On the Appropriate Use of Rose‐Colored Glasses

Abstract

In the 1970s and early 1980s, many Westerners wrote enthusiastically about science as practiced in socialist China. They applauded the mobilization of broad sectors of the population for science that truly "served the people." By the mid-1980s, revelations about the many horrors of the Cultural Revolution worked to discredit these early, optimistic accounts. At the same time, the post-Mao privileging of economic development over social revolution (which meshes well with dominant Western attitudes) now strongly colors almost all analyses of science in socialist China. This essay encourages historians to retrieve the largely discarded rosy accounts of earlier years. Such sources provide insight into the goals of historical actors and challenge us to recognize the specificity and contingency of our own values. Used in tandem with the later sources, they can help us achieve a critical understanding of science in both socialist China and our own historical context.