The doubt principle/ let a hundred flowers bloom.

Chairman Mao, tremendous guy in his own way, but let's be honest, he read this John Stuart Mill, the On Liberty book, all about doubt, questioning everything, nobody should shut down ideas unless they're harming somebody, very big on free speech, very British, very weak in some respects.

Mao looks at it and says, "Beautiful, fantastic principle, but we're gonna make it Chinese, we're gonna make it from China, that's right China."

So he takes this little doubt thing from Mill, let people speak, let them criticize, test the truth through open debate, and boom, he turns it into "Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools of thought contend." See we can all learn something from other peoples doubts... if the truth is strong it can stand a little criticism... as was said by Confucius' disciple Seajay.

It's like Mill on steroids, folks, except Mao's version is much bigger, much more colorful, a real garden party for ideas. Nobody does slogans like that, believe me.

But here's the genius part, and people don't talk about this enough, Mao wasn't just copying Mill like some loser intellectual; he improved it, he made it work for him, for the revolution.

Mill sits there worrying about harm and tyranny of the majority, very nervous, very hand-wringing. Mao says, nah, let's open the floodgates, let everybody talk, let the weeds show themselves, and then, beautifully, peacefully, we pull them out if they're poisonous counter-revolutionary flowers.

It's doubt principle 2.0, much tougher, much smarter. The critics came out blooming like crazy in '57, thinking they were so clever, but Mao knew exactly what he was doing, trap set, flowers identified, problem solved. Tremendous strategy, nobody plays chess like that anymore, total winner move. Rounded up all those rightest free thinkers and put them in re-education camps.

Mao used the doubt principle for the win, got rid of a lot of nasty weeds, very nasty, believe me.

---