Last Sunday, our ubiquitous 'Aunty' (ABC's, Radio National) were discussing matters associated with the hitherto scholarship of Eugenics.

Probably one of the most memorable proponents for the examination and development of eugenics, was A.Hitler and his various minions. For the purpose of addressing the 'Jewish question', and to further purify and advance the Arian master race, ostensibly for the benefit of a 'thousand year Reich'?

After the war the very mention of the word would've had you denounced as a nazi collaborator, or labelled a racist.

Today, there've been the odd academic or two, who are prepared to discuss the history, even the ideology or credo of the process of eugenics. Ever mindful, in this politically correct world, to merely 'tip toe' around the subject and then, only in the broadest possible terms...?

OK, so does eugenics ('methods of improving the human race'), in itself equate to racism ? If it does, is it practised by anyone, or any group, even by nation(s) perhaps ?

I believe it is ! Not eugenics precisely, rather a refashioned rendering of it ?

An example, though not exclusive, is Japan. The list of prohibitions to become a Japanese citizen, purchase a company, own land etc. The list goes on.

Sure, as far as I know, the precise practise of pure eugenics, does not extend to medical intervention ? Rather they engage in a discerning, even discriminatory process of keeping the Japanese race as pure and as flawless as possible, and within the law.

By not actively encouraging any serious amalgamation or unification, of mixed ethnicities, either by marriage or any other long term committment.

Therefore, inhibiting any adulteration to either their culture, or mixing other descent ethnicities, with their own idiosyncratic (Japanese), ethnology.

And in so doing, are they being racist ? Or, are they just selfish ? Is it an ethical posture ? Or are they simply engaging in a form of Eugenics, solely in a Japanese way ?

Cheers & thank you.

Morning o sung wo, I heard and saw this , and read about it extensively.
It always will be seen as racist.
I well know of Americas use of this many years before Hitler.
And will be damned for it, want no murder or such,not even sure I agree with it, but is it racism?
Some warn this world needs mass deaths.
If not now soon, just to remain viable.
I would bet a day will come, that sees this awful subject, awful but maybe right, openly debated.
We will see some very anti the thought posts, but if I knew I was to father children who could not live a full life I would chose not to have them.
Last? I see it as for every race , in fact applying only to things unrelated to race, so maybe it is not racism.

It always amazes me that eugenic programs are regarded with horror yet dysgenic programs are applauded, why would anyone even be remotely critical of methods of improving the fitness of a population? Madison Grant, Goddard et al were worried about the formation of a mixed race underclass in the U.S.A, what happened in the end? The U.S.A has an underclass of millions of poor, mixed race people living in ghettos.
I won't labour the point but how is something that prevents the appearance of a class of materially inferior people possibly bad?
For example, a Eugenic measure such as alchohol restrictions on Aboriginal settlements will (obviously) alleviate the effects of Foetal Alchohol Syndrome and improve the fitness of succeeding generations, unless you believe FAS sufferers to be equal or even superior to healthy people how could you oppose the restrictions?
By the same logic restricting sexual contact between Black and White Americans was intended to avert a crisis for both races, now are today's bi-racial ghettos a crisis for both Black and White Americans or not?

JOM your own contribution gos a long way to answering your question.
I lean toward your view but not quite with the enthusiasm I see there.
Most of us can report on the issue of birth control, we know of true war on that subject.
This one too will invoke what you warn of.
May I ask do you see birth control as the method to use this.
Or are we talking about culling the living?
See much more than words this one.
Some, all over 6the world,UNTRAINED, pay to sterilize people.
It is not the idea that I fear but the method that may be used to implement it.

Hi there BELLY & JAY of MELBOURNE...

Fantastic points from you both, thank you. Interestingly, as I'm typing this little piece, I'm listening to the Radio, where the continuing furore continues to rumble along, unabated apropos the broadcaster Alan JONES's remarks about the PM's father dying of shame because of her alleged lying.

Of course I'm well off the Topic. Nevertheless, there are some matters, seemingly we can no longer speak off, discuss and even think, lest it not be considered political correct. In doing so, we run perilously close of having the 'thought police' pursue us ad infinitum !

Both of you are correct. What is wrong with 'openly' discussing eugenics - the benefits (if any) and the pitfalls. Without being accused of racism ?

And, if someone is a racist, what's wrong with that ? Provided that individual obeys the law, obeys it in it's entirety. So what ?

Most of us (me included), would 'tremble in fear' at the very thought of being identified as a racist ! Yet, as a veteran, I thought amongst other things, I and others, fought for 'free speech' ?

I reckon you're 'on the money' too JAY, what is wrong with trying to improve the human race ? Is it a case of selective breeding ? Trying to eliminate or revise many of the bad features of humanity, or is it an attempt to create another form of (abriged) master race of humans.

Doesn't our very own Institute of Sports practice a greatly modified form of eugenics, by using various medical strategies to increase power, endurance and strength ?

Would it be morally wrong, if we managed to 'breed-out' some of the most deleterious human complications, like Diabetes or Down's Syndrome, or similar ? Or are we playing God ? And what would our moral custodians, the medical ethicist say ?

I'll tell you one thing folks. Until we do-away with this damn PC nonsense, we'll always be inhibited in our ability to (freely) discuss ANY issue that approaches political correctness. And that cannot be good for progress, can it ?

Actually, recent genetic studies have shown that, just like everyone else pretty much, Japanese are a product of a lot of mixing: "a Central Asian origin of Jomonese ancestors [around 12,00 yrs ago], and a Southeast Asian origin of the ancestors of the Yayoi [around 2,300 yrs ago]", overlaying the original Ainu in the north of Japan, and, over the last ten thousand years, waves of Austronesians along the southern coasts and islands.

I guess many of us would like to think we are special, unique, unmixed with any 'impurities'. But it just ain't so. We've been moving around, and mixing, for the best part of sixty thousand years.

Maybe it's about time we got used to it. In any case, as Charles Darwin wrote (I think somewhere in 'Descent of Man') mixing, or hybridisation as he called it, produces health, beautiful offpring, which seems to be borne out by observation: if you see someone who is especially beautiful or handsome, chances are that they are of recently-mixed biological origins.

Welcome to the world :)

Oops, I meant to include this site, effectively the encyclopedia of genetic research:

http://dienekes.blogspot.com.au/

Happy reading.

Well my "enthusiasm" is tempered by the fact that the jury is still out on the alleged genetic inferiority or superiority of different human types and in the end it's neither here nor there, I'm saying that it's obvious to even the non scientific observer that uncontrolled racial intermarriage invariably produces people who end up materially inferior or deficient in comparison to people who can identify a single race ancestry.

OSW,
Well PC runs in all directions, we can talk about on demand abortion as a eugenic measure but we better not talk about how many mixed race or "Black" babies are aborted in the U.S.A compared to Whites.
Regarding "racism" I think people get confused between the Nazi eugenics policies and the Holocaust and the load of codswallop that's peddled about Nazi "experiments" just muddies the water. If you read Mein Kampf Hitler didn't think Jews were racially inferior so much as racially incompatible with his vision of Germania, he actually considered them to be competent and deadly foes of his Aryan man, that's why he wanted them eradicated from the continent.
Seen in that light there should be no taboo on the discussion of eugenics merely because of the holocaust, by all means discuss both issues but separation of the two or observing that Nazi eugenics was far smaller in scope than the programs in the U.S or even Australia isn't "racist" it's just a fact, facts can't be racist

You do write some rubbish, Jay.

All human groups can inter-marry, to use a tactful term, and be the better for it. I haven't come across the slightest bit of evidence that "uncontrolled racial intermarriage invariably produces people who end up materially inferior or deficient in comparison to people who can identify a single race ancestry."

Utter balderdash, and I suspect you know it.

As for what's PC, in my experience in the Indigenous scene, PC types are usually as hostile to any sort of inter-marriage as you are, especially whites, and including those on the Left: in their eyes, it's unacceptable 'assimilation'. I suspect that PC types are all in favour of genetic 'purity', whatever that might mean, and certainly oppose intermixing. Frankly, they are as behind the times as you are, my friend.

Joe

Joe, look at Detroit and compare it to Tokyo. you don't need to be a geneticist to see what's out in plain sight, race mixing results in disadvantage for the mixed race generations, there is no exception to the rule.
Furthermore if race mixing cost Indigenous Australians and Americans their identity, their languages, their religion and their land how can it be seen as a good thing for anyone? The only reason you'd condone race mixing is if you had a plan to dispossess a race or ethnic group of all their material, spiritual, linguistic and genetic attributes.

The last is reasonable as far as I can tell, PC types are delusional at times but they're not evil and they're not stupid.
It seems that people who are tolerant of race mixing are in the minority and people who actively promote it do so purely as a matter of personal taste or a perverse desire to destroy any distinction among human subspecies, race mixing is Nihilistic...now may we pleas continue on topic?
As for being behind the times you assume I support race as a first consideration in the demarcation of a civilisation when I don't, it is as you say a retrograde step and one I only advocate as a last resort for my own ethnic group should more progressive methods fail to secure the existence of my ethnic group and a future for our children.
Race, or ethnicity as we call it now can be seen as a social construct, but it's a real and valuable social construct, eugenics should and will be important in coming decades as a way of adding value, as it were to an ethnic group.

Joe.
I forgot to add, race mixing can actually be a eugenic measure in itself if in the context of our aforementioned social construct it's used as a humane way of winnowing the genetic chaff from an ethnic group. If the weaklings and losers of a particular group are simply led to believe that their best hope for happiness is with a partner of a different race then they won't be passing on their genes to contaminate the gene pool of their birth ethnicity will they?
White people don't like talking about this sort of thing but it doesn't mean that it's offensive or wrong and the drive for genetic supremacy is hard wired into every human being on the planet, it's just that a very small number of people, mainly anglo Saxon have come to believe that supremacy is dirty and that equality is a moral good, it's an inverted view of the world.

Well, JOM & LOUDMOUTH...

Looks like I'm well out of my league with you two, as you both seem to have a better appreciation of many of the earlier eugenic experimentation, conducted by the Nazis and ors. than I !

I suppose my main point was whether we could overtly scrutinize eugenics, without first being branded as engaging in racial exploratory trials ?

And without some moral guardian peeking over our shoulder, in case we dare to engage in some sort of purely racist analysis and research ?
Somehow, I don't think so, do you ?

Jay,

A few realities:

* as far as Australian Indigenous people are concerned, in the cities around 90 % of marriages are with non-Indigenous people - why ? because that's who they mix with, work with, socialise with.

* get on a bus or train every so often - notice that there are no barriers, fences, no laws, and police dogs keeping people apart. So it is with a free-and-equal society - people mix with whoever the hell they like. How would you stop it ? And why ?

* intermarriage doesn't hurt, quite the reverse: I had 43 years of it and I would do it all over again at the drop of a hat. It was FANTASTIC !

* to repeat, all groups, races if you like, are mixed to buggery already, you and me both. Get over it.

Just by the way, genetic studies have now shown that the English, from whom I am presuming both you and I are at least partly descended, are, on the whole, 85 % Briton (like the Irish) and less than 10 % Anglo-Saxon. With a fair bit of French, Norse, Spanish, 'colonial', etc. thrown in. Probably Neanderthal too. Beautifully mongrel !

Cheers,

Joe

:)

We learnt that with cattle breading, hybrid vigor is a major asset, achieved by introducing new blood into a heard, on a regular basis. This does require we breed genetically pure stud stock, so bulls are available for this purpose.

I always had a sneaking suspicion that our superior performance in many sports, particularly track & field, in the 50/60s was down to our mixing many strains of European blood together, giving us that vigor.

This I believe was surpassed by the appearance of the educated US negro, mixed with a similarly vigorous US European mix, giving them a period of high sporting achievement.

If I'm right, the mixing of genetics is probably a good thing long term.

I suppose you could assume I'm saying you lot are no better than cows, which is probably true, but I do include my family in there too.

Oh, I won't mind if you prove me wrong either.

We may be getting away from subject, humanity is a mixture of every race this has been proved.
I see nothing wrong with that.
But even if we agree, and we may well, to cull humanity we face problems.
First who selects.
What is the method kill or stop breeding.
What is the likely hood of any one agreeing with those three questions, or any of them, after firm answers are found for them.
No race or creed could be targeted as a whole surely?

Joe,
As I said, it's down to personal taste, you favour race mixing as an individual sexual choice because people should be able "to do what they want", I don't and the vast majority of people who choose partners from their own ethnic group would seem to back my conclusions.
A eugenic measure is something which is good for a population or ethnic group, a dysgenic measure is something which harms it, now, spurious genetic theories and personal tastes aside was unlimited and uncontrolled race mixing good for Indigenous Australians and Americans? I'd say it obviously wasn't because they quite literally in some cases ceased to exist as distinctive peoples.
The argument over eugenics as racism is purely ideological, not moral, nobody seriously believes that a depressed bi racial Gehtto or a society like Brazil is superior to one such as Japan.

Belly, yes we are drifting but the topic was framed in such a way that the discussion would tend toward politics and personal tastes rather than the subject of eugenics.
Eugenics was always inextricable from a wider idea of a healthy world, the Nazi society was seen as the culmination of the work done in the U.S and elsewhere and has been carried through to the present day in the form of Deep Green Ecology by people such as Pentti Linkola. Eugenics is about healthy people in a healthy society within a healthy environment, naturally such societies would be superior in every way to those not under a similar regime.
There's a perception that because Germany was attacked and defeated by the Atlantic powers and the Soviets that any idea or school of thought which existed in the NS society at the time was invalid or worse, "Evil". The Nazi race laws and the treatment of Jews were not the cause of WW2 none of the major actors in the attack on Germany even mention them in their war memoirs, the Eugenic aspects of the NS programs were widely applauded across the world and only became a propaganda tool and a way of taunting the "Master Race" once Britain and France had determined to destroy Germany once and for all.

Eugenics smugenics

I'm advised by well placed sources that we already have the ability to engineer the next generation. So in the near future –if it isn’t happening already – parents will mix and match what they deem the best qualities – from all races/individuals.

Thus it will be/is conceivable to have a child who looks like Ashton: http://tinyurl.com/9xml8ds
But had the intellect of Albert:http://tinyurl.com/8m9l7r7

Now, the only draw back with that might be that, if one of the resulting (engineered) progeny were to commit a crime, how on Earth would authorities be able to distinguish between the guilty person and the other four billion (innocent) SPQR look alikes!

Jay,

1. Nazism WAS evil.

2. In an open and free society, the smaller a group, the more likely its members are to intermarry with others, simply because the likelihood of working and socialising with members of other groups is correspondingly high.

When I go past a high school and see African boys laughing around with white girls, or Chinese girls chatting and holding hands with white boys, my heart lifts and I think: what a beautiful world it's going to be.

Joe

Joe I share your view and it is my hope, yes fair dinkum, mankind will be one race.
My extended family from its English Irish, Welsh and Scottish roots , is such now.
I dislike religion because it separates us.
But in truth we all trace back to Africa, I want to know what we are talking about.
Breeding out culling? or better breeding.
Politics can not be left out.
Religion has its way, Tony Abbott has his roots firmly in the DLP Catholic Church.
He would never as leader run with this.
And he is not alone.

Look folks let's just cut to the chase.
There's a very good reason former slave colonies produce superior Black athletes while Africa produces very few, Usain Bolt isn't a "freak of nature", he's a genetically engineered African superman.
Slave owners in the West Indies and North America invested heavily in breeding programs, as horrible as it sounds to sensitive Liberal ears they treated Africans exactly like livestock, they recorded bloodlines, they carefully mated the best of their stock and selected the most intelligent and handsome slaves as their "houseboys" and "Bucks" who were then restricted to breeding with the best of their females. Look at the old high speed films of Jesse Owens, he's perfect, there's no other way to describe him and it's all down to eugenics and the strict sexual restrictions placed upon his slave ancestors.
Let's not kid ourselves, Usain Bolt would have been worth thousands of dollars to a slave trader, a literal fortune in today's terms, it's no coincidence that he's worth his weight in gold today and no surprise that his fans have reacted with horror and fury over his choice of a White girlfriend, they can see the big picture.
Bolt, Owens and their fellow Black Supermen and Superwomen are living examples of what can be achieved in a human being using careful, heavily controlled mating and eugenic restrictions, now are we still arguing the merits of Eugenics?
The old story of Hitler snubbing Owens at the Olympics and being outraged at his success has long been debunked just on Owen's on memoir, Hitler apparently smiled and waved to him as he passed his entourage in the stadium. I'd wager Hitler might even have been well pleased on account of the fact that Owen's magnificent performance was a shining endorsement of his own views on racial improvement via controlled breeding and selection based on physical attributes.

Joe, Belly.
Would anyone take the bet that either or both of you have non White partners or have had sexual liasons with people of other races? I'm guessing not so there is no point discussing any of this with you because you're biased in favour of race mixing based on your own sexual preferences.

Jay,

Hell yeah, and proud of it. 'Biased' ? Not really, just aware of the beauties of the world, all around us.

Cheers,

Joe :)

JOM added you to a list long ago.
List? yep watching to see if you ever say anything I agree with.
And mixed grill is my favorite food , like Joe some of the finest comes from other than my back yard.