October 24, 2008

Well, at least it wasn't the Killing Fields

By: AF Editors

Passing through campus today, I noticed a copy of Chicago Weekly, an independent University of Chicago newspaper, with a cover story on community-supported agriculture, tastefully titled “The Great Leap Forward.”

Hm. Having skimmed through the article, I satisfied myself that the title was not an expression of crytro-Maoism, nor a salvo in the why-won’t-people-realize-communists-are-as-bad-as-fascists? war. It was likely just a lazy editor who thought he’d found a clever phrase.

Nonetheless, it’s interesting how the name for a policy that resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of people can be abstracted from its origins, likely on account of its occurring on the other side of the world to people very different from us (for an engrossing firsthand account of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, among other horrors, I highly recommend the memoir Wild Swans).

I think this sort of muted response is not uncommon, and I find its implications rather depressing. Because something like the Great Leap Forward does not elicit an immediate reaction — does not carry any cultural/emotional resonance for most non-Chinese — that extra bit of mental work required to tie the phrase to a harsh reality is more than most people are wont to do.

Or, to put it another way, it’s hard to imagine a piece on, say, grilling out around Hyde Park entitled “The Holocaust.”