I will use this post to communicate with everyone about my studies and life, reveal my ideological problems, and strive to become a more progressive person who is useful to the revolution.
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Just as I mentioned in my self-introduction, my ideological problems are far more numerous than I have written. Coincidentally, I recently revisited the first chapter of the “Outline of Dialectical Materialism,” which gave me some new insights. I plan to share my thoughts based on my own experiences and also reveal some of my reactionary ideas.
Actually, during the dark period when I was oppressed, my fantasies about being powerless in reality were not only about 二次元 (second dimension) and video games, but also included Taoist nihilism and even feudal superstitions of Taoism.
Because my grandfather was a so-called feng shui master, people often sought him to examine land and explore tombs. I was exposed to some feudal superstitions as early as elementary school. However, at that time, my focus was on academic pursuits and speculation, and since I had not yet experienced much restriction or oppression at school, I didn’t pay much attention to these superstitions. I just saw them as some strange stories satisfying my petty bourgeois curiosity. I also knew about Laozi and Zhuangzi, but only knew of their existence.
In middle school textbooks, I learned about Laozi and Zhuangzi. At that time, I was suffering from brutal oppression from the资学府 (educational institutions), and as a weak petty bourgeois student, I saw no hope for the future and felt powerless about my current situation. Their ideas of nihilism and relativist sophistry served as a kind of spiritual opium for me. When oppressed, I would numb myself with reactionary thoughts like “nothing matters,” “go with the flow,” “good is bad, bad is good.” Moreover, since Laozi and Zhuangzi also had their own “deities” in Taoism, I followed the trail and began to pay attention to Taoism, a more reactionary religious zombie.
On Bilibili, Tieba, and other major websites, I found a large amount of religious content filled with mysticism and agnosticism. I also followed several bloggers who claimed to be Taoist masters, gaining a more systematic understanding of Taoism’s reactionary ideas. However, these contents often contained contradictions and ambiguities, and when discussing “subtle” points, they would say “heavenly secrets cannot be revealed” or “not to be passed on outside.” This always made me feel discouraged, thinking it was because of my “lack of悟性 (comprehension)” or “dull intelligence.”
However, after coming into contact with genuine scientific Marxism, the Taoist思想 (thought) and Taoist system, which had been transformed by the ruling class, were exposed as reactionary in nature—deceiving the people and maintaining the ruling class’s position. Promoting reactionary ideas like “wu wei (non-action),” “detachment,” and “going with the flow” was nothing more than encouraging workers to be obedient under the class oppression of the old society, to endure and accept their fate, and to be good slaves to the ruling class. Meanwhile, advocating “heavenly secrets cannot be revealed,” “fate is predetermined,” “karma,” and creating various ghost stories filled with horror were aimed at shackling the people’s hands and feet, attempting to prevent them from engaging in deeper and broader production and class struggles. Because those “sages” and “Taoist” figures who rely on deceiving people to survive clearly understand this truth: the deeper the people transform nature, the greater their enthusiasm for class struggle, and the smaller the space for idealism and religion.
As mentioned in the outline, “All religions are nothing but reflections of external forces controlling people’s daily lives, illusions in people’s minds.” Under the rule of the revisionist group, the people suffer exploitation and oppression by the bourgeoisie, feel powerless about their impoverished reality, and, lacking advanced ideological weapons, may fall into the quagmire of religion. At the same time, just as dialectical materialism develops by absorbing all advanced scientific achievements, modern religions have also absorbed many idealist ideas from both domestic and foreign sources, even donning the guise of “science” with pseudoscientific appearances, making them more complex and sophistic. However, regardless of how their forms change, their essence remains the same: deceiving the people and dulling the masses with reactionary nature. With the widespread struggle of the masses using scientific Marxism as an ideological weapon, the inevitable fall of modern religion and idealism can be foreseen.
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Some of my classmates also like to study Taoist philosophy to provide guidance for their escapism from reality, it seems that these things have a universal aspect in their dissemination.
I remember that in middle school I also liked to watch those supernatural stories to relieve my spiritual emptiness, and I even looked at some things related to talismans. The influence was very bad, causing students to rely on vague curses, karma, and retribution to oppose the oppression of the school.
There are posts criticizing Laozi’s teachings on the forum; you can search and take a look.