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A review by wwatts1734
Eugenics and Other Evils: An Argument Against the Scientifically Organized State by G.K. Chesterton
5.0
Eugenics is the belief that the lot of humanity can be improved by improving the gene pool. This can be done by encouraging those with supposedly superior genetics to procreate with other supposedly genetically superior individuals. But most often, this is implemented by preventing the supposedly inferior people from reproducing. As disgusting as this sounds, Eugenics was a very popular theory among academics at the turn of the 20th Century. GK Chesterton, who wrote this book in the 1920s, was among the few to recognize its evils at that time.
Chesterton takes on the Eugenicists and discusses the evils of Eugenics in no uncertain terms. His arguments are sound and very reasonable. Chesterton explains that, while the good politician sees poverty as evil and proposes ways to eliminate it, the Eugenicist sees the poor as evil and proposes ways to eliminate them. To the Eugenicist, evils do not consist of ideas, policies or behaviors, they consist of people, and the way to eliminate evil is not to convince people to turn away from them and do good, but rather the Eugenicist seeks to eliminate the people who constitute the evil. Carrying this further, the Eugenicist seeks to destroy things that most decent people would see as goods or rights, such as the right of certain people to prosper, reproduce, and live their lives without harassment. Chesterton extends his criticism, not just to Eugenics, but to other characteristics of what he calls the "scientifically organized state." To Chesterton, Germany was the home of bad ideas about Eugenics and its sister evils. Since this book was written shortly after the First World War, his bashing of Germany along with the evils he denounces would have been welcome by readers in the English speaking world.
Chesterton's criticism of Eugenics was prescient. While influential Germans advocated Eugenics and the Scientifically Organized State before and during the First World War, it was Hitler and the Nazis who took these bad ideas to their grotesque and logical conclusions through the Holocaust and the Concentration Camp system, which were the evil spawn of Eugenicist thinking. Chesterton wrote this book years before the Nazis came to power, so his warnings were prophetic. After the Second World War, Hitler caused the ideas of Eugenics to fall out of favor in the civilized world, and today one does not hear such ideas uttered aloud anywhere except perhaps among the Alt Right. Still, the whisper of Eugenicist thought can be seen underlying many modern ideas and policies. For example, when a statesman responds to an epidemic in the third world, not by supplying the antibiotics and other supplies that could cure the disease, but by pushing contraceptives in the country, thus curing what the Eugenicist sees as the real problem, that situation is the echo from hell of Eugenicist ideology. Because Eugenics thought is still alive and well in the 21st century, it is so important today that reasonable people read this book and understand the ideas that Chesterton presents.
Chesterton takes on the Eugenicists and discusses the evils of Eugenics in no uncertain terms. His arguments are sound and very reasonable. Chesterton explains that, while the good politician sees poverty as evil and proposes ways to eliminate it, the Eugenicist sees the poor as evil and proposes ways to eliminate them. To the Eugenicist, evils do not consist of ideas, policies or behaviors, they consist of people, and the way to eliminate evil is not to convince people to turn away from them and do good, but rather the Eugenicist seeks to eliminate the people who constitute the evil. Carrying this further, the Eugenicist seeks to destroy things that most decent people would see as goods or rights, such as the right of certain people to prosper, reproduce, and live their lives without harassment. Chesterton extends his criticism, not just to Eugenics, but to other characteristics of what he calls the "scientifically organized state." To Chesterton, Germany was the home of bad ideas about Eugenics and its sister evils. Since this book was written shortly after the First World War, his bashing of Germany along with the evils he denounces would have been welcome by readers in the English speaking world.
Chesterton's criticism of Eugenics was prescient. While influential Germans advocated Eugenics and the Scientifically Organized State before and during the First World War, it was Hitler and the Nazis who took these bad ideas to their grotesque and logical conclusions through the Holocaust and the Concentration Camp system, which were the evil spawn of Eugenicist thinking. Chesterton wrote this book years before the Nazis came to power, so his warnings were prophetic. After the Second World War, Hitler caused the ideas of Eugenics to fall out of favor in the civilized world, and today one does not hear such ideas uttered aloud anywhere except perhaps among the Alt Right. Still, the whisper of Eugenicist thought can be seen underlying many modern ideas and policies. For example, when a statesman responds to an epidemic in the third world, not by supplying the antibiotics and other supplies that could cure the disease, but by pushing contraceptives in the country, thus curing what the Eugenicist sees as the real problem, that situation is the echo from hell of Eugenicist ideology. Because Eugenics thought is still alive and well in the 21st century, it is so important today that reasonable people read this book and understand the ideas that Chesterton presents.