As the Year of the Ox begins, I would like to wish readers and writers of The Apple an auspicious and healthy new year.
At the beginning of the Year of the Ox, we see the arrogance of power in Hong Kong, China, and the United States, and we wonder how far the bull of power can go in the Year of the Ox, when the arrogance of power was studied as a mental illness in the United States in the 1970s, echoing the civil rights movement of that year.
Oppressive institutions are exclusive and labeled
The ox, whose animal image is one of hard work and endurance, is used in northern Chinese dialects to describe a powerful or arrogant person, similar to the Cantonese word ba closing, and is borrowed to describe the arrogance of power, also in line with the Year of the Ox. In fact, the abusive behavior of the current regimes around the world is more in line with the psychosis of power proposed by the American academic and medical communities in the 1970s. Among them, Thomas Szasz, a professor at the State University of New York, pointed out in his famous book Ideology and insanity that rulers often divide their enemies by their claims for or against themselves, forming an exclusive structure of oppression; the essence of the system of oppression is a kind of psychopathic abuse of others, which ignores others’ opinions and waits until others have no more. The system of oppression is essentially a psychopathic system of mental abuse, which ignores the opinions of others and waits until they can’t stand it any longer and start cursing or protesting, then it takes advantage of the evil by labeling others and enjoys the pleasure and benefits of abusing them.
Since the outbreak of pneumonia in Wuhan, the measures taken by the Lin-Zheng government to prevent and combat the Epidemic have been in line with the power psychiatric illnesses listed by Sars. From the refusal of medical and nursing care to close the gates to prevent the epidemic, to the costly community census, to the raid-style closure of the district, to the compulsory “travel with peace of mind” code for the public, the public has had enough of the arrogance of power. The selective enforcement of the gathering restrictions highlights the exclusivity and labeling of the oppressive system. Is the mistake of police chief Deng Bingqiang’s statement that “as a police officer, it is more important to know the law and break it” not a subconscious manifestation of power psychosis?
Claude Steiner, one of the leading authorities on the psychosis of power in the 1970s and a psychoanalyst who was personally involved in the civil rights movement, pointed out that the arrogance and mental persecution of power is an abusive psychological disorder that appears in the way of social and political control, resulting in people’s alienation from politics and society and their forced acceptance of the status quo. Is this not a profound inquiry into the visual description and purpose of the actions of the Lam-Zheng government?
China cannot be blamed for concealing the epidemic and causing it to rage
Of course, the Chinese government, on whose back the Lam administration is based, has shown even more power in the fight against Wuhan pneumonia, closing off areas and cities, and using even the WHO as a set piece to praise its own effectiveness. On the one hand, China claims that WHO is a multilateral authority in the field of international health and “is not a playground to come and go as it pleases”, thus accusing the United States of not listening to WHO’s orders, while on the other hand, even if it agrees to WHO experts setting foot in Wuhan, it still only allows “exchange and cooperation” on traceability issues ” and “not an investigation”.
But Peter Ben Embarek, a member of the WHO expert team, said in an interview with CNN yesterday that there are indications that the outbreak in Wuhan in December 2019 was more widespread than previously thought and may have spread earlier. China has so far been hard pressed to absolve itself of responsibility for concealing the outbreak and allowing Wuhan pneumonia to ravage the world.
Sadly, the arrogance of power is not only found in authoritarian countries and regions like China and Hong Kong, but also in democracies like the United States. The Trump administration can hardly be blamed for the out-of-control epidemic in the United States, and it is also reaping the consequences. Had it not been for the Muscle Lung epidemic, would Trump’s path to re-election have been hampered by his shining economic success?
However, the second impeachment initiated by the Democratic Party after Trump left office still ended in failure after the arrival of the Chinese Year of the Ox. This shows a political attempt to snipe Trump’s comeback, but also a display of the arrogance of power. What good does it do to the United States to make up for the social tear, fight Wuhan pneumonia, and deter China from seizing leadership of the international order? Once the bull rush of power, it is bound to run counter to the interests of the people. Perhaps the difference between democracy and dictatorship will ultimately come down to who can more quickly and effectively rein in the bull of power, and more quickly and effectively confront and prevent the psychosis of arrogance of power.
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