Posted under Political Philosophy
Kevin Drum is upset people are trying to define Progressivism before he does:
PROGRESSIVES….Holy cats. Are conservatives really gearing up to do the same thing to “progressive” that they’ve spent the last few decades doing to “liberal”? Over at The Corner, Yuval Levin takes a shot at it:
“Progressivism, after all, has a very mixed history in American politics, which takes in not only efforts to reform labor laws, bust trusts, and create national parks but also some serious doses of racism, social Darwinism, eugenics, and a very strange mix of authoritarianism and out of control populism….Ross [Douthat] suggests it is no coincidence that the growing preference for the term “progressive” comes at a time when a new eugenics is rearing its head, and when the left is increasingly emphasizing its self-identification as the party of science.”
Lovely, no? Did you know before now that a “new eugenics” was rearing its head? Did you even know there was a new eugenics? And that apparently us progressive types endorse it? And furthermore that if we call ourselves progressives we’re implicitly endorsing every odious view of every person who’s ever called himself a progressive?
Good gravy. These guys really don’t know when to quit, do they?
The only problem is, is for every small-scale Progressive like Robert LaFollette, William Allen White, Hirma Johnson and Burton K. Wheeler, there’s going to be change-the-world Progressives like Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas Dewey and Margaret K. Sanger along with the Prohibition movement as well.
So which one are you going to be Kevin? A LaFollette or a Wilson?
Harold Crews on 30 Jul 2007 at 8:35 pm #
There is certainly somewhat of the cult of scientism in progressivism. So yes, eugenics and population control does become involved. But I would think that the extent of eugenics or population control varies, from purely voluntary to state enforcement.
Weaver on 30 Jul 2007 at 11:00 pm #
A global government would probably partake in eugenics. It just makes sense that people who want to create a utopia would seek to improve human genetics or at least to prevent their further devolution after the loss of natural predators and other forces (war, famine, disease, more limited resources in general) that weed out the weak naturally.
I hate to attack progressives for eugenics when I rather like the idea if done using traditions and tests, e.g. a competition of strength or of intelligence or the shunning of technology as a crutch or at least the cultural rejection of such in a mate. I don’t see such a thing as being inherently Orwellian, but perhaps I’m mistaken.
It seems to me we either return to the jungle or learn to fix the problems of civilisation.
Genetic engineering would so undermine human identity, esp as being descended from Adam and Eve, that I wholly oppose it as well as any directed evolution. I see eugenics as ideally maintaining God’s creation.
A libertarian solution might be to allow the children of those who can’t support them to starve or at least to require those individuals voluntarily helped to be first neutered I suppose…
Patroon on 30 Jul 2007 at 11:40 pm #
I don’t want to smear the progressive movement either for eugenics but its also clear that there were many, especially some very powerful and connected people way back when, that held these views or were at least led to them when they got frustrated learning that trust-busting and polticial reform weren’t enough to make man “progress” as they say.
Danby on 31 Jul 2007 at 12:22 am #
Weaver,
I hope you’re joking, because if you actually tried to implement such a policy, I would fight you to my last breath and my ghost would haunt you till your dying day.
Weaver on 31 Jul 2007 at 1:41 am #
Danby,
What exactly are you rejecting?
I’m not a libertarian by the way, and I didn’t offer up much as a eugenic solution except for a vague mention of “traditions and tests.” A class system that rewards those who are gifted should increase the frequency of the promoted ability, e.g. Qing dynasty Mandarins and the best of the Greek Spartans were promoted in this fashion. However, the poor and their children often succumbed to malnutrition and starvation. I can’t say what is best for modern society, but I think man should look to the past for ideas.
I had mentioned the libertarian alternative simply to show that eugenics isn’t inherently statist. Also, that some alternatives are more harsh than are others.
—
This question should resolve some confusion: are you of the opinion that God ought to direct such things (in the long term the Invisible Hand will right this dilemma), or are you a supporter of genetic engineering?
I. If the former, have you seen Mike Judge’s Idiocracy (poorly done comedy but with the silver lining that it brings eugenics into consideration)? Also, have you read Hardin’s Tragedy of the Commons? Though I don’t want to overload you, a second online article I know of is the Wikipedia article on the Demographic-economic paradox.
If nothing else, please read Hardin’s Tragedy; unlike most articles online, it is actually worth reading. Anyway, I’m not much of a totalitarian. I’m very much in favour of decentralisation, tradition, and a rule of law. And I’d like to think I’m relatively open to other views.
II. If the latter, you’ve probably got a personal interest vested in GE that I won’t be able to penetrate.
Harold Crews on 31 Jul 2007 at 12:18 pm #
Now of course there has always “in a sense” been naturally occuring human eugenics. There are qualities which make people more desirable for husbands or wives. This is a completely decentralised form of, for want of a better term, natural selection.
One of the problems of eugenics and genetic manipulation in general is the incomprehensible complexity of the human genome. Considering the complexity, it is likely to always be to some extent an unknown. How many human traits having a genetic factor are currently yet unknown? Would we EVER reach a point in which absolutely all human traits having a genetic factor are known? Further how many traits that appear to be negitive, but have unknown positive consequences. I’m going to use a crude example. The potato, also known as tater to some of us, is one. The tater originated in South America. It was discovered and brought to Europe. Varieties most useful for food and the European climate were selected out using the traditional form of genetic manipulation. All was well and good until the weather changed and a blight occured. The result was famine. By manipulation of the human genome we could inadvertantly create a complete lack of immunity to an as yet unknown pathogen. What if eugenics had been more advanced a century and a half ago so that unknowingly immunity to spanish flu had been eliminated. The risks are simply to great. Genetic diversity is the safest route by far.
If you wish to consider the social consequences look to “The Brave New World”. Eugenics is opposed to human dignity. Man is reduced to a commodity.
Weaver on 31 Jul 2007 at 3:15 pm #
Brave New World clones people and then adds alcohol to each batch of clones to put them in their proper place. That’s quite an extreme form of eugenics and a far cry from anything I mentioned.
My form was simply to encourage the smart and the strong in competitions bound by tradition. Competitions among communities and states could deepen this rivalry as all seek to become more fit in an attempt at improving. Little understanding of genetics is needed. Little lessening of our diversity of genes would necessarily result. In nature a harsh environment does the same thing, and man has been breeding animals, and likely himself, for thousands of years. How many millennia have the dog, wheat, or corn been manipulated? God created genes and genetic potentials within us, and eugenics seeks only to maintain these genes. Without eugenics or a difficult natural environment, important genes could be lost. If all of the geniuses of the world die out, another might never arise. I’m not a believer in evolution’s ability at creating new complex genes without Intelligent Design.
The problem is that eugenics has such a range of meaning and such a terrible connotation. Readers immediately think of totalitarian nightmares, and such is not inherently true. Centralised power is to be feared, not eugenics.
The word eugenics is too scary due to harsh associations. However, at the same time man can only take so much reality, and the concept too is unsettling because it isn’t a subject we currently face often in the egalitarian modern world. Just as I think most could embrace eugenics if the presentation was acceptable, so too could most reject it (at first) if stated too logically or in a negatively associated less logical manner.
Sometimes cold logic is ironically too confusing, and what is needed to help pass the idea across is analogy and example that roots the abstract in the familiar and in the real. Well, watch Idiocracy =). All it’s good for is the presenting of the dysgenic problem, but it does this fairly well. After 10 minutes you’ll feel like you’ve been robbed of the price of admission though: you’ve been forewarned. There is also of course difficulty distinguishing shades of meaning in an unfamiliar subject.
The two solutions are for a noneugenic system within nature that would require man to suffer from a limitation of resources or for each tiny community of man to seek to control its future somewhat. Another consideration is of course that those who practice eugenics should in theory surpass those who do not… Also, thanks to technology, man can now devolve to a very low level on his own.
Genetic engineering could lead man to forget God and to lose appreciation for genetic accidents. A limping dog should be viewed as having character and respected as living rather than seen as having an inferior combination of genes for example, though a breeder might seek to promote a different trait. Life has had meaning despite eugenics for the past thousands of years, and life doesn’t necessarily lose it by continuing in this tradition; we would continue to be descended from Adam and Eve. There’s certainly a risk if biotechnology is pursued or if some factory is created. However, such is not at all what I vaguely foresee as the solution. And if a natural solution is not found, an unnatural biotechnical solution will be more likely to be found. Man can’t easily resist playing God, so eugenics is a more natural alternative that will help him to resist.
Make no mistake, if man ever bioengineers himself, I fully believe the world will crumble. Lacking identity and a belief that God is in control (most everything being designed by man), man could not live without entering some fantasy world. There is great danger here that is correctly being perceived, but what I seek above is not the replacement of God with man in the least. Just as a farmer sows his own grain so that he might have a good harvest, eugenics seeks to ensure a nation will have a bright future. Acting responsibly to solve a problem is not inherently evil.
I guess I’ll add this to the long list of articles I’ve got on the back burner =p There’s a great deal written on eugenics already, but perhaps I could add something to it if I sought to write a well researched and thought out article.
Weaver on 31 Jul 2007 at 5:01 pm #
Arranged marriages can be a form of eugenics by the way. Also just associating the best with the best can be a form. A class system can even be a form.
All I advocate at the moment is for the microevolution that does take place to be taken into consideration. I haven’t offered up much of a solution other than fuzzy mention of traditions and competitions and now what I’ve suggested in the previous paragraph.
My single objection is I don’t like ignoring a problem. If there’s a reasonable solution that can be found within Christian ethics and within a community, then I’d like to consider it. Additional responses are welcome
Harold Crews on 31 Jul 2007 at 6:45 pm #
Well certainly there is no denying that what amounts to a very soft eugenics occurs through men choosing wives and vice versa. I never denied that and I mentioned as much in the first paragraph. But that natural process is not what is normally referred to as eugenics.
As to “Brave New World” my discussion wasn’t limited solely to your post, Weaver.
Eugenics I would think spans a range of means to achieve the ends. From completely voluntary for the parents to social pressure to state enforcement. Some of the different mechanisms would be: genetic screening of sperm/egg or embryos (voluntary or coerced); permits to have a child; propaganda to limit births among “undesirables”; bounties to self sterilise among “undesirables”, bounties to have children among “desirables”; forced abortions; social pressures to limit the number of children (criticisms of large families is reported as common); pressure by insurance companies to provide insurance; etc. These are just some I thought of the top of my head. I’m sure there are many others.
Eugenics carried out in a systematic way reduces genetic diversity. Since there is currently fairly broad genetic diversity I think it is safe to assume that individualistic selective breeding does not affect that diversity.
The broader question that you mention Weaver, if I can rephrase it “Is whether eugenics is inheriently centralised?”. I would think that certainly there exists a possibility that it need not be, but I would argue that its natural tendancy is for it to become centralised. If the focus on eugenics is genetics and I think that we can assume that it is, then the tendancy is that what is bad, fair, good and best will be defined genetically. If genetics is (more or less) destiny, then social policy by the state and any institutions that the state has absorbed will be focused on genetics. A modern state that adheres to the concept of eugenics will systematise the eugenics.
A parallel, in American society education is generally treated as the answer to nearly every problem. As a result what has happened, education has become more and more centralised. The federal government has taken on a role which fifty years ago no one would have considered. If society can eliminate disease, mental diminishment, physical impairment and any other form of social pathology (alcoholism, drug addition, racism, homosexuality, homophobia, etc) then what chance would an intermediate institution have to block that “correction” long term. What would they be? Traitors, we want us to be weak. Weak when we face an enemy whose only wish is to destroy us.
No the inherent tendancy in eugenics is centralisation.
Suzanne Stallings on 31 Jul 2007 at 8:49 pm #
Progressive is a code word for Communist!
Weaver on 06 Aug 2007 at 1:56 am #
Thanks for the thoughtful reply.
Surely it could influence the direction of a nation’s evolution if certain traits were generally favoured over others.
The way humans work is we produce mutations that must be weeded out to maintain the structure. If those with bad mutations are not weeded out, our complexity unravels. In nature and in archaic society dangerous environment weeded these weak out. In modern society we provide them with welfare, technological crutches, and poor sexual morality that ensures they’ll manage to reproduce.
I have trouble seeing eugenics, like government, as a yes or no issue, and I believe it, like government, can do good if bound by tradition. A nation is an organic unit to an extent, and had it not been for Hitler eugenics would still be fairly popular. As things are, eugenics by another name seems to be the growing fad.
Gene therapy is currently a border line way of creating designer babies, that is GMO humans or humanoids in the image of man. Though I’m assured they cannot pass on their altered genes, the gonads are unaffected, I’m extremely wary of this particular technology. Once that line has been crossed, we can never go back.
It’s shocking to me how little human identity seems to mean to such men as Richard Lynn:
It never occurs to Lynn that such technology might be what destroys man.
A devout tradition bound nation I think could resist such temptations and could promote the best without resorting to technological gene manipulation. Eugenics is not the ring that must be resisted; gene manipulation is. Man is descended from Adam and Eve who were created, and man should remain as such. A tradition bound nation has a view of the center; a modern nation is all but nihilistic.