Enacting the Scripts of Utopia: Collective Violence and the Sacred in the Chinese Cultural Revolution

• In Event: 193 - Regular Session. Sociology of Culture

Abstract

The symbols and lexicon of utopia may become powerful scripts for human action when they are turned into sacred codes in the popular and political cultures of a society. This is as true of the romantic utopia of love as it is of the political utopia of revolution. This paper examines the dynamics whereby such cultural scripts shape human behavior. Through a case study of Red Guard factional violence in the Chinese Cultural Revolution, I show that the symbols and lexicon of a revolutionary utopia served as powerful scripts for enacting collective violence. These scripts did not automatically result in collective violence, however. Collective violence happened only when social and political conditions were in place that called on people to enact the scripts and when such enactment promised to the actors the possibility of attaining sainthood or martyrdom through violence. The implications of this argument for understanding collective violence in the contemporary world are discussed.

Author

• Guobin Yang, University of Pennsylvania