In The Laws of Human Nature, Robert Greene opens his chapter on conformity with a story from Born Red, Gao Yuan’s memoir of the Cultural Revolution.
Gao was a 14-year-old at Yizhen Number One Middle School when it began. Following Chairman Mao’s call, students became Red Guards and took over the school. They held mass rallies against their teachers, and some were driven to suicide. Then the students then split into two factions, and the school and town turned into armed camps.
It started with a goal that sounded noble: rooting out corruption. Red Guard armbands were coveted, and wearing one carried status. An older friend and mentor named Fangpu pulled Gao in. The students suddenly had the power to attack their teachers and skip school without consequence.
The rallies against teachers grew into marches through the streets with chants and jeers, and eventually organized torture and violence. The early victories felt exhilarating. Then the movement fractured into two armed factions, and by the time the military arrived to restore order, what was left was defeat and disillusionment.
Reading this story made me reflect on how easy it is to dismiss this sort of crazy happening as something that is just so far from our lives. After all, it was just an experiment with a bunch of kids that went wrong.
However, I don’t think the age of the students involved matters much. Human nature is consistent, and if adults were put in those same circumstances, I think things would resolve to the same place.
Mao’s core mistake was believing he could rewire human behavior. He wanted a blank slate, where young people would absorb the spirit of the revolution and unite under new principles. Human nature has worked the same way for millions of years, and it wasn’t going to change. What followed was disorder. In groups, we lose nuance and go with the group. Tribalism and us-versus-them formed quickly, and soon it was all about status and survival.
Organizational politics and government politics run on the same dynamics. Groups sort out insiders, then establish status. Identity-based divisions tend to be the most damaging, because without nuance, identity is easy to see, easy to judge, and easy to form a group against.
When I look at the version of identity politics that has been on the rise over the past ten years, I think about the idea that history doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes. Understanding the patterns of the past makes us more aware of the patterns around us today. It’s also a reminder that human nature is a constant through all of it.
