If you want to improve a country, perhaps one way would be to improve the people who live in that country. Some among the "progressives" hit on a novel way to bring about such improvement: breed better people. The attempt to improve the genetic heritage of America (and to hasten the evolution of the species) led to what's called the eugenics movement. Please read through the Wikipedia summary of the eugenics movement. What do you see here that suggests that there is a dark side to the progressive movement?
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
The Eugenics Movement
If you want to improve a country, perhaps one way would be to improve the people who live in that country. Some among the "progressives" hit on a novel way to bring about such improvement: breed better people. The attempt to improve the genetic heritage of America (and to hasten the evolution of the species) led to what's called the eugenics movement. Please read through the Wikipedia summary of the eugenics movement. What do you see here that suggests that there is a dark side to the progressive movement?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
This movement, in my opinion, really has a dark side. The progressives thinking that a good way to improve the race would be to breed better people, it’s so ethically wrong it put a stake in a nation that singled everyone out on their differences. This movement put marriage restrictions on people, promoted different birth rates, segregation, forced abortions and pregnancies, and even genocide. This movement went against human rights, took away our fundamental freedoms that were given to us by the founding fathers. It's so unrealistic to think that you can breed a race into being perfect, because then who decides what/who is perfect or not to be able to breed. A lot of these people who supported Eugenics started to get associated with the Nazi's which helped their movement die out, thankfully.
ReplyDeleteI think even if you can shine some positive light on this, about what information came about with genetics through these studies, there is really a dark side to this movement!
Its moral aspects rejected the doctrine that all human beings are born equal and redefining morality purely in terms of genetics. Its racist elements pursue a pure. There is no doubt that if "all humans are born equal" is rejected that there is a dark side.
ReplyDeleteThey also wanted to limit the fertility. If you did not come from a "GOOD" family then you should not be able to reproduce. Eugenics aimed to eliminate, through sterilisation or segregation, those deemed physically, mentally, or morally “undesirable”.
Throughout the years, they have used Eugenics to display messages in movies, video games, and books. They are basically making jokes about Eugenics and the negativity that is brought upon the world while it was being used.
-Melissa Justison
its the dark side because of what they did to the unfit people. like stalizaion and even killing people that aren't fit. like the mentally ill, blind, deaf, and just because you came form a poor family you were staralizad. this is the dark side
ReplyDelete- Troy Winge
The progressive movement in America definitely had a dark side. The eugenics movement was actually started by progressives in the United States! Eugenics believed in a type of selective breeding among humans to bring out the best traits in humans and better society. While this may seem like a good idea in theory, in reality it lead to birth control, forced abortions/pregnancies, sterilization, segregation, and genocide. The beliefs of the eugenics undermined the principle freedoms given to us by the founding fathers in the U.S. Constitution, claiming that NOT all men are created equal. They believed that some have better traits than others, therefore giving them more rights to life and reproduction than those with "lesser" traits. Tragically, but thankfully, this movement had ties to the Nazi extermination of the Jewish people and was practically abandoned after World War II.
ReplyDeleteThere were definitely some positive effects of the progressive movement too, but sadly things like this also give the movement a dark side.
-Zachery Crandall
There is an extreme dark side to this movement. People are not perfect and that is what they are trying to create; a "perfect" society with "perfect" people. It put into place even more restrictions on human behaviors, which usually is not good for democracy. I think the initial idea was to be a good one, but it was taken to an ultimate level as seen in WWII.
ReplyDeleteThe eugenics movement is one of the darkest sides to American history. And it was legal until the 1960s! The United States imported a bunch of Nazis scientists here to advance eugenics in America. Eugenicists wanted to flush out undesirable traits by forcibly sterilizing men and woman. I think it's just a stupid idea at it's core. Humans are bigger, faster, and stronger than ever they didn't have to sterilize people. According to Darwin, those people would eventually get weeded out anyway. I just can't believe politicians got away with this.
ReplyDelete