Eugenics and Other Evils, by G.K. Chesterton
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Eugenics and Other Evils, by G.K. Chesterton
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Eugenics and Other Evils
The False Theory
By G.K. Chesterton
In Eugenics and Other Evils Chesterton attacked eugenics as Britain was moving towards passage of the Mental Deficiency Act 1913. Some backing the ideas of eugenics called for the government to sterilize people deemed "mentally defective;" this view did not gain popularity but the idea of segregating them from the rest of society and thereby preventing them from reproducing did gain traction. These ideas disgusted Chesterton who wrote "It is not only openly said, it is eagerly urged that the aim of the measure is to prevent any person whom these propagandists do not happen to think intelligent from having any wife or children." He blasted the proposed wording for such measures as being so vague as to apply to anyone, including "Every tramp who is sulk, every labourer who is shy, every rustic who is eccentric, can quite easily be brought under such conditions as were designed for homicidal maniacs. That is the situation; and that is the point...we are already under the Eugenist State; and nothing remains to us but rebellion."
He derided such ideas as founded on nonsense "as if one had a right to dragoon and enslave one's fellow citizens as a kind of chemical experiment".
Chesterton also mocked the idea that poverty was a result of bad breeding "[it is a] strange new disposition to regard the poor as a race; as if they were a colony of Japs or Chinese coolies. ...The poor are not a race or even a type. It is senseless to talk about breeding them; for they are not a breed. They are, in cold fact, what Dickens describes: 'a dustbin of individual accidents,' of damaged dignity, and often of damaged gentility."
I publish these essays at the present time for a particular reason connected with the present situation; a reason which I should like briefly to emphasise and make clear.
Though most of the conclusions, especially towards the end, are conceived with reference to recent events, the actual bulk of preliminary notes about the science of Eugenics were written before the war. It was a time when this theme was the topic of the hour; when eugenic babies (not visibly very distinguishable from other babies) sprawled all over the illustrated papers; when the evolutionary fancy of Nietzsche was the new cry among the intellectuals; and when Mr. Bernard Shaw and others were considering the idea that to breed a man like a cart-horse was the true way to attain that higher civilisation, of intellectual magnanimity and sympathetic insight, which may be found in cart-horses. It may therefore appear that I took the opinion too controversially, and it seems to me that I sometimes took it too seriously. But the criticism of Eugenics soon expanded of itself into a more general criticism of a modern craze for scientific officialism and strict social organisation.
And then the hour came when I felt, not without relief, that I might well fling all my notes into the fire. The fire was a very big one, and was burning up bigger things than such pedantic quackeries. And, anyhow, the issue itself was being settled in a very different style. Scientific officialism and organisation in the State which had specialised in them, had gone to war with the older culture of Christendom. Either Prussianism would win and the protest would be hopeless, or Prussianism would lose and the protest would be needless. As the war advanced from poison gas to piracy against neutrals, it grew more and more plain that the scientifically organised State was not increasing in popularity. Whatever happened, no Englishmen would ever again go nosing round the stinks of that low laboratory. So I thought all I had written irrelevant, and put it out of my mind.
Eugenics and Other Evils, by G.K. Chesterton
- Published on: 2015-10-27
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 11.00" h x .15" w x 8.50" l, .39 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 66 pages
About the Author Gilbert Keith Chesterton, (29 May 1874 – 14 June 1936) better known as G. K. Chesterton, was an English writer, lay theologian, poet, philosopher, dramatist, journalist, orator, literary and art critic, biographer, and Christian apologist. Born in Campden Hill in Kensington, London, he was baptized at the age of one month into the Church of England, though his family themselves were irregularly practising Unitarians. According to his autobiography, as a young man he became fascinated with the occult and, along with his brother Cecil, experimented with Ouija boards. He was educated at St Paul's School, then attended the Slade School of Art in order to become an illustrator. In 1896 he began working for the London publisher Redway, and T. Fisher Unwin, where he remained until 1902. During this period he also undertook his first journalistic work as a freelance art and literary critic. In 1902 the Daily News gave him a weekly opinion column, followed in 1905 by a weekly column in The Illustrated London News, for which he continued to write for the next thirty years. He was a large man, standing 6 feet 4 inches and weighing around 286 pounds. His girth gave rise to a famous anecdote. During the First World War a lady in London asked why he was not "out at the Front"; he replied, "If you go round to the side, you will see that I am." On another occasion he remarked to his friend George Bernard Shaw, "To look at you, anyone would think a famine had struck England". Shaw retorted, "To look at you, anyone would think you have caused it". P. G. Wodehouse once described a very loud crash as "a sound like Chesterton falling onto a sheet of tin" He died of congestive heart failure on the morning of 14 June 1936, at his home in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire. His last known words were a greeting spoken to his wife. During his life, he wrote around 80 books, several hundred poems, some 200 short stories, 4000 essays, and several plays.
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56 of 62 people found the following review helpful. A Chilling Voice from the Past By Brad Shorr Eugenics was more than a pseudoscientific fad of the early 1900�s: it provided much of the philosophical underpinnings of the Nazi �master race� and its logical culmination in the concentration camps. Today its ideas lurk more subtly behind such movements as birth control, abortion rights, euthanasia, and cloning. So, this book by GK is far more than an historical curiosity; the arguments he sets forth enable us to see far more clearly the dangers of conceding to a government, a group of elites, or even a vague movement, even a fraction of our rights and responsibilities concerning our own life, death, and progeneration. In the first third of the book, GK utterly dismantles the superficial logic of eugenics. In the second third, he exposes the real objectives of the movement that lay beneath the surface. The final third is a compilation of truly bone chilling articles and letters written by eugenicists of the period. Essentially, GK believes that the movement arose out of the capitalist desire to maintain cheap labor and the socialist desire to scientifically organize society. His analysis of these seemingly opposed forces has a heavy political, social, and historical focus, and is surprisingly light on religious considerations. He foresees that eugenics unleashed would result in an utterly inhuman society. Unfortunately the Nazis proved his theory. He foresees the dehumanizing effects of even a more moderate eugenics, which unfortunately has come to pass and is quite evident in the monstrous plight of our poor, homeless, mentally handicapped, and unborn. How do these social horrors occur? GK believes that most people are right, but don�t know that they are right. Thus they�we--are susceptible and even defenseless to attacks by an organized group of activists driven by malevolent or merely foolish motives. This book shows how that actually played out in pre-WWII Europe, and gives us a better understanding of how it is happening now, and how we might reverse course.
22 of 26 people found the following review helpful. Remains a great book By Dalton C. Rocha I read this old and excellent book, here in Brazil.Writen by Gilbert Keith Chesterton (29 May 1874 - 14 June 1936), when the pseudo-science of eugenics was perhaps more popular is USA, than ecology is today, this book remains excellent and relevant.And this happens, more than 80 years after its publication.Then, eugenics was a thing supported by great american politicians, such as american Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Taft,Herbert Hoover,etc.Outside USA famous leaders such as the last Kaiser, Lenin, Stalin,etc. were eugenists.Famous scientists of this time, such as Thomas Alva Edison, Albert Einstein, Wright Brothers, Charles Lindenberg,Nicolas Tesla, etc. were eugenists.Writers such as H. G. Wells and Georger Bernard Shaw were eugenists and socialists.At first, this book was a work of courage.It was against the political, scientific and press stablishment.At second, this book is divided in parts:PART ONE: THE FALSE THEORY.PART TWO: THE REAL AIM.I really read another ediction of this excellent book, when I could read:"Most Eugenists are Euphemists. I mean merely that short words startle them, while long words soothe them. And they are utterly incapable of translating the one into the other, however obviously they mean the same thing. Say to them "The persuasive and even coercive powers of the citizen should enable him to make sure that the burden of longevity in the previous generations does not become disproportionate and intolerable, especially to the females?"; say this to them and they sway slightly to and fro like babies sent to sleep in cradles. Say to them "Murder your mother," and they sit up quite suddenly. Yet the two sentences, in cold logic, are exactly the same."In another page of this book, I read:"I am myself primarily opposed to Socialism, or Collectivism or Bolshevism or whatever we call it, for a primary reason not immediately involved here: the ideal of property. I say the ideal and not merely the idea; and this alone disposes of the moral mistake in the matter. It disposes of all the dreary doubts of the Anti-Socialists about men not yet being angels, and all the yet drearier hopes of the Socialists about men soon being supermen. I do not admit that private property is a concession to baseness and selfishness; I think it is a point of honour. I think it is the most truly popular of all points of honour. But this, though it has everything to do with my plea for a domestic dignity, has nothing to do with this passing summary of the situation of Socialism. I only remark in passing that it is vain for the more vulgar sort of Capitalists, sneering at ideals, to say to me that in order to hate Socialism "You must alter human nature." I answer "Yes. You must alter it for the worse."In the end of this book, there's a third part, with articles writen by eugenicists/eugenicists. Ironically, they were doomed by time, as false preachers.The ediction that I read wasn't this book, published by Dodo Press.Even so, my give my congratulation to all persons, publishing the works of this genius called Gilbert Keith Chesterton (29 May 1874 - 14 June 1936).
16 of 20 people found the following review helpful. Prophetic writing By Paul Ross G.K. Chesterton was WAY ahead of his time in the writing of this brilliant little book.. It's just as pertinent today as it was in the early 1900's. Great stuff.
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