Taboo topic
Eugenics
"If social
stability can be maintained and a cataclysm averted, there is every
reason to believe that our world will soon take a decided turn for the
better. The new biological revelations is already accepted by large
numbers of thinking men and women all over the civilized world, and
when it becomes firmly fixed in the popular consciousness it will work
a literally amazing transformation in the ordering of the world's
affairs.
For race
betterment is such an intensely
practical matter!
When peoples come to realize that the
quality of the
population is the source of all their prosperity, progress, security,
and even existence; when they realize that a single genius may be
worth more in actual sovereigns than a dozen gold-mines, while,
conversely, racial decadence spells material impoverishment and
cultural decay; when such things are really believed we shall
see eugenics actually moulding social programmes and political
policies.
And, as already
stated, there is much evidence to show this may happen sooner than is
now imagined. Many believers in race betterment are unduly
pessimistic. Of course, their pessimism is quite natural. Realizing as
they do the supreme importance of the eugenic idea, its progress to
them unconscionably slow. To the student of history, however, its
progress seems extraordinarily rapid. Only twenty years ago eugenics
was virtually unknown outside of a few scientific circles. To-day it
has won a firm footing with the intellectual élite of every civilized
land, and has gained the interested attention of public opinion.
History shows that when an idea has reached this point it tends to
spread with ever-accelerating rapidity. In my opinion, then,
eugenists, whether labouring in the abstract field of research for the
further elucidation of the idea or engaged in enlightening public
opinion, may one and all look forward hopefully to the operation of a
sort of “law of increasing return” that will yield results as
surprising as they are beneficent as the next few decades roll on.
The one deadly peril to the cause of race
betterment is the possibility of social disruption by the anti-social
elements – instinctively hostile to eugenics as they are to every
other phase of progressive civilization. If this peril can be averted,
the triumph of race betterment is practically certain, because
eugenics can “deliver the goods.” When public opinion once
realizes this, public opinion will be not merely willing but anxious
that the goods be delivered. When society realizes the incalculable
value of superior stocks, it will take precious good care that its
racial treasures are preserved and fostered. Superior stock will then
be cherished, not only for its high average value, but because it is
also the seed-bed from which alone can arise those rare personalities
of genius who tower like mountain peaks above the human plain and to
whose creative influence progress is primarily due.
The people which fosters its superior stocks will
be thus twice blessed. In the first place, such sticks will produce,
generation after generation, an unfailing supply of men and women of
ability, of energy, of civic worth, who will leaven society and
advance every field of human endeavour. And, in addition to all this,
those same stocks will from time to time produce a “genius” – one of
those infinitely rare but infinitely precious minds which change man’s
destiny and whose names reverberate athwart the ages.
“Every race requires leaders. These leaders appear
from time to time, and enough is now known about eugenics to show that
their appearance is frequently predictable, not accidental. It is
possible to have them appear more frequently; and, in addition, to
raise the level of the whole race, making the entire nation happier
and more useful. These are the great tasks of eugenics. America needs
more families like that old Puritan strain which is one of eugenics’
familiar examples:
‘At their head stands Jonathan Edwards, and behind
him an array of his descendants numbering in the year 1900, 1,394 … ‘.
Such is the record of the Jonathan Edwards strain.
Now compare it with the Jukes strain. Edwards vs. Jukes! Faced by such
evidence, can public opinion remain much longer blind to the enormous
innate difference between human stock …
The eugenic ideal is thus seen to be an
ever-perfecting super race. Not the ‘superman” of Nietzsche-that
brilliant yet baleful vision of a master caste, blooming like a
gorgeous but parasitic orchid on a rotting trunk of servile
degradation; but a super race, cleansing itself throughout
by the elimination of its defects, and raising itself throughout
by the cultivation of its qualities.
Such a race will imply a new civilization. Of
course, even under the most favourable circumstances, neither this
race nor this civilization can come to-day or to=morrow – perhaps not
for many generations; because, like all really enduring creations,
they will be the products of a progressive, evolutionary process, not
of a flaming revolution or numbing reaction.
Yet this evolutionary process, however gradual,
must ultimately produce changes almost beyond our dreams. Every phase
of human existence will be transformed: laws and customs, arts and
science, ideas and ideals, even man’s conception of the Infinite.
How shall we characterize this society of the
future? I believe it may be best visualized by one word:
Neo-Aristocracy. The ideal of race perfection combines and
harmonizes into a higher synthesis the hitherto conflicting ideas of
aristocracy and democracy. I am here referring not to the specific
political aspects which those ideas have at various times assumed, but
to their broader aspects as philosophies of life and conduct.
Viewed in this fundamental light, we see democracy
based upon the concept of human similarity, and aristocracy
based upon the concept of human differentiation. Of course,
both concepts are, in a sense, valid. Compared to the vast differences
between mankind and other life forms, human differences sink into
insignificance and mankind appears a substantial unity. Compared with
each other, the wide differences between men themselves stand out, and
mankind becomes an almost infinite diversity.
If these distinctions had been clearly recognized,
democracy and aristocracy would have been viewed as parts of a larger
truth, and there might have been no deep antagonism between them.
Unfortunately, both concepts were formulated long ago, when science
was in tis infancy and when the laws of life were virtually unknown.
Accordingly, both were founded largely on false notions: democracy
upon the fallacy of natural equality: aristocracy upon the
fallacy of artificial inequality.
Thus based on error, both democracy and aristocracy
worked badly in practice: democracy tending to produce a destructive,
levelling equality; aristocracy tending to produce an unjust,
oppressive inequality. This merely increased the antagonism between
the two systems; because one was continually invoked to cure the harm
ascribed exclusively to the defeated party, instead of being diagnosed
as a joint product.
For the past half century the democratic idea has
gained an unparalleled ascendancy in the world, while the aristocratic
idea has been correspondingly discredited. Indeed, so complete has
been democracy’s triumph that it has been accorded a superstitious
veneration, and any criticism of its fundamental perfection is widely
regarded as a sort of lese-majesté or even heresy.
Now, this is an unhealthy state of affairs, because
the democratic idea is not perfect, but is a mixture of truth with
errors, like “natural equality, “ which modern science has proved to
be clearly unsound. Such a situation is unworthy of an age claiming to
be inspired by that scientific spirit whose basic quality is
unflinching love of truth. In a scientific age no idea should be
sacrosanct, no fact above analysis and criticism. Of course, criticism
and analysis should be measured and scientific – not merely outbursts
of emotion. Traditional ideas should receive just consideration, with
due regard for the fact that they must contain much truth to have
established and maintained themselves. In like manner, new ideas
should also receive just considerations so long as their advocates
strive to persuade people and do not try to knock their brains out.
But, new or old, no idea should be made a fetish – and democracy
should be thoughtfully, even respectfully, considered, as something
which contains a deal of truth, and which has done much good in the
world. As a fetish, democracy has no more virtue than
Mumbo-Jumbo or a West African ju-ju.
The fact is that modern science is unquestionably
bringing the democratic dogma under review. And it is high time that
scientists said so frankly. Nothing would be more laughable, if it
were not so pathetic, than the way scientists interlard their writings
(which clearly imply criticism of the democracy philosophy) with
asides like: ‘Of course, this isn’t really against democracy, you
know.’”
Lothrop Stoddard, The Revolt Against
Civilization, Chapman & Hall, London 1925, pp.238-245.
Any comment from anyone, please?
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Forwarded Message
From: ISIUSA1 <isiusa1@yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2004 16:55:48 -0700 (PDT)
To: boblbpinc@earthlink.net
Subject: Your article
