The Malleability of Man in Chinese Marxism

Munro, Donald J.

doi:10.1017/s0305741000009401

Cited by 21 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Michurin-Lysenko genetics maintained that by manipulating the environment, human beings could fundamentally engender organic changes, including the evolution of species (Lysenko, 1951(Lysenko, /2001Schneider, 2003). Whereas Michurin-Lysenko genetics focused on eliciting biological changes, Pavlovian psychology was about transforming the mind (Munro, 1971). Working at the interface between mind and physiology, Pavlovian psychologists joined the ideological movement to construct an image of the socialist man who actively engaged in self-transformation.…”

Section: Pavlovianization Of Psychologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Forging Marxist psychology in China’s Cold War geopolitics, 1949–1965.

Gao¹

2019

History of Psychology

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This article investigates the history of psychology in China from 1949 to 1965, with a focus on the geopolitics involving Western, Soviet, and Chinese schools of psychology. In the early 1950s, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) pressured psychologists to replace existing Western approaches with Pavlov’s Soviet-sanctioned psychological theory. The shaky marriage of Pavlovian theory with Marxism, coupled with domestic and international political shifts, paved the way for two leftist criticisms of psychology, one in 1958 and the another before the Cultural Revolution in 1966. Both criticisms demanded that psychologists conceptualize mental phenomena as sociopolitically contingent and replace experimentation with class analysis. The clash between two views of human nature—the natural-biological view, which emphasized intrapersonal mental processes, and the revolutionary view, which highlighted individual connections to the sociopolitical milieu—stemmed from the Cold War ideological division, shifting Sino-Soviet relations, the CCP’s conflicting commitments, and the power dynamic between the CCP and psychologists. Both critical movements were self-undermined by their violent enactment and failed to generate a fully developed Marxist psychology. In tracing these historical events, this article explores two questions. First, inspired by postcolonial historiography of psychology, it excavates Chinese Marxist critiques to rethink Western natural-scientific psychology regarding its disciplinary identity, subject matter, research methods, and social commitments. Second, by situating various schools of psychology in China’s revolution, it argues that whereas natural scientific approaches of the West served scientific modernization, Chinese revolutionaries’ sociopolitical approach to psychological research was tethered to class struggle.

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Section: Pavlovianization Of Psychologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Forging Marxist psychology in China’s Cold War geopolitics, 1949–1965.

Gao¹

2019

History of Psychology

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“…Yan, 1958). The techniques applied to achieve thought reformwhether they were so-called "brainwash[ing]" (Lifton, 1961), "criticism and self-criticism" (Dittmer, 1973), "speaking bitterness" (Wu, 2013), "accusation" (Strauss, 2002), or "emotion work" (Perry, 2002)-were all premised upon the belief that the human mind was highly malleable (Gao, 2018;Munro, 1971b).…”

Section: A Historical Empiricism and Human Malleabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This article builds on the findings by Gao (2015Gao ( , 2018Gao ( , 2019a and others (Cheng, 2009;Munro, 1971b) to explore the epistemological implications of Marxist psychology in China's socialist movement, specifically by focusing on the period 1949 to 1958, namely, the formative decade of Chinese socialism. It argues that the Marxization of psychology demanded a shift from the empirical observation model imported from Western psychological science to a social intervention model geared toward supporting China's socioeconomic undertakings.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Gao (2015Gao ( , 2018Gao ( , 2019a argues that the Chinese identification of Pavlovian theory with Marxist dialectical materialism was largely a propaganda message to bolster state ideology. Pavlovian psychology gained currency in China also because its classical conditioning method promised the creation of the new socialist human, a utopian ideal defined by simultaneous academic, physical, and political excellence (Cheng, 2009;Munro, 1971b), even though its practical efficacy remained unproven. In 1958, following China's political radicalization and its deteriorating relationship with the Soviet Union, a nationwide campaign took place, in which a loose group of radical intellectuals criticized Pavlov's theory for having paid too much attention to the biological basis of the mind at the expense of the influence of the sociopolitical environment.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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From Empirical Observation to Social Intervention: The Marxization of Psychology in China, 1949–1958

Gao

2019

Review of General Psychology

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This article examines the Marxization of psychology in the first decade of socialist China, between 1949 and 1958. In this movement, a loose group of radical intellectuals called for the replacement of the empirical observation model popular in psychology with a social intervention model as exemplified by educators. This paradigmatic, transdisciplinary shift would encompass three epistemological–ontological nexuses. First, the radical intellectuals accused ahistorical empirical observation of failing to recognize that the Chinese mental capacity, so far impaired by class domination, could display tremendous growth in socialism. Second, they criticized experimental and naturalistic contexts of observation for revealing the human mind to be mechanistic rather than purposeful. To recognize human agency, psychologists must transform their objectivist conceptualization of reality to a sociopolitical one. Third, they denounced the ideal of value neutrality for eschewing political engagement while permitting instrumental rationality and its hidden normative judgments. The solution lay in a refocusing on mental content instead of mental process as the object of inquiry. By examining the Marxization of psychology in socialist China, this article aims to foster reflection on how Chinese and Western psychologists’ research assumptions are shaped by their sociopolitical milieux.

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“…This policy involved the recognition of differences in aptitude and talent among individuals, a view which had been attacked in the 1950s " as a continuing echo of the John Dewey-Hu Shih educational theories." 16 The policy-makers were also willing to de-emphasize the socialization of co-operative, collective behaviour in order to foster " quality" on an individual basis. The middle school rules forbade teachers to institutionalize student mutualhelp study groups:…”

Section: Individual Achievementmentioning

confidence: 99%

The 1963 Temporary Work Regulations for Full-time Middle and Primary Schools: Commentary and Translation

Shirk¹

1973

The China Quarterly

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After the Great Leap Forward the Chinese Ministry of Education designed new programmes for teaching and administration. These guidelines, the “1963 Temporary Work Regulations for Full-time Middle and Primary Schools,” which are translated below, were drafted during 1961 and 1962, promulgated in 1963 but only became generally available during the Cultural Revolution when, in 1967, they were reprinted and circulated for criticism, to serve as negative examples for those drawing up new educational reforms. These 1963 regulations were an attempt to structure a school environment in which the teaching and learning of academic subjects would flourish. They provide documentary evidence for the concentration on expertness and “quality” which characterized educational policy during the period between the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. Moreover, the regulations illustrate how the policy-makers defined “quality” education; they describe the specific measures which the authorities felt were necessary to guarantee a school setting conducive to that goal; and they indicate what values the policy-makers were willing to trade-off in pursuit of educational “quality.”

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The Malleability of Man in Chinese Marxism

Cited by 21 publications

References 9 publications

Forging Marxist psychology in China’s Cold War geopolitics, 1949–1965.

Forging Marxist psychology in China’s Cold War geopolitics, 1949–1965.

From Empirical Observation to Social Intervention: The Marxization of Psychology in China, 1949–1958

The 1963 Temporary Work Regulations for Full-time Middle and Primary Schools: Commentary and Translation

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