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Imperfect Conceptions |  | Author: Frank Dikötter
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Category: Book
List Price: $43.00
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Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 826611
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 288
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 5.7 x 0.7
ISBN: 0231113706
Dewey Decimal Number: 363.920951
EAN: 9780231113700
ASIN: 0231113706
Publication Date: November 15, 1998
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Product Description
In 1995 the People´s Republic of China passed a controversial Eugenics Law, which, after a torrent of international criticism, was euphemistically renamed the Maternal and Infant Health Law. Aimed at "the implementation of premarital medical checkups" to ensure that neither partner has any hereditary, venereal, reproductive, or mental disorders, the ordinance implies that those deemed "unsuitable for reproduction" should undergo sterilization or abortion or remain celibate in order to prevent "inferior births." Using this recent statute as a springboard, Frank Dikötter explores the contexts and history of eugenics in both Communist China and Taiwan. Dikötter shows how beginning in Late Imperial China, Western eugenics was imported and combined with existing fears of cultural, racial, or biological degeneration in Chinese society, leading to government regulation of sexual reproduction. is a revealing look at the cultural history of medical explanations of birth defects that demonstrates how Chinese assumptions about the relationship of the individual to society form the very core of their attitudes toward procreation. Dikötter explains the patrilineal model of descent, where a person is viewed as the culmination of his or her ancestors and is held responsible for the health of all future generations. By this logic, a pregnant woman´s behavior and attitude directly influence the well-being of her baby, and a deformed or retarded child reflects a moral failing on the part of the parents. Dikötter also shows how the holistic medicine practiced in China blurs any distinction between individual and environment so that people are held responsible for illness. Drawing on cultural, social, economic, and political approaches, Dikötter goes beyond a simple authoritarian model to provide a more complex view of eugenic policy, showing how a variety of voices including those of popular journalists, social reformers, medical writers, sex educators, university professors, and politicians all disseminate information that supports rather than questions the state´s program. reveals how Chinese cultural currents -fear and fascination with the deviant and the urge to draw clear boundaries between the normal and the abnormal -have combined with medical discourse to form a program of eugenics that is viewed with alarm by the rest of the world.
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The Last Sane Nation July 28, 2009
Richard Hoste
Francis Galton said that the first country to undertake a dedicated program of eugenics would conquer the world. It shouldn't be surprising that a country ruled by the most intelligent race in the world would realize that he was right. Researcher Frank DiKötter relies on the orignal sources to tell us about the history of eugenics in China and the cultural influences of its ideas in Imperfect Conceptions.
In 1995, the famous Eugenics Law was passed, making prenatal screening mandatory and "encouraging" the unfit not to reproduce nationwide. Many provinces have their own, much stricter laws. Support for these programs reaches into the highest levels of government. Party officials who are eugenicists have centered around former Premier Li Peng (quoted as saying "Idiots breed idiots."), an outspoken advocate of good breeding. He has close ties to former Minister of Public Health Chen Minzhang, the man who introduced the Eugenics Law. In 1996 the government is alleged to have moved towards a policy of encouraging the more fit to breed. Officials are aware that this is unpopular with the "international community" (i.e. white elitist do-gooders) and not many details are available. Numbers on how many people have been sterilized are hard to come by.
Especially encouraging is the overwhelming support that these policies have among the mid-level elites. The journal Population and Eugenics ran an article called The Population Policy in Singapore that advocated that the Chinese follow Singapore in encouraging the higher classes to have more children. A different eugenics journal warned about the "bitter wine fermented by opposing eugenics" by showing two deformed lovers and their even more hideous offspring.
Improving the gene pool isn't all that the Chinese government is doing to ensure more healthy births. Steps are taken to make sure that pregnant women have their medical needs met. At the level of consumer culture, claims are made that reading to a child in the womb or having the fetus listen to classical music can improve its intelligence. Similar ideas also exists in the West. People can't do anything about their genes, so it makes sense that a market exists to improve the quality of children by environmental interventions. Like in pre-modern times, women's thoughts and emotions are thought to determine the health of the child. Pregnant women are encouraged to read intellectually stimulating books and listen to classical music while avoiding romance novels and pop songs. The concept of race doesn't get much attention in China but one author does claim that the twentieth century will see a competition between "whites" and "yellows" for world domination, with the winner being partly determined by who masters genetic engineering technology (Richard Lynn's theory).
A high IQ population, in which the best minds aren't systematically destroyed by egalitarianist evil, does exist out there. That should give us hope. And if there's a silver lining to the decline of the West, it's that our governments won't be able to feminize the one billion Chinese the way they did to the Germans and Japanese (putting them on the road to oblivion) and are seeking to do to the Muslims and Russians.
A look at China's eugenics. January 19, 2001
Matt Nuenke http://eugenics.home.att.net (Chicago, Illinois United States)
5 out of 12 found this review helpful
This short but fascinating book looks at eugenic programs in China, both past and present. China, with its one-child policy is in the perfect position to start a genetic war with other nations to breed a superior race. That is, the state has already taken control of all reproductive rights, and with the recent eugenics laws past in 1995 for the collective improvement of the quality of the 'yellow race', they could be destined to surpass other nations in the quality of their people --- that is the average intelligence in China will surpass all other races except the Jewish race (with and average IQ of 117 due to their own form of eugenics practiced over the last 2000 years as part of the Jewish religion).Few voices in the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) question eugenic practices. Historically they have always understood the need for racial hygiene, and more so than in the West they shun deformations or inferior offspring. And with a centralized government, with its support of its eugenic programs, the few voices who believe in the sanctity of life over the betterment of the race can be suppressed, not unlike the reverse in the United States where concerns for dysgenic trends by the underclass are ignored or suppressed. In the United States, we propagandize and redistribute wealth to the underclass under the pseudoscientific claims of radical environmentalism as promoted by Gould et al. and now proclaimed by President Clinton. "Anyone can rise to be anything they want to be with enough will and determination!" Bunk! Nations rise and fall on their genetic quality, typically their average intelligence. The Chinese firmly believe that there will be biological competition between the 'white race' and the 'yellow race' and they are moving forward to win. They want to develop the 'model race' and in fact are in a unique position to win. They already control reproduction; all they have to do is continue to suppress the births of low intelligent/genetically defective couples while encouraging multiple births by 'gifted couples.' They can discourage some marriages, use forced sterilizations, while providing incentives to others. They have complete freedom to promote and national eugenics program without criticism from the press or independent voices if they so choose. Even minor defects like harelip are aborted. In a country with poor medical care, the costs to correct the condition are greater than the worth of the child. It is more cost effective to just have another child. Euthanasia and infanticide are openly discussed condoned from strong voices in the government for the benefit of the nation. The health of the race supercedes any moral questions with regards to 'zero worth' individuals. This book goes a long way in showing that eugenics as viewed in the West is radically different than in Asia. With a more collectivist perspective, individuals are willing to make sacrifices now for the benefit of the nation later -- that is an investment in the genetic capital of the people. We are getting a peak at the future eugenic wars that will be an integral part of competition between nations in the decades to come. Will the West join third world status as Asian nations actively embrace eugenic programs?
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