong. It was not that I denied he didn't do anything good that sent that girl running, it was the mountain of bad that I accused him of that she couldn't even contemplate. These three leaders were blurred together in our own propogandistic attempts to rally nationalism in our fights against them. But the reality is that they are all three distinct cultures and three distinct leaders that share only a timeframe with one another.
In the other thread about Hiroshima we talk about the good and evil of the decisions that the leaders made and how we understand the the difficulty of it. There is no grey in Mao's following. He is a clear cut demi-god figure and you don't question it. This isn't affection out of reason but a learned passion that isn't rational and is instinctually embedded in childhood far beyond recollection.
Thats my attempt at sounding like a Poli sci/sociology major.