"Today as I write about this incident, I am amazed by how honest people were in 1966. On that train who would know if they lied about their family background and class status? Most of them were traveling alone. There was no way for us to verify what they said. And we did not even intend to. We simply took their word for it. Yet so many people told us the truth, and we punished them for it. Ten years down the road such an incident would be unthinkable. By that time, almost all Chinese had learned to tell a few lies. We could lie with confidence. We could lie with passion. At first it was to protect ourselves. Then we got used to it. Today millions of people in China are cheating one another, telling big and small lies without blushing, to gain something, to brag, or just to make fools of others. Who is to blame for this degeneration of out moral character? The Chinese Communist Party? The Western influence? But what about us? What about me? It pains me to think about what I have done to the younger generation who cannot believe that once upon a time people had been so foolishly honest in China . . ."
from Spider Eaters, p.134 ch 14, Red Guards Had No Sex, by Rae Yang.

This from a diary of a participant in the Cultural Revolution of China. A group of Red Guards boarded a train and beat the crap out of any bourgeoisie on the train, throwing them off at the next station. How did they tell class status? They asked.

It reminded me of something that someone else said once. Something about people trustworthy in small matters being good for the big stuff too, and vice versa. And they say there are no honest people left.