Cyberspace as Mao's Little Red Book?
There are definite similarities, the most prominent probably being the fact that just as on the internet you can find almost anything, Mao's sayings have a way of saying everything and its opposite. Another is the feeling of profundity melting into air (no, we won't have a go at that one again) when thoughts that at first seem profound meet complimentary yet contradictory thoughts on a later page.
Mao Tsetung's Little Red Book was wonderful at doing that, just as it seemed to captivate much of a generation hungry for wisdom that could conveniently fit onto a refrigerator door. In the late '60s Maoist "thought" was considered by many to be a beacon that would lead us to a better world, and many groups sprang up that claimed to have the one and only proper take on the interpretation of that "thought". I, along with a number of friends, fellow-travelled with some of these groups for a while. One evening, at a meeting on something like "revolutionary thought and tactics" at the home of the leader of one of these groups a friend entered the bathroom and found a larger than life poster of Chairman Mao behind the toilet. Believing that any revolution without a sense of humor wouldn't be a real revolution, he carefully printed the words:
"It is easier to walk up a hill than it is to walk down a hill."
underneath the picture. Later that evening the group's leader entered the bathroom and exited in a rage: "who wrote that underneath Mao's picture?" he demanded to know. My friend, retaining his cool, asked calmly:
You mean it should be: "It is easier to walk down a hill than it is to walk up a hill"?
Neither of us returned to those meetings.
Go to: It is easier to walk up a hill than it is to walk down a hill, or
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