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> Would decent people --intelligent students at a university-- truly buy into these arguments? I think not. The origin of the term 'genocide' arose out of euge
by fossuser 10y ago
> Would decent people --intelligent students at a university-- truly buy into these arguments? I think not.
The origin of the term 'genocide' arose out of eugenics ('geno'). Eugenics was primarily 'educated' people making fancy sounding (though largely incorrect) arguments which started with justifying sterilization and ended up justifying euthanasia for the 'greater good'.
Critical thinking is not the default state of humans in any group and otherwise decent people have bought into dangerous ideas before.
- jhanschoo 10y ago> The origin of the term 'genocide' arose out of eugenics ('geno'). You've got the etymology confused. 'geno-' comes from Grk 'genos', which means race/tribe. Genocide refers to ethnic killings. Eugenics ('eu' good + 'gen-' race/tribe) refers to the goal of achieving 'better races' and methods to achieve them. Unfortunately those methods involve pruning perceived bad seeds. They come from the same root word, but genocide isn't derived from eugenics.
- fossuser 10y agoThanks - looks like I was wrong about the etymology. I'd read the term itself was created in response to what the nazis did, a lot of which started under the guise of eugenics. This book spent some times talking about it and I thought it was interesting: http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Gene/Siddhartha-Mukherjee/9781476733500 http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Gene/Siddhartha-Mu...