The petty bourgeoisie’s mockery of Zhang Xuefeng cannot be equated directly with dark humor. Although quite a few of them are indeed the same people who make those dark jokes and do so with the same attitude, that is not true of everyone. Behind dark humor lie anarchism and fascism. The most reactionary aspect is not making vulgar jokes about the sudden death of some individual bourgeois, but turning the various massacres of the people by the bourgeoisie into material for amusement. This anti-people fascist ideology is the most reactionary element of all.
At present, many of the jokes made by the petty bourgeoisie mocking Zhang Xuefeng stem from two things: his past habit of eating and drinking excessively, and his running on a treadmill. These things do have a causal connection with Zhang Xuefeng’s death, so this really is mockery that takes pleasure in another person’s (Zhang Xuefeng’s) death. But there are two points to consider. First, when a considerable number of petty-bourgeois people make this joke, they are expressing dissatisfaction with Zhang Xuefeng and his reactionary views, and feeling the personal satisfaction of revenge at his sudden death. Second, his excessive eating and drinking and his running were themselves connected to Zhang Xuefeng’s bourgeois ideology. He urged people to take reckless risks and fight to the death while allowing himself, first of all, to indulge in whatever pleasures he wanted. He promoted this bourgeois ideology of survival of the fittest, and he himself took up long-distance running and other bourgeois fitness activities out of a desire to outdo other members of the bourgeoisie. Yet in the end, he died suddenly because of the very indulgence and exercise he pursued. What many petty-bourgeois people see in this is that the man who told others to take risks and fight desperately ended up “fighting” himself to death first. They believe that Zhang Xuefeng’s death ironically exposes his own social-Darwinist ideology, and it is from this perspective that they mock him. But this is only mockery based on the external labels and surface appearances of things; it is not an exposure of his essence through class analysis. His having a treadmill and spending a great deal of time exercising was merely another disguised form of bourgeois indulgence. Still, what these jokes reflect is the petty bourgeoisie’s dissatisfaction with Zhang Xuefeng’s own reactionary conduct. This is clearly different from the kind of dark humor that takes pleasure directly in the slaughter of the people. Of course, this individualistic dissatisfaction naturally remains a mockery of external appearances, and its form is vulgar as well, so many of the people who make these jokes overlap with those who make dark jokes. But some among the petty bourgeoisie, precisely because they are dissatisfied with Zhang Xuefeng’s reactionary statements and conduct, have surely not become so morally corrupt as to wholeheartedly embrace anti-people dark humor that takes pleasure in massacres.
Therefore, we cannot equate the petty bourgeoisie with Zhang Xuefeng simply on this basis. Doing so would in fact also overlook the destruction suffered by many students in capitalist society under the demands for risk-taking and competition, as well as the controls, restrictions, and oppression promoted by their parents, schools, and people like Zhang Xuefeng. Hongyi also says in their self-introduction that their former school imposed strict controls and restrictions and subjected students to severe oppression, so it is not difficult to understand why some students came to hate Zhang Xuefeng.
So how should we view the dark humor surrounding Kobe? Some people say that the „Lao Da“ meme is something only those with strong fascist tendencies would use, because it treats the plane crash as a joke. But I believe the meme satirizes Kobe’s sleazy, depraved behavior and expresses disgust toward that kind of rape.
Many people actually don’t know or care about the rape allegations involving Kobe. They make this joke simply because the person is dead, taking pleasure in the suffering caused by someone else’s accidental death. The fact that people now make the same joke about videos of helicopter crashes illustrates this. In itself, it reflects anarchist thinking. Since AI-generated videos became more common this year, there has been a slight difference: some people have inserted this image into videos of Hengshui High School. There is no insurmountable gulf between these aspects of petty-bourgeois thinking, either, because they are all essentially forms of individualism.
This case is somewhat different, because Zhang Xuefeng himself is an oppressor, and many students are dissatisfied with his views. Parents and schools even use those views to control, restrict, and pressure people. Kobe, by contrast, actually had no connection with many people, and by now, making jokes about him has little to do with his own conduct anymore. The purpose of analyzing this is to identify the different elements within petty-bourgeois ideology, so as to analyze and criticize bourgeois ideology, oppose it, and point the oppressed toward a way forward. Hong Yi has always tried to point out that these or those petty bourgeois have become just as bad as the bourgeoisie. However, many of them are not capable, in practice, of reaching the level of madness of the big bourgeoisie. Kobe could engage in that kind of soliciting prostitution, whereas many of the students who make such jokes do not have the nerve to do such a thing.
That’s not quite right either. There really is a difference between people who joke about Zhang Xuefeng and those who joke about Kobe. The latter are basically telling vulgar, morbid jokes, but that still doesn’t mean they can be equated with Kobe. Social existence determines social consciousness. As I recall, the people who mainly tell morbid jokes about Kobe are parasitic students—not reactionary lechers and bourgeois sports celebrities as extremely reactionary as Kobe himself. Clearly, it is wrong to say that they are equally morally depraved. I think that both those who attack people for joking about Zhang Xuefeng and those who attack people for joking about Kobe display the same kind of arrogant contempt for the masses found in Red One. When you say that the petty bourgeoisie are morally depraved in one way or another, you should start from their practice of separating themselves from the people and living parasitically off others’ labor and enjoyment; you can’t simply condemn them all with one stroke. Aren’t we ourselves petty bourgeois currently undergoing ideological transformation? In the face of such reactionary views, we should criticize and help, rather than look down on people.
What the user Swamp Soldier above and the other comrades have been arguing against all along is your statement that “the petty bourgeoisie are like this… Their morals are hardly any better than Zhang Xuefeng’s.” You didn’t qualify your statement about the petty bourgeoisie in any way, so it can only be understood as saying that all petty-bourgeois people are just as reactionary as Zhang Xuefeng and Kobe, who belong to the big bourgeoisie. And you also seem to have been doing your utmost to prove precisely that point. But the only people capable of acts such as soliciting prostitutes and rape are the children of the wealthy petty bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie, and they make up only a small proportion of students. At most, one can say that these children of the wealthy petty bourgeoisie have a worldview similar to that of Zhang Xuefeng and Kobe. The rest are mainly the children of petty bourgeois families on the verge of bankruptcy, as well as workers and peasants. So these people’s wrongdoing cannot possibly represent the entire student population; trying to make a point by citing it is meaningless.
Also, that statement by Hong Yi above is very strange. Hong Yi is still in school and is a member of the petty bourgeoisie too, so why put themselves on a pedestal and point fingers at others?
If making dark jokes is equivalent to committing the evil acts of murder, prostitution, and rape, then quite a considerable number of people in everyday life would already be criminals-in-waiting. Your argument erases the process of ideological struggle: people’s minds do not become corrupted in an instant, nor are people beyond redemption simply because they harbor some mistaken ideas. Even if some members of the petty bourgeoisie have despicable qualities, they should not be directly equated with the bourgeoisie, because the petty bourgeoisie itself does not have the same economic and class position as the bourgeoisie to carry out so many insane practices of oppression. Has Hong Yi never had mistaken thoughts about oppressing others?
Your comments about the petty bourgeoisie, as seen in redichi’s post, are contemptuous, and your attacks on petty-bourgeois thinking are far too extreme. The petty bourgeoisie have their flaws, but they are by no means as utterly beyond redemption as the bourgeoisie. By portraying the petty bourgeoisie as a reactionary bunch, aren’t you blurring the lines of class struggle? Besides, you yourself are petty-bourgeois, as are all the students around you. Isn’t your vehement abuse of the petty bourgeoisie, completely devoid of objective class analysis, simply an attempt to appear unique—as though you alone were the true revolutionary? We should seek truth from facts when analyzing issues instead of making reckless statements. Speaking irresponsibly is wholly un-Marxist.