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Just to be clear, this was not a small group of pseudo intellectuals. Eugenics was applauded almost universally by Progessives and Conservatives among others. I

by vixen99 10y ago

Just to be clear, this was not a small group of pseudo intellectuals. Eugenics was applauded almost universally by Progessives and Conservatives among others. Included we can count J. Maynard Keynes, Irving Fischer ('prevention of breeding of the worst'), Gunnar Myrdal (economics Nobel Prize) Bernard Shaw, Harold Laski, Sidney Webb and Julian Huxley, Neville Chamberlain, Winston Churchill and dozens of other famous names. You can say that eugenics was 'received opinion' in that era.

nemild 10y ago
And even later it was someone like William Shockley, inventor of the transistor and Nobel prize winner.
klenwell 10y ago
Don't forget the great Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. and his infamous phrase: "Three generations of imbeciles are enough." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_v._Bell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_v._Bell Holmes is an intellectual hero of mine. I keep it as a reminder that we all have our historical blindspots.
anigbrowl 10y ago
Very true. While postmodernist philosophy is often denounced for its embrace of relativism the implicit aversion to moral absolutes, I would argue that it's the inevitable reaction to an excess of certitude during the modernist period and the resultant atrocities. This has a philosophical parallel in the excess of certitude afforded by religion. I'm arguing not that religion or science or political ideologies are inherently violent , but that once the tenets of a belief are accorded axiomatic status, an epistemological break with reality occurs and the fanatical response to the cognitive dissonance that inevitably results is to attempt to bring reality into line with the subjective belief. This is well summarized by cultural theorist Slavoj Zizek; if you have Netflix then I heartily recommend watching the whole of this film there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37RLn28mrLU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37RLn28mrLU Of course nobody is immune from this. I have subjective beliefs that I treat as axiomatic and I'm sure Zizek does too; it would be hard to get through the day if you weren't able to take anything for granted. But when we are engaged in philosophical thought, we should seek to minimize the axiomatic content of our argument and be clear about our reasons for designating some subjective beliefs as axiomatic. I believe strongly in a natural right of self-defense, for example. To justify this (to myself, not necessarily to anyone else), I observe that in nature, when animals or even plants are attacked and there is no possibility of evading the attack, they attempt to retaliate in some fashion in hopes of causing their antagonist to break off the attack. Of course I could be falling victim to a naturalistic fallacy here, and indeed there's a strong argument in western culture that the willing sacrifice of the individual self in pursuit of some collective good is a more effective strategy than direct confrontation; however the utilitarian argument for this course is predicated on the existence of an afterlife - if not in the sense of a physical heaven and hell, then in the sense of a collective memory of the sacrifice which informs the future behavior of the collective organism. This too is an axiomatic belief for many people, but it in turn is subject to question; one might argue that is the death of ~6 million Jewish people during the Holocaust, most of whom went to their deaths compliantly rather than confrontationally is the largest identifiable sacrifice in accordance with a general principle of non-violence, how is it that only a few generations later anti-semitism has become fashionable once more, and there is a social contingent eager to resume such genocidal activities under the auspices of some warmed-over conjectures about racial superiority. Insofar as there's a conflict between the natural instinct to retaliate (which may or may not scale) and the social imperative to sacrifice oneself (which may or may not improve the strategic position of the embattled social group) I lean towards the natural instinct because it's the product of millions of years of evolutionary competition vs. thousands of years of social cooperation, but I feel like it would be a mistake to uncritically adopt either position as the correct one and then never question it again. This may seem very abstract and intangible when I express it in philosophical terms, but given the high level of political polarization and the various socioeconomic and geopolitical circumstances that obtain today, we are or soon will be forced to make decisions on the basis of such fundamental beliefs and then live or die with the consequences. I claim, therefore, that an examination of our fundamental beliefs and the means by which we qualify them is a matter of grave urgency, because under sufficient stress we default to acting without thinking, and those actions are the products of the beliefs that we choose to hold.

by vixen99 10y ago

nemild 10y ago

And even later it was someone like William Shockley, inventor of the transistor and Nobel prize winner.

klenwell 10y ago

Don't forget the great Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. and his infamous phrase: "Three generations of imbeciles are enough." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_v._Bell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_v._Bell Holmes is an intellectual hero of mine. I keep it as a reminder that we all have our historical blindspots.

anigbrowl 10y ago

Very true. While postmodernist philosophy is often denounced for its embrace of relativism the implicit aversion to moral absolutes, I would argue that it's the inevitable reaction to an excess of certitude during the modernist period and the resultant atrocities. This has a philosophical parallel in the excess of certitude afforded by religion. I'm arguing not that religion or science or political ideologies are inherently violent , but that once the tenets of a belief are accorded axiomatic status, an epistemological break with reality occurs and the fanatical response to the cognitive dissonance that inevitably results is to attempt to bring reality into line with the subjective belief. This is well summarized by cultural theorist Slavoj Zizek; if you have Netflix then I heartily recommend watching the whole of this film there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37RLn28mrLU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37RLn28mrLU Of course nobody is immune from this. I have subjective beliefs that I treat as axiomatic and I'm sure Zizek does too; it would be hard to get through the day if you weren't able to take anything for granted. But when we are engaged in philosophical thought, we should seek to minimize the axiomatic content of our argument and be clear about our reasons for designating some subjective beliefs as axiomatic. I believe strongly in a natural right of self-defense, for example. To justify this (to myself, not necessarily to anyone else), I observe that in nature, when animals or even plants are attacked and there is no possibility of evading the attack, they attempt to retaliate in some fashion in hopes of causing their antagonist to break off the attack. Of course I could be falling victim to a naturalistic fallacy here, and indeed there's a strong argument in western culture that the willing sacrifice of the individual self in pursuit of some collective good is a more effective strategy than direct confrontation; however the utilitarian argument for this course is predicated on the existence of an afterlife - if not in the sense of a physical heaven and hell, then in the sense of a collective memory of the sacrifice which informs the future behavior of the collective organism. This too is an axiomatic belief for many people, but it in turn is subject to question; one might argue that is the death of ~6 million Jewish people during the Holocaust, most of whom went to their deaths compliantly rather than confrontationally is the largest identifiable sacrifice in accordance with a general principle of non-violence, how is it that only a few generations later anti-semitism has become fashionable once more, and there is a social contingent eager to resume such genocidal activities under the auspices of some warmed-over conjectures about racial superiority. Insofar as there's a conflict between the natural instinct to retaliate (which may or may not scale) and the social imperative to sacrifice oneself (which may or may not improve the strategic position of the embattled social group) I lean towards the natural instinct because it's the product of millions of years of evolutionary competition vs. thousands of years of social cooperation, but I feel like it would be a mistake to uncritically adopt either position as the correct one and then never question it again. This may seem very abstract and intangible when I express it in philosophical terms, but given the high level of political polarization and the various socioeconomic and geopolitical circumstances that obtain today, we are or soon will be forced to make decisions on the basis of such fundamental beliefs and then live or die with the consequences. I claim, therefore, that an examination of our fundamental beliefs and the means by which we qualify them is a matter of grave urgency, because under sufficient stress we default to acting without thinking, and those actions are the products of the beliefs that we choose to hold.