"Page0025" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bloom Howard - The Lucifer Principle (htm))

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ant urges in nearly all primates.  In chimpanzees, it inspires a

wanderlust that forces some young females to leave the cozy family

they've always known and go off to make a new life for themselves

among strangers.11  In langur monkeys, it triggers a restlessness that's

much more to the point.  Adolescent langur males kick loose the traces

of their childhood family life and cluster in unruly, threatening gangs.

Then they go on the prowl, looking for some older, well-established

male they can attack.  The adolescents' goal: to dislodge the respectable

elder from his cushy home and take over everything he owns--his

power, his prestige, and his wives.12

As we'll see a bit later, humans are driven by many of the same

instincts as our primate relatives.  Consequently, many adolescents of

our species also resent the authority of the adults over their heads. Their

hormones have suddenly told them that it is time to assert their

individuality and to challenge the prerogatives of the older generation.

Mao didn't address himself to the adults of China.  Those

comrades saw the good sense of the officials who had shuffled Mao to

the side and focused on producing food to fill the stomachs that had

ached with emptiness for three long years.  Mao turned elsewhere for

help in recapturing authority.  He turned to the country's teenagers.

Mao started his campaign to regain the reins of China innocently

enough.  Under his orders, the major papers began a literary debate.

They attacked a group of authors who called themselves "The Three

Family Village."  These essayists were government officials, key figures

in the phalanx  of bureaucrats resisting Mao's orders.  One was vice

mayor of Beijing.  Another--the editor of the Beijing Evening News--was

propaganda director for Beijing's Party Committee.  A third was a

propagandist for the Beijing city government.  Over the years, the

articles of these three had been regarded as entertaining diversions,

models of witty style.  Now official editorial writers  "discovered" that

the writings of The Three Family Village were hidden cesspools of secret

meanings.  And what did those meanings amount to?  An assault on the

sacred precepts of The Party.

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defi

ant urges in nearly all primates.  In chimpanzees, it inspires a

wanderlust that forces some young females to leave the cozy family

they've always known and go off to make a new life for themselves

among strangers.11  In langur monkeys, it triggers a restlessness that's

much more to the point.  Adolescent langur males kick loose the traces

of their childhood family life and cluster in unruly, threatening gangs.

Then they go on the prowl, looking for some older, well-established

male they can attack.  The adolescents' goal: to dislodge the respectable

elder from his cushy home and take over everything he owns--his

power, his prestige, and his wives.12

As we'll see a bit later, humans are driven by many of the same

instincts as our primate relatives.  Consequently, many adolescents of

our species also resent the authority of the adults over their heads. Their

hormones have suddenly told them that it is time to assert their

individuality and to challenge the prerogatives of the older generation.

Mao didn't address himself to the adults of China.  Those

comrades saw the good sense of the officials who had shuffled Mao to

the side and focused on producing food to fill the stomachs that had

ached with emptiness for three long years.  Mao turned elsewhere for

help in recapturing authority.  He turned to the country's teenagers.

Mao started his campaign to regain the reins of China innocently

enough.  Under his orders, the major papers began a literary debate.

They attacked a group of authors who called themselves "The Three

Family Village."  These essayists were government officials, key figures

in the phalanx  of bureaucrats resisting Mao's orders.  One was vice

mayor of Beijing.  Another--the editor of the Beijing Evening News--was

propaganda director for Beijing's Party Committee.  A third was a

propagandist for the Beijing city government.  Over the years, the

articles of these three had been regarded as entertaining diversions,

models of witty style.  Now official editorial writers  "discovered" that

the writings of The Three Family Village were hidden cesspools of secret

meanings.  And what did those meanings amount to?  An assault on the

sacred precepts of The Party.