The best minds of their era

"The troglodytic Catholics and (fundamentalist) Protestants were the only Christians who resisted this evil, and were despised by the progressive bien-pensants for it. The more things change, the more they stay the same." As Rosen points out, only the Catholic church put up much of a fight when it came to Eugenics. Fundamentalist protestants were only minimally involved in opposing Eugenics, and their complaints were less humanitarian then anti-technology.
It was fundamentalist protestants, after all, who kept slavery alive in the U.S. and fought segregation and racial equality long after the Eugenics movement died away.

More to the point, the "intellectuals" at the time couldn't be bothered to find out what challenged people have inside. Lawrence and his crew were too busy obsessing over their sexual desires. My wife and I are very involved with a therapuetic equine program for the emotinally, physically, and mentally challenged. When I saw how the riders interact with the horses, especially kids, and the love they almost intuitively share, I started to get an idea of the joy God must take in them. www.freedomhills.org You are absolutely right, Rod.

"It was fundamentalist protestants, after all, who kept slavery alive in the U.S." Technically, this isn't true on two levels. First of all, there were no 'fundamentalists' until the 'Fundamentals' were published in the early 1900s. Secondly, evangelical Protestants cannot be in general considered pro-slavery. In the North, and even in the South there were abolitionist Evangelicals. The slave trade in England was also strongly opposed by Evangelicals, like William Wilberforce.

Eek. Sorry about the italics.

I would say that most would agree that human dignity is universally shared, and that human worth is not determined by race, genetics, wealth, religious beliefs, or political beliefs.
This is directly contrary to the philosophy of Peter Singer who is quite influential particularly among animal rights activists. His brand of utilitarianism is little more than a modern revival of eugenics.

Susan's claim is simply wrong, the most obvious example being that William Jennings Bryan's objection to evolution was not centered on the age of the earth or a "literal" reading of Genesis (he believed the days of Genesis 1 represented long periods of time), but with the social Darwinist/eugenic implications of Darinian theory. The textbook used in the classroom that created the Scopes Trial was titled _Civic Biology_, and was explicit in its support of eugenic social policies (as was Clarence Darrow). See Kazin's _A Godly Hero_ for more.

mari, mari, mari. Such smugness in the face of evil.
If there's nothing so special about you, what makes you think you or your line will ever have access to the sort of genetics you refer to? I mean, won't it be reserved for the genetically gifted? Why waste time and resources improving the mediocre wehn you can start with the best?
I suppose it must be comforting to know that next time you won't have to fire up the ovens or staff the camps - you'll just wait for the unfit to die and breed a superior race.
Disgusting.

The debate about the relative morality of liberal or conservative forebears is entertaining, but isn't the relevance of the eugenics debate for us today the use of the language of science to promote the movement and the condemnation of its opponents as anti-science? In other words, doesn't this show us the inseparability of science and morality and the utter foolishness of accusing, say, opponents of certain forms of genetic engineering of improperly importing morality into science--as if that was a bad thing?

poo- "attempt" and "foot-stamp" are the typos in my post. :p

"It was fundamentalist protestants, after all, who kept slavery alive in the U.S. and fought segregation and racial equality long after the Eugenics movement died away." Only partially true. Susan of course ignores the fact that much of the abolitionist movement was fuled by Evangelical Protestants after the religious Great Awakenings in the 19th century. It wasn't just that abolitionist "happened" to also be evangelical protestants--specifically, their religious identity and movement fueled the "higher law" concepts prevalent in the north that were behind the early abolitionist movement.

"Susan of course ignores the fact that much of the abolitionist movement was fuled by Evangelical Protestants after the religious Great Awakenings in the 19th century. It wasn't just that abolitionist "happened" to also be evangelical protestants--specifically, their religious identity and movement fueled the "higher law" concepts prevalent in the north that were behind the early abolitionist movement." As much as fundamentalists and even Evangelicals try to lay claim to the abolitionists, there isn't really much connecting that movement with what we now know as fundamentalists and Evangelicals. There is a much stronger connection between the beliefs of Southern segregationists and slave-holders (who were also fundamentalist Protestants) and what we currently know as fundamentalism and Evangelicalism. The Abolitionists were primarily Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Methodists and Quakers. Even in their abolitionist 1800s form, those traditions bear little resemblence to modern fundamentalists and Evangelicals. As all of those traditions have become Mainline or even progressive liberal faiths, the suggestion that their modern brethern would be James Dobson or Jerry Falwell is suspect.

Popular imagination does not represent the Scopes trial accurately. Bryan did attack the morality of Darwinism in the Scopes trial, and his book _In His Image_ lays out his motivation for opposing the teaching of Darwinism in schools (which led to his involvement in the Scopes trial). One chapter that attacks social Darwinism is available here: http://www.scopestrial.org/inhisimage.htm It's not as eloquent as G. K. Chesterton, but his opposition of one of American Fundamentalism's most visible leaders to eugenics is undeniable. This is one of those areas where Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox are better off working together as co-belligerents than taking potshots at one another.

A few months back, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution launched a crusade to get our state legislature to apologize for the many state-mandated sterilization procedures carried out under Georgia' 1937 eugenics law. Evidently forced sterilizations under the law continued until around 1970. One of the articles mentioned that the Catholic bishop at the time the law was passed was one of the few clergymen in the state to speak out against it. Frankly, I'm surprised the AJC bothered to mention that little detail. In fact, they seem to have given up on the apology altogether because the legislation that was actually proposed explains that "this pseudo-scientific movement [eugenics] gained popularity in the United States and advocated the improvement of the human race by the application of Darwinian principles to eliminate supposed hereditary flaws such as mental disability and physical deformity and to alleviate human suffering through selective breeding and birth control."

Well, mari, at least I can spell "attempt".
And it wasn't condescension, it was dismay. Good night.

Eugenic-thought is quite offensive, and we should always condemn it...like the eugenics suggested by the fundamentalist commentator last week who suggested that, if homosexuality is indeed genetic, that it might be "cured" by stem cell-inspired eugenics??? Troglodytes come in all stripes, it appears. :)

For what it's worth I believe the author of the Dred Scott decision was a Roman Catholic. Many years ago I read one of Stephen Jay Gould's essays in Natural History on the sad fate of the little girl involved in the Virginia forced sterilization case about whom Oliver Wendell Holmes uttered the most repulsive line ever to come from the Supreme Court, "Three generations of idiots is enough." Gould, certainly not a Protestant apologist, made the point emphatically that opposition to the Virginia eugenic sterilization law had been limited to conservative Protestant churches -- I'm just not sure which ones those would have been in the context of Virginia in 1920.

Actually, Gene, the court case you mention is Buck v. Bell. And opposition to that case was not limited to "conservative protestant" churches.

Smack -- It's condescending and no kind of argument to say someone you disagree with has "fallen under a spell" -- you're just saying "I disagree with them and feel pretty darned good about myself." The argument you do offer is weak. There were arguments against eugenics during its heyday (such as it was) and there are arguments against it now. Many of these arguments have not changed. What has changed is that decades ago there was a significant cadre of people arguing in favor of eugenics, and today there is not. Despite your wishes, no particular conclusions follow from those modest facts. The fact that there is now no significant cadre of people speaking in favor of eugenics does not mean the anti-eugenics side has "won," either now or into perpetuity. That's just logic -- the premises don't justify the conclusions you're drawing. And as a matter of history, you can't possibly really think a mere 80-100 years is enough to settle a big question like this.

"Everyone one condemns [Korematsu] today, of course,"--everyone except Rod's friend Michelle Malkin and her supporters.

Simon--I am saying that now, the Korematsu decision is broadly seen as wrong, wrong, wrong. Yet Michelle Malkin saw fit to write a book in the last several years defending the action and the S.C. decision.

I hear you, Connie. Miss Malkin's views of Korematsu are a little off topic, though, since that case isn't being decided today. At the time Buck v. Bell was decided, most opinion leaders in this country had little problem with the idea of the government forcibly sterilizing people it deemed "imbeciles."
Rod is quite correct that during the rather long heydey of the eugenics movement in this country, the only opposition came from Catholics and "troglyditic" conservative Protestants. Their objections were ignored or brushed aside by the opinion makers of the day, who looked down on them as enemies of "Progress."

The man in the wheelchair is worth no less and no more than the marathon runner. I am reminded of the recurrent theme in the movie "The Incredibles". If everyone gets to have a super power, that just means that no one will be special. I find the use of platitudes and pithy phrasings to be the hallmark of anti-intellectualism. Why make the effort to think a thing through to its logical conclusions, when a wordsmith (not meaning you, Rod) can do it for you? How about: the person in the wheelchair is worthy of respect; you don't know if he was a marathon runner before whatever event put him in the chair, or if his focus on less physical pursuits meant that he had a genius for running shoe design, helping marathon runners run faster with less damage to their feet. But if I'm an ancient Greek commander, and I need to get a message to the home office in a hurry, I'm going to put more worth on the hale soldier than on the one who in future times would be able to get around only in a wheelchair. Or to make another movie reference: "Why do you keep using that word? I don't think it means what you think it means."

Thank you for posting this, Rod.
One of the reasons I dislike the abortion debate so very much is that I believe that people who consider themselves pro-choice often disregard serious ethical issues that have been raised by those who consider themselves pro-life.
The history of the eugenics movement is just such a case.
The ethics of creating "designer babies" in the future is a serious area for serious public discussion, and it would be nice (yes, I said "nice") if we as a society could have that discussion without all the partisanship and acrimony. I agree that the weak, the lame and the halt are entitled to the same basic dignity as the rest of humanity. (However, was Christ robbing the lame of their rights when he cured them? Something worth considering.)

I seem to have produced some confusion with my post on Buck v. Bell. (1) It was Stephen Jay Gould's opinion I was quoting, not my own, and (2) he was speaking of opposition to the statute in Virginia when the legislature passed it, not of opposition to the Supreme Court decision. What I found interesting in the article was that it focused on the abuse of the young girl involved, abuse that seems to have gone well beyond sterilization, rather than the arguments of the intellectuals.

The Congregationalists and Presbyterians and Quakers who were abolitionists have no ideological connection to what is now considered fundamentalists. Slave owners, OTOH, do. Unhistorical nonsense. One might as easily say that the beliefs of the typical Congregationalist, Presbyterian (PCUSA) or Quaker today have little or no connection with the beliefs held by members of those churches in the mid-19th century. It's frankly hard to imagine someone with, say, John Wesley's beliefs choosing to worship at a liberal/mainline Protestant church today, rather than an evangelical one. And to the extent that modern evangelicals ("fundamentalists," in your terminology) are drawn heavily from the Southern Baptist tradition, they are actually descendants of the poor Southern whites who generally did NOT own slaves. For the true spiritual descendants of the slave owners, a better fit would be the Episcopalians.
But all of this is a bit silly, since trying to draw lines from the religious beliefs of the 1850s and 1860s to those of the 21st century simply doesn't work.

That didn't stop our fine host from making assertions about fundamentalists and eugenics. That's what got it all started. The difference is that eugenics was a 20th century movement, much in vogue in this country within living memory. The conflict within American Protestantism between modernists and fundamentalists developed before and simultaneously with the eugenics movement. The modernists (forerunners of today's "mainline" Protestants) overwhelmingly took the view that Progress entailed weeding "undesireables" out of the gene pool. The fundamentalists (forerunners of today's evangelicals), along with the Roman Catholics, took the view that such practices as forced sterilization were barbarism.
By contrast, the slavery debates of the 19th century predate the intra-Protestant conflicts over scripture scholarship, Darwin, etc. The categories of the pre-Civil War era (a time when the most censorious moralizers were probably the Unitarians) therefore don't translate well into 21st century categories.