I support eugenics as an ideal. Why wouldn't we want more people to be strong, healthy, brave, intelligent, good-looking, honorable, and otherwise gifted, than the reverse?
The clinker is that Eugenicists usually wanted this program to be carried out by the government. I was disabused of this hope upon reading 1984 when I was a college freshman, and realized that if the government was running it, they would inevitably breed mediocre conformists instead, because those are the people they can rule over.
If the government is doing it, the result will be domestication. We eugenicists are hound dogs who aspire to be wolves, but the government would turn us into pugs, or toy poodles, or perhaps those little dogs the Aztecs used to eat.
I think Nietzsche had a sense of this. His concept of the "superman" was the eugenic ideal, but in contempt of government, absent Darwinian logic, and wrapped in the mantle of tragedy.
I've also heard that women are natural eugenicists in their search for a husband. They should be left to follow their instincts, and let the men each pursue his own "superman". That is the real eugenic method that we have always practiced, and the only one that actually works.
Women USED to be “natural eugenicists”...They, like other mammals, used to look for the fittest mate, the one most likely to provide shelter and safety and a good life for her and her children. Unfortunately, with the so-called “safety net” of our social welfare system, the government has become the provider for many women and their children. Many women are now WILLING to “mate” with sub-par men that are unwilling to work OR protect their progeny. Too many women don’t demand it of them.
Women are no longer gatekeepers. We’ve lost the instinct mentioned above...and society is weaker as the result.
Yes, but changing the terms of reproduction changes the eugenic optimum. When women are dependent on husbands, they want men who are kind, loving, hard-working, honest, and prepared to support them. When women are able to raise their children on their own, they want mates who are simply strong, tough, virile, and aggressive, because those are the qualities that will carry their genes into the next generation. In that equation, the men have nothing to do but fight among themselves for greater access to the women.
A reliable social welfare system for single mothers will inevitably breed street thugs. Such a system is parasitic upon the larger society, and tends to weaken it, as you say. Hopefully, women haven't lost their eugenic instincts though, even if the focus has been displaced.
I support eugenics as an ideal. Why wouldn't we want more people to be strong, healthy, brave, intelligent, good-looking, honorable, and otherwise gifted, than the reverse?
The clinker is that Eugenicists usually wanted this program to be carried out by the government. I was disabused of this hope upon reading 1984 when I was a college freshman, and realized that if the government was running it, they would inevitably breed mediocre conformists instead, because those are the people they can rule over.
If the government is doing it, the result will be domestication. We eugenicists are hound dogs who aspire to be wolves, but the government would turn us into pugs, or toy poodles, or perhaps those little dogs the Aztecs used to eat.
I think Nietzsche had a sense of this. His concept of the "superman" was the eugenic ideal, but in contempt of government, absent Darwinian logic, and wrapped in the mantle of tragedy.
I've also heard that women are natural eugenicists in their search for a husband. They should be left to follow their instincts, and let the men each pursue his own "superman". That is the real eugenic method that we have always practiced, and the only one that actually works.
Women USED to be “natural eugenicists”...They, like other mammals, used to look for the fittest mate, the one most likely to provide shelter and safety and a good life for her and her children. Unfortunately, with the so-called “safety net” of our social welfare system, the government has become the provider for many women and their children. Many women are now WILLING to “mate” with sub-par men that are unwilling to work OR protect their progeny. Too many women don’t demand it of them.
Women are no longer gatekeepers. We’ve lost the instinct mentioned above...and society is weaker as the result.
Yes, but changing the terms of reproduction changes the eugenic optimum. When women are dependent on husbands, they want men who are kind, loving, hard-working, honest, and prepared to support them. When women are able to raise their children on their own, they want mates who are simply strong, tough, virile, and aggressive, because those are the qualities that will carry their genes into the next generation. In that equation, the men have nothing to do but fight among themselves for greater access to the women.
A reliable social welfare system for single mothers will inevitably breed street thugs. Such a system is parasitic upon the larger society, and tends to weaken it, as you say. Hopefully, women haven't lost their eugenic instincts though, even if the focus has been displaced.