{"id":44347,"date":"2014-08-14T10:08:06","date_gmt":"2014-08-14T16:08:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/08\/14\/the-memetic-fitness-of-eugenics.html"},"modified":"2014-08-14T16:36:45","modified_gmt":"2014-08-14T22:36:45","slug":"the-memetic-fitness-of-eugenics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/08\/14\/the-memetic-fitness-of-eugenics.html","title":{"rendered":"The memetic fitness of Eugenics"},"content":{"rendered":"
The scary thing about the eugenic movements of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries is not how easily they slipped from the laudable goals of promoting healthy families and avoiding reinforced genetic problems into the nightmarish realms of racial purity and forced sterilizations, but freaking widespread<\/i> they were. This was not just a handful of kooks and racist madmen, but pretty much everyone who was a mover-and-shaker (and thinker) of the era. Indeed, the number of politicians, philosophers, humanitarians, "thought leaders," and men of science who weren't<\/i> in favor of eugenics in some form or another is shorter than the list of those who were.<\/p>\n

That those folk were, at the same time, considering their own particular ethnicity and background and belief system and "class" as normative and what eugenics should be promoting is, of course, mere coincidence. Eugenics was easily adapted into racism, nativism, classism, and tribalism.<\/p>\n

And, not surprisingly, even though the name and most of the concepts from eugenics are shunned today, there are powerful echoes of the movement that still can be heard in the racism, nativism, classism, and nativism of the current era.\ufeff<\/p><\/div>\n

\n

\n \n <\/div>\n

Philippa Levine on Eugenics Around the World<\/a><\/p>\n

View this post on Google+<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The scary thing about the eugenic movements of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries is not how easily they slipped from the laudable goals of promoting healthy families and avoiding reinforced genetic problems into the nightmarish realms of racial purity and forced sterilizations, but freaking widespread they were. This was not just a handful … Continue reading “The memetic fitness of Eugenics”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106,108,380,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts","category-history","category-nationalism-exceptionalism","category-science"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":50172,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/26\/eugenics.html","url_meta":{"origin":44347,"position":0},"title":"Eugenics","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 26-Apr-15 10:42pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Improving the human race sounds like a great idea. In fact, it always has ...(Original: http:\/\/smbc-comics.com\/index.php?id=3717) \u00a0 View on Google+","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/1430061365-201504265B15D.pngimgmax%3D660.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":20316,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/02\/24\/rick-santorum-and-james-dobson-are-dolts-evil-planned-parenthood-nazis-edition.html","url_meta":{"origin":44347,"position":1},"title":"Rick Santorum and James Dobson are Dolts (Evil Planned Parenthood Nazis edition)","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 24-Feb-11 3:10pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I don't have the full transcript of today's broadcast of Rick Santorum and Gary Brauer talking with James Dobson (Focus on the Family) about Planned Parenthood and their evil, evil ways. I just have this transcribed snippet from the show (courtesy of Right Wing Watch, which has the audio as\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Dolts"","block_context":{"text":"Dolts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/dolts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":50207,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/29\/sex-and-economic-class.html","url_meta":{"origin":44347,"position":2},"title":"Sex and Economic Class","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 29-Apr-15 4:35am","format":false,"excerpt":"No, poor women aren't more promiscuous. They don't have sex earlier, or sex more often, in or out of wedlock. The reason they have more babies is because they have worse access to, and worse utilization of, reliable birth control.Actually, here was a very interesting statistic:\"Wealthier women who face unplanned\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13358,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/01\/14\/escaping_from_the_islands.html","url_meta":{"origin":44347,"position":3},"title":"Escaping from the Islands","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 14-Jan-09 2:28pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Patrick McGoohan, most famous in my circles for the 1960s series\u00a0The Prisoner (which he created and starred in, as \"Number Six\"), has died. The 17 episodes of the series...","rel":"","context":"In "Disney\/Pixar"","block_context":{"text":"Disney\/Pixar","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/franchises\/disney"},"img":{"alt_text":"Patrick McGoohan as the Prisoner","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/number-six.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":51804,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/07\/21\/on-margaret-sanger-and-abortion-conspiracy-theories.html","url_meta":{"origin":44347,"position":4},"title":"On Margaret Sanger and Abortion Conspiracy Theories","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 21-Jul-15 4:47am","format":false,"excerpt":"Whenever the discussion of Planned Parenthood comes up, inevitably someone trots out the canard that Margaret Sanger, Planned Parenthood's founder, was a eugenicist who set up the whole shebang out race hatred for African-Americans.Whereas, in fact:a. Sanger was, indeed, a eugenicist (as were any number of prominent and misguided individuals\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":23003,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/10\/07\/tweets-from-2011-10-07.html","url_meta":{"origin":44347,"position":5},"title":"Tweets from 2011-10-07","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 7-Oct-11 10:45pm","format":false,"excerpt":"TGIF. # In case there was any doubt \"Real Steel\" is a Rock'em-Sock'em Robots movie, there is now a \"Real Steel\" Rock'em-Sock'em Robots toy. # Yes! RT @doycet: Solo Dad time! Time for some responsible choices. For dinner: Lil Ricci's NY Pizzeria, Coldstone ice cream. #goodparenting # May well have\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~Tweets"","block_context":{"text":"~Tweets","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/tweets"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44347"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44374,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44347\/revisions\/44374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}