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The answer to the question you’ve all asked at some point in your life…. “What does literature have to do with me?”. The Eugenics Movement and Brave New World. A Definition:. Eugenics- -origins in Greek roots for “good” and “generation” or “origin”
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The answer to the question you’ve all asked at some point in your life… “What does literature have to do with me?”
A Definition: • Eugenics- -origins in Greek roots for “good” and “generation” or “origin” -The study of the agencies under social control that seek to improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations either physically or mentally” –Alan Stoskepf
The history: • Eugenics was a term coined by Francis Galton, Darwin’s half-cousin (1883) • English Scientist • Wanted to improve hereditary characteristics, both physical and mental -www.huxley.net
Galtonian ideal: • “Positive eugenics” is a moral philosophy to improve humanity by encouraging the ablest and healthiest people to have more children • Elof Carlson, “Scientific Origins of Eugenics”
You’ve got the wrong idea… • “Negative eugenics” advocated culling the least able from the breeding population to preserve humanity’s fitness. • America, Scandinavia, and GERMANY favored the negative approach -Elof Carlson, “Scientific Origins of Eugenics” (anyone surprised????)
Characteristics: • Eugenicists used a flawed and crude interpretation of Gregor Mendel’s laws on heredity to argue that criminality, intelligence, and pauperism were passed down in families as simple dominant or recessive hereditary traits -Stoskepf
In America: • “Eugenics fed off of the fears of white middle and upper class Americans” • A time of rapid social and economic change at the turn of the century • Supporters for the movement argued for laws to control the spread of “inferior blood” into the general population
And a bit of eugenics humor… A typical 12-step meeting for eugenicists.
American history of eugenics: • Harry Clay Sharp, a prison physician, believed that sexual self-satisfaction was a sign of degeneracy, which led the prison to carry our vasectomies on prisoners. • This culminated in an Indiana law mandating compulsory sterilization of “degenerates” in 1907, the first in the U.S.
Cont… • During WWI the American Eugenics Society spread its news about a “fitter family” and “better baby” at fairs and competitions • Awarded blue ribbons to the “Best human stock”
Cont… • President Coolidge embraced the Eugenics movement, which helped to pass the Immigration and Restriction Act of 1924. • “America must be kept American. Biological laws show that Nordics deteriorate when mixed with other races.” • Coolidge
Cont… • In the Supreme Court, Oliver Wendell Holmes declared forced sterilization in Buck vs. Bell in 1927 • Other famous supporters, like Alexander Graham Bell furthered support for the movement • Critics from the African American scholars (W.E.B. Dubois, Horace Mann, Howard Long)
And how this relates to YOU: • In education, eugenicists were the first to suggest standardized IQ tests to help sort through the “good and bad” and help with the population control according to eugenic ideals • “Eugenic ideology worked its way into the educational reform movements of the 1910’s and 20’s…”
The origins of AP? • This movement stemmed the first gifted and talented programs in the U.S. • Lewis Terman, Professor of Education at Stanford University, created the Standford-Binet intelligence test (still used today) and was an early proponent of tracking • “Slow” students were placed into special classes
Cont… • Terman’s book, The Measurement of Intelligence, states: • “As far as intelligence in concerned, the tests have told the truth… No amount of school instruction will ever make them intelligent voters or capable voters in the true sense of the word.” • “The fact that one meets this type with such frequency among Indians, Mexicans, and negroes suggests quite forcibly that the whole question of racial differences in mental traits will have to be taken up anew and by experimental methods.”
AIMS anyone? • Our current testing methods have their roots in this damaging public experiment to “rid the world” of the “lowliest of society”, and as the Nazis in Germany believed, Americans alike were supportive of extermination of the unable, the inept, the genetically “unclean”… we just didn’t take it as far as Hitler.
Brave New World: • “BNW is often described as a society based on eugenic principles. But this formulation can be misleading. BNW is a stratified genetic caste society where the lower order are deliberately stunted both mentally and physically… The relative proportion of each caste is fixed by a World Government bureau, the Predestinators… Individuality has been sacrificed for the good of society as a whole…” -Jim Regan, csmonitor.com
The Caste System • Alpha: destined for leadership positions • Beta: intellectually demanding jobs, less exalted • Gammas and Deltas: need some intelligence in their roles • Epsilons: happy morons capable of only the most menial and unskilled tasks
Questions on themes: • What do you think is the impact of having AP classes versus “on-level” classes in schools? • Why is our society stratified (why are there levels)? What is this saying about society in general (not just American)? • What purpose does “leveling” people serve to our social agendas? • What role does technology play in the continuance of these social hierarchies? • What will be the defining point(s) of the future in regards to which class people fall into? Economy? Politics? Popularity? Education?
