Hi everyone, I'm Anthony. Welcome to my channel. In today's video, I want to talk to you about why the witch hunt mentality is so prevalent in China and what its underlying logic is.

This topic will be discussed over several episodes because I feel that the witch hunt mentality is actually a key to understanding the mental state of the Chinese people and social events.

From Chinese history or contemporary society, we all seem to be able to observe a peculiar cultural inertia: regardless of whether an idea originates from the West or the East, once it enters the mass practice of Chinese society, it is more easily modified and distorted, evolving into a kind of witch hunt or exorcism ritual.

This illustrates that this psychological logic is actually something at a much deeper level.

As we said before, when we take a broader perspective and look at many trends of thought in Chinese society, we will find that many of these, originally intended to inspire people to resist tyranny, pursue liberation, and move towards awakening, have, in reality, led to a strange situation.

That is, while these theories empower a segment of the population, they might make another group of people more deeply entangled in the victim's identity and paranoia. The parties involved are making continuous accusations, and in the process of that persecutory force, they did not become more motivated; on the contrary, it exacerbated their fear of that persecutory force.

In other words, many seemingly subjective consciousness-awakening discourses instead became a more covert method, symptoms of escaping subjectivity.

For example, in a previous video, we analyzed a critique of NPD on the Chinese internet. When many NPD victims, through a critique of NPD, huddled together for warmth, they did not feel safer; instead, they still felt uneasy. Furthermore, they divided into factions, identified enemies, and showed a tendency to carry the revolution through to the end.

For example, in the NPD survivor community, some people said to be wary of bloggers who criticize NPD, as they might themselves be NPD. This is because, according to the NPD classification standard, characteristics of latent NPD include playing the victim, complaining, feigning grievance to gain sympathy, and manipulating others.

This means some NPDs might be using the guise of a 'red flag' to oppose the 'red flag,' emphasizing that they were persecuted by NPD, but actually, they are the NPD.

This introduces the concept of NPD, which has become an all-encompassing, metaphysical concept where subject and object are not differentiated. When standards become so vague and subjective, we can certainly apply it to anyone, including finding its shadow in ourselves.

And this kind of exorcism ritual meant it was destined to be a battle that could never be won; it would only plunge everyone into deeper suspicion and painful internal friction.

So, in this video, let's try to explore this topic in its initial stages. I will upload this video and include it in the 'Psychology and Education' list. If you have anything you'd like to discuss with me or topics for consultation, you can contact me via email to make an appointment.

First, in the comments section of a previous video, a netizen left a message asking me: 'Can you tell me why certain concepts, after entering China, evolved into an all-encompassing, vague symbol?'

I think this is an excellent question. We can find that many concepts that originally had precise definitions began to become vague and exaggerated after arriving in China.

A key characteristic stemming from the witch-hunting mindset is the pursuit of absolute purity and innocence. In pursuit of this purity, there needs to be an equally absolute, all-encompassing enemy to be a target and take responsibility for all evil.

A typical example is the communist movement of the 20th century. In the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, and the communist revolutions of Southeast Asia, we can find extremely similar patterns.

That was, at the beginning, the revolution attempted to eliminate external class enemies, such as landlords and capitalists, to achieve a pure and equal society. However, after the external enemies were eliminated, the ideal society that was once promised did not come immediately.

For the leaders of the revolution, it was inconceivable to admit that the theory itself was flawed, so they almost instinctively thought that it must be because the enemy hadn't been completely eliminated yet; they had simply changed their form. Enemies exposed from the outside became hidden enemies within.

Therefore, the revolution still faced counterattack and retribution by hostile forces, and the purity of the revolution remained under threat. Thus, the spearhead of the revolution began to turn inward and differentiated into more subtle factions.

This led to endless infighting and purges. To prove themselves 'revolutionary' and 'pure,' different factions and individuals began to compete with each other, aiming to identify and eliminate more and more hidden enemies.

Let's look at an article from the Cultural Revolution period, a People's Daily editorial titled 'Carry the revolutionary mass criticism through to the end.' This article perfectly embodies the mindset of witch hunts.

For example, we see in the first paragraph: after a year of struggle, we have defeated the biggest capitalist roader and achieved world-shaking achievements. But does this mean the struggle can stop? Of course not.

The article points out that this counter-revolutionary group will never truly lay down their arms and surrender. Instead, they attempted to preserve their strength through a two-faced approach, waiting for the right opportunity and attempting to make a comeback. This is alarming.

Then, the article points out three attitudes of the counter-revolutionary group. The first attitude is to deny everything and offer tenacious resistance, which can be compared to openly boasting and overtly belittling others, like overt NPD.

The second type of counter-revolutionary is one who superficially admits wrongdoing, but behind the scenes, manipulates certain organizations in a desperate struggle, deceiving the masses. This is equivalent to being scheming, like high-performance NPD that forms cliques.

The third type is to feign a pitiful and harmless appearance, attempting to deceive the people's sympathy; this corresponds to the kind of latent NPD.

In other words, for one defined as a counter-revolutionary or the bourgeoisie, regardless of his forceful defense of himself or just bowing his head and confessing, none of this can lessen his guilt.

But although this editorial listed three forms of the enemy, the one we hate and fear the most is the third type: enemies who are adept at disguising themselves as revolutionary masses.

As stated later in the editorial: 'Capitalist roaders are very good at waving the red flag while opposing the red flag. They are skilled at theft and deception, promoting their own revisionist ideas.' This makes it difficult for the enemy to identify and makes them ubiquitous.

Therefore, the editorial emphasizes that defeating the enemy organizationally is not a real victory yet; we must thoroughly eradicate its pernicious influence from our ideology. This is a crucial step.

Because when the enemy is defined as the bourgeoisie, there are always identifiable objective standards, for example, whether you own the means of production, whether to hire workers, etc.

However, when the bourgeoisie becomes an ideology or spirit, then the number of enemies becomes infinite. Even a poor peasant may also give rise to bourgeois ideology.

For example, if you want to wear a pretty outfit today, this is petit-bourgeois sentiment. If you're too tired from work and want to take a break, it's just a lack of revolutionary fighting spirit. If you remain silent, it could also be seen as resentful, making a silent resistance.

In this extreme environment, to prove that they are pure proletarians, everyone must constantly reinforce the experience of suffering and victimization to prove their innocence and purity.

For example, the more suffering you endure, this means you were influenced by the old society; the deeper the persecution by the reactionaries, the less likely you are to become one of them.

If you have nothing and have made huge sacrifices, you are the purest and most steadfast revolutionary.

In conclusion, the more one suffers and endures, the more moral capital they have in this system, and the more they are able to attack those who are not suffering enough or individuals who are not pure enough.

So, having said that, what I want to emphasize is that this pursuit of purity without end, to draw moral capital, and the tendency for the concept of the enemy to expand indefinitely, is widespread in Chinese society among various schools of thought. It can even be said that it transcends ideological opposition and disagreement.

Included in those more progressive ideas, the essence of this way of thinking is not about believing anything, but rather about how to believe.

Regardless of whether a person identifies with communism, feminism, liberal democracy, or anti-NPD, etc., once he is captivated by this pursuit of purity and the indefinite expansion of the enemy, bound by the underlying psychology, then whatever the original intention behind this idea, even if it is out of the pursuit of freedom and liberation, it still carries the risk of spoilage.

For example, in our article 'What to Do When Your Child is a Little Pink,' in that video, I once gave an example of a father who had a strong aversion to Chinese official political propaganda and history education, and hoped to enlighten and protect his children.

However, because his fear of this kind of brainwashing was too intense, he infinitely generalized and expanded the concept of evil. For example, when the child casually quoted a saying by Mao Zedong, the father became very wary, worrying that his son might have been poisoned by the Cultural Revolution and brainwashed by Chinese education. But actually, the child didn't care at all, didn't understand these political things, and just wanted to express his feelings.

However, this father had reached the point of making unfounded accusations. Although he didn't have much power, in the family setting, he was actually imposing a new kind of discipline on the children in the name of enlightenment.

This father may think he is a powerless person in resisting tyranny, but unconsciously, he played exactly the oppressor role he despised.

He may have forgotten that those ideologies he disliked, at their inception, were similarly anti-authoritarian and pursued equality and liberation, which is what attracted so many young people to join.

Speaking of which, I remembered a friend asking me a question a while ago: 'Would Anthony think that many people are hard to awaken? I am very lonely. Do you ever feel a sense of anger at their lack of ambition?'

I said I didn't feel that way, because I don't think that understanding Party history or China's political and economic system is the sole criterion for judging a person's freedom and awakening.

That would make us fall into a new trap of purity, and it would be easy to feel that many people who do not meet this standard are uncivilized and ignorant.

I think it is necessary to delve into a person's inner experience to understand them within their system of meaning.

For example, if a woman believes Mao Zedong's famous saying, 'Women hold up half the sky,' and she gained the courage to step out of the home and pursue happiness from it, then I should support and appreciate her.

Instead of going to the other party to popularize the political background of this statement, which some people may think means the woman still needs to rethink China's ideology and belongs to the category of those who are not awakened.

But what I'm concerned about is the inner world of the person involved, the meaning given to this sentence, those unique personal meanings and emotional colors, rather than symbolic liberalism, totalitarianism, and the like.

As long as the parties involved gained an experience of freedom and liberation from it and engaged in profound self-exploration, then even if their theory comes from a certain unhealthy ideology, it is still precious.

Many people tend to base concepts of morality, truth, and justice solely on vigilance against evil, above identification, combat, and annihilation; then they would easily fall into a cycle anchored by evil.

Because it presupposes that all people are inherently sinful, or rather, tend towards deterioration, corruption, depravity, and loss of purity.

Thus, as long as a person shows even the slightest impurity, then their spirit was infiltrated by evil. This kind of morality is certainly dangerous.

Although what he rebelled against might indeed be evil, however, because he needs the existence of evil to define himself, once evil is eradicated, he will feel empty.

Then they have no choice but to seek out new evils to resist. Ultimately, he himself became consumed by hatred and paranoia.

The witch hunt mentality is based on the dualism of good and evil. The world is simplified to the eternal struggle between the two camps of good and evil. Evil is no longer an abstract concept; rather, it is an independent entity or subject. You can't understand it; the only options are to fight, eliminate, and negate it.

But the 'good' in this concept of good and evil is not actually that sophisticated, because this goodness is not self-sufficient, free, or complete. Its struggle against evil, the opposition and conflict, remains entirely at the external level. It even needs to rely on the fight against evil; if evil disappears, it then loses its reason for existence. Therefore, it must continuously seek out enemies, or even create them, to maintain its existence.

But the truly superior concept of truth or goodness should be self-sufficient and creative. It is capable of resolving contradictions and does not depend on the existence of 'evil' to prove itself. Rather, it is based on its intrinsic value and universality to understand the existence of evil.

This is also what we mentioned in this 2024 video: the idea that 'evil is the lack of good.' In the monism of good and evil, evil and good are not two equal realities. The existence of evil is not because there is an entity of evil independent of good; it is merely a lack of goodness.

For example, violence and injustice exist because of a lack of love and justice, not because of an inevitable evil.

Although the monism of good and evil also involves struggle, conflict, and contradiction, however, in the final analysis, it is not based on exclusion and struggle.

Let's take an example. If someone puts forward a viewpoint that everyone is rational and pursuing the improvement of their own interests, at this point, someone might object: 'How do you explain some people doing many irrational things that harm themselves, such as self-harm, hunger strikes, etc.?'

So this person might say, 'Because all the people who hurt me have problems, it means they are fake or broken; they are not real people.' This explanation can certainly be considered one type of explanation.

However, he presupposed an external opposition between good and bad, an external opposition between dross and essence, instead of looking for a deeper connection between things. Because he found it too difficult, he hastily attached a label, as if he had finished explaining, but actually nothing was explained.

A truly good explanation would be to adhere to monism, for example, believing that even during hunger strikes and self-harm, these seemingly extreme self-harming behaviors still involve the parties pursuing certain hidden personal interests or benefits; he remains rational.

This explanation is not about justifying one's actions by referring to the other party's nationality. It forces us to engage in interpersonal relationships, finding commonalities and connections to pursue a deep understanding of the other party.

That's all for today's video. In the next video, we will discuss the essence of the witch-hunting mentality. If you have any confusion or questions and want to communicate with me, just contact me via email.

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I will upload this video and include it in the 'Psychology and Education' list. I also recommend everyone to check out other videos in this list. Thank you for watching, goodbye!