The Art of Cloning: Creative Production During China's Cultural Revolution

三十．三十書系

by Laikwan Pang

Cultural production under Mao, and how artists and thinkers found autonomy in a culture of conformity

In the 1950s, a French journalist joked that the Chinese were "blue ants under the red flag," dressing identically and even moving in concert like robots. When the Cultural Revolution officially began, this uniformity seemed to extend to the mind. From the outside, China had become a monotonous world, a place of endless repetition and imitation, but a closer look reveals a range of cultural experiences, which also provided individuals with an obscure sense of freedom.

In The Art of Cloning, Pang Laikwan examines this period in Chinese history when ordinary citizens read widely, traveled extensively through the country, and engaged in a range of cultural and artistic activities. The freedom they experienced, argues Pang, differs from the freedom, under Western capitalism, to express individuality through a range of consumer products. But it was far from boring and was possessed of its own kind of diversity.

Genres: China, History, Art, Nonfiction, Cultural, Sociology, Philosophy

320 pages, Hardcover

Published January 10, 2017

About the author

Laikwan Pang teaches cultural studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She is the author of Building a New Cinema in China: The Chinese Left-wing Cinema Movement, 1932-37 (Rowman and Littlefield, 2004) and Cultural Control and Globalisation in Asia: Copyright, Piracy and Cinema (RoutledgeCurzon, forthcoming).

(copied from the blurb at the back of Masculinities and Hong Kong Cinema)

Reviews

[Inna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant book about the interaction of order and chaos during the cultural revolution. The author analyzes the impossibility of the government's attempt to impose on a society settled patterns of revolutionary identity. She describes how, while copying such patterns, people developed various understandings of these which, eventually, emptied them of meaning. She also describes how the initial intent of eliminating the social differences within society by reversing social roles resulted in destroying the institutions which sustained social order and thus any sort of social security. People reacted to this by emotionally distancing themselves from the revolution.
Overall a very interesting analysis on how an attempt to direct a revolution from above could not work and on how extreme politicization could not but depoliticize the society.

[Owen Hatherley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very impressive psychoanalytic/pop theory reading of the actual culture thrown up by the Cultural Revolution - nuanced and sophisticated, but at no point shying away from that movement's immense cruelty.

[Andy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Top-drawer scholarship. A perpetual flow of insightful analysis of the aesthetics and politics of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, notable for Pang's capacity to transcend the ossified perspective presented to Western readers of exclusively the horrors visited upon the elite during this decade. If you have an open mind or are open to having an open mind, I recommend reading this perspective shifting work.

[风花 · Rating 3 out of 5]

文革哈哈镜：彭丽君的文革艺术史

在没读到conclusion之前，我是只准备给这本书打一星的，是在写的是比乌有之乡还要恶心，作者创造了无数“暴论”，像是“江青政权”（jiangqing regime）一词，在毛泽东还活着的时候，如何能称是江青政权？女性的主体性也不是这么用的，文革的错都是因为江青胡搞，江青老公就彻底隐身了。这么一来，岂非我们的批判理论家最后和邓小平殊途同归了？“文革的错都是因为江青。” 或者说“毛泽东虽然发动了文革，但是也是文革这个权力网络的一部分，你不能说文革的一切错都怨他（P214-215）。”这样的理论看上去非常合理，的确毛泽东没办法控制全部的文革，红卫兵和毛泽东都是权力网络的一部分，但难道道德的谴责也因此可以被悬置或是抵消吗？艾希曼与希特勒都是德国法西斯的产物，都是第三帝国权力场域的一部分，于是希特勒的罪恶就因此可以而抵消？你这样发到学术界，别人只会觉得你是黑暗启蒙的加速主义新保守派，而不会认为你是“左派”。所以西方学术界的文革研究非常诡异，形成一种在“极权之中找自由的范式”，但是同样的论点放在法西斯研究中，这恐怕是“为纳粹翻案的新保守主义的项目”，但是放在文革研究中就是“左派”，未免太“柿子只挑软的捏”。但是我并不是说，文革中老百姓没有责任，第三帝国与艾希曼无关，自然是有的，但是我们必须要承认，发起种种运动的“始作俑者”才是那个首恶，不能说老百姓也有责任，于是毛主席就伟光正了，这是说不通的。 而这也是为什么把彭丽君的研究称之为哈哈镜的原因，在扭曲了文革的权力格局之后，被理论光线折射出来的“文化研究”，也只能是更加扭曲的虚像。

但是我为什么又给了三星，而是因为她的conclusion。也不知道彭小姐是掌握精通了汉地的“写作术”还是写到最后回心转意，从intro到最后一章的写作路数完全是西方现在最爱的“文革翻案风”研究范式，而conclusion却一反之前的文革这也好那也好范式，反而开始承认文革这不好那也不好，甚至还说“自己的研究虽然试图在文革中发现自由的契机“，但最后全部失败了，反而发现文革把中国人变得不关心公共利益，不关心政治。作者的这个结论我是同意的，但就是不知道作者这最后一章，是良心发现呢？还是两头下注呢？还是为了契合出版社verso的左派口味精心调制的左派风味，然后在conclusion里加上自己的心里话？

[哲伦 周 · Rating 3 out of 5]

The conclusion was much more sober yet quite spot-on.
Perhaps the cultural studies will always run into a cul-de-sac. 3.5/5

[Charlie Kruse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love how Pang approaches this, a fine line between endorsement and condemnation, but instead looking at how the revolutionary culture of a new Chinese nation had the seeds to reinvent their culture by making it more participatory and democratic, yet also showing how Party politics and mass movements could be derailed and falter. A lot of really great chapters, I particularly enjoyed the chapter on Opera, and the differences between Cantonese and Mandarin opera styles, and the difficulties of translating and transposing revolutionary ideas along with regional difference.

"The performance culture was so important to the Cultural Revolution because the revolutionary spirit needed to be continuously performed. The person who performed this spirit would always be caught between being themselves and being a tool of the spirit"

Contrasting the frankly Orientalist idea of homogeneity and brainwashing in Communist China, Pang instead illustrates the way that new habits and customs allowed Chinese people to participate in popular culture in unprecedented ways. Love it

[versarbre · Rating 5 out of 5]

How does the "propaganda" culture-work actually work during the Maoist Proletariat Cultural Revolution?? What is actually the cultural logic behind it? Full of fantastic analysis and penetrating insights! First-rate critical scholarship that thinks about history face-to-face.

[Lin Chan · Rating 4 out of 5]

这本书确实重塑了我对文革固有的瘠薄的认识——群众在文革的文化活动中有着比想象中更多的参与和塑造能力，这也在某些方面说明自上而下的对文化的完全控制是不可能的。可悲的是在今时今日加深对文革的理解可能是一种必须，文革以来固有的制度性缺陷在现在依旧存在，而缺乏反思，压制文革重演的力量现今也摇摇欲坠。

[Danae · Rating 2 out of 5]

La tesis es muy buena, sobre todo en el tercer capítulo donde se analiza la relación entre arte y copia. Lamentablamente, la conclusión es media fome.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love this book. Super well written and argued. Very engaging and radical.