Jasper Becker, "False Science, False Promises" and "How
Many Died?" Selections from Hungry Ghosts:
Mao’s Secret Famine
Questions for Making Connections Within the Reading:
1. In order to follow Jasper Becker's argument about the relationship
between science and politics during Mao's reign, you need to be able to
distinguish between the genetic theories of Mendel, Lysenko, and Michurin
and be able to summarize the agricultural innovations made by Vasily Williams
and Terenty Maltsev. What did each of these scientists believe about how
best to improve the productivity of plants? Why were Lysenko and Michurin
hailed by Mao and Stalin?
2. Becker's analysis of Mao's eight-point agricultural "constitution"
is hardly neutral: he describes the approaches as "fantasies" and "dangerous
nonsense." What is it that enables Becker to see the problems with Mao's
plan? Could the failure of this plan have been predicted at the time?
Could it have been prevented without sacrificing Mao's larger vision of
how society should work?
3. What is Becker trying to accomplish in "How Many Died?" What does
he want his readers to see about Mao's role in the Great Famine? And what
are his readers supposed to do once they understand this point?
Questions for Writing:
1. One could argue that Becker is able to see the problems with the Great
Leap Forward because he has the luxury of hindsight. Now that so much
more is known about how to increase agricultural productivity, the argument
goes, the failings of earlier approaches are obvious. How would Becker
respond to this argument? What is to be gained by pursuing this kind of
historical research? What might a reader be expected to do after reading
the results of Becker's research? What purpose is served by cataloging
"how many died"?
2. Becker explores how the relationship between the scientific community
and the government played out in China and in so doing he suggests that
there is a better alternative. In our own time, the scientific community
regularly reveals insights, advocates products, and practices that have
profound social consequences, as with the advent of the birth-control
pill, the morning-after pill, cloning, and stem cell research. While it
is relatively easy to say that Mao abused his power by redefining science
to meet his political ends, it is more difficult to say what the appropriate
relationship between the government and the scientific community should
be. Does Becker's work provide us with direction as to how this relationship
should be worked out today?
Questions for Making Connections Between Readings:
1. Jasper Becker has cataloged the consequences of Mao's belief that
nature could be bridled to serve his political philosophy. Are those scientists
currently engaged in the work of genetic engineering, as described in
Michael Pollan's "Playing God in the Garden," suffering from similar delusions
about their own powers? Is it conceivable that fifty years from now another
scholar will write a similar book about the blind faith that Americans
have in science and the devastating consequences this had on our food
supply? Or is there some aspect of the democratic system or the capitalist
system that insures that no similar "man-made" disaster can occur here?
2. In "To Engineer is Human," Henry Petroski writes candidly about the
role that structural failure plays in the process of design and he refers
to examples where these failures have resulted in the loss of life and
capital. With this in mind, one might say that Mao was engaged in the
process of "social engineering," experimenting with alternate ways of
organizing social relations and that the failure of the structure he designed
is just part of the design process. If Petrosky is right that humans learn
by playing, testing limits, and improving on failures, is Mao simply an
example of someone who used human beings as his building materials? If
there's acceptable risk in engineering, is there also acceptable risk
in the creation of social organizations?
More Becker assignments
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