Word: feudality
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...Mexican Revolutions. And it is very difficult for us to accept the accidents of history--the demands of pragmatism. What the Mexican Revolution did was break the basic, unchangeable social structure imposed by the Spanish Conquest. It may have created a new bourgeois society, but the semi-feudal system during the times of Porfirio Diaz were changed...
China's political leaders view the nation's young people as the source of revolutionary strength. Much of the Party's propaganda is directed toward the young, since the elderly tend to cling to their traditional, "feudal" beliefs. During the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, the older youths ran rampant as Red Guards, looting and terrorizing the more conservative citizens in their attacks on old customs and beliefs. To many Western observers, it seemed for a long time that the Communist Chinese were engaged in an almost inhuman remolding of their children in their attempt to rebuild the nation...
KAGEMUSHA begins with a simple tableau: a Japanese feudal lord, Shingen (Tatsya Nakada), sits in the center of the screen: on the left is his brother (Tsutomu Yamakazi); in the lower right corner is a thief (Tatsuya Nakada), whom the brother has plucked from a crucifix because he bears a strong resemblance to Shingen. An austere composition, the lord virtually immobile, the camera immobile, the long scene played out in one shot. Later, after the lord. Shingen, has been assassinated, we learn that he was called the Moutain, that the Moutain did not move, and therein was his strength...
Tsao, like most writers, was made a laborer during the Cultural Revolution "We now call that period the 'Ten Years of Catastrophe,' " he says. "Maybe the younger generation was spared, but we suffered terribly. We were deeply mired in a feudal mentality. People took what their superiors said for granted. Everything got reduced to a test of loyalty, and one man's word became law. Still, they couldn't stop us from asking why China was reduced to such a state and what we should do to prevent this from ever happening again...
Among China's defects, Yuan mentions its long imitation of the Soviet system, which was not relevant to local conditions. Like many other intellectuals, he also blames the country's "feudal heritage," the centuries during which China's economy remained backward and "the Emperor's word was law." Adds Yuan: "One thing that the common people get very angry about is the special privileges of high-ranking officials. There used to be a saying in the old society that once a man got promoted, even his dogs and chickens could go to heaven." This notion lingers...