Years ago, I was privileged to take a summer course that included a brief introduction to political psychology. We were asked how the Chinese Communist Party (“CCP”) were able to change over 541 million people’s minds to accept communism within a relatively short period of time. We, of course, said they used guns, prison and torture. Wrong. They used weekly study meetings. (1)
The key was to get a person to accept a small part of communist belief. (“Small part” meaning 2-3%.) Get a person to change their mind about that 2-3%, and they will do all the work to change their beliefs 180 degrees. That’s frightening. And why it’s stuck clearly in my mind all these years. But it’s not as simple as that.
The movie The Last Emperor (2) tells the story of Aisin-Gioro Pu Yi (“Pu Yi”), the last emperor of China. (3) Towards the end of the movie, Pu Yi watches a film of the Japanese atrocities against the Chinese and their biological warfare experiments using Manchurians. This is news to him. It’s his road-to-Damascus moment, and his worldview changes. Wow! Just being confronted with the facts, and Pu Yi changed his mind. Not really.
Pu Yi’s journey from absolute emperor to communist citizen took about 10 years. During this time, he continued to use his survival skills of lying and scheming. Pu Yi was imprisoned with people he knew. They could see through these tactics, and very gradually began to confront him. Bit by bit, he changed. The CCP deftly used Pu Yi’s complete change of circumstances and social pressure from his new peers to convert him. (4)
You can’t just present someone with the facts as you know them and expect the other person to immediately accept them — and your argument. It takes time. Time for the other person to check out what you’ve told them, and time to consider what was said.
But what if people aren’t willing to consider what you say? If you have a demonstrable fact that doesn’t match what they say, tell them that one fact. For example, my sister wasn’t willing to listen to anything I was saying about President Trump. To her, he was a terrible person who “put kids in cages”. I told her the infamous picture of “kids in cages” was actually taken in 2014. (4) The number of people crossing the border ballooned. There wasn’t enough space at the facility to keep them the required 72 hours, nor was there sufficient staff to ensure their safety. The solution? Those chain-link partitions that you see, that were supposed to be only temporary. The Obama “cages” were still in place when Trump took office. I could hear her ears opening and knew that she would check it out and maybe — just maybe — change her mind a little bit.
So how can people believe what they believe? It’s how we’re raised: the family we’re raised in, the society we live in, the schools we go to, the friends we hang out with. And what happens to us as we live our lives.
Our beliefs are shaped by our experiences and what we learn from those experiences. Pu Yi was raised as if he were an absolute emperor, in all the Chinese traditions. He had all the forms of power, but none of the reins. When he became a prisoner of the CCP, his experiences didn’t match what his worldview predicted would happen. He noticed. One experience at a time. Bit by bit. He thought. And he changed his behaviour and his mind.
Notes:
- Of course, guns, prison and torture were used against those who wouldn’t submit.
- The Last Emperor, a 1987 movie directed by Bernardo Bertolucci and starring John Lone, Joan Chen and Peter O’Toole. Available on amazon.com at https://amzn.to/39D7inn and on amazon.ca at https://amzn.to/39CltJh.
- Briefly, Aisin-Gioro Pu Yi (aka Henry Pu Yi) was born on February 7, 1906 and became Emperor of China on December 2, 1908 when he was not even 3 years old. His reign lasted a little over 3 years. Over the next 34 years, he learned to survive under various forms of government, including his years as puppet Emperor of Manchukuo for the Japanese. He was captured by the Soviet Red Army in 1946, then handed over to the People’s Republic of China in 1949. From 1950 to 1959, Pu Yi was in a “re-education camp”, i.e., a prison where the prisoners are remolded. Pu Yi initially worked as a gardener. In 1961 he was assigned to organize materials of the late Qing Dynasty and subsequent governments. He died in 1967.
- The Last Manchu: The Autobiography of Henry Pu Yi, Last Emperor of China by Henry Pu Yi and Paul Kramer (New York: Skyhorse Publishing, Inc., 2010). Available on amazon.com at https://amzn.to/2XYf9qa and on amazon.ca at https://amzn.to/39P5Ga8.
- The “kids in cages” controversy was fake news. A picture was taken out of context and a story built around it.
