Capturing the Mind
CHU, VALENTIN
Capturing the Mind MASS PERSUASION IN COMMUNIST CHINA By Frederick T. C. Yu Praeger. 186 pp. $5.00. Reviewed by VALENTIN CHU Author, "Ta Ta, Tan Tan— Fight Fight, Talk Talk" In the mass...
...This alone distinguishes his book from many others in that the author, by employing fresh and direct raw material, offers a more original and independent perspective and avoids the evaluational ruts worn deep by other China-watchers...
...His scholarly restraint, however, does not hide a penetrating evaluation...
...Yu's conclusion thus triggers many thoughts, for the problem he raises is as large as human nature itself, or what it may become...
...It can switch on or off precision-calibrated mass joy, mass hate or mass hysteria...
...and that the Chinese Communists may be trapped by their own earlier success because they have not been able to create the conditions to authenticate the beliefs they have so successfully instilled...
...Yu declines to make an unequivocal prediction on the future of mass persuasion, but ends the book in an optimistic spirit: "The mind of man has a strange way of resisting oppression, and it is not likely that this characteristic will cease to exist altogether...
...But these far-out methods, though effective and frightening, can only create a limited number of temporary zombies under carefully controlled laboratory conditions...
...But within that scope the book succeeds...
...Here and there his dispassionate discourse suddenly, but often too briefly, flowers into acute observation and shrewd comment...
...Cybernetics interprets this as a proof that human thinking is infinitely more variable, unpredictable and uncontrollable than that of simple-brained social insects...
...So have the Russians...
...robots so clinically conditioned and indoctrinated that they would gladly submit to a total control of the body and the mind...
...Today advertising men, press agents, motivational researchers, pollsters, lobbyists—direct or indirect publicopinion engineers—exercise great power in selling soap, cigarettes or political candidates...
...Starting from a discussion of the socialization of the mind, and Communist China's theory and policy in this area, Yu then examines the background, organizational pattern and systematic functions of mass persuasion in that country...
...Packed with quotations and source notes, this is a valuable reference book for students of Chinese Communism...
...Hitler's diatribes, Khrushchev's high-test vodka quips, Mao Tse-tung's jejune prose may differ in finesse and audience appeal, but they are all samples of totalitarian mass persuasion, characteristically buttressed with mass coercion...
...To this question recent scientific findings supply some reassuring answers...
...The ideal Orwellian paradise as envisioned by every totalitarian not only dispenses daily bread but also regulates public behavior and prescribes private thoughts...
...Will the rulers of Peking succeed where others have failed...
...that the endless, repetitive assaults of propaganda have now created a public passivity and apathy unwanted by the ruling elites...
...But the Nazis failed...
...Reviewed by VALENTIN CHU Author, "Ta Ta, Tan Tan— Fight Fight, Talk Talk" In the mass society of our time, what used to be the personal art of influencing others has been systematized into a science...
...Totalitarianism, whether on the Left or Right, aims at the total robotization of the free man...
...Theoretically a dictator could completely capture the mind with brain electrodes and psychochemicals...
...To condition the mind of an entire population permanently through political behavior therapy is a quite different matter...
...names all the angels and devils...
...Neuro-physiology shows that the nerve structure of the human brain is billions of times more complicated than that of ant and bee brains...
...that serious problems have profoundly disturbed the rulers...
...Will Communist China or any other nation someday become a society of human ants or bees in a real psychological sense...
...But this is a problem that is infinitely larger than Communism itself...
...It sets up all the totems and taboos...
...The Chinese Communist knowledge of subtle and skillful mass persuasion techniques, he explains with convincing evidence, comes from three major sources: empirical experience, Soviet inspiration, and the rich insights into human nature found throughout the history of Chinese culture...
...Yu modestly states that his effort is "an exploratory study—nothing more," and he deliberately limits himself to reporting and interpreting...
...Yu's remark on the strange way of man's mind is thus no mere rhetoric, but based on solid ground...
...Perhaps influenced by extremist behaviorist psychologists, many have been afraid that totalitarians—Nazis or Communists —might create a new generation of human robots with strictly prescribed stimuli in a perfectly controlled environment...
...In a totalitarian society this science is a major state enterprise...
...Its weakness is its narrow scope...
...Yu takes his material almost exclusively from Chinese Communist sources in the original language...
...Yu also makes some significant appraisals: that the effectiveness of mass persuasion in Communist China has been both over- and under-estimated...
...Frederick T. C. Yu, China-born associate professor and Director of Research at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, explores this area in an informative, compact and straight-forward book...
Vol. 47 • October 1964 • No. 21
