He buried 460 scholars alive; we have buried forty-six thousand scholars alive… You [intellectuals] revile us for being Qin Shi Huangs. You are wrong. We have surpassed Qin Shi Huang a hundredfold. When you berate us for imitating his despotism, we are happy to agree! Your mistake was that you did not say so enough.
But it sounds fake as fuck
But, I suppose some in the CPC view him as a historically “progressive” figure who overthrew a decentralized feudal society and instituted a authoritarian bureaucratic state, or it might simply but a nationalist thing since he is the first emperor of a unified China
I went searching for an attribution for that quote and found nothing, but did turn up this Guardian article which has this quote:
MacGregor has been fascinated to see at close quarters the Chinese beginning to open up to the world. It had initially been hard, he suggested, even to describe the concept of the British Museum to the Chinese, its role as a storehouse of global memory. ‘It is,’ he told me, 'an alien concept for the Chinese to have a museum that houses the whole world. Their museums only have Chinese objects in them…"
HOW DID THE BRITISH MUSEUM GET THOSE ARTIFACTS MACGREGOR. HOW
We suppressed counter-revolutionaries. Have we not also killed anti-revolutionary intellectuals? I’ve debated this with members of the democratic (parties/groups)…
Which puts the rest of the quote in context of the work China put in to secure the gains of the revolution, rather than engage in anti-intellectualism for its own sake. The mocking tone Mao strikes here is also reinforced by the final parenthetical (大笑) laughter
At least this is my interpretation of the quote based on my own shitty translation/understanding. Thanks for finding it
They liked him because he hated Confucians and brought China out of the Warring States period, which Chinese people see as a parallel to the Warlord era that the CPC brought China out of.
He buried 460 scholars alive; we have buried forty-six thousand scholars alive… You [intellectuals] revile us for being Qin Shi Huangs. You are wrong. We have surpassed Qin Shi Huang a hundredfold. When you berate us for imitating his despotism, we are happy to agree! Your mistake was that you did not say so enough.
Theres also this alleged mao quote
But it sounds fake as fuck
But, I suppose some in the CPC view him as a historically “progressive” figure who overthrew a decentralized feudal society and instituted a authoritarian bureaucratic state, or it might simply but a nationalist thing since he is the first emperor of a unified China
I went searching for an attribution for that quote and found nothing, but did turn up this Guardian article which has this quote:
HOW DID THE BRITISH MUSEUM GET THOSE ARTIFACTS MACGREGOR. HOW
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So the translated quote above elides the lines
Which puts the rest of the quote in context of the work China put in to secure the gains of the revolution, rather than engage in anti-intellectualism for its own sake. The mocking tone Mao strikes here is also reinforced by the final parenthetical (大笑) laughter
At least this is my interpretation of the quote based on my own shitty translation/understanding. Thanks for finding it
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Tongue-in-cheek?
If Mao is ok making this joke I’m ok making unlimited genocide on the first world jokes.
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lol
God I love mao so much
every “questionable” thing he’s ever quoted on i’m just like
The brother never missed.
They liked him because he hated Confucians and brought China out of the Warring States period, which Chinese people see as a parallel to the Warlord era that the CPC brought China out of.
In the modern day replace scholars with US Journalists and burying them alive starts to sound like a really great idea.
Can we do this with Gamers™
I’ll allow it if the “scholars” are business/econ majors in the West or
Edit: Read the replies below and happy to know that this is the case — the quote is so much more based with context