Harold Fielding-Hall Quotes
The Eugenist takes man purely as a plant or as an animal; he wants to breed him just as animals are bred.
The Eugenics Movement, which grew quite popular for a while, tried to improve the race of man, not by improving individual people or even a generation of people, but of selective and restrictive breeding of humans. The coercion and bias associated with it caused one of the worst violations of human rights in American History, and then was picked up by Adolf Hitler who carried the ideas to one of the worst atrocities in human history—the murder of “inferior races” so that they could not breed, thereby in their warped theory developing a super race.
Harold Fielding-Hall,1859-1917, Writer & Essayist, “Eugenics And Common Sense”, The Atlantic Monthly, September 1914
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
He was restating the argument of the Eugenics Movement but was a critic of many parts of it. This Movement, which grew quite popular for a while, tried to improve the race of man, not by improving individual people or even a generation of people, but of selective and restrictive breeding of humans. The coercion and bias associated with it caused one of the worst violations of human rights in American History, and then was picked up by Adolf Hitler who carried the ideas to one of the worst atrocities in human history.
This pseudo-scientific organization, in spite of the junk science it was promulgating, actually had a substantial American following and over 20 states actually passed laws to allow forced sterilization who were “UNFIT”. In reality while there is a genetic component to each of the examples it only increases the probabilities and is not determinative. And even f it were and there were selective breeding of humans, these “TRAITS” would not be eliminated in 3 generations,
Actually, while such selective breeding is possible in all animals, the selection for a single trait almost always produces other unintended and unanticipated traits and these could be devastating to the “new generation”, unpleasant, benign, or anything else. At the time selective breeding was the only possible tool to produce “desirable” traits in an animal or to eliminate what someone things of as “undesirable” traits. Today, our understanding of the human genome and genetic engineering offers a much more reliable possibility of affecting animal traits without as many risks of random and unintended consequences that are present with breeding.
This pseudo-scientific organization, in spite of the junk science it was promulgating, actually had a substantial American following and over 20 states actually passed laws to allow forced sterilization who were “UNFIT”. In reality while there is a genetic component to each of the examples it only increases the probabilities and is not determinative. And even f it were and there were selective breeding of humans, these “TRAITS” would not be eliminated in 3 generations.
This book was the first popular attempt to spread the eugenics concept. Is was translated into German in 1925 and unfortunately read by Adolf Hitler who sent Grant a complimentary letter. See {603544}
There was a substantial movement to prevent mentally defective and people of low intelligence from being able to reproduce. Over 20 states, with the approval of the then Supreme Court performed forced state sterilizations. Of course the then definition of “degenerates” changed from state to state. A century later, American values changed so much that there is no state that would even consider involuntary sterilization and if they did, the Courts would hold it un-Constitutional.
