The following post by Consensus Net (共识网), the official Weibo account of China’s Leaders (领导者) magazine, was deleted from Sina Weibo sometime before 3:46pm Hong Kong time, February 28, 2012. Lang Yaoyuan currently has just over 102,000 followers, according to numbers from Sina Weibo. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre].
The post came against the backdrop of renewed use in official Party media of the image and story of Lei Feng (雷锋), a People’s Liberation Army soldier held up in official Party propaganda in the 1960s as an exemplar of duty and devotion to the Party and the socialist cause. The dusting off of Lei Feng seems to have come amidst an invigorated official campaign in China to improve public morals.

Lei Feng, such a youthful screw [in the machine] http://t.cn/zOG5GhH Through his extended use in the propaganda of the national machine, spirit of Lei Feng has already become to tool advocating the individual’s sacrifice of private interests. The greater the sacrifice, the loftier the image, the greater the spirit. This kind of neglect of private interests, which from its very origin sets moral standards against private interests as a value orientation, must necessarily go against human nature. And so it is very difficult [for such a standard] to serve in raising the level of social morals.

The post by Consensus Net included the following image of Lei Feng:


The original Chinese-language post from Lang Yaoyuan follows:

雷锋,如此年轻的螺丝钉http://t.cn/zOG5GhH在国家机器长期宣传下,雷锋精神已经演变成国家提倡个人牺牲私利的工具:牺牲越巨大,形象越高大,精神越伟大。这样一种忽视个人利益、从一开始就将道德标准与私人利益对立起来的价值导向,必然是违背人性的,也就难以起到提高社会道德水平的作用.


NOTE: All posts to The Anti-Social List are listed as “permission denied” in the Sina Weibo API, which means they were deleted by Weibo managers, not by users themselves.


David Bandurski

CMP Director

Latest Articles