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“Cancel Culture” is Intellectual Eugenics
A hundred years ago, American progressives were big into eugenics, in an effort to purify the gene pool by selectively killing off and preventing the breeding of people they thought of as undesirables. To the early 20th century progressive, this included blacks, criminals, and those with disabilities.
Today, American progressives are big on silencing dissent, in an effort to purify the intellectual space by squelching ideas and opinions — and sometimes data — that they think might lead people into “wrong thinking.” To the modern progressive, this includes any idea that is contrary to up-to-date progressive ideology: a lot of things that were completely anodyne and almost universally believed as recently as the year 2000 would now be forbidden by the left’s benevolently censorious mobs.
Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, was wrong when she thought it was a good idea to abort lots and lots of black babies in order to “improve” the gene pool. But when you think that you’re on the side of the angels, it’s easy to think that you’re justified in doing whatever you like, whether it’s purifying the race or silencing critics or burning down police stations or shouting down a speaker with whom you disagree.
[ Correction: It has been pointed out to me that Margaret Sanger, though a eugenicist and a racist, was not pro-abortion. She preferred to prevent those she deemed “undesirable” from breeding, but was opposed to the destruction of the unborn. I think she would be horrified to discover what the organization she founded is doing in her name today. ]
I support non-racist non-abortion based eugenics. Sex robots but preventing impulsive breeding and the genetic engineering of embryos and fetuses in fifteen years can and should improve our gene pool.
What the old school eugenicists and modern leftists have in common… well, they have quite a lot in common, but in this particular point they seek to destroy rather than build up. Instead of trying to improve economic opportunities and education for black-Americans or trying to assist disabled people, they opted for abortion. Likewise, leftists don’t want to read a bunch of conservative and libertarian books and then write about why the conservative case is wrong.
Henry, you had me at “sex robots.” I’m still waiting for you to post a long piece about this, your third favorite subject.
Henry,
This is a very perceptive observation. Many a deterministic (Marxism) philosophy attempts to camouflage its brutal mentality by sounding moral. Morality always requires respect for individual autonomy. The deterministic mentality has no respect for individual autonomy and invariably is involved in such purification extremes. You mentioned the obvious 20th-century horror of eugenics. Here literally unacceptable people were to be exterminated (Marxists prefer the term liquidated) to purify the race. Your suggestion that the intellectual extermination of unacceptable ideas to purify the culture is spot on.
They don’t believe in the autonomy of the individual. They don’t believe in your right to free expression, in your right to free enterprise, or even your right to life itself.
Good post.
Regards,
Jim
“Intellectual eugenics”. Perfect framing.
Eugenics follows logically from the Progressive premise that human beings are perfectible and that government’s job is to manage the process of perfection. The American eugenics movement led to a number of horrors, not the least of which was that it provided a template for the Nazis.
The label “Progressive” became tainted with the horrors, so Progressives changed their label and usurped the term, “Liberal.” Unfortunately, all they changed was their label; they left their ideas intact – ideas that still logically lead to genocide. Fortunately, Progressives neither remember nor teach their history, so they all sleep well at night.
CS Lewis has been quoted here many times on the tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims.
What are my three favorite subjects? Sex robots is definitely up there because it is among the most underrated topics out there.
Anyways, my post about sex robots is entitled, My Zeal for the Rise of Sex Robots.
Oh, come on, Henry, you can do better than that! While the title is certainly descriptive, and bonus points for using “zeal,” it’s still pretty boring. How about “Awakening: The Sex Robot Excursions”
I believe that sex robots will improve things for humanity but it won’t be joyous. People who should not breed will not breed. But they will still live sad lives. Families will still be dysfunctional, the inner cities will still be owned by the corrupt Democrats. Low I.Q. people will still have a very hard time navigating their way through life.
The benefits of sex robots is entirely preventive. We get to keep the underclasses from breeding but that will take a generation or two to happen.
It will be similar to anti-depressants in my opinion. I think that so many people in America are on anti-depressants because they are unhappy. From what I hear, anti-depressants don’t make you happy. That prevent you from feeling unhappy. Now there are legitimate chemical disorders that pills can help with. But suicide rates still go up when anti-depressant use goes up so I don’t think it’s as useful as most psychiatrists do.
So sex robots will let people who are low in in American society satisfy their biological needs without really making them happy. Thankfully, the world will be a much better place when people who don’t have their lives together decline to create more lives.
You do know I was trying to be funny, right?
So is Henry. (He just doesn’t understand that.)
I was taken aback! The response was so, dare I say it, robotic [ insert wink here ]
I need a shower.
What bothers me is that cancel culture skips the argumentative stage and goes right to “know one can hear this idea/person.”
I mean, a lot of what people do when they write is try to purge bad ideas to improve the idea pool. But we do it by making better arguments! But I don’t understand the arrogance of deciding “I’m so special I can skip making arguments and jump right into just taking a microphone and disrupting a speech.” Especially because its usually bored college students.
I guess… if I were saying something at an event about astrophysics (not my area) and Sean Carroll or Lawrence Krauss stood up and was like “bro sit down” and started to talk over me… It would be incredibly rude and unprofessional but at least they are imminent astrophysicists. People would learn something. But at colleges they are just yelling about how they feel.
I am a Cassandra of copulating computers. I will be right about everything though. I will be ignored.
The robot will have a cleaning if a shower is not immediately available.
TMI
Astrophysicists are interested in astrophysics. They are weird nerds. Normal people are interested in religious meaning, group identity and using force to uplift themselves. Leftist politics is like pornography or drugs to the baser impulses of the human creature.
The vast majority of humanity is genetically incapable of being interested in astrophysics. Or political philosophy for that matter.
That could be taken more than one way.
Careful. We have astrophysicists in the group.
Sort of like Jayne saying “I’ll be in my bunk.”
We also have at least one political scientist. I’m not throwing stones here.
As Jesus Christ posted on Ricochet, let he who is not a nerd be the first the flame post. I remember that because JC posted that while I was in Colorado when weed legalization was still a big thing.
That’s how I remember the post.
Improve it towards what? How do you, or anyone, know what an improvement of human genes is, or what the gene pool should be?
Or are you just talking about designer babies.
First lets just start by something simple, say, reducing the human population by 90%. I don’t know why your comment bothers me so much, except that everything humans do, particularly scientifically, is used at least equally for the greater harm of society. Look splitting the atom and the military industrial complex. Look at the internet. It’s supposed to be nothing but good, but it’s now being used to sway, or brainwash, entire populations. Are you sure you want to start “improving” the human gene pool?
I understand Henry’s point. We can identify a host of genetic abnormalities the correction of which in utero would lead to a reduction in suffering and, yes, sometimes fewer potential victims of whatever defect is being addressed. Given that we perform surgery on unborn hearts to correct various congenital defects (my G-d, do we live in the future, or what?), I can appreciate the concept.
I think anyone who uses the word eugenics in a positive light is making a horrible mistake, and should stop immediately. Call it medical treatment for the unborn. Henry was clever enough to rule out abortion (if not sufficiently prudent to avoid using the e-word), so I’ll assume he’s talking about this kind of advanced medical practice, curing cystic fibrosis and repairing tetralogy de Fallot and things like that.
My youngest child was born in China and, unlike so many little girls, lived to see the light of day. She is a glorious 20 year old rebuke to a culture that, come hell or high water, insists on selecting for boys and casting many of the girls aside. I’m sympathetic to advanced therapy to cure real problems. I have no use for those who would seek designer babies.
Since Henry brought up the “sex robot” thing and has decided to run with it (and yes, I regret kidding him about it), I’ll offer this opinion. They’re probably great for people who have emotional problems and find it difficult to relate to real people. Beyond that, I think they’ll appeal to a kind of shallow prurience in some people. I feel sorry for people who are drawn to that, as I think they must feel lonely and isolated. I see no particular good coming from them, any more than I do from violence-soaked video games or much of what we used to call rapp. But I’m being all judgy, I know.
Now get off my lawn.
And water is wet.
LOLing out loud!
Thank you for that, Charlotte. Yes, I’m tacking true to form. Give me an hour to finish my bourbon and I’ll probably be more so.
I don’t think that’s what Henry’s talking about. I don’t think he’s talking about therapies. I think he’s saying that “genetic engineering of embryos and fetuses in fifteen years can and should improve our gene pool“.