Was Mao the monster that the Western media often makes him out to be, or was he just a product of his environment and life?
Mao has been judged by a Western value system that did not exist in China or the United States during his lifetime. In addition, it is now known that who we grow up to become as adults is partially due to genetics but mostly from environmental and lifestyle influences.
Mao grew up in a world nothing like most in the West have ever experienced. He was born into China’s collective culture where the individual was not more important than the whole.
There is a strong possibility that Mao also suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and this may have influenced his behavior and decisions during the years he ruled China [1949 – 1976].
Helping Psychology reports, “PTSD victims tend to be in a continuous state of heightened alertness. The trauma that precipitates the disorder essentially conditions them to be ever-ready for a life threatening situation to arise at any moment … But the continuous releases of brain chemicals that accompany this reaction time – and their inability to control when this heightened reactivity will occur – take psychological and biological tolls on PTSD victims over time.”
Then Medicine Net.com reports, “Complex posttraumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD) usually results from prolonged exposure to a traumatic event or series thereof and is characterized by long-lasting problems with many aspects of emotional and social functioning.”
American combat veterans are not the only people on this planet to suffer from PTSD. Every person is susceptible to the ravages of a violent trauma, and if we examine Mao’s life, it could be argued that PTSD played a strong role in the decisions he made as he aged.
We will examine Mao’s long history as a victim of violence in Part 2
Continued on July 13, 2016 in Part 2
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Lloyd Lofthouse, a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam combat vet, is the best-selling, award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the unique love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.
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