Cultural revolution vs. witch hunt
The background of this is the political issue about Taiwan. Taiwan has two major political parties, the green and the blue. Kind of like the Democrat and Republican in US. (not because there are green or blue people in Taiwan like the black and white here, but the color they choose to represent themselves like the red and blue here. ) The blue party is the same party as Chiang Kai-shek. The green party is the party of the current president of Taiwan. The green party is in charge for the past 7.5 years. That also means the next presidential election is on the way.
Well, the up-coming election has driven both parties crazy. The blue party focus on how badly the green party ran the country in the past few years; the green part focus on how bad the blue did before them. Well, I don’t have a favorite. They are equally bad. Like Democrat and Republican in this country.
During Thanksgiving holiday, there was some heated discussion going on between my high school friends. My high school friends still stay close friends now. Since we were all over the world, we keep a private message broad online that we can get on there share our life and thought and everything with each other. One of the girls got very upset with the rest of us. She used some very not nice language that we started to wonder what have got into her.
The other girl found out she has a blog at this special site. She posted some very bad comments about our discussion on our private broad. It is very clear, in that post, she hate us. She used to be one of my best friends. We went hiking together and went to the bookstores together in undergrad and grad school. We even keep close contact after we both came to US. But after reading that post, I don’t think I know her any more. The hate is so deep, that make me wonder that’s how she feel about us all this time.
So I look around the site, kind of study what kind of people hang out there and what are they talking about. I suddenly realized what is going on.
On this site, they call themselves socialforce. The name in Chinese means against media. The original idea is the media didn’t provide the true news that they would show what the media is lying about and provide the truth to the public. Kind of like the Onion. Unfortunately that’s not what I see on it now. There are so much hater on the entire site. All the people post on that site are the supporter of the green party. Any one who dare to disagree on anything with them would be called the “blue ding ding”. They would find anything in your words and twist it if they decide that you are against them. If you are not supporting all their idea, you are on the other side. The blue side.
In Chinese, we have a term call “looking for bones in a chicken egg”. That means looking for faults that don’t exist. That is what those people are doing. They decide a version of truth. I don’t know how it was come up, but there is only one version of truth for them. Maybe from some authority they agree on. Then any idea is against that truth is considered wrong automatically. That is how it started between my friends.
After I read the stuff, discussion on socialforce site, the voice come into my mind, “witch hunt”. That’s what they are doing. Because there is no real definition for “witch”, if someone want to give you some trouble, they can make your everyday activity sounds like witch craft. Then you are the witch to be hunted down. The Cultural Revolution was like that as well. A lot of kids, yes they were still young kids, in order not to become the one being hunted, they started to follow those who were searching their opponent for any evidence of supporting capitalism. When they want to prove you wrong, anything can work. Just like the witch hunt. As long as they believe you are wrong (or they want you to be wrong), they can find something to prove that. Logically or not, they can come up anything to show that you are a witch as much as the witch they think it is.
Most of my high school friends don’t hold the same political opinion. That doesn’t stop us having peaceful and thoughtful discussion. There have been plenty of debate going on on our private site that through the process we see both side of story more clearly. I don’t know what got into this particular person’s mind. I am not sure if we can have her back as a real friend. To see those stupid politicians talking unintelligent stuffs on the news is one thing, to see someone I believe can be reasonable behave like that is another.
Maybe I should accept that this kind of craziness is way closer to me than I would like to believe.
**********Sorry if I can't express myself clear in this post. I don't think I can do well even in my first language. If I didn't make it clear, please forgive me.***********
Well, the up-coming election has driven both parties crazy. The blue party focus on how badly the green party ran the country in the past few years; the green part focus on how bad the blue did before them. Well, I don’t have a favorite. They are equally bad. Like Democrat and Republican in this country.
During Thanksgiving holiday, there was some heated discussion going on between my high school friends. My high school friends still stay close friends now. Since we were all over the world, we keep a private message broad online that we can get on there share our life and thought and everything with each other. One of the girls got very upset with the rest of us. She used some very not nice language that we started to wonder what have got into her.
The other girl found out she has a blog at this special site. She posted some very bad comments about our discussion on our private broad. It is very clear, in that post, she hate us. She used to be one of my best friends. We went hiking together and went to the bookstores together in undergrad and grad school. We even keep close contact after we both came to US. But after reading that post, I don’t think I know her any more. The hate is so deep, that make me wonder that’s how she feel about us all this time.
So I look around the site, kind of study what kind of people hang out there and what are they talking about. I suddenly realized what is going on.
On this site, they call themselves socialforce. The name in Chinese means against media. The original idea is the media didn’t provide the true news that they would show what the media is lying about and provide the truth to the public. Kind of like the Onion. Unfortunately that’s not what I see on it now. There are so much hater on the entire site. All the people post on that site are the supporter of the green party. Any one who dare to disagree on anything with them would be called the “blue ding ding”. They would find anything in your words and twist it if they decide that you are against them. If you are not supporting all their idea, you are on the other side. The blue side.
In Chinese, we have a term call “looking for bones in a chicken egg”. That means looking for faults that don’t exist. That is what those people are doing. They decide a version of truth. I don’t know how it was come up, but there is only one version of truth for them. Maybe from some authority they agree on. Then any idea is against that truth is considered wrong automatically. That is how it started between my friends.
After I read the stuff, discussion on socialforce site, the voice come into my mind, “witch hunt”. That’s what they are doing. Because there is no real definition for “witch”, if someone want to give you some trouble, they can make your everyday activity sounds like witch craft. Then you are the witch to be hunted down. The Cultural Revolution was like that as well. A lot of kids, yes they were still young kids, in order not to become the one being hunted, they started to follow those who were searching their opponent for any evidence of supporting capitalism. When they want to prove you wrong, anything can work. Just like the witch hunt. As long as they believe you are wrong (or they want you to be wrong), they can find something to prove that. Logically or not, they can come up anything to show that you are a witch as much as the witch they think it is.
Most of my high school friends don’t hold the same political opinion. That doesn’t stop us having peaceful and thoughtful discussion. There have been plenty of debate going on on our private site that through the process we see both side of story more clearly. I don’t know what got into this particular person’s mind. I am not sure if we can have her back as a real friend. To see those stupid politicians talking unintelligent stuffs on the news is one thing, to see someone I believe can be reasonable behave like that is another.
Maybe I should accept that this kind of craziness is way closer to me than I would like to believe.
**********Sorry if I can't express myself clear in this post. I don't think I can do well even in my first language. If I didn't make it clear, please forgive me.***********