This Spring Festival, Joseph Mahoney made dumplings stuffed with tomatoes and beef, which he learned in Harbin. He is an American professor at East China Normal University in Shanghai. He said that he was "from Shanghai and Northeast China."
Shanghai is a big open city, and one of the things I like about Shanghai is that a large number of people who live in Shanghai were not born here, so I am also a 'new Shanghainese'. Mahoney said with a smile, "I also have a deep affection for Tohoku. The first time I came to China was in Northeast China. I love Northeast people, Northeast cuisine and Northeast humor. Maybe it's because I'm from Alabama, and my hometown has a similar personality to the Northeasterners.
I hate people who do bad things".
Before coming to China, Mahoney's resume was a bit "dazzling": he worked in finance, then worked in the first class to participate in the formulation of public health policy, and then stepped into academia to study Marxism. And in his view, every turning point in these decades has finally led him to a road to China.
Mahoney smiled and told the Global People reporter: "In the eyes of outsiders, my life seems to have experienced many unexpected turns, but for me, these turns are a matter of course. If you want to find a career that you are willing to learn and fight for, you have to go through a maze full of challenges. ”
Mahoney grew up in rural Alabama. At that time, bullying was commonplace in American schools. "It makes me especially hate school bullies and people who do bad things. I am also very passionate about helping those who are in vulnerable situations. As I grew older, I began to try to understand the roots of social injustice. After college, I traveled to some poor areas in Central America and the United States to do research. But at that time, it was not clear to me how to understand poverty in terms of social justice. ”
In 1994, Mahoney conducted fieldwork in Bangladesh.
After graduating from university, Mahoney first worked at a local bank. "I quickly found out that it was a very corrupt system. At that time, many banks often "laundered" the funds of some huge rich people from unknown sources through legal investment. I don't want to be in the company of them. At the same time, working in a bank also opened Mahoney's eyes to the huge gap between rich and poor in American society. He began to think about how he could do something for ordinary people. Soon after, he quit his job and returned to college to study international hygiene, and after graduation, he joined the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
This experience gave Mahoney a deeper insight into American society. "I left banking because I wanted to do something good. In the beginning, I was responsible for communicating with the residents living in the industrial polluted areas to understand their health. But I soon found that when I tried to help those who were suffering, there was still nothing I could do because the department wasn't doing what they were supposed to do. Our appropriations are determined by Congress. This means that many times we have to look after the interests of our members of Congress, rather than serving ordinary people. ”
Mahoney gave an example: his department once found that the hospital at that time performed a large number of unnecessary back surgeries every year, which not only wasted the medical subsidy, but also had a serious negative impact on the health of patients. So, his group published an article exposing the phenomenon and trying to push for regulation of the issue.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, USA.
To Mahoney's surprise, this ** was soon forced to retract. "There was a very influential member of Congress who used his power to put pressure on us, threatening to 'zero' the appropriations for my department. The congressman is a surgeon himself and has close ties to the American College of Surgeons. Under pressure, we had to retract the manuscript publicly, while these surgeons could continue to live on the hundreds of millions of dollars provided by their patients and ** to sustain their lavish lifestyles. ”
Mahoney was deeply disappointed by the incident and the reality in the United States: "I didn't believe much in religion at that time, but I have to say that the trick of these people was nothing short of the devil's work: they did surgery to harm the health of patients, and then put public money in the hands of the rich and powerful. It's a systemic corruption, and I don't want to have anything to do with them. ”
Mahoney resigned again and returned to school to pursue a doctorate. "But before I do my PhD, I want to work abroad for a year and gain more international experience. That's when a friend who used to work in China contacted Mahoney and asked if he would be interested in working in Shenyang, China, for a while. Mahoney, who is in the "career window period", decisively accepted the invitation. His fate with China began.
Visit the "Mystery of China's Success" in Kangtou
In 1998, Mahoney set foot on Chinese soil for the first time.
In Mahoney's eyes, Shenyang was in a difficult period at the time: "When I first arrived in China, Shenyang's economy was not good, and it was facing serious environmental pollution problems. In addition to teaching English and U.S. history at Liaoning University, Mahoney also advises the Shenyang Environmental Protection Bureau. He also used his holidays to travel to various cities such as Beijing and Guangzhou.
Although Shenyang faced many challenges in urban development at that time, Mahoney was keenly aware that Shenyang ** was trying to solve the problem at that time: "From the perspective of social governance, the Chinese had already figured out some things at that time, and they knew how to get things done. "But what exactly did the Chinese figure out? Mahoney at that time is difficult to describe systematically. He decided to pursue China as his doctoral research direction in order to answer the "mystery of China's success" in his mind.
In 1998, Mahoney took a group photo with students at Liaoning University.
During his doctoral studies, Mahoney systematically studied Marxism, especially materialist dialectics. This made him suddenly enlightened: "Many of my previous experiences have an explanation in an instant. At the same time, I have gradually discovered that the success of Chinese in social governance is precisely because the Chinese have applied materialist dialectics in practice. ”
"Since the beginning of industrialization, the West has become extremely rich and powerful, which has led many Westerners into the cycle of the end of history, mistakenly believing that they have mastered 'real science,' 'real logic,' and 'real politics,'" Mahoney said. China, on the other hand, has built a bridge between the means of scientific analysis and dialectics. This allows Chinese to maintain a correct understanding of contradictions and the ability to self-criticize while having strong analytical skills. ”
During his Ph.D.**, Mahoney traveled to China several times to conduct fieldwork and conduct in-depth exchanges with different social groups such as farmers, workers and entrepreneurs.
"Although there are many differences between different social groups in China, there is a common understanding of 'development'," he said. More importantly, the Chinese believe that their own personal development is closely related to the overall development of the country and the nation, and China's development and the improvement of the living standards of the Chinese people in the following 10 years have also proved this. ”
In 1999, Mahoney traveled to Beijing.
His first fieldwork was for a family of five in rural Shanxi. At that time, the hostess of the family and the eldest son of the family went out to work, and the other two children were also studying outside, leaving only the male owner in the family. Mahoney said: "I talked with the man on the kang for more than two hours. My original plan was to interview him as a 'representative' of the Chinese peasants and prepare many questions about rural life for this purpose. In the middle of the conversation, the man went down to the kang to make tea for me. While boiling water, he casually asked me, 'I think you Americans want to do something good, why don't you want to help the Palestinians?' ’”
Mahoney was taken aback by this question: "This farmer who lives in rural Shanxi is also paying attention and thinking about what is happening on the other side of the world. I suddenly realized how stupid the questions I had prepared were before. Rather than asking a bunch of questions that were imposed on him, I should have listened to him talk about topics that he was really interested in and really thought about. In the course of the research that followed, I gave up all the questions I had prepared and asked the interviewee to speak freely, and I got many answers that I never expected. ”
Mahoney conducts research at a children's welfare home in Hunan.
After years of research in China, Mahoney said one of the most important lessons he learned was: "The wisdom of the Chinese, especially the Chinese farmers, must not be underestimated." When communicating with the Chinese people, many Chinese and foreign scholars like to ask questions with 'preset answers'. But in fact, the Chinese people's understanding of society is often more complex and real than that of many scholars in ivory towers. This kind of wisdom from the people is also one of the important driving forces for China's development. ”
Speak Marxism in English
After receiving his Ph.D., Mahoney taught at George Washington University and Grand Canyon State University, and visited China several times. In 2010, he moved to Shanghai as a professor of political philosophy and intellectual history at the Department of Political Science at East China Normal University, and since 2020, he has also served as a senior researcher at the Institute of Socialist Development with Chinese Characteristics at Southeast University.
His long-term study of Marxism and his in-depth understanding of China's realities have given Mahoney a deeper understanding of Chinese-style modernization.
He said at a symposium that Chinese modernization is fundamentally different from the Western modernization path with "imperialism, colonialism, and pseudo-democracy" as the main characteristics of adhering to the leadership of the Communist Party of China, adhering to socialism with Chinese characteristics, achieving high-quality development, and developing whole-process people's democracy.
Mahoney at the Peking University Library.
Mahoney offers English courses such as "Marxism" and "History of Western Political Philosophy" for students. He found that the students were interested in his Marxism, which he spoke in English. "When I first came to East China Normal University in 2010, many students only came to my classes because of the school's requirements. There are generally two reasons why students choose my class today, one is that my lecture is 'fun'. Today's students like to have fun and teach, and professors need to be a little 'dramatic' in class to catch students. The second reason is that compared with 2010, more and more students are interested in Marxism. ”
Mahoney feels that contemporary Chinese youth are using Marx's theory to observe life: "Today's Chinese youth are a generation that has grown up in a globalized commodity economy, and they have experienced first-hand the social and psychological effects of the commodity economy. ”
Mahoney has worked at universities in both China and the United States. He argues that there is no need for Chinese students to "romanticize" American universities: "My daughter is now attending college in China. She has also studied American universities, but neither she nor I feel that American universities provide her with better resources. U.S. universities are in a long period of decline, with higher tuition fees and lower degrees in value, Mahoney said. The widening salary gap between university teaching staff and administrative staff has also seriously affected the quality of teaching. Even the top-ranked universities are showing less value to students.
For many years, Mahoney has been concerned about the construction of China's democratic system. He believes that the two sessions embody China's whole-process people's democracy: "The members of the Standing Committee are very diverse, including people from different groups and fields in China, and provide them with a window to share their wisdom. For many years, I have been observing and researching the process of democratic decision-making in China, and I have attended a meeting of the Shanghai Municipal Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. Unlike Western parliamentarians, the deputies and members of the two sessions are not politicians, but citizens who are concerned about the development of the country's society. Through the two sessions, they have the opportunity to participate directly in the process of law and policy making. Mahoney said that as a practice of democracy with Chinese characteristics, members of the Standing Committee have constructive discussions on the basis of consensus, which is difficult to see in the US Congress, which is deeply torn apart.
Mahoney participated in an exchange event at East China Normal University.
For many years in China, Mahoney has also been thinking about the relationship between the Chinese way, Chinese culture and Marxism. In an article published not so long ago, he wrote that in the process of social progress, some ancient values can transcend history. In China, values such as "harmony" and "great harmony" are essentially the same as the concepts of socialism and communism. Driven by the concept of good governance, "traditional Chinese civilization and cultural values are also advancing with the times".
Last year, Mahoney went to many European countries for a month and a half to investigate. After returning to Shanghai, he wrote with emotion in the article: "Without China, there would be no opportunity for common development, no strong partner, no fortress against climate change and future epidemics, no respite in the face of US hegemony, and no chance to talk about it when foreign military and political intervention and constant threats to sovereignty." ”
He said that many Europeans ask, "Do we have a future in China?" The answer to this question has already been found in the Global South: there is no future without China working hand in hand with other countries. "The United States and the United States" is the answer to the "mystery of China's success".