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"If a revolution destroys a systematic government, but the systematic patterns of thought that produced that government are left intact, then those patterns will repeat themselves in the succeeding government." - Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Though I don't know enough about Chinese politics to tell how much the quote actually fits.

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Born and raised and stuck here, I can tell you that it absolutely fits. It is kind of a vicious cycle, the government breed ignorant people and these people cultivate the ruthless authoritarian regime continuously. But I do believe history is on an upward trajectory, just with some twists and turns, or "spirals" as the people here call it. The problem is that maybe few of the people alive will live long enough to reap the benefit of it.

> People on the side of The People always ended up disappointed, in any case. They found that The People tended not to be grateful or appreciative or forward-thinking or obedient. The People tended to be small-minded and conservative and not very clever and were even distrustful of cleverness.

> And so the children of the revolution were faced with the age-old problem: it wasn't that you had the wrong kind of government, which was obvious, but that you had the wrong kind of people.

-- Night Watch (2002) by Terry Pratchett

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