6 ms·

I hesitate to bring up extreme cases, but the relationship between social darwinism and the rise of the nazi party make many people, including myself, very hesi

by hiou 11y ago

I hesitate to bring up extreme cases, but the relationship between social darwinism and the rise of the nazi party make many people, including myself, very hesitant to speak about differences in sex etc. Not because we deny their existence, but because we've seen how far large groups of uninformed electorate can be persuaded into supporting some scary stuff because of it. It's just a very tricky subject when it comes to the masses. EDIT: Clarified to social darwinism from darwinism.

jerf 11y ago
It's not the masses you need to be worried about, hiou. It wasn't the masses gassing people by the millions... it was the elites, who got a few people to go along with them. "The masses" organize poorly... it's the people who are smart enough to successfully do something with their bad idea, but not smart enough to see through the bad idea, that must be feared. The deep-rooted fear of academia isn't that the masses may do something stupid with the idea of gender differences... it's the fear that they, the academics, will do something stupid. (Again. Although, not the same literal people, of course.)
- mikeash 11y ago
  Did you really manage to blame academics for the Holocaust in a mere four sentences? That's really impressive!
  - jerf 11y ago
    It's not just "academics". It's anyone who can take an idea and successfully run with it, without stopping to notice all the signs that are yelling at them "Stop! This isn't working as you expected!" Academia merely happens to have a large concentration of such people, for structural reasons. (The "ivory tower" is a real effect, and it is both a good thing because it permits concentration and focus, and a bad thing, because it begets people too stuck in their theories and smart enough to "explain away" anything, until it is much too late.) This is not something "the masses" do, because "the masses" do not have the ability to successfully run with an idea and gather enough power to impose it. It's not just the holocaust, either. There's a huge history of 20th-century "social engineering" that rather a lot of people would rather forget, because it pretty uniformly went badly. See also "eugenics" for another reason that academics are afraid to think too hard about how people may be different or how genes may determine things about people... and not entirely without reason. "The masses" did not impose eugenics. In fact a lot of eugenics had to be hidden from the masses. With power comes the power to screw up. Academics have a lot of power. It would be strange if they'd never screwed up.
    - mikeash 11y ago
      Academics have approximately zero power. This is the craziest conspiracy theory I've seen in a while, because it's just so obviously wrong. Oh yes, college professors need to be kept in check because otherwise they'll go out and kill all the Jews. WTF?
      - jerf 11y ago
        Go research where Lenin came from. Go research who did eugenics, and where they got their ideas from. Go research the origin of a lot of the Nazi figures and where their ideas came from. (Not just Hitler.) Express all the humorous strawmen you like. How do you think these things happen? In the 20th century, the only bad social engineering event I can think of that could even remotely be considered the outgrowth of a broad movement of the masses is sort of Nazi-ism. Everything else was led by somebody with an idea from academia. "The masses" don't originate many ideas, and in the era of the all-powerful State (which the 20th century is firmly in), "the masses" don't run around committing genocide, or doing any of the things they may have done in previous social systems, because all that power is now reserved to the State. And the State and academia have always been attached at the hip, as they are today. How else would it be? Do you think it's some sort of bizarre coincidence that the dominant ideology of academia today and the dominant ideology of the State are exactly the same? Of course they are... they're causally connected. (Where do the "technocrats" in technocracy come from? Certainly not the farm!) As for this being "conspiracy" theory... no, it's just an understanding of how the world actually works. It may happen to explain this opinion of mine, but that's only because as a ground fact of the current world it explains lots of things. Academics wield power through the State. It's clear as daylight... it would be some sort of bizarre theory that they don't. What would that even look like?
        mikeash 11y ago
        Oh yes, the dominant ideology of academia is the same as that of the state, which is why academics universally agree that anthropogenic global warming is real while the government can't even agree on whether climate is changing at all, let alone the cause. This must be why universities are chronically underfunded and professors are constantly scrambling for their next research grant. This must be why roughly nobody in the top levels of government has so much as a PhD. The tight link between the two explains why governments persist in outlawing drugs even though research shows it's more effective to legalize them. I could go on, but I think you get the idea. Looks to me like Lenin graduated from university but didn't go anywhere near an advanced degree. I'm not sure which Nazis you're referring to but I'm not aware of a particularly large number of university professors among the ranks of the top Nazis.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
mikeash 11y ago
What is the relationship between darwinism (what a ridiculous term, by the way) and the rise of the Nazis?
- Retra 11y ago
  I think they're talking about social darwinism. The idea that "survival of the fittest" can be naively applied to politics is a pretty easy way to convince people to commit genocide. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Darwinism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Darwinism
  - mikeash 11y ago
    It appears you're right. However, I find it puzzling that it's mentioned here, since the gulf between "there are some genetic differences between the sexes" and "let's attempt to improve the human gene pool by murdering any group we find displeasing" is so great that they barely have any relationship at all.
    - Retra 11y ago
      It's not about murdering people. The problem is, if you support policies that disadvantage people based on their genetics, you can gradually dehumanize those people. The (real) disadvantages of that outweigh the (supposed) advantages.
      - mikeash 11y ago
        OK, but the gulf between that and "there is some genetic differences between the sexes" is still so large that you'd need a powerful telescope to see from one to the other.
        Retra 11y ago
        And people with sexist and racist tendencies have those telescopes glued to their face.
        11y ago
jarman 11y ago
And (at approximately same time) rejection of darwinism has stopped soviet regime from inducing famines, using slave labour and purges. Except it did not.
dilap 11y ago
I think clear-headed thinking along with a moral foundation of compassion for everyone is going to work out better in the long-run than attempting to skirt around possible truths deemed 'dangerous'.
hoopd 11y ago
4th comment from the top of the thread and we've already reached Godwin's Law. Have you ever wondered how the electorate becomes uninformed? Certain information is declared off-limits because of what it might make people think or do.
Kluny 11y ago
Don't read below the parent comment, the thread has devolved into an argument about Nazis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

by hiou 11y ago

jerf 11y ago

It's not the masses you need to be worried about, hiou. It wasn't the masses gassing people by the millions... it was the elites, who got a few people to go along with them. "The masses" organize poorly... it's the people who are smart enough to successfully do something with their bad idea, but not smart enough to see through the bad idea, that must be feared. The deep-rooted fear of academia isn't that the masses may do something stupid with the idea of gender differences... it's the fear that they, the academics, will do something stupid. (Again. Although, not the same literal people, of course.)

mikeash 11y ago
Did you really manage to blame academics for the Holocaust in a mere four sentences? That's really impressive!
- jerf 11y ago
  It's not just "academics". It's anyone who can take an idea and successfully run with it, without stopping to notice all the signs that are yelling at them "Stop! This isn't working as you expected!" Academia merely happens to have a large concentration of such people, for structural reasons. (The "ivory tower" is a real effect, and it is both a good thing because it permits concentration and focus, and a bad thing, because it begets people too stuck in their theories and smart enough to "explain away" anything, until it is much too late.) This is not something "the masses" do, because "the masses" do not have the ability to successfully run with an idea and gather enough power to impose it. It's not just the holocaust, either. There's a huge history of 20th-century "social engineering" that rather a lot of people would rather forget, because it pretty uniformly went badly. See also "eugenics" for another reason that academics are afraid to think too hard about how people may be different or how genes may determine things about people... and not entirely without reason. "The masses" did not impose eugenics. In fact a lot of eugenics had to be hidden from the masses. With power comes the power to screw up. Academics have a lot of power. It would be strange if they'd never screwed up.
  - mikeash 11y ago
    Academics have approximately zero power. This is the craziest conspiracy theory I've seen in a while, because it's just so obviously wrong. Oh yes, college professors need to be kept in check because otherwise they'll go out and kill all the Jews. WTF?
    - jerf 11y ago
      Go research where Lenin came from. Go research who did eugenics, and where they got their ideas from. Go research the origin of a lot of the Nazi figures and where their ideas came from. (Not just Hitler.) Express all the humorous strawmen you like. How do you think these things happen? In the 20th century, the only bad social engineering event I can think of that could even remotely be considered the outgrowth of a broad movement of the masses is sort of Nazi-ism. Everything else was led by somebody with an idea from academia. "The masses" don't originate many ideas, and in the era of the all-powerful State (which the 20th century is firmly in), "the masses" don't run around committing genocide, or doing any of the things they may have done in previous social systems, because all that power is now reserved to the State. And the State and academia have always been attached at the hip, as they are today. How else would it be? Do you think it's some sort of bizarre coincidence that the dominant ideology of academia today and the dominant ideology of the State are exactly the same? Of course they are... they're causally connected. (Where do the "technocrats" in technocracy come from? Certainly not the farm!) As for this being "conspiracy" theory... no, it's just an understanding of how the world actually works. It may happen to explain this opinion of mine, but that's only because as a ground fact of the current world it explains lots of things. Academics wield power through the State. It's clear as daylight... it would be some sort of bizarre theory that they don't. What would that even look like?
      - mikeash 11y ago
        Oh yes, the dominant ideology of academia is the same as that of the state, which is why academics universally agree that anthropogenic global warming is real while the government can't even agree on whether climate is changing at all, let alone the cause. This must be why universities are chronically underfunded and professors are constantly scrambling for their next research grant. This must be why roughly nobody in the top levels of government has so much as a PhD. The tight link between the two explains why governments persist in outlawing drugs even though research shows it's more effective to legalize them. I could go on, but I think you get the idea. Looks to me like Lenin graduated from university but didn't go anywhere near an advanced degree. I'm not sure which Nazis you're referring to but I'm not aware of a particularly large number of university professors among the ranks of the top Nazis.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

mikeash 11y ago

What is the relationship between darwinism (what a ridiculous term, by the way) and the rise of the Nazis?

Retra 11y ago
I think they're talking about social darwinism. The idea that "survival of the fittest" can be naively applied to politics is a pretty easy way to convince people to commit genocide. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Darwinism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Darwinism
- mikeash 11y ago
  It appears you're right. However, I find it puzzling that it's mentioned here, since the gulf between "there are some genetic differences between the sexes" and "let's attempt to improve the human gene pool by murdering any group we find displeasing" is so great that they barely have any relationship at all.
  - Retra 11y ago
    It's not about murdering people. The problem is, if you support policies that disadvantage people based on their genetics, you can gradually dehumanize those people. The (real) disadvantages of that outweigh the (supposed) advantages.
    - mikeash 11y ago
      OK, but the gulf between that and "there is some genetic differences between the sexes" is still so large that you'd need a powerful telescope to see from one to the other.
      - Retra 11y ago
        And people with sexist and racist tendencies have those telescopes glued to their face.
      - 11y ago

jarman 11y ago

And (at approximately same time) rejection of darwinism has stopped soviet regime from inducing famines, using slave labour and purges. Except it did not.

dilap 11y ago

I think clear-headed thinking along with a moral foundation of compassion for everyone is going to work out better in the long-run than attempting to skirt around possible truths deemed 'dangerous'.

hoopd 11y ago

4th comment from the top of the thread and we've already reached Godwin's Law. Have you ever wondered how the electorate becomes uninformed? Certain information is declared off-limits because of what it might make people think or do.

Kluny 11y ago

Don't read below the parent comment, the thread has devolved into an argument about Nazis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law