tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post6311937469501931220..comments2023-11-22T01:14:54.298-08:00Comments on amor mundi: Reactionary Futurology In the Democratic PartyDale Carricohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-62647060842748657512016-08-28T13:56:55.212-07:002016-08-28T13:56:55.212-07:00(52:30/1:27:07)
Early 20th century, people though...(52:30/1:27:07)<br /><br />Early 20th century, people thought eugenics was scientific, and<br />they thought it was progressive. No doubt about that. So arguably,<br />this ruling in Buck [v. Bell, 1927, 8-1 Supreme Court ruling in<br />favor of compulsory sterilization, majority opinion written by<br />Oliver Wendell Holmes] conforms to the idea judges should<br />look to science for what's for the good of society. Uh, I would<br />add, but better make sure the science is any **good**. Don't just<br />swallow it whole because a few people tell you this. There **were**<br />medical scientists who disagreed with this, even in 1927. But<br />the Supreme Court didn't seem to know anything about that. If<br />they had, they would've known that the science was very weak --<br />it was oversimplified, perhaps out of date. We now know there are<br />other causes of retardation, and not all retarded parents will<br />have retarded children. To us, now, I think -- certainly to me --<br />[Holmes'] ruling seems scientifically naive, politically naive,<br />morally blind. But I think to him and his colleagues, it looked<br />like a reasonable sacrifice to ask of an individual for the<br />sake of the good of the community. That's why the one precedent<br />cited is about vaccination. . .<br /><br />Well, I wish Holmes and his colleagues had had half the imagination<br />that [Clarence] Darrow did or [G. K.] Chesterton did -- their ability<br />to see the dangers. But I also wish they'd realized **other**<br />people might disagree with their intuition that this was a morally<br />good thing. Hence my conclusion. Holmes was very Olympian.<br />I showed you that particular picture, specifically because, you know,<br />he's. . . he's **so** smart, and so good-looking, and so tall,<br />and comes from **such** a good family, that he's not terribly<br />sympathetic with, you know, the concerns of humbler people.<br />He can't really **get** humble people, not the way [William] James<br />could, for example. But he was only human. And he was actually<br />right to say, as he did very clearly, 'It's a misfortune if a judge<br />reads his sympathy with one side, or his own moral convictions,<br />into the law.' The law is not about **your** sympathy with one<br />side, it's not about **your** moral convictions, it's about --<br />the law. He was right about that, and the fact that this ruling<br />is so ugly illustrates that he was right about that. . . The<br />fact that he failed to practice what he preached in "The Path of<br />the Law" doesn't mean he was wrong in "The Path of the Law". . .<br />he just didn't practice it in this ruling. . .<br />====<br />jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-55292200654876357012016-08-28T13:56:16.026-07:002016-08-28T13:56:16.026-07:00> [T]he vulnerability of leaders in the Democra...> [T]he vulnerability of leaders in the Democratic Party. . .<br />> to reactionary futurological formulations -- . . .<br />> "enhancement" as rationalization for eugenics. . . --<br />> derives I think from recent partisan polarization on questions<br />> of science-based policy (Republican. . . longstanding<br />> anti-evolutionary dogmatism. . . and so on) in which<br />> the Democrats come to think themselves the "fact-based" party<br />> even if their grasp on the relevant facts is not always that<br />> much better. . . and come to associate progressive politics<br />> with the long-prevalent techno-reductionist understanding<br />> of progress. . .<br /><br /><br />https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWFXJaJAtaA<br />------------------<br />Pragmatism, Law, and Morality - Susan Haack<br />Copernicus Center for Interdisciplinary Studies<br />Sep 21, 2015<br /><br />(30:48/1:27:07)<br /><br />The idea of eugenics is very old. . . You remember, from Plato's<br />_Republic_, there's going to be a lottery -- only it's fixed --<br />and the best men will get to marry the best women and produce<br />the best children, the "golden souls"? . . . But the word<br />[from Greek "well-born"] was coined in 1883 by Darwin's cousin,<br />Francis Galton -- a very strange person, I have to say, a very<br />odd man. . . I suspect part of Galton's motivation was -- his<br />first book was called _Hereditary Genius_. He came from this<br />extraordinary family where a great many people did a great<br />many interesting intellectual things, and he thought that<br />feeble-mindedness as well as intelligence was inherited, entirely,<br />so that it was all about genetics. He was also, by the way,<br />one of the pioneers of fingerprinting as a means of identifying<br />the perpetrators of crimes. As I said, he was a very curious<br />fellow.<br /><br />You find the idea of eugenics also in Darwin's second book, _The<br />Descent of Man_ (1871). . . This, by the way, was part of the<br />reason that in the 1920s, many progressives in the U.S. **objected**<br />to the teaching of evolution in public high schools, because<br />they were aware of this eugenicist strand in Darwin's second book,<br />and afraid of it. In fact, the textbook that John Scopes used<br />in Tennessee, the one that got him arrested and tried for the<br />crime of teaching evolution, in the Scopes "Monkey Trial", actually<br />included among other things a photograph of the notorious Jukes<br />family -- this terrible family of retarded people. . . <br />And it was in the standard biology text, which was Darwinian.<br /><br />Early decades of the 20th century this idea was taking root around<br />the world. Everywhere, really, everywhere. Asia, Latin America,<br />the U.S., across Europe. One of the worst places was Scandinavia,<br />believe it or not. . . And in Britain, where the most remarkable<br />people endorsed it. Sir William Beveridge, who was the author<br />of the welfare state. Winston Churchill. And in the States,<br />various states introduced compulsory sterilization laws. . .jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-72622531321787818442016-08-28T12:52:46.075-07:002016-08-28T12:52:46.075-07:00> . . .and come to associate progressive politi...> . . .and come to associate progressive politics with the<br />> long-prevalent techno-reductionist understanding of progress<br />> as an accumulating pile of toys rather than an ongoing<br />> social struggle over the equitable distribution of costs,<br />> risks, and benefits of technoscientific change to the diversity<br />> of its stakeholders. . .<br /><br /><br />Progress as an accumulating pile of razors:<br /><br /><br />http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/28/magazine/letter-of-recommendation-safety-razors.html<br />------------<br />Letter of Recommendation: Safety Razors<br />By MALCOLM HARRIS<br />AUG. 26, 2016<br /><br />. . .<br /><br />King Camp Gillette introduced his safety razor, with disposable<br />double-edge blades, around the turn of the 20th century. But before<br />he was an inventor, Gillette was a starry-eyed utopian socialist.<br />In 1894, he published “The Human Drift,” a book that, among<br />other things, envisioned most of the population of North America<br />living in a huge metropolis powered by Niagara Falls. Production<br />would be fully centralized, making for the greatest efficiency,<br />while all goods would be free to everyone. That’s the only<br />way Gillette saw to ensure that the benefits of technological<br />development would be shared. “No system can ever be a perfect system,<br />and free from incentive for crime,” he wrote, employing a<br />prescient metaphor, “until money and all representative value<br />of material is swept from the face of the earth.” His blade<br />was a model socialist innovation: Gillette replaced toilsome<br />sharpening labor with the smallest, most easily produced<br />part imaginable.<br /><br />King Camp imagined a modern world where each innovation would<br />yield more luxury and freedom for everyone. Instead, his name<br />represents a company that sells us increasingly absurd instruments<br />as though they’re the exclusive option for personal grooming.<br />Advertisers pulled off an incredible coup by convincing us that the<br />manliest choice is one that shields us from sharp objects. . .<br />====<br />jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.com