When Mao died his only legacy was the political and economic devastation of China Essay Example

When Mao died his only legacy was the political and economic devastation of China Essay Example When Mao died his only legacy was the political and economic devastation of China Essay When Mao died his only legacy was the political and economic devastation of China Essay Mao Tse-tung (Zedong) was the official first leader to The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, and no other name in the history of modern China has a more synonymous connotation with the total practice of communism and collectivism than Mao. Born on December 28, 1893, Mao was brought up in a predominantly non-industrialized, agrarian society that had gone through little social change in centuries. The country suffered from extreme poverty, isolationism, illiteracy, disease and infighting among various political figures. A natural born charismatic leader, Mao had an insightful view into the feelings of his countrymen. Beginning in the 1920s and through the 1940s, his communist lead revolution was able to out fight and maneuver an invading Japanese army and effectually push out his Nationalist Party rival, Chaing Kai-shek. While the Marxist theory of communism focused more on a working class party, Mao was able to take the men and women of China’s farming class and bring about a far-reaching revolutionary change. The beginnings of Mao’s leadership lent great promise but his actions after the revolution in regards to the â€Å"Great Leap Forwards† resulted in seeing millions of his countrymen die, than a change for the better. During Chairman Mao’s Great Leap Forward campaign, it seemed to be his genuine intention to bring China into a new age and â€Å"walk on two legs†, as he like to refer to it. The analogy was the understanding that one leg cannot propel a man forward, and it takes two entities working together for the need of the body as a whole. Mao simultaneously wanted to boost farm production and modernize industry like others had done. However, his hasty idea of turning farmers into an industrial working class of people to advance China was an utter disaster. In historian, Frank Dikotter’s work, â€Å"Mao’s Great Famine: The History of China’s most devastating catastrophe, 1958-62† we learn in detail about the effects of Mao’s Great Leap Forward campaign. We read in part, Signs of famine had appeared in 1958. In the first half of 1959 starvation became widespread, as villagers were hit by increased procurements ordered by the state. Evan a zealot like Tan Zhenlin estimated that as early as January some 5 million people were suffering from famine oedema, 750,000 having starved to death. Zhou Enlai put the letter figure at 120,000. Both men were far below the mark, but had little incentive to investigate further. Mao was aware of the famine but downplayed it by circulating reports showing that villages in distressed regions were getting enough food, up to half a kilo per day in model province Henan. On the ground, local cadres were unsure how to respond, bewildered by the shifting and contradictory signals emerging from Beijing. At the top of the leadership was taken aback by Mao’s outburst in Shanghai; it was an omen of things to come (Dikotter, P. 89). It has been stated that when Mao died after his 30-year reign, his only legacy was the political and economic devastation of China. In my research I will attempt to explain why the policies of Mao propelled China into a regressed state rather than a progressive one. I will explain why Mao’s policies failed along with comparing them, to a lesser degree, to his successful field campaigns before his role as Chairman.

From LO to LOL - Emphasis

From LO to LOL From LO to LOL It is 40 years ago, almost to the day, that the internet made its first connection. On 29 October 1969, a computer in the University of California connected with one several hundred miles away in the Stanford Research Institute, just long enough to receive the message LO. (It was meant to be LOGIN, but the system crashed before the G could be typed.) The rate at which the internet and related technologies have developed since that fateful day is positively dizzying: from science fiction to something tentatively toyed with by a very few, to a ubiquitous part of life for the vast majority in a few decades. Increasingly frequently this is our chosen method of communication in work and out to the point where the future of a national institution like the postal service is threatened. But could our relationship with language be threatened too? The question does keep rearing its worried head over the possibilities of the future: illiterate children? Txt spk @ work? Robot computers marking exam papers? Whats certain is that there will be an effect of some kind. After all, use of the word hello as the greeting we unthinkingly use originated when Thomas Edison declared it the clearest way of answering the telephone. Interestingly, in 2003 it was reported that traditional greetings like hello would soon become obsolete, replaced (as they often are in texts and email) with globespeak alternatives, such as hey, howdy and gday. This, if true, would effectively bring the life of hello full circle: both created for and destroyed by the rise of a new technology. Although we probably neednt sound its death knell quite yet. Then, of course, theres Microsoft: it may rule the world, but to what extent does it rule our words? We are all guilty of relying more and more heavily on Words varicoloured squiggly lines and AutoCorrect function to correct our mistakes, but we are all also probably aware that the program is far from infallible. For example, certain errors such as unnecessary initial capital letters or accidental use of homonyms may not be flagged, while words that are actually spelled accurately can be. Changes both in language and in technology are inevitable and move at a great pace, but theyre not always in step with each other. While newer words like podcast and texting have found their way into dictionaries, older versions of Word still mark them as wrong. The limitations of spellcheckers have been such that the phenomenon of them wreaking havoc with documents now has its own name: the Cupertino effect. Its so-called because Cupertino (the Californian city home to Apple Inc.) used to be the first offering to replace cooperation, back when spellcheckers only recognised the hyphenated version of the word. This meant that anyone breezily pressing accept all changes was left with such nonsensical phrases as the Cupertino with our Italian comrades proved to be very fruitful. (This is taken from an official NATO document from 2003.) Proper nouns and foreign words can also cause problems, as news service Reuters discovered when it inadvertently ended up referring to Pakistans Muttahida Quami Movement as the Muttonhead Quail Movement. Naturally, updates are being made all the time to prevent these particular blunders Microsoft Office 2010 offers a contextual speller in order to make correction suggestions more accurate. Nevertheless, other problems are quite likely to pop up and, however ingenious the algorithm behind the latest features, the ultimate responsibility is with us to check what we actually end up saying. It is also unavoidable that around periods of great change therell be those who fret over the potential consequences. The massive rise in texting has led to concern that this abbreviation-filled medium is going to destroy childrens literacy and have them including such terms as LOL (laugh out loud) and gr8 (great) in their schoolwork. Tales of such inclusions abound, but many are mere fabrication; in fact, several studies have found that the majority of children scornfully denounce the idea that theyd do such a thing. Indeed, a positive aspect could be that kids are taught the importance of writing appropriately for different contexts. We wont be able to stop the dual juggernauts of technology and language change, but we neednt necessarily fear them. The best approach is probably to stop worrying about a future filled with texted essays and automatons in charge of education, and make sure to keep a responsible eye on what we are each actually producing. After all, the future of writing if not the future of technology is largely in our hands.