Stories of Good People, Social Science, and Marxism-Leninism

I. Stories of Good People

People like reading stories of good people. Read about the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army and General Yang Jingyu—it is profoundly moving. Read the *Records of the Grand Historian*, with its people of benevolence and righteousness—it is deeply moving. The Red Army—the Eighth Route Army—the People’s Liberation Army—the People’s Volunteer Army. Stories of the scientists and engineers of the generation that founded the People’s Republic, stories of those who opposed the Qing dynasty, and the stories of Shu Han in the *Records of the Three Kingdoms*.

Marxism-Leninism and the international communist movement are stories with an exceptionally high concentration of good people. The writings of Marxism-Leninism are a true canon of social science, written for the most ordinary people by the wisest among the best people. This is why I read the complete works of Marx and Lenin.

II. The Matter of Good People

It is important to know that there are good people in the world.

It is important to know why good people “are not rewarded for their goodness.” Legalism: because there are bad people, and people who are ill. Buddhism: good causes bear good fruit, just not the fruit imagined through obsessive attachment. This is why I embrace Daoist philosophy: naturalness, clarity, tranquility, and non-action. Psychology: separation of tasks, an obsessive attachment to being a good person, a savior complex, and resistance to psychological manipulation. Marxism-Leninism: exploitation, human alienation, internal friction, and Thermidor.

III. Sociology and Psychology

Many things in life can be analyzed through philosophy, Marxism-Leninism, sociology, social psychology, and psychology.

Precisely because I grew up and live in an indifferent, alienated, utilitarian world (*Water Margin*, *Journey to the West*, *Dream of the Red Chamber*), I place even greater value on stories of good people and idealism (the founding team of Shu Han in the Three Kingdoms).

This is a kind of field, a construction, and a projection of personality, empathy, and identification.

IV. Elitist and Materialist Conceptions of History

But young people can also easily fall into a heroic, elitist trap through these stories of “good people”: the elites are great, while ordinary people are ignorant and numb. This is why I like the discussion of peasants in *Seven Samurai*.

It was not until I was twenty-seven or twenty-eight, after taking a beating from society, that I understood my own ordinariness and human limitations, and gained a better understanding of economics and history. I came to understand the kindness of many ordinary people at the bottom of society, their struggles and powerlessness, and to understand producers and workers. I came to understand that emperors are slaves to history.

Humanism means understanding the ailments of adults and believing in every child’s humanity. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs explains what lies behind those good people who have reached higher levels.

This is why I hold in such high regard the story of the Yunnan Army’s 60th Army becoming the 50th Army, the “Iron Army.”