ran into this from the "my girlfriend is an ultra!" thread. i'll start by saying i saw this on wikipedia so maybe there's some missing context or mischaracterisation inherent here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalist_roader
consider this quote
"Mao was an advocate of practical education outside of the classroom.[13] Deng's reforms to educational policy limited this experience and instead focused on classroom education which Mao cited was one that made Deng a capitalist roader.[14]"
if you think about it for a second, isn't that just philosophically interesting? like it's not something to be done lightly. Mao, previous leader of the most influential and important recent revolution at the time, making an absolute point of making sure everyone knows that this Deng guy has fucked up big time and is going to lead everyone back to capitalism and discard the advances won by the revolution... by (among other things i assume) citing a change in policy that means education was going to be focused more on classroom learning now. and Deng was so of the opposite opinion on the idea of education needing to be outside the classroom that he would not reneg or concede or anything (obvs among other policies) in order to show that he wasn't a "capitalist roader". unless there was indeed quite a bit of history and nuance to how he refuted these sorts of things and kept his government's mandate of heaven rolling?
idk Mao's background being extremely grounded in education coupled with the compounding of consequences because of their disagreements around this is just really intriguing to me
Context is key when looking at the shifting landscape of any political situation
historical and dialectical materialism. or in layman's terms, actually fucking remembering things and why they're important
I guess I mean, the OP is more about why Mao was so dead set on his conception of education being correct that he refused to consolidate or endorse Deng's ideals to the point of saying he betrayed the revolution (and the other way around) and looking at that and wondering... why ? I understand your explanation, it's good at bringing context to Deng's reform but yea, what's up with Mao's rationale?
that really grounds Deng's rationale. interesting :) I'm curious, what were Mao's thoughts on how this played out? and if they were along the lines of "child labour is bad, correct that of course but keep education practical" why did Deng go for the hardline shift rather than this? or was Mao literally just like "this is fine"
also thinking how a conflict like this highlights how reductive "economism" as a philosophy is. the idea that making sure everyones economic status is developing, as one of if not THE most important metric and method of achieving a society that is either socialist or preferable or better than socialism.
here you have like I said two VERY important figures of this era arguing not only over things that matter in a primarily economic way, but also with nearly on equal standing and with comparable stakes is the idea of ... education being more wholly practical vs (just supposing here, haven't read Deng's rationale) being about focus and rigor on learning itself. like what an interesting and exemplary contradiction
