Some Rational Thoughts On Political Passions Of Chinese Youth

As a new study field in micro-politics, political passion has drawn much attention from researchers in China. This thesis aims at defining "Political Passion", analyzing the glory and absence of political passion on the part of Chinese youth in modern society and making a basic exploration on the ways to guide correctly and control effectively political passion of Chinese youth in a situation where various potential factors may bring about an outburst of political passion. The thesis falls into four parts: the first part establishes a theoretical understanding of political passion as " an outburst of strong feelings of an individual, an mass body or a collective entity toward a political movement, event, activity, or even a country, a social political system, which can be dissatisfaction, hatred, repulsion or attack and which can also be love, approval and support. They can build up gradually or explode like a thunderstorm; they can be a powerful constructive force or an equally powerful force of destruction, or even a force of check and balance. The second part discusses the glory and absence of political passion of Chinese youth in five periods: 1) from the founding of P.R. China in 1949 to the end of 1950's, which witnessed the first unprecedented outburst of political passion of Chinese youth, 2) the ten-year "Cultural Revolution" period: when Chinese youth, driven by enthusiasm and blinded by flightiness and rashness, became politically naive and fanatical, 3) after the Third Session of the Eleventh Party Congress period: when political passion of Chinese youth, with the great tide of reform and open-door policy, came to a new surge, 4) the late 1980s period: when western modern ideas flooded into China, a student movement took place with impatience and negation of Chinese traditions and biased worship of western politics, and 5) the 1990s period: when Chinese youth discarded their restless state of mind started to take part in politics more maturely. The third part examines the status and features of political passions of Chinese youth - a tendency toward practicality and self-choice and an extension of areas of political participation. The fourth part looks into ways to solve social problems and to guide correctly and control effectively political passion of Chinese youth as described in the following three aspects: 1) checking social factors that might induce destructive political passion such as corruption, unemployment of the youth, unfair distribution of wealth, ideological issues, 2) checking subjective factors that might induce destructive political passion such as political quality of contemporary youth, the contents and methods of political quality education of contemporary youth, and the setting-up of a political participation system for the youth.