1920년대 중국의 우생논쟁 ―‘우생적 연애’개념을 중심으로 한 서구 우생담론의 중국적 수용

Abstract

From a critical perspective on the dichotomous approach of tradition and modernity, this article addresses that Chinese intellectuals received Western knowledge of eugenics in a variety through the consciousness of the particularity of Chinese society and a sense of class distinction, from the eugenics dispute between Zhou Jianren and Pan Guangdan in the May Fourth Movement period. While Zhou Jianren faithfully followed Havelock Ellis in putting emphasis on the dimension of individual choice and criticizing the extended family system, he remained insisting on biological dominance as the basis of sex selection, falling behind Ellis who had advanced to variable characteristics of sexuality. Pan Guangdan, on the other hand, accounted much of the particularity of Chinese society distinct from the West, put emphasis on eugenic characteristics of arranged marriage, and had a sense of proportion that inferior genes of Chinese people could improve not just through demographic control policies but also through planting and environment improvement. But, insensitive to class distinctions, Pan indiscriminately introduced Ellis’ advocacy of early marriage advanced in the context of Europe into Chinese society, disclosing his anti-democratic disposition apathetic to the tragedy of the week. The issue of eugenic disputes, “Is love in the unity of flesh and spirit eugenic?” was in fact something beyond ‘scientific’ explanation and nonexistent in reality. Nevertheless, the eugenic argument that the public good can be achieved through private affairs – ‘love’ was authentically accepted by intellectual circles at the beginning of the twentieth century, which this article finds the reason from the antinomic nature of demography that eugenic ‘knowledges’ swayed the power to disguise a political matter of population as unpolitical, rendering it possible to control individuals.