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Comment by thenthenthen | Hacker News Reader

Thank you for sharing. I have been researching this topic for about ten years now and no first hand accounts like to talk or are they alive anymore, this is a very important story, especially in contrast the the dominant Western narratives, thank you!

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Thank you for this profound comment. It is incredibly humbling to hear this from someone who has spent a decade researching the topic.

You are right—the generation that built '404' is aging, and many of their stories are fading into silence. One of my primary motivations for writing this was the realization that if I didn't document these memories now, they might be lost forever.

I hope my first-hand account can provide a more nuanced, human layer to the historical data you've gathered. There is so much more to tell beyond the official records.

As often as not, these days, when someone online criticizes the West, it's for something absurd (eg: Churchill interfering with Hitler's continental invasions, or America using the word 'regime' when discussing Iran). Obviously, other times the criticism is wholly justified.

What "dominant Western narratives" apply here? I'm not going to bicker. I'm just curious.

There's no need to be defensive. We are largely westerners on a western website studying history from a western perspective. There's nothing wrong with that, it's natural. It just means we lose some understanding of events if that's the only side we know. OP is performing a service by documenting first-person history, and doesn't need to justify why it's important. It's important.

I'm still curious what specific narratives you had in mind when you said "dominant Western narratives"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46410398

To be fair, my father in law who is Chinese and had to exile himself during the cultural revolution would pretty much say the same thing about the Cultural Revolution. Educated people in China who lived through it will certainly criticise the Cultural Revolution (or The Great Leap Forward for that matter) if they are in a situation when they can be honest about it.

So I'm not sure that specific comment would be considered to be a "dominant western narrative" unless you're going to tell me that older (and so who have lived through it) educated people in China who don't speak a word of English have a western mindset because they're educated.

Read Dongping Han

Oh the fact that there has been some positives from the cultural revolution (by having educated people sent to the farm and rural area) doesn't stop the fact that the cultural revolution was a net negative for the country. How many works of arts have been destroyed due to it? How many people suffered? Nothing is ever white or black but it doesn't mean that we can take a small positive outcome and use that to justify atrocities.

The fact that you immediately think you know what the author I referenced has written and continue to plow forward with your pre-established conclusions is evidence of the “dominant western narrative” effect.

Accounts from well-off diaspora of any country will always be negative. It’s a self-selecting group with specific interests.

I mean I skimmed it earlier but I do plan to read it. That said my pre-established conclusions are based on first hand negative accounts of people who currently still live in China some of which do not speak English so weren't influenced by any "western narrative" (where I also lived for a number of years before moving to HK). Those are not accounts from a well-off diaspora.

EDIT: By the way, it's not that hard either to find books written by Chinese writers not part of the diaspora that are critical of the cultural revolution (Serve the people by Yan Lianke, 3 body problem by Liu Cixin) or the great leap forward (4 books by Yan Lianke). Obviously, writers living in China that have to deal with censorship tend to be less directly critical of it compared to writers from the diaspora but that doesn't stop some criticism to shine through.a

Even the official CPC line is critical of Mao. The assertion is not that all Chinese people believe the same thing or all necessarily belief different things from dominant western narratives on every issue. The assertion is simply that: some narratives are dominant in the West and treated as closed issues without any room for critical discussion or nuance. Deviating from those narratives is punished in a variety of ways through social and institutional enforcement.

We're talking about 404, not the cultural revolution

It’s a valid question, despite the cynical delivery.

> There's no need to be defensive.

This is extremely manipulative. The only reasons to say something like this are to shame the person you're respond to and/or attack and discredit them and force them to respond defensively. Don't do this.

(it also immediately outs you as not having any valid points to make, because someone with a reasonable response doesn't need to stoop to emotional attacks)

My comment was asking for details about its parent comment, not about the main post.

I was curious about the 'narratives' it mentioned.

They might be wrongheaded; they might be valid.

Either way, it piques my interest.

Not OP, but one example could perhaps be American Prometheus and the Oppenheimer film. I would consider them "dominant Western narratives" about the origin of the nuclear bomb.

And like the person said, there is nothing inherently wrong with such a narrative. Like them I'm also curious about non-western narratives.

If most groups, cultures, religions, countries were more curious about "non-native" stories, maybe we'd all be a bit more open-minded and understanding.

I think Oppenheimer is pretty fair as it goes. It's pretty clear with it being the US perspective and they give credit to the other countries that they have good scientists that will figure the thing out (and they did). I think for exposing a man's experience, it's quite good. What makes me wrong? (An honest invitation to illuminate me)

The last paragraph is true, but up to the point where one becomes a useful idiot for a totalitarian state. I don't mean you, but on social media there are quite a few people like that.

What exactly are you advocating? You seem to be going back to Cold War logic.

Your initial assertion that people online criticizing the West are "often" criticizing "absurd" things is simultaneously wrong and condescending, some sort of thought-terminating cliché.

Liberal democracy, I suppose.

How is it advocating for liberal democracy when you preemptively cast doubts on narratives other than the dominant Western one?

"Useful idiots" etc is the language of Cold War logic.

The lessons of the Cold War, a substantial duration of which I lived through, should not include "actually the American system and the Soviet system were equally bad".

The term "useful idiot" has no expiration date, and is more relevant now, in the age of social media, than ever. The world's major powers still attempt to propagandize their rivals.

> The lessons of the Cold War [...] should not include "actually the American system and the Soviet system were equally bad"

I was arguing that the Cold War, a substantial duration of which I also lived through, introduced a mistrustful "us vs them" kind of thinking that is harmful. The Soviet system is no longer relevant, and unfortunately "the end of history" didn't happen as Fukuyama predicted. What matters today are the successes but also the failings, lies, and fabrications of the systems that endured, and it's not all China.

Cold War mentality is what makes you (specifically you, in this context) mistrustful of any narratives not dictated by your country. So when someone else, as in this thread, praised an article for showing points of views other than the dominant narrative [1], you instantly questioned what the user meant, out of suspicion. You cannot deny it was suspicion, because in other comments you clarified what kind of "criticism of the West" you meant (and tellingly, you equated listening to other narratives to criticism of the West!): that "as often as not" it's "absurd" whining about Churchill or about the term "Iranian regime", or (in another comment) claiming that "China is freer than the US".

> The term "useful idiot" has no expiration date

As long as you acknowledge it's a term of propaganda. It has no value today other than as a relic of the Cold War past.

I hope you're not trying to use it as a thought-terminating cliché to criticize anyone who wants to say something about China that doesn't belong with the usual tropes.

> The world's major powers still attempt to propagandize their rivals.

Yes, though we would likely disagree about which is the major world power more likely to engage in this tactic today.

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[1] what's even more puzzling is that I think TFA actually shows the same point of view as the Western narrative: China doing China things, secrecy, military projects, enclosed towns, executions. This wouldn't feel surprising or novel to an English-speaking reader, it would just confirm what they already thought of China!

I don't think I'm criticizing Western narratives. This is simply my personal perspective and experience growing up there.

They weren’t accusing you of that, but asking the other commenter what the meant :)

I know! It was a fantastic read. My comment was referring to another comment with an ambiguous reference.

Short generalised answer; I grew up in Europe. The dominant media was of course Western media, more specifically American media, think Hollywood and Silicon Valley. It is extremely difficult to break out of that bubble.

Well, that's true enough.

I was bracing myself for something edgier.

I don't know what I expected, "China has freer speech than America because Facebook censored antivax content" or something :)

You seem to be arguing against strawmen.

You picked a very fringe and bizarre belief (I honestly never read anything even remotely paraphrasing what you just typed) and made it seem so common that "as often as not" this is what people claim when they criticize the West.

It reeks of dishonesty. This isn't defending "Liberal democracy" as you claimed in another comment, it's attacking dissenting opinions by picking (or creating) the worst, most bizarre argument possible and presenting it as the norm.

What a mystifying comment. Cheers, though.

What is mystifying about it?

With respect, you seem immediately to have started out on the war path, and since then have been arguing with some imagined opponent (is he modeled on the 'love it or leave it, Tommy' character in Born on the Fourth of July?).

Responding to your criticisms today - and hopefully you're just having an off day today - is a dull task. They show little engagement, aside from the fixation with small phrases like 'useful idiot', with what I actually write.

I wouldn't say "on the war path", but specifically about your dismissal of other narratives than the dominant one. I engaged you after I read more replies by you that confirmed my suspicions about your initial question.

It's not just about the term "useful idiot"; if you're being honest you'll admit you stated more things, including a bizarre strawman about people arguing "China is freer than the US". Do you deny this?

In another comment I went into more detail, but I guess if you're comfortable deflecting and claiming "you can't be bothered" that's ok.

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