Schisgalism
I recently wrote about The Tiger Makes Out, a mostly forgotten movie from the 60s, but there's one thing I didn't mention. When self-styled intellectual Eli Wallach starts informing his kidnap victim Anne Jackson about biology, one of the big names he brings up is Lysenko.
Trofim Lysenko was a scientist who worked on crop yield in the Soviet Union. He rose high in the Party and eventually his interpretation of genetics became official policy. Unfortunately, plants didn't agree with him. "Lysenkoism" became the word to denote political propaganda promoted as scientific truth.
So my question is did writer Murray Schisgal not know how discredited Lysenko was, or was he using the name to show how little Eli Wallach knew? (I'd guess the former.)
posted by LAGuy @ 12:24 AM
2 Comments:
Really- Lysenkoism was used in the perjorative manner (more for being wrong on the science than for being political) in my early 1970s high school science classes addressing genetics. Have to think it was being used like a "flat earth" argument but haven't seen the film so maybe you are right.
It's hard to talk about Lysenkoism without bringing in politics. It was a modern form of Lamarckism which pleased the authorities in the Soviet Union (not merely because it promised better crop yields, but because the idea of will being involved fit in very well with the idea of a state consciously moving toward a higher place, and creating a new man.)
Lysenko, with the blessing of the party, denounced Mendelians as reactionary and decadent. Scientists who said otherwise had to confess to wrong thinking or lose their positions, perhaps even ending up in labor camps.
By the 70s, I'm sure even the Soviets recognzied Lysenkoism didn't work, but in the 60s, when Schisgal wrote his play, it might have still been the party line.
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