Observations...

[gaudium_et_spes]

1) David Tennant's portrayal of The Doctor is outstanding --- The Doctor as a tragic hero. Brilliant!

2) Chairman Mao's cultural revolution has the same roots as G.K. Chesterton's distributism --- the idolization of the farmer and the farming life.

Comments

[ephraemsyrus]

2) is an incorrect characterization of the Cultural Revolution, I think. It did not idolize the farmer and the farming life; it was an attempt to utterly destroy traditional Chinese culture and replace it with the worship of Mao. It did not matter whether intellectuals were mowing hay, quarrying stone, or building automobile engines, so long as the traditional intellectual, cultural, and religious institutions of China were being mowed under.

From what little I know of Chesteronian distributism, however, it does idolize the farmer and farming life.

[ephraemsyrus]

One might object to my characterization based on Mao's own ideas of revolution, which concentrated on the agrarian lower classes as opposed to urban industrial workers; however, I would tend to argue that that was an adaptation of Marx to the conditions prevalent in China at the time; you can't have a mass revolution of factory workers in a country with almost no industrial capacity.

[gaudium_et_spes]

It did not idolize the farmer and the farming life; it was an attempt to utterly destroy traditional Chinese culture and replace it with the worship of Mao.

It was also rooted in the ancient Chinese legalism --- the peasant warrior as the ideal citizen.

From what little I know of Chesteronian distributism, however, it does idolize the farmer and farming life.

Which is funny, because I have a hard time picturing Chesterton actually farming.