Eugenics and Population Control

From http://www.emmerich1.com/EUGENICS.htm a few highlights. As always please ignore formatting, Blogger doesn't cooperate well and I do not have Word to convert to html and make things pretty. Anything I've written is NOT in italics.

\The essence of evolution is natural selection; the essence of eugenics is the replacement of 'natural' selection by conscious, premeditated, or artificial selection in the hope of speeding up the evolution of 'desirable' characteristics and the elimination of undesirable ones."

The Population Council, one of the new eugenic organizations that emerged after World War II, no longer spoke of eugenics as a religion (in fact, avoided the word eugenics altogether), but launched "studies relating to the social, ethical and moral dimensions" of population studies, recognizing that these questions involve matters "of a cultural, moral and spiritual nature." The new field of bioethics is a response to issues raised by eugenics. Bioethics is based on situation ethics, which was developed largely by Joseph Fletcher, a member of the American Eugenics Society.

of note, recall my post on TeenScreen, their Exec. Director Laurie Flynn, "she was appointed by President Bill Clinton to the National Bioethics Advisory Commission" . Hmm. A loose connection to education, but TeenScreen wants to test EVERY child for mental illness, offering them incentives for taking the test. Might this be a way to determine who is the inferior stock? More on inferior stock later...

At least one contemporary understood what Galton was doing. Friedrich Engels, a collaborator with Karl Marx, was contemptuous of the way Malthus' ideas about economics were inserted into biology and then retrieved as gospel: "The whole Darwinist teaching of the struggle for existence is simply a transference from society to living nature of Hobbes' doctrine of bellum omnium contra omnes and of the bourgeois doctrine of competition together with Malthus' theory of population. When this conjurer's trick has been performed ... the same theories are transferred back again from organic nature into history and it is now claimed that their validity as eternal laws of human society has been proved. The puerility of this proceeding is so obvious that not a word need be said about it."

He devised various methods for measuring intelligence, and concluded that Europeans are smarter than Africans, on average.

Recall some of my previous posts on testing and how it is eugenic in nature. Might these exams, by design, promote the achievement gap?

It is noteworthy that this ideology of arrogance proved to be appealing on the right (Galton), then the left (British Socialists), then the right (German National Socialists), then the left (American environmentalists), then the right (see The Bell Curve debate). Galton's work is still used today. He used statistical methods, including the now-famous "bell curve," to describe the distribution of intelligence within a population.
A key program of the eugenicists was cleansing the human race by sterilizing the "unfit." By 1931, sterilization laws had been enacted in 27 states in the United States, and by 1935 sterilization laws had been enacted in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland and Germany. But the efficiency of the German eugenicists caused trouble.

Makes me think of Planned Parenthood, Zero population supporters, and the like.

Most people have never heard of eugenics, and most of those who have heard of it think it died with Hitler. Of the few people who are aware that eugenics was still a force after World War II, many believe that its remnants were reformed. In fact, the eugenics movement continued to thrive, without reform. The development and promotion of birth control was a major eugenic success. The discovery of the population explosion and the hysteria about the need to control it was a major eugenic success. The field of genetics grew faster than fruit flies in the 1950s, and although the accumulating knowledge was valuable, the field was dominated by eugenicists, who could use their knowledge for eugenic purposes. UNESCO, founded in 1948, was directed by Julian Huxley, a determined eugenicist who used his global platform very effectively. The welfare state in Britain was based largely of the work of Richard Titmuss, John Maynard Keynes and William Henry Beveridge, members of the Eugenics Society.

Huxley- brother of author Aldous Huxley, said, (Huxley was one of many intellectuals at the time who believed that the lowest class in society was genetically inferior. This passage, from 1941, puts the view forcefully:)

"The lowest strata are reproducing too fast. Therefore... they must not have too easy access to relief or hospital treatment lest the removal of the last check on natural selection should make it too easy for children to be produced or to survive; long unemployment should be a ground for sterilisation.

Keynes is "the" Keynes of Keynesian economics so popular today. They are en vogue in our progressive government and often are called "socialist", I argue they are economic eugenics.

Beveridge hob-nobbed with the Fabian Society (A "conspiracy theory" organization of world control

Historians who rely too heavily on the eugenicists themselves will overlook a great deal. Daniel Kevles, for example, makes the post-war eugenics movement sound like a group of dusty academics. But one of their activities in Britain beginning in the 1960s was running a flourishing abortion business. Beginning in the 1960s, a few members of the Eugenics Society built and controlled almost the entire private abortion industry

Remember, Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, was a eugenicist. Ever wonder why PP clinics are most common in the "ghetto"?

"That the Society should pursue eugenic ends by less obvious means, that is by a policy of crypto-eugenics, which was apparently proving successful in the US Eugenics Society."

Yes! See I've said that Prussian education, Preogressive meddling, marginalization, and eugenics - all part of our educational system in the past- have become institutionalized, such an invisible part of our education today. These crypto-eugenics kind of confirm my suspicions.

In 1960, Blacker's proposal was adopted by the Eugenics Society. A resolution which was accepted stated (in part):

"The Society's activities in crypto-eugenics should be pursued vigorously, and specifically that the Society should increase its monetary support of the FPA [Family Planning Association, the English branch of Planned Parenthood] and the IPPF [International Planned Parenthood Federation] and should make contact with the Society for the Study of Human Biology, which already has a strong and active membership, to find out if any relevant projects are contemplated with which the Eugenics Society could assist."

The dominant figure in the eugenics movement in the United States, considered by the English to be a model of crypto-eugenics, was Major General Frederick Osborn, a master propagandist. In 1956, he said people "won't accept the idea that they are in general, second rate. We must rely on other motivation." He called the new motivation "a system of voluntary unconscious selection." The way to persuade people to exercise this voluntary unconscious selection was to appeal to the idea of "wanted" children. Osborn said, "Let's base our proposals on the desirability of having children born in homes where they will get affectionate and responsible care." In this way, the eugenics movement "will move at last towards the high goal which Galton set for it."

It seems since we can't abort or sterilize all the unfit, we will rage a war on poverty. We will allow social services to rule schools, psychologists and pharmaceuticals to "fix" students, and voila, we can create a managed dumbed-down, Spartan-Helot style populous. All via a caring (albeit compulsory) education system, cradle to grave.

Osborn stated the public relations problem bluntly: "Eugenic goals are most likely to be attained under a name other than eugenics." He pointed to genetic counseling as a prime example: "Heredity clinics are the first eugenic proposals that have been adopted in a practical form and accepted by the public. ... The word eugenics is not associated with them."

Before the war, the American Eugenics Society laid out its research aims, including many investigations in sociology, psychology, anthropology and biology. But they noted especially the important new fields: population study and genetics.

Negative eugenics, or ending the over-production of the "unfit," is obviously well underway with widespread contraception, sterilization and abortion. But positive eugenics, or the increased production of the "fit," can be advanced through artificial insemination, in vitro fertilization and genetic engineering. The Human Genome Project would certainly help in a scheme of positive eugenics.

I've yet to delve into the Human Genome Project, perhaps out of fear. But I had to sign affadavits when pregnant, refusing genetic testing. I was hounded about it and had to re-sign paperwork they "lost" to request no testing of my child in utero. (The mystical prick of the foot test after birth is a must have and I never got "results" or info on what they tested....)

After World War II, the eugenics movement discovered (or invented) the population explosion, and whipped up global hysteria about it. From 1952 on, a major part of the eugenics movement was the population control movement. The population explosion made it possible for eugenics movement to continue its work more from the fit, less from the unfit with the same people to do the same things, but with a new public rationale.

One of the organizations that promoted eugenics under the new population rubric was the Population Council. It was founded in 1952 by John D. Rockefeller 3rd, and spent $173,621,654 in its first 25 years. That is not a bad budget for one of the organizations in a dead movement! Clearly, the people who think the eugenics movement died in the rubble in Berlin do not understand crypto-eugenics, genetics or population control!

Rockefeller family....financing U of Chicago, Columbia Teachers College, and the vast majority of the educational structure of today. Surprise surprise. (Thanks John Taylor Gatto for your info on the Rockefellers.)

The population control movement has not been noted for respect for human rights. In 1972, for example, essays by members of the American Eugenics Society appeared in Readings in Population. Kingsley Davis explained the need for genetic control, and examined the obstacles, including a widespread attachment to the ideal of family life. But he saw some hope of developing a more effective program of improving the human race, although improvement would be slow:

"Under the circumstances, we shall probably struggle along with small measures at a time, with the remote possibility that these may eventually evolve into a genetic control system. ... The morality of specific techniques of applied genetics artificial insemination, selective sterilization, ovular transplantation, eugenic abortion, genetic record keeping, genetic testing will be thunderously debated in theological and Marxian terms dating from ages past. Possibly, within half a century or so, this may add up to a comprehensive program."The coercive Chinese policy has a great deal of acceptance and support in the United States, including from feminist leaders like Eleanor Smeal and Molly Yard. When the Reagan administration cut off funds for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) because of its support for the Chinese population program, two American organizations sued to restore funds: Rockefeller's Population Council and the Population Institute in Washington. A 1978 survey of members of the Population Association of America found that 34 percent of members agreed that "coercive birth control programs should be initiated in at least some countries immediately."

How is it decided which countries to exterminate, or which peoples to sterilize?

And a few blurbs and facts from the aforementioned Population Council,

The Population Council is an international, nonprofit, nongovernmental organization that seeks to improve the well-being and reproductive health of current and future generations around the world and to help achieve a humane, equitable, and sustainable balance between people and resources.

The Council conducts research in three areas: HIV and AIDS; poverty, gender, and youth; and reproductive health.

the effects of population factors on a country's ability to provide a better life for its citizens to research that investigates the influence of education and livelihood opportunities on young girls and women. The Council is also concerned with the reproductive health and well-being of the one billion adolescents in the developing world who are about to enter their reproductive years and whose behavior will shape the future of their countries.

The board of trustees for the council includes a senior advisor at Lazard Ltd, a managing director at D.E. Shaw, an Advisory partner at Greylock Partners, these businesses being global investment funds, and Realm, a hedge fund. So these are the people in power. Scary.

Okay I realize this post is very haphazard, but I wanted to collect some eugenic tidbits for my own research need, and compile some here, trying to find connections to education and our current world, society, and government.

But to add to my jumbled thoughts, at

http://atrueott.wordpress.com/ (A doctor, so no wacko idiot) under the heading The Plan Exposed in 1969, with links to transcripts, mentions some haunting tid bits which sound all too real and "now" no matter what side of the political spectrum you fancy. I'm posting them all so you can weed through and choose which interest and spook you the most.

IS THERE A POWER, A FORCE OR A GROUP OF MEN ORGANIZING AND REDIRECTING CHANGE?

EVERYTHING IS IN PLACE AND NOBODY CAN STOP US NOW

PEOPLE WILL HAVE TO GET USED TO CHANGE

THE REAL AND THE STATED GOALS

POPULATION CONTROL

PERMISSION TO HAVE BABIES

REDIRECTING THE PURPOSE OF SEX

CONTRACEPTION UNIVERSALLY AVAILABLE TO ALL

SEX EDUCATION AS A TOOL OF WORLD GOVERNMENT

TAX FUNDED ABORTION AS POPULATION CONTROL

ENCOURAGING HOMOSEXUALITY

TECHNOLOGY

FAMILIES TO DIMINISH IN IMPORTANCE

EUTHANASIA AND THE ‘DEMISE PILL’

LIMITING ACCESS TO AFFORDABLE MEDICAL

PLANNING THE CONTROL OVER MEDICINE

ELIMINATION OF PRIVATE DOCTORS

NEW DIFFICULT TO DIAGNOSE AND UNTREATABLE DISEASES

SUPPRESSING CANCER CURES AS A MEANS OF POPULATION CONTROL

INDUCING HEART ATTACKS AS A FORM OF ASSASSINATION

EDUCATION AS A TOOL FOR ACCELERATING ONSET OF PUBERTY AND EVOLUTION

BLENDING ALL RELIGIONS, THE OLD RELIGIONS WILL HAVE TO GO

CHANGING THE BIBLE THROUGH REVISIONS OF KEY WORDS

THE CHURCHES WILL HELP US

RESTRUCTURING EDUCATION AS A TOOL OF INDOCTRINATION

MORE TIME IN SCHOOLS, BUT THEY WOULDN’T LEARN ANYTHING

CONTROLLING WHO HAS ACCESS TO INFORMATION

SCHOOLS AS THE HUB OF THE COMMUNITY

BOOKS WOULD JUST DISAPPEAR FROM THE LIBRARIES

CHANGING LAWS

THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF DRUG ABUSE TO CREATE A JUNGLE ATMOSPHERE

ALCOHOL ABUSE

RESTRICTIONS ON TRAVEL

THE NEED FOR MORE JAILS, AND USING HOSPITALS AS JAILS

NO MORE SECURITY

CRIME USED TO MANAGE SOCIETY

CURTAILMENT OF AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL PRE-EMINENCE

SHIFTING POPULATIONS AND ECONOMIES – TEARING THE SOCIAL ROOTS

SPORTS AS A TOOL OF SOCIAL CHANGE

SEX AND VIOLENCE INCULCATED THROUGH ENTERTAINMENT

TRAVEL RESTRICTIONS AND IMPLANTED ID

FOOD CONTROL

WEATHER CONTROL

KNOW HOW PEOPLE RESPOND – MAKING THEM DO WHAT YOU WANT

FALSIFIED SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH

TERRORISM

FINANCIAL CONTROL

SURVEILLANCE, IMPLANTS, AND TELEVISIONS THAT WATCH YOU

HOME OWNERSHIP A THING OF THE PAST

THE ARRIVAL OF THE TOTALITARIAN GLOBAL SYSTEM

As regards education, he indicated that kids would spend more time in schools, but in many schools they wouldn’t learn anything. They’ll learn some things, but not as much as formerly. Better schools in better areas with better people, their kids will learn more. In the better schools Iearning would be accelerated. This is another time where he said, “We think we can push evolution.” By pushing kids to learn more he seemed to be suggesting that their brains would evolve, that their offspring would evolve; sort of pushing evolution where kids would learn and be more intelligent at a younger age. As if this pushing would alter their physiology. Overall, schooling would be prolonged. This meant prolonged through the school year. I’m not sure what he said about a long school day, I do remember he said that school was planned to go all summer, that the summer school vacation would become a thing of the past. Not only for schools, but for other reasons. People would begin to think of vacation times year round, not just in the summer. For most people it would take longer to complete their education. To get what originally had been in a bachelor’s program would now require advanced degrees and more schooling. So that a lot of school time would be just wasted time. Good schools would become more competitive. I inferred when he said that, that he was including all schools – elementary up through college – but I don’t recall if he actually said that. Students would have to decide at a younger age what they would want to study and get onto their track early. It would be harder to change to another field of study once you get started. Studies would be concentrated in much greater depth, but narrowed. You wouldn’t have access to material in other fields, outside your own area of study, without approval. This seem to be more where he talked about limited access to other fields. I seem to recall this as being more at the college level perhaps. People would be very specialised in their own area of expertise. But they won’t be able to get a broad education and won’t be able to understand what is going on overall.

of key note to me were..

CONTROLLING WHO HAS ACCESS TO INFORMATION

He was already talking about computers in education, and at that time he said anybody who

wanted computer access, or access to books that were not directly related to their field of study would have to have a very good reason for so doing. Otherwise, access would be denied.

SCHOOLS AS THE HUB OF THE COMMUNITY

Another angle was that the schools would become more important in people’s overall life. Kids in addition to their academics would have to get into school activities unless they wanted to feel completely out of it. But spontaneous activities among kids; the thing that came to my mind when I heard this was – sand lot football and sand lot baseball teams that we worked up as kids growing up. I said the kids wanting any activities outside of school would be almost forced to get them through the school. There would be few opportunities outside. Now the pressures of the accelerated academic program, the accelerated demands where kids would feel they had to be part of something – one or another athletic club or some school activity – these pressures he recognized would cause some students to burn out. He said. “The smartest ones will learn how to cope with pressures and to survive. There will be some help available to students in handling stress, but the unfit won’t be able to make it. They will then move on to other things.” In this connection and later on with drug abuse and alcohol abuse he indicated that psychiatric services to help would be increased dramatically. In all the pushing for achievement, it was recognized that many people would need help, and the people worth keeping around would be able to accept and benefit from that help, and still be super achievers. Those who could not would fall by the wayside and therefore were sort of dispensable ­ ‘expendable’ I guess is the word I want. Education would be lifelong and adults would be going to school. There’ll always be new information that adults must have to keep up. When you can’t keep up anymore, you’re too old. This was another way of letting older people know that the time had come for them to move on and take the demise pill. If you got too tired to keep up with your education, or you got too old to learn new information, then this was a signal – you begin to prepare to get ready to step aside

Educational Leaders Unmasked: Dewey Part II

Dewey once wrote, "The individualistic man is a victim of an unnamed form of insanity and only the collectivist man is sane."

And how might this notion affect education? I think back to my favorite influences (sarcasm here) of Prussian education and social efficiency; social efficiency educators [were] made up of an acceptance of a collective

society and a belief that an individual should be devoted to a specialized task

in society.” (see my Social Efficiency part III post) This notion is very Dewey-esque and is arguably still a practice in education.

Wikipedia states, “Dewey goes on to acknowledge that education and schooling are instrumental in creating social change and reform. He notes that “education is a regulation of the process of coming to share in the social consciousness; and that the adjustment of individual activity on the basis of this social consciousness is the only sure method of social reconstruction” (1897) )”

I take this to mean that teachers are regulators, who must “adjust” students to fit their societal mold, as the key part in “social consciousness” (that sounds so hunky-dory and reminds me of my liberal arts education in college…social consciousness was nearly de rigueur in conversation and coursework). Does this sound like the role of a teacher to you? Perhaps it does but it is not my idea of a great teacher or desirable education. I think of teachers as “facilitators” who help mold students, yes, but not to their cog and wheel place in society but rather as a mentor, encouraging the student’s passions and interests, not societies pre-set passions assigned to them.

Learning by doing- Here’s where I favor Dewey. He was against a rigidly structured curriculum and felt that children learn best by doing, that is by experimenting, theorizing, playing with their learning. Too often we see classes heavy on lecture and/or scripted curriculum which study after study shows is not the most effective method. Think back to a lesson a teacher taught you, way back in elementary. Was it scripted curriculum, or learning by doing? I recall my favorite lesson was in 6^th grade World History. After studying ancient civilizations, we worked in groups to create our own civilization, our own artifacts and Rosetta Stone which we sprinkled in dirt outside the school grounds. The next week each group went and did an “archeological dig” and pieced together the other group’s civilization. I think Dewey would support such a lesson.

The school must be made into a social center capable of participating in the daily life of the community . . . and make up in part to the child for the decay of dogmatic and fixed methods of social discipline and for the loss of reverence and the influence of authority.”

"that to put the child in possession of his fullest talents,

education should be active rather than passive

; that to prepare the child for a democratic

society, the school should be social rather than individualist'

“Every teacher should realize he is a social servant set apart for the maintenance of the proper

social order and the securing of the right social growth. In this way the teacher is always the

prophet of the true God and the usherer in of the true kingdom of heaven.”

(just a creepy quote there...)

"the plea for the predominance of learning to read in early

school life because of the great importance attaching to literature seems to be a perversion." This echoes the Prussian idea of having education to educate the public just so much that they feel satiated. The people become more educated than they would be without completion of their compulsory schooling, and they are likely more desirable as a work force. However, they learn just enough but not enough to start to question the status quo. Reading well enough to function in life was what the Prussians encouraged; they feared a learned man that was a proficient reader because they were a threat to the “system”. Let the top 2-10% elitists, from their private education, rule and make decisions because they’re the experts and the common man is not and should be happy with his status. If this idea exists today in our schools (the supposed dumbing down of our schools would support such a theory) then it is time to put a stop to it. Man deserves to “be all that he can be” and deserves an elite education. Knowledge is power and frees us from the shackles of dependency, feudalism, and oppression. Reading is a great vehicle for change; many studies show that ones “level” of vocabulary is a great determinant in their success in life, and reading is a great exposure to, as I call them in the classroom, 50 cent words. If we don’t teach the importance of great literature to our children, our future generations, if we only teach them certain sight words that are in a blanched condenses and altered version of literary classics, then we are supporting “the man keeping us down”. Social stratification will continue to rear its ugly head.

founded the Progressive Education Association which promoted the seven principles to improve elementary education (of which I can only find five); 1) Child centered; education should be active rather than passive. (I must agree).2) Children should learn the contents of the activities of the children formed their own direct experience. (I somewhat agree…such an idea can go to far as is outlined in Diane Ravitch’s Language Police.) 3) "the process of teaching the course is to develop habits of mind". (Yes, we need critical thinking but do we as teachers encourage habits of the mind, or decide what those habits should be?) 4) . Dilute the authority of the conscious view of teacher. (I do like teachers as facilitators especially in the later years i.e. high school when students have a foundational knowledge. However, it seems teachers have lost authority but it has not gone to the students but rather the bureaucrats. 5) The concept of school spirit. Progressive educators believe that students should be encouraged to cooperate with the school. (I believe students should have pride in their school; however, should they blindly cooperate and idolize the school?)

Socialism- many argue that Dewey promoted socialism; you decide in his quote here; "I do not see how any honest educational reformer in western countries can deny that the greatest practical obstacle in the way of introducing into schools that connection with social life which he regards as desirable is the great part played by personal competition and desire for private profit in our economic life. This fact almost makes it necessary that in important respects school activities should be protected from social contacts and connections, instead of being organized to create them. The Russian educational situation is enough to convert one to the idea that only in a society based upon the cooperative principle can the ideals of educational reformers be adequately carried into operation."

From http://www.asis.com/stag//starchiv/transcriptions/NWO/NWO2_Education.html (and it is a valid source; I’ve seen it backed up by research but the author says it more succinctly than I);
“Under the pretext of improving teaching methods, they changed what was taught to the American children. What did Dewey believe? In his writing and teaching, Dewey rejected fixed moral laws and eternal truths and principles. He adopted pragmatic, relativistic concepts as his guiding philosophy. Denying God, he held to the Marxist concept, that man is without a soul or free will. Man is a biological organism completely molded by his environment. Dewey believed that because man’s environment is constantly changing, man also changes constantly. Therefore, Dewey concluded, teaching children any of the absolutes of morals, government or ethics was a waste of time. On this moral philosophy, amoral philosophy, he developed his teaching formula, commonly labeled Progressive Education. Dewey published a thing called My Pedagogic Creed in 1897, and in it he saw the destruction – listen to this – the destruction of the child’s individualistic traits as the primary goal of education.” The idea of ethics verses morals, and that morals are fixed but outdated or wrong, is replaced with ethics which can change by the situation at hand. This in my opinion deteriorates one’s own moral fortitude. If morals must be taught in school (I argue against it; this is the role of the family) then shouldn’t we teach moral fortitude and not arbitrary, situational ethics? Of course Dewey stated morals and ethics should both not be taught in schools and I do agree; however some ethics and morals must be part of schools or else you’d have chaos- for example, we as teachers must reiterate what we hope is taught at home; i.e. share with others, get along with others, respect your elders, respect yourself and others…

Phrenology- Dewey believed in phrenology (as did Horace Mann) which was a pseudo-science of psychology that measured the skull. More precisely, the dimensions of one’s head and the bumps on the skull were measured and often used to promote racial superiority.

A good source that summed things up much better than I did and is well worth a visit if you want to read something that reflects my perspective: http://rebirthofreason.com/Articles/Younkins/Deweys_Pragmatism_and_the_Decline_of_Education.shtml