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Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 29, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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That all makes a lot of sense, especially the point about the shrinking of the Overton window.

I'm obviously not read up on the theory, but my vague impression of Maoism from reading Chinese history and spending sometime over there as a student is that Chinese Communism and Maoism were never really intended to be universal ideologies, hence the "with Chinese characteristics" qualifier. It always seemed to me that Maoism was merely a tool to seize and maintain power rather than an evangelical quasi-religion like Marxism-Leninism. This would neatly explain all the weird contradictions in Chinese Communist thought and why each leader is easily able graft on their own "thought" to that ideological chimaera.