I recommend the Wikipedia article on Puyi, the last emperor of China. He was 6 years old when the 1911 Xinhai revolution forced him to abdicate, and spent the remainder of his life being courted and/or used by various actors who found his support useful to their cause.
I think it’s worth reading, though it’s fairly long; I think the story of his life is just pretty interesting and gripping, and the article is unusually well-written and presented in a fairly narratively engaging style. (Though I am not particularly well-versed in 20th century Chinese history and am fully deferring to Wikipedia editors on the veracity and neutrality of this account.)
It’s an interesting case study of Just Some Guy being thrust into high-stakes political machinations without much independent power—if you’ve ever wondered how you would fare in a Game of Thrones style political intrigue, I think Puyi’s story gives a decent sense: you get puppeted around by much more ruthless actors, accomplish very little of what you want, and generally have a pretty bad time.
I feel a weird mix of emotions towards the guy. He was pretty clearly an awful person almost wholly devoid of any virtue for the first several decades of his life—cowardly, vain, cruel, naive, incompetent, and a rapist. But he never really had a chance to be anything else; it’s unclear if he had a single genuine relationship with someone who wasn’t trying to manipulate him after age 8, and I’m not sure he had ever encountered a person earnestly doing something for moral reasons. And he lived a pretty unpleasant life during this whole time.
A couple teaser facts to entice you to read the article:
He was incredibly clumsy. Until middle age he had never once had to do things like brush his teeth, close doors behind himself, or put anything away, because servants simply handled it all for him. Apparently a total lack of having to do things for yourself in childhood can give you a sort of developmental disorder in which you can’t really pick up the habits effectively at age 40.
He has one of the most dramatic redemption arcs of any character I know of in truth or fiction; it seems like he pretty genuinely came to regret his (many) past misdeeds and ended up as a pretty kind and humble man. This redemption arc is slightly tarnished by the fact that it, like everything else in his life, was a calculated manipulation, this time on the part of the newly formed CCP. Though it seems like they mostly just had to expose him to the reality of what he’d been complicit in, rather than any more sophisticated manipulation (and avoid letting him learn about the widespread famines).
About the only positive influence on his life during adolescence was his English tutor Reginald Johnston, a Scottish guy who really liked monarchy (in the “emperor is basically a god” sense rather than the British sense) and had enormous influence over Puyi as the only person willing or able to say no to him.
Yeah I remember watching this YouTube video about Puyi and thinking, huh, we do have a real historical example of Ajeya Cotra’s young businessperson analogy from Holden’s blog awhile back:
Imagine you are an eight-year-old whose parents left you a $1 trillion company and no trusted adult to serve as your guide to the world. You must hire a smart adult to run your company as CEO, handle your life the way that a parent would (e.g. decide your school, where you’ll live, when you need to go to the dentist), and administer your vast wealth (e.g. decide where you’ll invest your money).
You have to hire these grownups based on a work trial or interview you come up with—you don’t get to see any resumes, don’t get to do reference checks, etc. Because you’re so rich, tons of people apply for all sorts of reasons.
Your candidate pool includes:
Saints—people who genuinely just want to help you manage your estate well and look out for your long-term interests.
Sycophants—people who just want to do whatever it takes to make you short-term happy or satisfy the letter of your instructions regardless of long-term consequences.
Schemers—people with their own agendas who want to get access to your company and all its wealth and power so they can use it however they want.
Because you’re eight, you’ll probably be terrible at designing the right kind of work tests… Whatever you could easily come up with seems like it could easily end up with you hiring, and giving all functional control to, a Sycophant or a Schemer. By the time you’re an adult and realize your error, there’s a good chance you’re penniless and powerless to reverse that.
I read that article. I’m suspicious because the story is too perfect, and surely lots of people wanted to discredit the monarchy, and there are no apologists to dispute the account.
It seems like Reginald Johnston was basically an apologist? But I haven’t done any due diligence here, it’s certainly possible this account is pretty distorted. Would be curious to hear about any countervailing narratives you find.
Oh sorry, somehow I forgot what you wrote about Reginald Johnston before writing my comment! I haven’t read anything else about Puyi, so my suspicion is just a hunch.
I recommend the Wikipedia article on Puyi, the last emperor of China. He was 6 years old when the 1911 Xinhai revolution forced him to abdicate, and spent the remainder of his life being courted and/or used by various actors who found his support useful to their cause.
I think it’s worth reading, though it’s fairly long; I think the story of his life is just pretty interesting and gripping, and the article is unusually well-written and presented in a fairly narratively engaging style. (Though I am not particularly well-versed in 20th century Chinese history and am fully deferring to Wikipedia editors on the veracity and neutrality of this account.)
It’s an interesting case study of Just Some Guy being thrust into high-stakes political machinations without much independent power—if you’ve ever wondered how you would fare in a Game of Thrones style political intrigue, I think Puyi’s story gives a decent sense: you get puppeted around by much more ruthless actors, accomplish very little of what you want, and generally have a pretty bad time.
I feel a weird mix of emotions towards the guy. He was pretty clearly an awful person almost wholly devoid of any virtue for the first several decades of his life—cowardly, vain, cruel, naive, incompetent, and a rapist. But he never really had a chance to be anything else; it’s unclear if he had a single genuine relationship with someone who wasn’t trying to manipulate him after age 8, and I’m not sure he had ever encountered a person earnestly doing something for moral reasons. And he lived a pretty unpleasant life during this whole time.
A couple teaser facts to entice you to read the article:
He was incredibly clumsy. Until middle age he had never once had to do things like brush his teeth, close doors behind himself, or put anything away, because servants simply handled it all for him. Apparently a total lack of having to do things for yourself in childhood can give you a sort of developmental disorder in which you can’t really pick up the habits effectively at age 40.
He has one of the most dramatic redemption arcs of any character I know of in truth or fiction; it seems like he pretty genuinely came to regret his (many) past misdeeds and ended up as a pretty kind and humble man. This redemption arc is slightly tarnished by the fact that it, like everything else in his life, was a calculated manipulation, this time on the part of the newly formed CCP. Though it seems like they mostly just had to expose him to the reality of what he’d been complicit in, rather than any more sophisticated manipulation (and avoid letting him learn about the widespread famines).
About the only positive influence on his life during adolescence was his English tutor Reginald Johnston, a Scottish guy who really liked monarchy (in the “emperor is basically a god” sense rather than the British sense) and had enormous influence over Puyi as the only person willing or able to say no to him.
Yeah I remember watching this YouTube video about Puyi and thinking, huh, we do have a real historical example of Ajeya Cotra’s young businessperson analogy from Holden’s blog awhile back:
I read that article. I’m suspicious because the story is too perfect, and surely lots of people wanted to discredit the monarchy, and there are no apologists to dispute the account.
It seems like Reginald Johnston was basically an apologist? But I haven’t done any due diligence here, it’s certainly possible this account is pretty distorted. Would be curious to hear about any countervailing narratives you find.
Oh sorry, somehow I forgot what you wrote about Reginald Johnston before writing my comment! I haven’t read anything else about Puyi, so my suspicion is just a hunch.
Did you see the movie before ?
Nope! Do you recommend it?