The cold hard truth is that the basic science behind the idea of eugenics is as valid as any of the biological sciences can be in principle. The mistake was not in believing that aspects of human potential are passed along genetically. Nor is there any mistake in believing that it is beneficial for later generations to be predominantly descended from ancestors with a preponderance of beneficial traits. The error of eugenics is simply the assumption that selection has to be centrally planned rather than allowed to function naturally. If you leave parents free to raise their own children to the best of their ability, then the parents with the most beneficial traits will have the most success in raising children with those traits (whether or not those traits are actually genetic). If you leave people free to assist those with whom they feel the strongest natural sympathy, then they will tend to help those who reflect a similar genetic heritage. All you need to do is get out of the way and stop interfering with the natural order. The hubris of totalitarianism is always in thinking to improve upon nature rather than humbly learning from it. And it always ends in the same way, horrors both intended and unintended, and a wreckage that obliterates every benefit sought. Of course the eugenicists of our day try to downplay their connection to the vast atrocities of their defeated comrades. Just as doctrinaire Marxists like to claim that Marxism has never failed because it has never truly been implemented correctly, so too the parenthood planners and racial-quota adjusters pretend that the Holocaust had nothing to do with them. They rearrange minor details of the program and never allow any questioning of the fundamental conceit that it is moral or practical to resort to central planning of complex human behaviors. Humans dont need to be told who to treat as kin, they sense it instinctively. Those with better instincts for spotting their real kin past all the superficialities of ancestry and cultural heritage have an advantage, those who have easily misled instincts for helping those of their own kind lack that advantage. There is no need to impose some theoretical construct of race on either, those you want to be capable of promoting the reproductive success of their real kin dont need the theory and will only find it limiting and obtuse anyway, those who would benefit from applying your racial theory shouldnt be more reproductively successful anyway. If the idea that all humanity is one family is correct, then that is fine, those who really most fully belong to that universal tribe will prosper better by following their superior instincts. They dont need any help. If that idea is wrong, then those instinctively inclined to follow it shouldnt be saved from their error. We have no need to decide these questions and codify them into a theoretical framework that can be used to design policies to implement through a centralized authority. Particularly as, if evolution is as powerful as were supposing in urging the necessity of eugenics, the details of the species would be in constant flux as a result of our intervention whether it was successful or detrimental. Humans will reproduce more or less successfully as a result of their innate virtues, there is no need to do anything other than let nature take its course. If we find that we are implementing some general policy that has the adverse side-effect of ensuring that future generations will suffer from genetic defects, then we should end that policy rather than erect another designed to counteract it. After all, we KNOW that the existing policy has an unacceptable side-effect, why should we believe that any general policy we enact to address it would not have its own unforeseen detrimental impacts? Of course, hubris is not going to be reasonable. If it were, it would hardly be hubris, would it? Those who insist on claiming the superlative wisdom and insight necessary to improve upon the natural order of things will never be dissuaded by the abysmal record of failures and abominations their predecessors have marked. No, they say it simply hasnt been implemented properly in the past, by rearranging this or that detail it will work this time. They will claim to have surpassed the intellectual limitations which prevented all others from achieving success. They will, when pushed too hard, tell us to shut up and stop asking questions.
Posted on: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 01:36:42 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015