The Twilight Years, Part V

We're Eugenicists and We're Here to Help

The fear for the future that gripped Britain in the two decades after World War One rested not just on economic misdiagnoses. There was also a prevailing concern over miscegenation and genetic deformation. So argues Richard Overy in his book, The Twilight Years.

Professional and leading historians were telling the public that societies inevitably decline and that Britain had reached its high point and now decline was certain. Things would go from bad to worse from this point, the public were told and they believed it. Economists agreed, arguing that capitalism was so internally contradictory that it would grow to incompetence and collapse. Moreover, it was fundamentally immoral. No civilisation could be sustained upon such unethical and immoral foundations. But things might be assuaged if the worst excesses and contradictions could be offset by bureaucratic planning. The Soviet Union was held up as the way forward.

But a further problem was “sickness” in the racial body of the nation. Consider Julian Huxley's diagnosis of the threat, written in 1930:

What are we going to do? Every defective man, woman and child is a burden. Every defective is an extra body for the nation to feed and clothe, but produces little or nothing in return. Every defective needs care, and immobilises a certain quantum of energy and goodwill which could otherwise be put to constructive ends. Every defective is an emotional burden—a sorrow to someone, and in himself, a creature doomed, when unassisted, to live an incomplete and sub-human existence. Not only that, but if their numbers continue to increase, the burden . . . will gradually drag us down. Cited in Richard Overy, The Twilight Years: The Paradox of Britain Between the Wars (New York: Viking/Penguin, 2009), p.93.

The "sickness" with which society was afflicted consisted of sub-standard people having too many (defective) children, which were a burden upon society, bringing about its inevitable collapse. This “world-view” of course was Malthusian: population will always run ahead of food supply, until war, death, disease or famine kills off sufficient people to bring things into equilibrium. This was the diagnosis. The solution: control the reproduction of defectives through “birth control”.

One of the earliest advocates in Britain of birth control was Marie Stopes. Overy takes up the narrative:

In May 1921 Marie Stopes organized a public meeting on constructive birth control at the Queen's Hall in London . . . . She had been advised that she might find the hall almost empty, but on the night, according to a sceptical eye-witness, there was no “trickle of ill-dressed fanatics” but a packed crowd of “quite normal-looking people”. After a lengthy organ recital, Marie Stopes, resplendent in a shining white dress, took the stage to berate the audience about the perils and expense of allowing “wastrels” to breed. The record of the meeting indicates applause at every opportunity. The only people who should become parents, she insisted, were those who could “add individuals of value to the race”. In her final remarks of the evening she told the audience that if race selection were successful they would look at their grandchildren and “think almost that the gods had descended to walk upon the earth”. . . . (Overy p. 96)

The notion of the improvement of the race was the foundation upon which the birth-control movement was built.

In our day, this kind of rhetoric grates horribly--at least to many. But in the Inter-War years in Britain it did not. Why the difference? Firstly, the greater superiority of the Englishman was a commonly held view at the time. Britain was an imperial race, therefore superior: it could maintain its Empire only by maintaining its racial purity. Breeding superior progeny was seen as a key essential to maintain the glory of the Empire: without it, Britain would inevitably decline.

The problem was famously encapsulated by David Lloyd George, the first post-war prime minister, when he warned an audience that it was not possible to run an A1 empire with a C3 population. These alphabetic categories were used by the army to label the physical qualities of recruits. . . . Sir James Barr, onetime president of the British Medical Association, testily observed that “while the virility of the nation was carrying on he war, the derelicts were carrying on the race. Overy, p. 97-8

Secondly, the increasingly popular social Darwinism of the age naturally led to an assessment of the human race which would break society up into categories of superiors and inferiors, not by virtue of bearing authority to rule or to be obeyed, but by virtue of genetics. It was an easy step, once you had accepted the Darwinistic world-view, as almost all intellectuals and public protagonists had, to be able to suggest with the utmost sweet reasonableness that across the human race was a spectrum of inferior through to superior genetic models. The survival of the race depended upon breeding out the inferiors, and increasing the fecundity of those with superior genetic makeup. Stopes openly argued (without recrimination or reaction) that “race suicide” would result from “excessive breeding of inferior stock”.

Such sentiments are a blasphemous anathema to modern pagans. Why? Largely, we suspect, because of the loathing with which the eugenics movement in Nazi Germany is now held (at least officially). Ideas do have consequences: the consequences as evident in Nazi Germany are too terrible and horrible now to contemplate. It is now politely ignored and put under the carpet that eugenics was every bit as alive and fashionable in Britain as it was in pre-War Germany. It has, in the post-World War II West, forced eugenics into operating beneath the radar screen. Eugenics is still widely practised in the West, but not necessarily as a government programme or promotion. It has been reframed into a "personal choice". Tests are now routinely done on unborn children to ascertain whether they have disease or defection. When tests prove positive parents are invited/encouraged to kill the unborn child.

Throughout the twentieth century, eugenics was practised in the United States as well, as traced by Edwin Black in, War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race (New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2003; Thunder's Mouth Press, 2004). As Michael Gerson points out in The Washington Post, Black recounts

efforts by distinguished scientists, academics, industrialists, health officials and jurists through much of the 20th century to “direct human evolution” by waging war against people with developmental and physical disabilities.

Black points out that early last century, the American Breeders Association -- supported by generous grants from Andrew Carnegie -- created a committee to study “the best practical means for cutting off the defective germ-plasm of the American population.” The panel included doctors, economists and attorneys from Harvard, Yale, Princeton and the University of Chicago.

Black continues: “During a number of subsequent conferences, they carefully debated the ‘problem of cutting off the supply of defectives,’ and systemically plotted a bold campaign of ‘purging the blood of the American people of the handicapping and deteriorating influences of these anti-social classes.’ Ten groups were eventually identified as ‘socially unfit’ and targeted for ‘elimination.’” Among those groups, according to Black, were the “feebleminded,” epileptics, the “insane,” the “deformed” and the “deaf.”

Eugenic sterilizations did not end in the United States until the 1970s, endorsed by a decision of the Supreme Court. Citizens with Down syndrome and other genetic challenges are increasingly rare in America, because of prenatal testing and abortion. And as such genetic perfection is pursued, those who lack it are subjected to increased prejudice.

Accordingly, Social Darwinism has been “reworked” and "re-morphed" in the modern generation. Now it is fashionable, once again, to believe that there are superiors and inferiors in the human race. But those of superior genetic stock are those who have reached a stage of enlightenment where they paternalistically and condescendingly believe in equal human rights for all; the invitation to all lesser un-enlightened mortals is to develop and evolve to higher states of being, which are essentially ideological and cerebral. Abortion is framed as a "woman's right to choose" or a "woman's right over her own body": the propaganda frames abortion as an act of a truly enlightened superior being. The invitation to inferior humans is to persuade them that they need not, in fact, remain inferior, but that they too can become truly enlightened. Naturalistic Darwinism morphed into social Darwinism, which has once again morphed into ideological Darwinism. But throughout the Darwinistic world-view, inconsistency and hypocrisy notwithstanding, remains firmly predominant.

But we digress. Returning to Britain in the Inter-War years, the idea of inferior breeding and poor genetic structures fitting seamlessly and neatly into the pessimism of the age in Britain in the twenties and thirties. The warning of a potential biological crisis was credible, given the general pessimism. Moreover, it buttressed the prevailing prejudices by appearing to give them a rational, scientific foundation. As soon as appeals to "science" could be made, the credibility and believability of the pessimistic outlook went up by several degrees. And it went both ways: the prevailing pessimistic outlook in turn made the claims of the eugenics movement appear well reasoned and well founded. For example, in the 1930's Leonard Darwin, fourth son of Charles, warned that

without biological correction Western civilization was destined to suffer the same slow decay that had been the lot 'of every great civilization.' . . . the problem lay in the inherited quality of the race, which, Darwin argued, had a natural tendency to decline as long as the 'less efficient strata' reproduced faster than the biologically inefficient. (Overy, p. 101)

Eugenics was the new advance in biological science which would prevent the inevitable decline occurring.

Eugenics became widely popular in academic and intellectual circles in the Inter-War period. The inevitable tendency was for “science” to overstate the influence of Nature (as contrasted with Nurture) so that it became seriously entertained that almost all social problems could be put down to defective Nature: alcoholism, syphilis, feeble-mindedness, crime, prostitution, delinquency were all understood to be due to an inherited predisposition and reflective of sub-standard genetics. (About the only vestige of this view which has survived to linger on in the modern world is the idea that homosexuality is a predisposed genetic condition. But, of course, this has also been parsed through the filters of ideological Darwinism, so that homosexuality, although a genetic defect, has been declared to be a human right.)

As eugenicists debated appropriate policies which would apply their science to the betterment and purification of the race, the inevitable question became where to draw the line. Unsurprisingly, it was suggested that about half the population was below average! But within this deficient half, there was believed to be a smaller sub-set which, if allowed to continue unchecked, threatened the entire race with genetic degeneration. And, it was observed repeatedly, the least genetically worthy were always breeding faster, having larger and larger families than, well, superior folk.

In the 1930's, eugenicists left no doubt about what needed to be done to preserve the race.

The language routinely used to describe biological intervention was uncompromising--'elimination' of the unfit, 'festering sores' to be cut out, a 'diseased constitution' to be medically repaired. . . . Cleansing the race left few options that did not involve severe levels of medical or social intervention. [It reduced to] two possibilities. The first was the 'lethal chamber', the second sterilization.” (Overy p. 115)

The lethal chamber was rejected as lacking sufficient public support. But compulsory sterilization was another matter.

There were few, if any, eugenicists who did not accept that sterilization, whether compulsory or voluntary, was the one remaining panacea capable to addressing the seriousness of their case for racial decline, and they worked throughout the inter-war years to persuade the government to set in place firm procedures for a national programme of sterilization targeted as the biologically and socially undesirable. (Overy p.117)

Now, it is important to remember that this was not some fringe maniacal group; eugenicists were mainstream, leading figures, intellectuals, and opinion leaders.

The ranks of self-confessed eugenists were swollen in the 1920's with a panoply of distinguished public figures in every field: the economist J.M. Keynes, who helped set up the Cambridge Eugenics Society before 1914 and remained a life-long supporter; the sexologist Havelock Ellis, who wrote pioneering books on sex before 1914; the zoologist Julian Huxley, grandson of Darwin's chief disciple Thomas Huxley and an early science celebrity; the psychologist Cyril Burt, pioneer of intelligence testing of schoolchildren and, as a result, a convinced hereditarian; the Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw, whose Man and Superman played on eugenics themes; William Inge, Dean of St Paul's, almost certainly the best-known churchman of his generation, who wanted and ideal British population of only 20 million, all with 'certificates of bodily and mental fitness'; and so on. Eugenic concern in the inter-war years was no longer the province of people the public might have regarded as enthusiastic cranks. (Overy, p. 106)

So, civilization was declining. Eugenicists argued it was substantially due to inferior, defective classes breeding far too promiscuously. The bad were multiplying; the superior were being overrun. Society would inevitably decline. Their analysis had the imprimatur of "science", and therefore it was seen as objective, credible, certain, and infallible. And, as we have seen recently, never get between a scientist and the limelight—unless one's life insurance is up to date. Overy's concluding paragraphs are reminiscent of our own recent experiences, this time to do with climate:

A great many biologists wanted to believe that they could explain crisis in convincing ways, and their science seemed self-evidently appropriate to the morbid contemplation of decay and regeneration. Biological explanations had about them the unmistakable stamp of progress, rooted as they were in programmes of scientific research and statistical assessment that were demonstrably at the cutting edge of their subjects. Identifying crisis and cure gave scientists a sense of social purpose and a high public profile even if it meant presenting complex and uncertain elements of their science in vulgar form in order to be understood”--and we may add, in order to make elements of the science appear more definite and certain. (Overy, p. 134)

We have seen how academic experts framed beliefs and expectations of impending long term decline in Great Britain during the Inter-War years. Their consensus view was taken up and reflected back in the media and in most sections of society during that period. We have argued that this polarity of unbridled optimism, followed by deep and abiding pessimism is an inevitable pathology of the religion of secular humanism becoming ascendant in a culture.

Initially the notion that man is the centre of the universe and lord of all he surveys proves wonderfully liberating and uplifting. However, man is far too puny to sustain the weight of deity. Soon his failures and phobias and imperfections intrude to the dashing of hopes and the defenestration of optimism. A deep gloom settles over the culture. The bi-polar mood swings are manifest most clearly within the Academy which had early championed the secular idolatry of rationalistic humanism.

This bi-polar pattern of extreme optimism, followed by much longer periods of apocalyptic alarmism and general despair continues unabated in our day. So has the eugenics movement. It has now morphed into strident promotion and militant practise of abortion to preserve the superiority of "enlightened" people--that is, those who have evolved to the point where they understand that an individual's rights and personal convenience trump anyone sufficiently powerless to defend or protect or assert or speak up for themselves. Death to them. Thus, the fittest survive. We have to do this to save ourselves, to become authentic, higher, self-actualised beings.