Great post, thanks for taking the risk. It's worth noting that the eugenists IRL were very opposed to accepting Jewish immigrants, so this movement may soon face a split as the number of Jews trying to escape Hitler's Germany increases. (IRL, all countries refused to let in immigrants, stranding the German Jews. This wrong still lingers under the surface in the current immigration debates in Western Europe.)
They were concerned about the influx of communist ideology. Marx and Trotsky were both Jewish, as was more than half of the early Soviet secret police. The real correlation between Jewish ancestry and communist ideology made anticommunism translate into antisemitism. Palestine had strict immigration quotas because the Palestinian Arabs were concerned about becoming a minority in their own country. Source: MartyrMade history podcast
Race mixing was a big concern, with many prominent scientist claiming that evidence showed it to be absolutely detrimental. Also concern about genetic disease (and the understanding at the time was that many diseases we now know are environmental was genetic) and genetic criminality.
Intelligence and IQ wasn't as prelevant at the time as argument, especially not in Europe were it wasn't as useful.
All of this is based on half-remebered lectures on the subject. If you want to do your own digging, then the US immigration act of 1924, the eugenists Harry Laughlin and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Rassenhygiene may be good places to start.
Just old fashioned anti-semitism. Not sure how many of the kind of people Ozy is focusing on (upper-class, left-wing intellectuals) would be anti-semitic in that way (lots of them were Jewish). But certainly eugenics often overlapped with racism, which included anti-semitism.
I know that nowadays there are many people who think that Jewish people tend to have a higher IQ. And apparently the Nazis also were under a similar impression back in the day. Do you know if American eugenicists of the time engaged with that idea at all? If they agreed, I'd expect them to have looked more favorably on Jews.
I hope you won't mind a rather off-topic question: It's implied in the intro that you think eugenics is morally wrong, similar to racism, sexism, etc. I know a lot of people hold that opinion, but I have yet to come across an argument for it that makes sense to me. Would you be willing to either explain why you oppose it, or give me some links to good explanations elsewhere? (I won't argue with you, I'm just trying to gain an understanding of why some intellectually-honest people hold this opinion.)
Thanks, I hadn't seen that one. I'd describe that as more of an argument against performing eugenics *poorly* than an argument against eugenics in general, though given how bad our current understanding of genetics is they're probably the same thing for most practical purposes.
This is one of the worst arguments I have ever read, about anything.
It starts by insulting the person it's responding to, along with making blatantly false claims about them. It then continues to redefine the word "eugenics" to mean something completely different from how it's normally used (and how it was used in the post it's responding to), and then doesn't even disprove the new meaning, just provides a bunch of irrelevant analogies and questions, generously scattered with more insults and inflammatory language. Several times it makes clear that that author has absolutely no idea what they're talking about, like when they claim that nobody finds racehorses to be dignified.
Calling this article an "argument" is generous; it's an outlet for the author's anger issues.
Also, the title of section 3 seems at odds with the line "We do not support a violent revolution or a complete overthrow of economic institutions". I think maybe "ending capitalism" would be better?
Great post, thanks for taking the risk. It's worth noting that the eugenists IRL were very opposed to accepting Jewish immigrants, so this movement may soon face a split as the number of Jews trying to escape Hitler's Germany increases. (IRL, all countries refused to let in immigrants, stranding the German Jews. This wrong still lingers under the surface in the current immigration debates in Western Europe.)
Hardly a risk, everyone will be competing with each other to show how tolerant of criticism they are. :)
Curious why they opposed it? Concern about Jewish genetic illnesses becoming more prevalent?
They were concerned about the influx of communist ideology. Marx and Trotsky were both Jewish, as was more than half of the early Soviet secret police. The real correlation between Jewish ancestry and communist ideology made anticommunism translate into antisemitism. Palestine had strict immigration quotas because the Palestinian Arabs were concerned about becoming a minority in their own country. Source: MartyrMade history podcast
Race mixing was a big concern, with many prominent scientist claiming that evidence showed it to be absolutely detrimental. Also concern about genetic disease (and the understanding at the time was that many diseases we now know are environmental was genetic) and genetic criminality.
Intelligence and IQ wasn't as prelevant at the time as argument, especially not in Europe were it wasn't as useful.
All of this is based on half-remebered lectures on the subject. If you want to do your own digging, then the US immigration act of 1924, the eugenists Harry Laughlin and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Rassenhygiene may be good places to start.
Just old fashioned anti-semitism. Not sure how many of the kind of people Ozy is focusing on (upper-class, left-wing intellectuals) would be anti-semitic in that way (lots of them were Jewish). But certainly eugenics often overlapped with racism, which included anti-semitism.
I know that nowadays there are many people who think that Jewish people tend to have a higher IQ. And apparently the Nazis also were under a similar impression back in the day. Do you know if American eugenicists of the time engaged with that idea at all? If they agreed, I'd expect them to have looked more favorably on Jews.
I'm not sure what they thought about the idea. You'd have to look into it. Certainly it's an interesting paradox.
Very well-written post, I enjoyed it.
I hope you won't mind a rather off-topic question: It's implied in the intro that you think eugenics is morally wrong, similar to racism, sexism, etc. I know a lot of people hold that opinion, but I have yet to come across an argument for it that makes sense to me. Would you be willing to either explain why you oppose it, or give me some links to good explanations elsewhere? (I won't argue with you, I'm just trying to gain an understanding of why some intellectually-honest people hold this opinion.)
Think Ozy wrote an argument here, but since it gives a 404 on the new page, not sure if they still stand by it:
https://web.archive.org/web/20210216095040/https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2014/10/31/an-argument-against-eugenics-that-doesnt-involve-calling-anyone-a-nazi/
Thanks, I hadn't seen that one. I'd describe that as more of an argument against performing eugenics *poorly* than an argument against eugenics in general, though given how bad our current understanding of genetics is they're probably the same thing for most practical purposes.
This is a very good anti-eugenics argument: https://thenegrosubversive.substack.com/p/no-eugenics-doesnt-work
This is one of the worst arguments I have ever read, about anything.
It starts by insulting the person it's responding to, along with making blatantly false claims about them. It then continues to redefine the word "eugenics" to mean something completely different from how it's normally used (and how it was used in the post it's responding to), and then doesn't even disprove the new meaning, just provides a bunch of irrelevant analogies and questions, generously scattered with more insults and inflammatory language. Several times it makes clear that that author has absolutely no idea what they're talking about, like when they claim that nobody finds racehorses to be dignified.
Calling this article an "argument" is generous; it's an outlet for the author's anger issues.
> I’m just representing the viewpoints of “longtermist” people in the 1930s in as accurate and as entertaining a method as I can.
I think there might be a typo here, "1930s" should be "1920s" if it's supposed to be consistent with the surrounding sentences.
Also, the title of section 3 seems at odds with the line "We do not support a violent revolution or a complete overthrow of economic institutions". I think maybe "ending capitalism" would be better?