“The people who control culture in China have no culture.”

— Ai Weiwei

2010-, China’s ‘Mozart’ Drops Off State Hit Parade, 2010

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Ai Weiwei 218

Chinese concept artist 1957

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“For many years we Communists have struggled for a cultural revolution as well as for a political and economic revolution, and our aim is to build a new society and a new state for the Chinese nation. That new society and new state will have not only a new politics and a new economy but a new culture. In other words, not only do we want to change a China that is politically oppressed and economically exploited into a China that is politically free and economically prosperous, we also want to change the China which is being kept ignorant and backward under the sway of the old culture into an enlightened and progressive China under the sway of a new culture. In short, we want to build a new China. Our aim in the cultural sphere is to build a new Chinese national culture.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

We Want to Build a New China
On New Democracy (1940)
Original: (zh-CN) 我们共产党人，多年以来，不但为中国的政治革命和经济革命而奋斗，而且为中国的文化革命而奋斗；一切这些的目的，在于建设一个中华民族的新社会和新国家。在这个新社会和新国家中，不但有新政治、新经济，而且有新文化。这就是说，我们不但要把一个政治上受压迫、经济上受剥削的中国，变为一个政治上自由和经济上繁荣的中国，而且要把一个被旧文化统治因而愚昧落后的中国，变为一个被新文化统治因而文明先进的中国。一句话，我们要建立一个新中国。建立中华民族的新文化，这就是我们在文化领域中的目的。

“The officials want China to be seen as a cultured, creative nation, but in this anti-liberal political society everything outside the direct control of the state is seen as a potential threat.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

2010-, China’s ‘Mozart’ Drops Off State Hit Parade, 2010

“The Communist Party of China should represent the development trends of advanced productive forces, the orientations of an advanced culture and the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the people of China.”

Jiang Zemin (1926) former General Secretary of the Communist Party of China

Three Represents (25 February 2000), introduced by Jiang Zemin, as quoted in What Is "Three Represents" CPC Theory?, 中国网, 9 December 2013 http://www.china.org.cn/english/zhuanti/3represents/68735.htm,
2000s

“Whoever controls the media, the
images, controls the culture.”

Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997) American poet

“In Taiwan, we have cultural heritage from (Mainland) China, Japan, Netherlands, Spain and Portugal, which has resulted in a deep melting pot of cultures and an acceptance of many cultures. Against that background, we can see diverse traditional arts in Taiwan.”

Hsiao Tsung-huang Taiwanese politician

Hsiao Tsung-huang (2019) cited in " A country's performing arts reflect its democracy: culture minister http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aedu/201907200010.aspx" on Focus Taiwan, 20 July 2019

“India conquered and dominated China culturally for 20 centuries without ever having to send a single soldier across her border.”

Hu Shih (1891–1962) Chinese philosopher, essayist and diplomat

As quoted in Consolation of Mind (2004) by H. K. Suhas, p. 111

“Culture does not make people. People make culture. If it is true that the full humanity of women is not our culture, then we can and must make it our culture.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie We Should All Be Feminists

Source: We Should All Be Feminists
Source: https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/15-quotes-from-chimamanda-adichie-that-have-change/

“The prostitute is not, as feminists claim, the victim of men, but rather their conqueror, an outlaw, who controls the sexual channels between nature and culture”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

“A free culture is not a culture without property; it is not a culture in which artists don't get paid. A culture without property, or in which creators can't get paid, is anarchy, not freedom. Anarchy is not what I advance here. Instead, the free culture that I defend in this book is a balance between anarchy and control.”

Lawrence Lessig book Free Culture

Free Culture (2004)
Context: A free culture has been our past, but it will only be our future if we change the path we are on right now. Like Stallman's arguments for free software, an argument for free culture stumbles on a confusion that is hard to avoid, and even harder to understand. A free culture is not a culture without property; it is not a culture in which artists don't get paid. A culture without property, or in which creators can't get paid, is anarchy, not freedom. Anarchy is not what I advance here. Instead, the free culture that I defend in this book is a balance between anarchy and control. A free culture, like a free market, is filled with property. It is filled with rules of property and contract that get enforced by the state. But just as a free market is perverted if its property becomes feudal, so too can a free culture be queered by extremism in the property rights that define it. That is what I fear about our culture today. It is against that extremism that this book is written.

“In world history, those who have helped to build the same culture are not necessarily of one race, and those of the same race have not all participated in one culture. In scientific language, culture is not a function of race.”

Ruth Benedict (1887–1948) American anthropologist and folklorologist

Race: Science and Politics [1940], ch. 2

“The people who control culture in China have no culture.”

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