# American Eugenics Movement and Euro Nazism **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 17, 2011, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-eugenics-movement-and-euro-nazism/578759 "2011-04-17T21:53:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![manila](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@manila](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manila)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2011, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-eugenics-movement-and-euro-nazism/578759/1 "2011-04-17T21:53:19Z")
I had a very basic familiarisation with the American Eugenics movement ( saw the movie about Kellog’s Sanitorium) And I sort of assumed it was a localised crank-culture and not so serious in its general impact on society. But reading this Wiki article: [Eugenics in the United States - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States) i t shows a much wider and more sickeningly serious spread of “racial purity” measures that could be compared to what was happening in Nazi Germany. Forced sterilization, euthanasia, better baby competitions based on supposed stereotypical norms. Legislation to back them up as well. WTF? I know Wiki is not necessarily always a credible source but was the racism that was rife in Nazi Germany spawned in the good old US of A/ I have to add that I may not be able to get back to responses as soon as I would like but would welcome my ignorance fought on the rise and fall ( if it has fallen) of eugenics in the USA (or in the UK if Brit Dopers are so inclined) ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2011, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-eugenics-movement-and-euro-nazism/578759/2 "2011-04-17T22:09:26Z")
Wow. Racism in the US. Inconceivable! The main difference is that the US version of Eugenics did not gain widespread acceptance, nor did it become general public policy. And it generally didn’t push for the killing of undesirables. ---
**Author:** ![Anticounterrevolutionary](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f04885/32.png) [@Anticounterrevolutionary](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anticounterrevolutionary)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2011, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-eugenics-movement-and-euro-nazism/578759/3 "2011-04-17T22:25:17Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > The main difference is that the US version of Eugenics did not gain widespread acceptance, nor did it become general public policy. [Unless you consider 65,000 involuntary sterilizations across 33 states to be widespread](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilization#United_States). True, after WWII it fell out of fashion to endorse eugenics. However, forced sterilization took place in the US until recent times, the last being in 1981 in Oregon. “The principal targets of the American program were the mentally retarded and the mentally ill, but also targeted under many state laws were the deaf, the blind, people with epilepsy, and the physically deformed.” From the above wiki link. ---
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2011, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-eugenics-movement-and-euro-nazism/578759/4 "2011-04-17T22:29:09Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Wow. Racism in the US. Inconceivable! > > The main difference is that the US version of Eugenics did not gain widespread acceptance, nor did it become general public policy. And it generally didn’t push for the killing of undesirables. I disagree. It was just a bit more subtle. Or hidden. ---
**Author:** ![manila](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@manila](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manila)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2011, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-eugenics-movement-and-euro-nazism/578759/5 "2011-04-17T22:30:48Z")
**Anticounterrevolutionary** This is what shocked me reading the link too. It was not only public policy but according to the article states enacted eugenic laws mandating sterilisation. ---
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2011, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-eugenics-movement-and-euro-nazism/578759/6 "2011-04-17T22:56:56Z")
What about government sponsored [IVF treatments](http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/article458210.ece)? [Designer babies](http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/03/designerdebate/)? [Deaf](http://www.geneticsandsociety.org/article.php?id=3860) designer babies? [Selective abortion](http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/09/us/09down.html?_r=1&em&ex=1178942400&en=e6910805b7eb9afe&ei=5087%0A)? (Aborting fetuses with Down’s, for example?) Restricting marriage between two [cognitively disabled](http://www.slate.com/id/1007972/) people? [Surgically castrating](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/11/world/europe/11castrate.html)sex offenders? [Human cloning](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_cloning)? [Stem cell research](http://articles.sfgate.com/2005-10-24/news/17393486_1_cell-research-eugenics-stem)? And, less seriously: [Animal breeding](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_breeding)? Science can be a bitch. ---
**Author:** ![Anticounterrevolutionary](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f04885/32.png) [@Anticounterrevolutionary](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anticounterrevolutionary)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2011, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-eugenics-movement-and-euro-nazism/578759/7 "2011-04-17T23:09:38Z")
**CitizenPained** makes a fine point. If we use the definition given at [dictionary.com](http://dictionary.com) those are all examples of eugenics. “the study of or belief in the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population, especially by such means as discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits (negative eugenics) or encouraging reproduction by persons presumed to have inheritable desirable traits (positive eugenics).” ---
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2011, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-eugenics-movement-and-euro-nazism/578759/8 "2011-04-18T10:58:53Z")
Yeah. Liberal eugenics tries to distance itself from racist eugenics, but its the same foundation. End human suffering. Make people better. Eradicate diseases and deformities. Control our own destiny. Really, many early eugenicists had noble ideas - just like the geneticists/researchers/doctors/scientists of today. Early eugenics was about what _made humans successful_. It just went the wrong direction. 😕 Modern eugenics is a little bit consumerism, and a little bit _what will make humans successful_? ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2011, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-eugenics-movement-and-euro-nazism/578759/9 "2011-04-18T12:47:25Z")
> [@manila](#): > > **Anticounterrevolutionary** This is what shocked me reading the link too. It was not only public policy but according to the article states enacted eugenic laws mandating sterilisation. Yep, it happened. That’s why my husband and I never had children. He’s not even sure _when_ they sterilized him, just that it was done when he was a boy somewhere during the multiple surgeries he required for his birth defect _and he was never told_. He found out in his 20’s, when at the doctor for another reason. The sad thing (well, one of them)? His birth defect isn’t one that’s inherited. Any children he would have had would most likely have been perfectly normal. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2011, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-eugenics-movement-and-euro-nazism/578759/10 "2011-04-18T18:40:13Z")
The rascism that infected Nazi Germany was not spawned in the US, it was just part of the zeitgeist of progressivism that was common in the world at the time. Each nation manifested it differently. _Liberal Fascism_ is a good book to read if you are interested in the history of those ideas. ---
**Author:** ![manila](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@manila](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manila)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2011, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-eugenics-movement-and-euro-nazism/578759/11 "2011-04-18T21:42:21Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > The rascism that infected Nazi Germany was not spawned in the US, it was just part of the zeitgeist of progressivism that was common in the world at the time. Each nation manifested it differently. _Liberal Fascism_ is a good book to read if you are interested in the history of those ideas. Thanks, I will check that out. Maybe with evolving standards of decency its practices are now abhorrent. I find it hard to focus on how far we have come as opposed to how misguided we were. Even in the matter of a mere hundred years ---
**Author:** ![manila](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@manila](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manila)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2011, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-eugenics-movement-and-euro-nazism/578759/12 "2011-04-18T21:55:01Z")
**Broomstick** Thats horrible! Small pennies and the coldest of comfort but was there no legal recourse? ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-eugenics-movement-and-euro-nazism/578759/13 "2011-04-20T04:04:24Z")
Moving to Great Debates. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-eugenics-movement-and-euro-nazism/578759/14 "2011-04-20T04:57:22Z")
> [@manila](#): > > I had a very basic familiarisation with the American Eugenics movement ( saw the movie about Kellog’s Sanitorium) And I sort of assumed it was a localised crank-culture and not so serious in its general impact on society. > > Forced sterilization, euthanasia, better baby competitions based on supposed stereotypical norms. Legislation to back them up as well. Eugenics is likely to return, although via birth technologies and gene therapies. Currently, most western countries are experiencing [dysgenic](http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2006/01/where_dysgenics.html) fertility rates where [chav’s](http://www.google.co.nz/url?q=http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Chav&sa=U&ei=zWWuTanGHoX0swOGwOmSAw&ved=0CC0QFjAL&sig2=Tyy9dJNpPvedGq3e2jngYg&usg=AFQjCNE4v6_Bg2sF2aB2DEsNYrYcOvmoFQ)have the most children. Seymour Itzkoff provides the the foreword to the number one book on Eugenics, [‘Future Human Evolution’: Eugenics in the Twenty-First Century](http://www.whatwemaybe.org/txt/txt0000/glad.john.2006.future_human_evolution.book.full.003k.en.pdf) > [@](#): > > John Glad is a brave scholar. He here ventures onto the high seas of contemporary intellectual interdict. The term eugenics has been on an ideological hit list both by the irrational left as well as by an intimidated public. However, as Dr. Glad points out, clearly and authoritatively, there is virtually no factual basis for what can only be seen as a totemic reaction. The mere mention of eugenics elicits knee-jerk reaction— “Nazi genocide, forced sterilization.” Yet by any standard of rational analysis, this vision of improvement for the human species has a strong humanistic tradition to support its further application. > > The real history of eugenics, as Dr. Glad points, out is rich in a truly liberal vision for the improvement in the state of all of humankind. And modern research in the biological nature of human function is opening up opportunities for the enhancement of both the physical as well as the mental condition of the human species. … > > I would like to add a comment to Dr. Glad’s clear and de-cisive puncturing of the balloon of myth that argues that the Nazis claimed to have actually engaged in a program of eugenics. The Nazis also claimed to be a party of socialism! If we define eugenics as encompassing programs of human bet-terment, physical as well as mental, practices that benefit community in the local sense as well as the species in gen-eral, we can say that the Holocaust was the antithesis of eugenic practice. Not only did the Nazis not argue for their participation in the eugenics movement, but they knew that they were practicing dysgenics. ---
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-eugenics-movement-and-euro-nazism/578759/15 "2011-04-20T06:42:20Z")
Well, Chen, your citation of the term > [@](#): > > irrational left just turned me off. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-eugenics-movement-and-euro-nazism/578759/16 "2011-04-20T06:53:52Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > The rascism that infected Nazi Germany was not spawned in the US, it was just part of the zeitgeist of progressivism that was common in the world at the time. Each nation manifested it differently. _Liberal Fascism_ is a good book to read if you are interested in the history of those ideas. Not a good book to recommend. > **[Introduction](https://www.hnn.us/article/introduction)** > > . > [@](#): > > Goldberg’s whole approach, for that matter, involves omitting contradictory factual information. His thesis begins with a real fact: fascism originally based its public appeal, like most right-wing populist movements, by claiming to represent a “neither left nor right” solution but a transcendent unifying force. As such, it often made socialist-sounding appeals in its rhetoric, particularly in its nascent stages. Goldberg explores this in depth by trotting out multiple examples of socialist-sounding rhetoric from fascists, as well as endorsements of fascism by gullible socialists. As Michael Tomasky noted in his scathing review for The New Republic: > > ``` > Yet for all his chapter and verse on the proletarian rhetoric that Nazis employed, Goldberg somehow forgets to mention certain other salient matters, like the fact that within three months of taking power Hitler banned trade unions--and on the day after May Day, 1933. Their money was confiscated and their leaders imprisoned. And the trade unions were replaced with the Nazi "union" called the German Labor Front, which took away the right to strike. Hitler did many worse things, of course. I single out this act because it would hardly seem to be the edict of a "man of the left." And there exist about a million nearly epileptic quotes from Hitler and Goebbels and other Nazis expressing their luminous hatreds of liberalism and of communism, none of which seem to have found their way into the pages of Liberal Fascism. > > ``` > > Goldberg responded by arguing that the fascists were just foreclosing on their competition: “All that need be said is that if Hitler’s ban on independent trade unions disqualifies him as a leftist, then Lenin, Stalin, and Mao were not leftists either.” This is, in fact, the argument that Goldberg attempts to make in his book as well: That the fascists occupied the “political space” on the Left, and thus were simply out to compete against their fellow leftists. > > But this is where Goldberg most deeply portrays a lack of respect for the historical material available to him, because any careful study of the actual details of how the fascists came to power in both Italy and Germany makes abundantly clear that they were occupying the available political space on the right – and had charged hard in that direction from early on in their drive to power. The ideological shift by Mussolini and Hitler away from appeals to socialist sensibilities occurred in the defense of wealthy landowners and the established economic and cultural powers, and it entailed a wave of murderous violence against socialists, leftists, and any form of progressive. > > As you will see laid out in detail in these essays, the path to power for both Italian Fascists and German Nazis was essentially the same: They presented themselves as “revolutionary socialists” in their initial appeals but, finding the political space for such a movement already well occupied on the left by socialists and communists, shifted their appeals and their alliances to the right and center, particularly with business capitalists who financed them, sponsored their activities, and essentially contracted with them to engage in systematic violence against the Left. Yet there is not even a scintilla of acknowledgement of this historical reality in Liberal Fascism. > > In assessing the broader effects of Liberal Fascism, it may be useful to recall George Orwell’s concept of “Newspeak,” the official language of the totalitarian regime of 1984. Newspeak combines two ideas that, conventionally speaking, are virtual (if not precise) opposites, and presents them as identical – thereby nullifying the meaning contained in each word: “War is Peace.” “Ignorance is Strength.” “Freedom is Slavery.” It serves two functions: It deflates the opposition by nullifying its defining issues, and throws the nominal logic of the public debate into disarray; and it provides rhetorical and ontological cover for its speakers’ own activities and agenda. > > Goldberg’s book, merely in conflating the seemingly contradictory terms “liberal” and “fascism,” fundamentally nullifies the meanings of both words – and its core thesis, that fascism was “a phenomenon of the left,” is a historically false fraud. At its core, Liberal Fascism is an act of Newspeak that pollutes the national discourse by destroying our understanding. And when large numbers of people believe nonsense that is simply and provably false, not only is our resulting discourse deeply irrational, but so are the democratic outcomes. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-eugenics-movement-and-euro-nazism/578759/17 "2011-04-20T07:13:56Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Not a good book to recommend. It’s a great book if you want to be told what you want to hear. ---
**Author:** ![Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/aca169/32.png) [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inbred_Mm_domesticus)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-eugenics-movement-and-euro-nazism/578759/18 "2011-04-20T13:47:31Z")
> [@CitizenPained](#): > > What about government sponsored [IVF treatments](http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/article458210.ece)? > [Designer babies](http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/03/designerdebate/)? [Deaf](http://www.geneticsandsociety.org/article.php?id=3860) designer babies? > [Selective abortion](http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/09/us/09down.html?_r=1&em&ex=1178942400&en=e6910805b7eb9afe&ei=5087%0A)? (Aborting fetuses with Down’s, for example?) > Restricting marriage between two [cognitively disabled](http://www.slate.com/id/1007972/) people? > [Surgically castrating](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/11/world/europe/11castrate.html)sex offenders? > [Human cloning](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_cloning)? > [Stem cell research](http://articles.sfgate.com/2005-10-24/news/17393486_1_cell-research-eugenics-stem)? > And, less seriously: [Animal breeding](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_breeding)? > Science can be a bitch. Except in the case of animal breeding, none of these are eugenics. Some present a similarity, such as “designer” babies, but that is actually just assortative mating plus technology. Eugenics seeks to improve the population’s gene pool by allowing breeding of individuals with desirable traits and preventing breeding of those with undesirable traits. IVF, as an example, basically flies in the face of that definition. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-eugenics-movement-and-euro-nazism/578759/19 "2011-04-20T14:03:07Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > _Liberal Fascism_ is a good book to read if you are interested in the history of those ideas. …but don’t actually want to learn anything about them. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-eugenics-movement-and-euro-nazism/578759/20 "2011-04-20T14:33:10Z")
One interesting aspect of the Nazi movement was its ability to absorb various popular and seemingly progressive ideas, including naturally a good deal of cranky and totally bizzare popular movements, even if mutually contradictory or outright silly - hence the eternal arguments about what the Nazis “really” believed. Eugenics was just one of the many (often bad) popular ideas taken onboard by the Nazis. It is sort of as if these days a popular political party/movement evolved that included believers in everything from anti-Muslim paranoia and extreme animal rights terrorists through UFO enthusiasts. What the Nazis “really believed” is a protean target. Aside from certain bedrock elements - a hatred of Communists, Slavs and Jews, and the primacy of struggle - different Nazis seemed to believe quite different things: for example, some were “into” teutonic paganism in a big way (Hitler himself thought they were nuts). [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-eugenics-movement-and-euro-nazism/578759.md?page=2)