Darwin argues that those characteristics we might think to be specifically human—physical strength and health, morality, and intelligence—were actually achieved by natural selection. From this, he infers two related eugenic conclusions.
First, if the desirable results of strength, health, morality, and intelligence are caused by natural selection, then we can improve them by artificial selection. We can breed better human beings, even rise above the human to the superhuman. Since human beings have been raised above the other animals by the struggle to survive, they may be raised even higher, transcending human nature to something—who knows?—as much above men as men are now above the apes.
Second, if good breeding gives us better results, pushing us up the evolutionary slope, then bad or indiscriminate breeding drags us back down. "If…various checks…do not prevent the reckless, the vicious and otherwise inferior members of society from increasing at a quicker rate than the better class of men," Darwin groaned, "the nation will retrograde, as has occurred too often in the history of the world. We must remember that progress is no invariable rule."
What about the link to Hitler? The first, most important thing to understand is that the link between Darwin and Hitler was not immediate. Darwin's eugenic ideas were spread all over Europe and America, until they were common intellectual coin by Hitler's time. Secondly, we misunderstand Hitler's evil if we reduce it to anti-Semitism. Hitler's anti-Semitism had, of course, multiple causes, including his own warped character. That having been said, Nazism was at heart a racial, that is, a biological political program based up evolutionary theory. It was "applied biology," in the words of deputy party leader of the Nazis, Rudolph Hess, and done for the sake of a perceived greater good, racial purity, that is, for the sake of a race purified of physical and mental defects, imperfections, and racial inferiority.
The proposed ruthlessness of his solution was in direct imitation of nature conceived according to Darwinism. "Just as Nature concentrates its greatest attention, not to the maintenance of what already exists but on the selective breeding of offspring in order to carry on the species, so in human life also it is less a matter of artificially improving the existing generation—which, owing to human characteristics, is impossible in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred—and more a matter of securing from the very start a better road for future development."
How do we secure a better road for future development? By ensuring that only the best of the best race, the Aryan race, breed, and pruning away all the unfit and racially inferior. That isn't just a theory; it's eugenic Darwinism as a political program. As Hitler made clear, "the State is looked upon only as a means to an end and this end is the conservation of the racial characteristics of mankind." Jews have to be pruned away, but also Gypsies, Slavs, the retarded, handicapped, and anyone else that is biologically unfit.
Information gathered from:
Wiker, B. Dr (2008) Darwin’s Dystopia, Retrieved 7th October 2008 from http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2020937/posts
Question:
• If you could have tried to prevent Hitler from going through with his enforced selective breeding what arguments would you have put forward?
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In attempting to deter Hitler from his chosen path of eugenics, one would require phenomenal skill. Assuming, however, that one could hope to remove him from his chosen path by logical debate; the arguments would be proposed as such:
ReplyDeleteFirstly, Adolf, how do you know that The Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, retarded & handicapped are inferior? Could it not be the Germanic people, your chosen Volk, who are inferior? What evidence do you have to support that this is not the case?
Assuming he would then tell me about the Jewish International Conspiracy, I would argue that that would make the Jewish race better suited to modern life, and that eliminating them would be a crime against humanity. The Jewish race should therefore be preserved, adopt a ruling class. Then; why the Gypsies or Slavs? And much the same argument would be put forward for each as the Jews.
The handicapped, he would say, do not fit into your argument! Ah, but they do: Would a ‘disabled’ or ‘handicapped’ person not simply be a perfect specimen of a new race? Something moulded by evolution for a different purpose? Are they not, in their own way, superior again?
Forsaking then the arguments of Morals, because this is Hitler one is speaking to, I would move along to the proposed selective breeding programme. How would their scientists know how to breed a superior race? Would that not require lifetimes of research? Testing? Recording detailed samples of every specimen? Do the Nazis have that? As wonderful as it may sound, breeding a superior race would not be feasible even with genetic samples from every specimen. Free will, besides that, would compromise the breeding process; and genetic mistakes would occur from the notion of [i]love[/i]. Re-introducing the mistakes into the gene pool would cause miscalculations and mistakes, but there would be too many to remove altogether.
All of this makes eugenics an imprecise and impractical science that is better abandoned than pursued.
If you could have tried to prevent Hitler from going through with his enforced selective breeding what arguments would you have put forward?
ReplyDeleteIf I could have prevented Hitler from going through with his enforced selective breeding, I would have argued, firstly, that even though we possess the ‘desirable results of strength, health, morality, and intelligence,’ they are not all the cause of natural selection. According to Answers.com, morality is ‘A rule or habit of conduct with regard to right and wrong or a body of such rules and habits.’ This means that morality comes from the values of right and wrong you are taught as a child. They can change as you grow older, but your genes will always be the same. If you were born into a ‘non-desirable’ race, you may believe the same things as the ‘desirable’ race but well still be prejudiced because of your genes.
Secondly, I would have questioned if it wasn’t enough power to be the highest living organism in the world. Humans have a higher intelligence than any other living organism. So wouldn’t that make us all equal? Apparently, Hitler didn’t believe so as the quote from Hitler states, ‘how do we secure a better road for future development? By ensuring that only the best of the best race, the Aryan race, breed, and pruning away all the unfit and racially inferior.’ But who are the racially inferior and who are the racially superior race?
If I could not persuade Hitler against the enforced selective breeding then I would have told him that if he really wanted to create a ‘pure’ race, he should have thought about the morals he wanted his race to hold before creating his race to fit make people to fit those characteristics. Then I would have asked him why he would want to create a superhuman race if they would be outstanding in every way that he was not? Didn’t he like to be at the top? How would he heel to be classed below a superhuman who was a better human being than he was?
MADDY M 10N
If Hitler’s gruesome plan had fallen into place, we would have most likely had a completely different society and potentially a stronger race. However, this is totally ethically wrong.
ReplyDeleteI completely disagree with Hitler’s view on matters such as discrimination and equality. He was self absorbed in his own views and wants for his country. He didn’t give the Jews a chance, he didn’t consider them.
If I was given the opportunity to attempt to prevent Hitler from performing his treacherous acts, I would use some of these arguments. If you use selective breeding, you get a smaller range. For instance all the people who are considered ‘fit’ and able to reproduce, may not have immunity to some viruses as the ‘lesser’ people do. This could then lead to an outbreak and the human race may completely die out.
If selective breeding was put to use, everyone would be conformed alike. There would be no racial differency and therefore, humans would lose an important value of acceptance. If everyone had the same interests and specialities, who will want to do the other jobs that need doing? Would it be possible to have true love if everyone was almost exactly the same? Selective Breeding would completely erase important values that many humans hold and create a whole new level to ‘superior’. Where would equality sit if this was to occur?
Danika
Had Hitler's plan gone through, this world would have been very different, with most peple having a completely different way of thinking. However, this would almost be definetely be a worse situation than our current way of living, and there are many reasons I would give, had I been given the opportunity to talk to old Adolf.
ReplyDeleteSelective breeding, to start with, is ethically wrong and unfair, and for a number of reasons. Trying to breed out people who are one person't idea of "unclean" is just horrible. It's all a matter of perspective. Hitler said that the Jews and Gypsies weren't nice people. Ok then Adolf, that's your opinion, each to their own. But you can't expect everyone else to go along with what you think, because they might disagree. And it completley goes against the whole idea of a democratic society. In a democratic society, everyone has the same rights to everything as anyone else, including voting, safety, and the right to have children. So to say 'yes, we are a democratic society, but we're ostracising this group of people' is possibly the oxmoron of the century.
Secondly, seective breeding in Hitler's eyes would eventually create a certain type of people, and only that type of people. If Hitler's plan had come to fruition, this would mean tall, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, physically fit people. And although that might sound good to some, (not me, but hey) it would eventually create a lack of diversity amongst people. In other words, it would be incessantly boring.
Thankfully, Hitler's plan never happened, and the world is still diverse and free. But it just poses the question: Who's REALLY right?
Fraser 10N
If Hitler’s plan for a stronger, healthier and more intelligent race had succeeded then life today would be very ordinary without any individuality. Did Hitler really want to create a race where everyone was the same, the same face, the same eyes, the same hair colour, the same mental capacity, or did he want everyone to be so similar so that he stood out more.
ReplyDeleteHitler was completely self absorbed in his own views that he wasn’t thinking hypothetically in what his plans would create for the future. Always having the thirst for power did Hitler realise that if he created a super race, they would be stronger than him, healthier than him, and have more power than he ever did.
If I was given any opportunity to persuade Hitler not to perform his acts, I would use some of the following arguments. Firstly would his plan really work? If you consider what things would have been like after he had finished creating his race, there would still be the less inferior people within the race. No one would match up to the standards he was trying to achieve, not unless science came into place.
Secondly, even if he had created the perfect person, he wouldn’t be able to do this by a few people’s genes, and it would have taken centuries. You’re not going to be able to match a man with incredible strength and a woman with outstanding immunity to diseases and create the perfect human. They may settle for a while, but what about those other characteristics they are lacking, once this offspring has been reproduced you would need to match them with another person who has the qualities they lack, which could take a matter of centuries. By this time those who did not meet Hitler’s standards would have been killed off, the human race would begin to cease.
Finally if selective breeding was in place, there would be no individuality between one another. No special athletes, no racial difference, no unique hobbies or specialities, humans would lose their place in society. If everyone was the same, people would want the same out of life, say everyone strived to be a bank manager, the economy would just go out of the window. Hitler’s breeding techniques were completely stupid and I am thankful we are living the way we do today.
Corrina 10P
Every human being has equal rights and value. From the perspective of the Aryan race, the Jews may not seem very favourable or useful, but they are human beings of EQUAL rights. Therefore, the reasons that Jews are allowed to be and should be persecuted because they are believed to be inferior, will also mean that the Aryan race is also the “inferior” race and therefore, should be persecuted. All human beings, the Aryan race, the Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, the retarded, handicapped, and “anyone else that is biologically unfit” are part of Homo sapiens, therefore, derive from a common ancestor according to Darwin’s theory of evolution. Therefore, it is impossible to measure the superiority of certain kinds of human beings. How can you be sure that you are creating a superior race not the inferior mob? Can you possible tell the difference between so-called “superior” rats from “inferior” rats? Different individual rats may have certain characteristics that are enhanced than others but the other rats may have enhanced abilities in many other aspects. The belief that a particular race will rise above other “average” human beings is inaccurate. Further more, achieving Hitler’s “perfect” group of human kind is virtually impossible.
ReplyDeleteConsider the following scenario. Imagine all the races apart from the Aryan race were persecuted, the population will dramatically decrease and the large amount of genetic material will be lost. For example, if Albert Einstein, whose intellectual abilities were light years ahead of average human beings, were never born or persecuted because he is a Jew, his amazing discoveries may have never been discovered to this present date. The retarded, handicapped, and anyone that is “biologically unfit” will also be persecuted. Who is to say that “biologically fit” genes will never mutate to create “biologically unfit” genes as they have in the past? Will they be more slaughter? Hitler favours the population of recessive genes, which is blonde hair, blue eyes. After the persecution of all races, the only surviving human kind now is the ones with recessive genes. However, some could be the carriers of the dominant genes which are likely to be expressed in their children. Also through genetic mutation, other genetic material may be created; therefore, the unfavourable race will be produced. They will then also be persecuted to keep the racial purity. The population will eventually decrease to a point of extinction or endangerment if this pattern continues. Instead of leading the world into light, this will only destroy the world with violence and discrimination.
Jess L 10B
If only someone had the chance to try and convinced Hitler to stop his horrendous, narrow-minded views from coming into action. While Hitler believed that the Jews’ and other groups such as the handicapped and Gypsies were inferior, and that the eradication of them would benefit the ‘greater good’; what basis did he actually base this opinion? What makes some people inferior to others? Hitler wrote in his novel, Mein Kampf, that The Jews’ "ultimate goal is the denaturalization, the promiscuous bastardization of other peoples, the lowering of the racial level of the highest peoples as well as the domination of his racial mishmash through the extirpation of the folkish intelligentsia and its replacement by the members of his own people” (http://remember.org/guide/Facts.root.hitler.html)
ReplyDeleteThe Jewish people were regarded as inferior simply because of their looks and customs. However, this is highly racist and not at all true. There are many esteemed Jewish scientists, historians, mathematicians and members of other highly academic fields that have contributed to today’s society. Are these qualities not regarded as desired in Darwin’s view of the ‘perfect’ race?
Just because a person may be handicapped or disabled in some way, does not mean they are in any way of less significance or in need of less recognition. The act of sterilising a person is not only one of the worst crimes committed, but also an incredible insult to that family. It is effectively killing lives that may have occurred in the future. Hitler took this to the extreme by attempting to kill off an entire race, and he should have been enlightened to the other side of the story.
Anna, 10M
If I had a chance to prevent Hitler from going through with his enforced selective breeding I would ask him how good his new race really was. Sure they would all be perfect in his eyes but would they have strong enough immune systems for the thousands of viruses out there. Would their personalities suit him? Also, I would argue that there would be no individuality left in society if his superior race is created. Everyone would be the same and society would be very different. Many things and people would lose their importance and value.
ReplyDeleteAlso, sometimes we need those disabilities that Hitler tried to get rid of. The disabilities provide research for us so we can then find cures for them and then create a better, more immune race without having to kill and wipe out thousands of people. Also, without all the people there to work and all the consumers to buy products society would crumble, thousands of jobs would be available with not enough people to fill them.
Amanda
If Hitler had not been stopped, and his plan been created and enforced throughout the whole country, society would have been obviously different. Hitler tried to create, what he believed to be, a ‘perfect race’ throughout the country. If I could have tried to prevent Hitler from going through with this enforced selective breeding, I would have argued many things. For example, the fact that individuality will be at risk, and the country would be boring and people would not be as happy. People would lose their own, unique values and beliefs. Secondly, if they had all perfect people, they would have no workers to work in factories, therefore the society would not work. The whole workforce of the country would fall to pieces and if everyone was the same they would have no leader, therefore there would be no government and no order. Even if Hitler was their leader, he had to die sometime, therefore they would have to put forth a selected bred person as leader. You can see how this society does not fall into place like the societies of our countries nowadays. I completely disagree with what Hitler believed and for a society to work we need individuality and uniqueness.
ReplyDeleteChloe Madge 10M
Selective breeding is unethical, immoral and completely unnecessary. I disagree with Darwin who states that artificial selection should be used to breed more superior human beings. This unnatural selection will make generations in the future stronger, more intelligent and have many more positive effects. However I do not think that this is ethically right, not everything is about strength and power and if breeding out inferior or biologically unfit races is the only way to achieve this, i find it unimportant and irrelevant in life. I agree that in some cases it will help fight diseases but it is not necessary. Artificial selection has not been used in the past and therefore does not need to be used in the present or future. I believe that it will only deteriorate our chances to fight diseases due to the biological make up of some races having a stronger immune system, however this would ultimately get erased due to insignificant issues. If this theory was to be put into place it would leave only a limited variation in the population and if a disease was to hit a specifically weak part of their biological make up it could potentially wipe out the earth’s population. If I were to prevent Hitler from going through with his enforced selective breeding I would put forward 5 arguments:
ReplyDelete1. It is not ethically right
2. It is not necessary
3. It has not been used in the past and therefore does not need to be used in the future
4. It will only deteriorate our chances to fight diseases
5. It will only leave a limited race which diseases might wipe out resulting in the loss of society.
Shannon :)
~If you could have tried to prevent Hitler from going through with his enforced selective breeding what arguments would you have put forward?
ReplyDeleteI suppose that, aside from the fact it is inhumane to slaughter people due to the ignorant, distorted perceptions of Hitler, my argument would have been that “selective breeding” is unlikely to create a perfect society. The point of natural selection is to evolve, and our race on a whole determines what is needed to maintain our race.
If we were to use selective breeding in this day and age, what human values, skills, looks, and attitudes would we have chosen?
We would need intelligence, to keep society running, we would need people who could farm to supply food, who could make clothes for all. We would also want entertainment, books and movies. I suppose we would also try to limit genetic diseases – yet, by now, there are many hereditary diseases or increased likelihood to diseases in our genes. As for attitudes, both introverted and extraverted people help make up society. Which one would thus be better? And for looks... well, who would really want to look the same?
Diversity is important. Everyone has a different role to play. If we singled out a single role, such as smart, obedient blondes with blue eyes – society could not function.
So in society today, how could we define a perfect person? And if this perfect, ideal society of this one type of person was created, what happens when people begin to differ from this ideal person? For, a child is not necessarily the same as their parents in every aspect.
Overall, selective breeding would not have worked, and society needs to continue to evolve by itself.
~Emma
If you could have tried to prevent Hitler from going through with his enforced selective breeding what arguments would you have put forward?
ReplyDeleteIf I could prevent Hitler from going through this enforced selective breeding I would argue that even though he transformed every breeding into the superhuman and transcending human nature to something. What does it do to exactly help our society? Every human that are born, are born for different purposes, why need selective breeding? To say if everyone is good at everything and look good our world would be uninteresting. It’ll seems like this world has no life, plus every human being has the right to look the way they are. Also it is not fair to the Jews, Gypsies, Slavs and the retarded or the handicapped.
In this point of view, Hitler isn’t thinking about the people and only thinking about what his perspective is. However it is his thought about creating a superhuman like creature, I don’t think it would be call a human anymore. Even though these creatures exist, how is Hitler going to use them for? Plus what about time consuming, wouldn’t takes long to create such an amount of evolutionary peoples?
Also how can he prove that selecting breed would let our society be better? Hitler is just thinking ahead and not even thinking about and hazards and troubles that are going to take up. In addition if he is doing selective breeding only a few types of people are available for selective breeding and what is he going to do with the rest of the people that is biological unfit?
Overall Hitler’s plan eventually didn’t actually got done. Otherwise this society might turns out to an un-emotional earth because everyone is perfect.
Diana 10D