Eugenism

History of the term “eugenism”

The ethymology of the word “eugenism” is Greek: have (“well”) and gennân (“to generate”), which literally means “well to be born”. The significance of the term eugenism evolved/moved since its first use. The eugenism term is derived from the term eugenic . The term ( the eugenics ) was popularized by the English psychologist and physiologist, Francis Galton, half-cousin of Charles Darwin by the means of Erasmus Darwin. Before the use of the term eugenics , F. Galton also used the term viriculture .

In 1883, Francis Galton (not knowing work of Gregor Mendel on the transmission of the hereditary features) wrote a work using for the first time the term the eugenics . At the time, Galton did not make the distinction between:

genetic improvement of human by selection of hereditary features considered to be desirable and/or elimination of the characters considered to be undesirable and;
improvement of the individuals by interventions relating to their living conditions.

This absence of clear separation between genetic aspect and social aspect was dissipated only gradually. In 1936, Julian Huxley defines the eugénique one as the whole of the methods aiming at improving the human races. Its objective is to compensate for on the long run the antisélectif effect of the social systems like policies of the developed countries. At that time, the term of eugenic seems to have had a definition much more social than Génétique. See the unfortunate terminology " social Darwinism ".

The initial principle defined by Galton was directly in connection with the teaching and work of Darwin, itself very influenced by Malthus. The mechanisms of the natural selection are thwarted by human civilization. Indeed, one of the objectives of civilization is in a certain way of helping the underprivileged ones, therefore to be opposed to the natural selection which would involve the disappearance of weakest. Mathematically and if conditions of survival remain identical between all times (it is this point which is largely contestable), the loss of effectiveness related to the protection of civilization could involve a progressive increase in the number of unsuited individuals. The partisans of the eugenism thus proposed compensations of these effects within the companies known as advanced.

The principles of the eugenism are posed on this basic design: to compensate for the loss of the mechanisms of natural selection. This design inspired several social philosophies, theories and practices.

Humanistic as Jean Rostand warned in its work Pensées of a biologist against the fact that a company which would seriously take in hands the question of the eugenism could secure a decisive advantage well on the others.

Interpretations of the eugenism

The design darwinienne was not received in the same way in all the countries. Thus France, for example, remained a long time reticent with the ideas darwiniennes because marked by the lamarckism and influenced by the position of the Catholic church.

The theory of Lamarck is refuted since the discovery of the Génétique. It is however interesting to point out it:

for Lamarck, the engine of the evolution especially rested on the heredity of Acquired features, supporting the descent of individuals having made the effort adapt. According to Lamarck, the improvement of the human races passes consequently by the improvement of the living conditions, so that the modification of its environment in the long term improves quality of the future man. This eugenism there - which was also racist sometimes - constituted the position dominant eugenist in France, as well as an incentive - alas here quite useless, since the acquired features are not transmitted - with the practice Sport.

for Darwin, the engine of the evolution rested on the Natural selection eliminating the individuals the least adapted to survival and supporting only most suited to the reproduction (including in the fact of alluring a partner and of taking care of the Progéniture); careful, however, Darwin as explained in the Origin of the species as its theory remained compatible with a possible transmission of acquired features.

Debatable good intentions, means, a dubious goal

According to its defenders the eugenism aimed at ensuring more adapted humanity, therefore in theory happier. It is thus not its fine in itself which was criticizable, but very often the average selected. If the hereditary diabetes, hemophilia and other diseases had suddenly been eliminated by genic Thérapie, everyone would be delighted; this form of eugenism does not raise the difficulties of its alternative of 19th and 20th centuries, periods when the means used had exceeded the terminals authorized by our own values.

But quid of the orientation to be chosen, even by licit means?

At the 18th century, one could have wanted to especially support the emergence of robust men able of a great endurance to become portefaix or laborers. The eugenism would have here increased the number of the misfits.

the 19th century would undoubtedly have supported the appearance of another type of human: the employee with the writings with the mode of Dickens, able to add twelve hours per day with long columns of figures without tiring itself nor to be mistaken. Which employment second half of the 20th century, where a computer the same work for Juste a few centimes and in a time much shorter, could it did have found for a type of man having only these qualities to offer? The eugenism would have further increased there the number of the misfits.

And in both cases in less than six generations.

We must prevent that our pretty objectives become the geôliers of our children , Myron Tribus said (, with a word game between goals /buts and jails /geoles).

Much more than the average employees, who can in certain irreproachable cases being, it is probably there that the principal dead end of the eugenism is. Even when this one sticks to another thing that with the simple elimination - by observing strict a ethical - hereditary diseases. Because, in certain particular cases, which is a disease can be, also, a factor of survival : that one reconsiders for example with famous the Drépanocytose, disease hereditary which makes it possible to resist the Paludisme.

The variety and the number (the Biodiversity) represent as many possible appropriatenesses adaptation of the systems alive to unknown future conditions, and thus to the survival of the species. The systematic elimination of all the natures considered handicapping or superfluous at a time given could shorten perfectly the lifespan of a line… The selectors of animal races, which know it, take care to preserve (in the form of frozen spangles of sperm, for example, or in the form of information: it is one of the stakes of the genetic sequencing) the characters which in addition they eliminate in the animals from production. They know that one half-century can be interested in the only quantity, and for example the next half-century on the contrary with gustatory qualities, etc

But thanks to this example, one can consider that it would be enough to preserve certain characters, while removing them of humanity present, to reintroduce them in the future if the need were felt some. Such a eugenic practice would make it possible humanity to control its adaptability and its evolution. The authors of Science fiction and Policy-fiction wonder nevertheless about the direction which the eugenists give to the “beneficial” word: for the individuals, or simply for the State? (see Brave New World ).

France

The question of the eugenism is treated by the penal code, in Subtitle II of Title I of Book II, entitled “Of the crimes against the mankind”:

Article L 214-1: The fact of implementing a eugenic practice tending to the organization of the selection of the people is punished thirty years of imprisonment and 7 500 000 euros of fine .
Article L 214-3: This sorrow is carried to the life imprisonment and of 7 500 000 euros of fine when they are made in organized band

With the National Assembly, the poll n°167 on the whole of the relative bill to the bioethics, was adopted with modifications in second reading meeting of Tuesday June 8th 2004 (310 voters, 304 votes cast, 187 for, 117 against).

However, as clear as it appears, the French position is in practice much more ambiguous, if one considers the obligations of tracking (obligatory antenatal visits) and the facilities legal as well as the encouragement with the abortion when the child to be born present from malformations: they are obviously practices eugenists, which do not pose social problems.

Anglo-Saxon, Germanic or Scandinavian countries

Programmes of forced sterilizations were set up in Sweden, Suisse and with the the United States during the Entre-deux-guerres. The majority of the Protestant countries were touched, except for the Great Britain, where however Herbert George Wells and Winston Churchill deplored that the policy eugenist is not developed (this controversy is reported in the book of Matt Ridley: Genome .)

Japan Showa

At the time of the phase of the Expansionism of Japan Showa, the successive Japanese governments reflect in place of measurements aiming at the sterilization of the mentally handicapped persons and the " déviants" , of which in particular a national Law on Eugénisme , promulgated in 1940 by the government Konoe.

Under the terms of the Law Eugénique de Protection (1948), sterilization could be imposed to the criminals " with genetic predispositions to the crime" , with the patients suffering from genetic diseases like the Hemophilia, the Albinism, the Ichthyosis, and of mental diseases like the Schizophrenia, the manico-depression and the epilepsy.

In addition, the Laws on the Prevention of Leprosy of 1907,1931 and 1953, the last being abolished only in 1996, allowed the internment of the patients in sanatorium where the abortion and sterilization were currencies current. Under the terms of the Korean colonial ordinance of prevention of leprosy, the Korean patients could also be subjected to forced labors.

Elsewhere in Asia

Countries like the China or Singapore launched since the middle of the years 1990 a policy of frankly marked eugenism aiming supporting the births in easy urban environments and at limiting them in underprivileged rural environments. The local experts specified that human resources of quality” were necessary to the modernization of the country but that the tendencies present let predict a “less quality of population” .

Nazi Germany

Some positions

Sparte

In Sparte the eugenism was practiced a long time. The sick or weak newborns were killed as of the birth as well as the mentally handicapped persons and physical. In this manner, only more “strong” remained and could reproduce.

Plato

Plato, in the Republic , described a policy intended to prevent that a union is done randomly in the city.

To create unions randomly (…) one would be impiété in a happy city. (…) It is thus obvious that after that we will make marriages as healthy as it will be in our capacity; however healthiest will be also most advantageous. (...)
As for young people who will have announced themselves to the war or elsewhere, we will grant to them, inter alia privileges and rewards, a broader freedom to link itself with the femmes

Aristote

Let us pass to the problem children who, their birth, must be or exposed sacrificed or high: that a law defends to raise any deformed child. But, in the cases of excessive increase in births (as the level of manners is opposed to the exposure of any newborn), a numerical limit must consequently be fixed at procreation, and so of the couples become fertile beyond the legal limit, the abortion will be practiced before life and sensitivity occur in the embryon.

Charles Darwin

“Within the highly civilized nations, continuous progress depends on the natural selection to a subordinate degree because such nations are not supplanted and do not exterminate themselves as do it the wild tribes. The most intelligent members within a community will better succeed in the long run that the inferiors, and to leave a more important offspring and it is a form of natural selection. Progress depends then on a good education during youth whereas the brain is impregnatable.”

After the reading of Hereditary genius (1869), in which Francis Galton supported that the low number of the poor having access to the higher levels was explained by a genetic inferiority, Darwin wrote with this last: “To some extent you made of a convert an opponent, because I always supported that, the excluded demented people, the men did not differ much intellectually, but only by the zeal and assiduous work; and I still believe that it is about an eminently important difference.”

social Darwinism

Contemporaries of Darwin indeed made use of its theory to justify tendencies eugenists:

We other civilized men, on the contrary wild, make all our possible to apply a brake at the process of elimination; we build asylums for the idiots, estropiés and the patients; we institute laws on the poor; and our doctors deploy all their skill to preserve the life of each one until the last moment. Thus, the weak members of the civilized companies propagate their nature. He is nobody who, being occupied the reproduction of the pets, will doubt that must be highly harmful for the race of the man.
We must consequently support the undoubtedly bad effects of survival of weakest and the propagation of their nature; but it appears here that there is at least a brake with this regular action, namely that the weak and lower members of the company do not marry as freely as the healthy ones; and this brake could be indefinitely reinforced by the abstention from the marriage from weak of body and spirit, although that is more to hope that to wait

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