Had a coworker ask me about the cultural revolution because I know things, particularly pertaining to China and Chinese history, but the cultural revolution is a blindspot for me, so I couldn't really answer.
I missed the opportunity to educate, and every moment since then has been agony. Please help me amend this.
Thanks in advance, comrades.
it's very difficult to wrap my head around the destruction of historic objects. because recast the scene in my home town i do want to break many things of 'historic significance'. destroying things from the Qing in 1966 was destroying things from a regime that was in living memory. theres something terribly cathartic feeling about ritual violence against monuments to past violence; we love our desecrations of modern statues to confederates & colonizers quite a bit.
on the other hand im a history student & yeah it is very romantic to imagine something smashed in revolution was a vital piece that'd transform our understanding of everything. probably wasn't though. and the Cultural Rev. did at times reach the realistic balance of what we'd call "best practices"---recording & photographing objects/places before they went sickomode on them. the French revolutionaries didn't bother at all & while we're aware of some gaps in out knowledge because of that its an overstatement to pretend we've lost anything that important (or that such things would necessarily be accessible now sans revolution)
The four olds. Get rid of them all!
Imagine the results of a successful campaign in America. Permanent cultural change. A revolution, if you will.