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 he
current (March 5th) print version of National Review carries
an exchange
between Dinesh D'Souza, a frequent NR
contributor, and Ronald Bailey of Reason
magazine, about the morality of "genetically enhancing" human beings,
most especially by way of custom-designing our children. The exchange
follows on from a long piece by Dinesh titled "Staying Human" in
our January 22nd issue. It's a fascinating debate, on a topic we
should all be thinking about. I'm not going to get into it here;
I just want to make one point that didn't get covered in those pieces.
Here is the point: Fretting about the ethics of these issues is
a thing that only Western countries are going to do. Elsewhere,
eugenics — including "genetic enhancement" — will not
be fretted about or debated, it will just be done.
To see what I mean, check out an article titled Popularizing the
Knowledge of Eugenics and Advocating Optimal Births Vigorously"
by Sun Dong-sheng of the Jinan Army Institute, People's Republic
of China. "An
English translation of the article can be found on the web.
The translators note, in their preface, that: "The taboo on this
subject is not as strong in East Asia as in the West. One might
hypothesize that Asians, and more particularly the populations of
the Han cultural zone (Japan, North and South Korea, China, Taiwan,
Hong Kong, Singapore, and possibly Vietnam), take a more pragmatic,
less structured and ideological, and more far-seeing approach (eugenics,
after all, is, by definition, a long-run program) to the development
of human capital, than do Westerners."
Sun Dong-sheng takes a quick canter through of the history of eugenics,
not omitting the disgrace which the whole subject fell into by association
with Nazi "racial science." As the translators note, though, Dr.
Sun shows no sign of feeling that he is dealing with a "hot" or
taboo topic. He just goes right on into proposals for raising public
awareness of eugenics (in China, that is — the whole piece
is intended for a Chinese audience) and reasons for including eugenic
policies as a part of "socialist modernization."
The progress of the argument is held up for a while by some ideological
shucking and jiving the author feels obliged to
| “I
mentioned Down's Syndrome in conversation with a Chinese
colleague. 'That's not a problem in China. They
don't get out of the delivery room.” |
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perform.
From the point of view of theoretical Marxist-Leninism and dialectical
materialism, still a compulsory part of the curriculum in Chinese
schools, the entire field of genetics is a bit suspect. In all nature-nurture
debates, traditional Marxists are the purest of pure nurturists.
What's the point of having a revolution if you can't change human
nature? (Remember Lysenko?) Dr. Sun easily negotiates his way through
this little patch of ideological white water, concluding that:
With genetics as its basis, the field of eugenics is established
on an objective, materialistic foundation.
So that's all right then, and we can move right on with:
As
eugenic research becomes widespread and acquires depth, the legal
code of China will include more regulations concerning the ways
by which the idea of healthier offspring can be given reality.
And:
Socialist modernization urgently needs a reduction or elimination
of genetic diseases and hereditary defects. Only by promoting the
births of better offspring can we improve the genetic quality of
our population…
I don't want to make too much of this document. I can't say that
I found it particularly chilling or offensive in any way; and some
of Dr. Sun's points cannot be disagreed with — e.g. his call
for an attack on China's appalling levels of pollution so that environmentally
caused birth defects can be reduced.
The significance of the article is that it is perfectly ethics-free.
There is no discussion of the morality of eugenics and genetic engineering.
It is just assumed that to "improve the genetic quality of our population"
is a thing that everybody should support, and that the methods of
doing it can safely be left in the hands of scientists and politicians.
The mentality here is basically that of a cost accountant, arguing
that a poor country like China simply does not need the extra burden
of "useless mouths" — the omniscient party, of course, getting
to decide who is "useless."
You do have to make an effort to remember, reading this piece, that
communist China is a nation whose government has not scrupled to
involve itself in its citizens' most intimate family affairs, that
it has imposed a draconian policy of compulsory family planning
— including forced abortions — and that when Dr. Sun talks
about "more regulations concerning the ways by which the idea of
healthier offspring can be given reality," he means yet more state
intrusion into people's decisions about who to marry, and whether
or not to have children.
A rough kind of eugenics has, in fact, been practiced in China for
a long time. Several years ago, when I was living in that country,
I mentioned Down's Syndrome in conversation with a Chinese colleague.
She did not know the English term and I did not know the Chinese,
so we had to look it up in a dictionary. "Oh," she said when she
got it. "That's not a problem in China. They don't get out
of the delivery room."
As I said: While we are agonizing over the rights and wrongs of
it, elsewhere they will just be doing it.
Apology. I owe NRO readers an apology. In my February 22nd column
I said: "At 21, Pitt the Younger was Prime Minister of England."
This was a gross error. Pitt got into Parliament at age 21;
he didn't make prime minister until he was 24. I am sorry for the
slip, and grateful to the two readers who pointed it out (and a
bit depressed, on behalf of the educational system, that it was
only two). This kind of thing would never have got by the phalanxes
of factcheckers that guard the integrity of the print NR, but web
journalism has up to now been a more down-and-dirty business, and
while our stuff gets a speedy once-over from the editors before
being posted, it is not factchecked in detail. We have recently
begun some initiatives to improve things, to the degree that improvement
is possible, given the speed and transience of web postings. Look
for an ever more polished NRO, with fewer lapses like that one.
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