    19

    19

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    ant urges in nearly all primates.  In chimpanzees, it inspires a

    wanderlust that forces some young females to leave the cozy family

    they've always known and go off to make a new life for themselves

    among strangers.11  In langur monkeys, it triggers a restlessness that's

    much more to the point.  Adolescent langur males kick loose the traces

    of their childhood family life and cluster in unruly, threatening gangs.

    Then they go on the prowl, looking for some older, well-established

    male they can attack.  The adolescents' goal: to dislodge the respectable

    elder from his cushy home and take over everything he owns--his

    power, his prestige, and his wives.12

    As we'll see a bit later, humans are driven by many of the same

    instincts as our primate relatives.  Consequently, many adolescents of

    our species also resent the authority of the adults over their heads. Their

    hormones have suddenly told them that it is time to assert their

    individuality and to challenge the prerogatives of the older generation.

    Mao didn't address himself to the adults of China.  Those

    comrades saw the good sense of the officials who had shuffled Mao to

    the side and focused on producing food to fill the stomachs that had

    ached with emptiness for three long years.  Mao turned elsewhere for

    help in recapturing authority.  He turned to the country's teenagers.

    Mao started his campaign to regain the reins of China innocently

    enough.  Under his orders, the major papers began a literary debate.

    They attacked a group of authors who called themselves "The Three

    Family Village."  These essayists were government officials, key figures

    in the phalanx  of bureaucrats resisting Mao's orders.  One was vice

    mayor of Beijing.  Another--the editor of the Beijing Evening News--was

    propaganda director for Beijing's Party Committee.  A third was a

    propagandist for the Beijing city government.  Over the years, the

    articles of these three had been regarded as entertaining diversions,

    models of witty style.  Now official editorial writers  "discovered" that

    the writings of The Three Family Village were hidden cesspools of secret

    meanings.  And what did those meanings amount to?  An assault on the

    sacred precepts of The Party.

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